It is well know in missiology that what makes translating the Bible so hard are a couple of factors. One is that the language to which one is translating the Bible may not even have a word to translate the word in Scripture. So, one is forced to use several words to express the concept, which risks your turning a translation into a paraphrase. Or, worse, it has a word that appears to translate the word in Scripture, but the connotations of that word in the target language are the exact opposite of what the Bible is trying to communicate, so you dare not use it. This is why there are arguments among translators as to whether to use an “exact” or a “dynamic” translation. The reality is that there is no good answer.
However, those of us in countries where the Bible has been translated for centuries assume that what we read is exactly what was written. But, it is not exactly that way. There are a couple of reasons that there are so many translations in English–and no, one of them is not simply making more money. One of the reasons is an ongoing attempt by translators to have a version of the Bible that is faithful and accurate to the original. The second reason is that any language is dynamic and keeps changing thus the older a translation is the more its words may be misunderstood. In fact, if one has a good reference Bible one should look at the footnotes and see how often an alternate translation is given. That should alert you to how difficult it can be to translate some passages.
Now let me give you a couple of examples of problems. One of them gets preached about on a regular basis. As most people know by now, Greek has four words that express what English-speakers talk about when we use the word “love.” Three of them are used in the Scriptures, one is not, although C.S. Lewis writes about it. This means that we sometimes miss some of what is being said, or the preacher has to do some extra explanation at the time of the sermon. This makes it hard for our culture to correctly understand the concept of love as it is used in Scripture.
In Spanish there only one word which is used to translate both “righteousness” and “justice.” That word is “justicia” and its various cognates. This means that where Scripture will speak of two different concepts, Spanish Bibles are unable to express those two different concepts. But, this means that a Spanish-speaker is going to tend to look at everything legalistically, since the only word available for the translation is a legal word.
Most of the time these cultural differences will not be sufficient to cause problems. After all, to be a good sound Christian, one need not know high theology or subtlety. One of the things I particularly like about Orthodoxy is that it is not necessary to know theology in order to be a wonderful Orthodox Christian, and the same is true in many other Christian groups.
But, once in a while, the subtleties do make a difference. At times in history, they have made a significant difference. And, that is when one reads about the Church coming together in Ecumenical Council. That is when one reads about people from different cultures coming together to puzzle over the deposit that has been received from the Apostolic Fathers. That is when those people particularly rely on the Holy Spirit to speak in a special way to guarantee that the faith once delivered continues. The presence of people from various cultures assures that a variety of interpretations of the Apostolic deposit will be heard. The hearing of those various interpretations helps open the minds of the Church Fathers present to other possibilities. Like ground that is plowed to make it ready for the planting, so an Ecumenical Council composed of people from various cultures helps to open the minds of those present so that the seed of the Holy Spirit may be planted and so that the Church might speak in Unity. One can see the synergy in this. People from various cultures bring their culturally influenced interpretations of Holy Tradition to the table. The interchange of interpretations may be human, but also guided by the Holy Spirit. And, finally, through the human struggle to understand each other comes the opening that the Holy Spirit desires in order to be able to “move over the waters” and divide the light from the darkness.
Amen. I sometimes wonder, too, if even the original languages had all the right words and meanings for “translating” God’s divine thoughts into “humanese”. Maybe that’s why we still can’t understand all that Jesus said.
I know this comment probably completely misses the point, but I like to study the Bible using multiple translations in order to get a broader perspective. In you opinion, what translation into English of scripture, though not perfect, do you feel BEST represents the Orthodox perspective? Which would you recommend to an Orthodox Christian? Which would you recommend to a protestant considering orthodoxy?
At this point I would recommend the Orthodox Study Bible. It is a recent translation. However, I would not recommend it necessarily for the translation itself, but for the informative footnotes, articles, and additional materials that are found within it. They are also the only translation that has tried to base its Old Testament exclusively on the Septuagint.
In fact, I actually disagree with a couple of the choices the Orthodox Study Bible made. For instance, they decided to use the New King James version for their New Testament. I have some problems with the Textus Receptus (the Greek version on which the New King James is based), and I favor a different Greek text. Also, a couple of their Old Testament translations are odd sounding, in my view.
And, though I understand that they wished to have a truly Orthodox version, I disagree with the decision they made to use naming conventions, and in some cases chapter numberings, in the Old Testament that make the Orthodox Study Bible difficult to use in a group that has people using several versions of the Bible. The namings and chapter numberings are indeed from the Septuagint, but every other Bible translation currently in use in the USA has standardized itself on the “Western” namings and numberings. I realize that the Septuagint has passages (and an entire psalm) that are not present in the Vulgate or the Masoretic, but the insistence on maintaining a chapter and verse numbering system that was not found in the original text seems to me to be “Eastern” for the sake of being Eastern.
Finally, I could have wished them to be a little more conscious of the critical apparatus that has developed around both the Old and New Testaments. The way in which they have used both the Septuagint and the Textus Receptus is a little too close to a view with which I disagree. That would be the view that God somehow preserved the Septuagint and Textus Receptus that we have as essentially unchanged from the day it was written. However, as has been shown over and over again, copying errors do tend to creep into even the best copies. The current textual critical apparatus compares ancient copies assiduously to make sure that the texts we translate are the most accurate ones possible. And, I do not see the Textus Receptus as being the most accurate Greek text of the New Testament. And, the Septuagint itself has some interesting differences from the Masoretic and Amharic texts of which I wish they would have been more cognizant.