Doug Moo on translation - compiled

QTC has had the pleasure of hosting New Testament scholar Douglas Moo over the last few days. While probably not the most fruitful of his lectures to have live-blogged, I did take some notes from the exclusive ACT lecture that he did today on his experiences as a member and now head of the NIV translation committee.

You can find them, in order, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

And for those visual learners, here's a snap of Doug with QTC's professional fanboi, Joseph Wee.

Translation: things Doug Moo has learned #6

To be wary of 'Biblisch'.

"Daughter of Zion" but Zion IS the daughter. "Daughter Zion"

"Blessed is the one... who does not stand in the way of sinners" ("ie, the way sinners do things, not standing in front of them to block them")

• ESV - "Understandable English"
• NIV - "Natural English"
• NLT - "Easy English"

Metaphors

Live vs. Dead metaphors. Do you continue to use the metaphor, or do you substitute the word for the idea.

Examples:

• "Cut off" meaning "destroy"
• "walk" meaning "live," "direct one's life"
• "sleep" meaning "die" (Not enough evidence that this is a dead metaphor. So using 'sleep 'in death' may help.)

The difficulty of the varieties of English used today

This gives some license for the translator to use different expressions to translate the same underlying word.

Wez: But surely you should try to preserve the same rendering for a word within the same author?

Doug: Well, not so much just within the one author, but where we think the author is trying to make a link between the two usages.

Gender: Third Person Singular Generics

A problem not of understanding the Greek, but of understanding the English that you're translating into.

ESV keeps third-singular forms

Luke 9:23 - "And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross..." (over 'literal' assumptions?)

NLT moves to second-person forms

"Then he said to the crowd, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must ..." (but what do you lose here?)

CEB uses plurals

"All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross ..."

NIV often uses the so-called 'singular' they

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross ..."

But, is that correct English?

NIV commissioned a study by the Collins Dictionaries, who own the Bank of English. (4.4 billion words)

Problem, then, is the different 'idiolects' that you find all over the world. What English are you translating into?

The database primarily filled the blank in "Every citizen was sent a ballot so that ____ could vote" with "they". This then is used as a snapshot of spoken English around the world. So the question is whether the lack of masculine focus in the original that would be present in the English by using 'his' is actually helpful.

Translation: things Doug Moo has learned #4

To make tough choices

The Italian proverb: Translators are traitors. True. You simply cannot bring across all the rhetoric, meaning, nuance and form of one language across to another.

So, again with sarx, some options:

• Translate in a way that approximates the sense for an English reader? - "sinful nature"

• Translate less interpretively, treating the word as a "technical" word that a reader will have to figure out? - "flesh" (Such as a novel about sailing. At first, you may not understand all or any of the technical terms, but eventually you'll get a 'feel' for it from the usage and context.)

So, the question is, do I think that my English speaking audience has the interest and the capacity to do the sort of work required to come to understand the technical term in its fullness and nuance.

Proverb: Never watch sausage or translations being made.

Interesting fact: Now more people who speak English as a second language than people who speak it as a first language.

The Hebrew of Proverbs 31:10

• "Woman of strength"? - too physical?
• "Woman of noble character"? - too ethical
• "Woman of excellence"? - OK, but... (went with this one)
• Kutz (But what about 'woman of nous' ?)

Translation: things Doug Moo has learned #3

Syntax and 'literal' translation

Col. 2:11 "te peritome tou xristou"

Circumcised 'of' Christ, or circumcised 'by' Christ?

Some seem to think that 'of' is the literal rendering of a Greek genitive. This isn't true. There is no 'literal' or default rendering of a genitive, simply a number of options.

A principle of Metzger
"As literal as possible, as free as necessary"

But this leaves questions, says Moo. Particularly, "as necessary" to accomplish what?

In practise: Colossians 4:5

Form, but no concern for meaning
In wisdom walk toward the outside the time buying up

Form over Meaning
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the beset use of the time. (ESV)

Form and Meaning (NIV :P) (Doug is head of NIV translation committee)
Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity

Meaning, but less concern for form (NLT)
Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity.

Moo's point: All of these texts have made translation choices. None could be rightly called literal.

Things Doug Moo has learned #2

To detest the word "literal".

How most people think translation works:

You apply a code that translates each word from its Greek or Hebrew original to its English equivalent.

Ie, a greek word that menas "X" = English word

How translation really works:

There is no single, default 'meaning' of a word. Instead, words have a semantic domain. A semantic range. A word's meaning within its semantic range is determined by its context.

There may not actually be an English word that is equivalent or even has a similar semantic range.

An Illustration: the Greek word sarx

One possible translation option -> "a person"
Another translation option -> "sinful nature" (NIV 1984 & NLT) or "flesh" (NIV 2010)

There is no translation that seeks to always use the same word to translate sarx. To do so would be to betray the meaning of the Greek.

How you translate the word 'bit' into another language would depend greatly upon whether you were talking about horses or computers.

We should ban all talk such as "this word literally means..."

Moo on translation #1

Current bibles being read

KJV: 31% (old KJV: 18% and NKJV is 13%)
(T)NIV 30%
NLT 12%
ESV 7%
Others 20%

They were like us

It was suggested by Doug Green that a possible alternate translation to Genesis 3:22 was perhaps more correct than the traditional one. Traditionally, it reads something like:

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever-- ESV

However, the Hebrew verb rendered there as 'has become' allows for a certain degree of ambiguity in terms of tense. It is simply Hebrew perfect tense of the verb 'to be'. Given the ambiguities of Hebrew, the verse could thus be read as:

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man was like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever--

On this reading, the original state of humanity is 'knowing good and evil' and it is only upon the eating of the fruit that their minds were 'scrambled' and that they could no longer distinguish the good from evil.

So, is there any possible way that this could be a good translation? Well, from my admittedly limited Hebrew knowledge, I'd say these two examples make it possible.

Firstly, in the immediate context, you have the same word being used in what appears to be a past tense.

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field (Gen 3:1 ESV)"

And yet, this isn't so satisfying because you could argue that it's a past-tense of narration, where the language is describing something that was true at the time of the events being described. So what we really need is an example where it occurs in direct speech, as it does in Gen 3:22, and is still rendered as a past state of being. Interestingly, there's one even in Genesis:

They said, "We see plainly that the LORD has been with you." (Gen 26:28 ESV)

The same verb, translated as a state of being that was true prior to the actual speaking of the words.

If Doug's thoughts are right, then the irony of the situation is that the serpent who deceived Eve in telling her that she would become 'like God, knowing good and evil' has in a sense deceived a lot of translators over a lot of years. :P As Doug pointed out, pehaps Eve's response should have been,

"But I'm already like God. I'm in His image. And I know good and evil, God told us what that is."

More thoughts to come...

A little too much, perhaps?

I was at college today, when I overheard a discussion regarding an unnamed theological college student (not at QTC) who had what he thought to be a more culturally relevant translation of Genesis 2:23.

It involved an elegantly subtle translation of "zoth hapa'am" (loosely transliterated) which he rendered "Phwoooaar!!!".

This piece of brilliance was followed by a masterful work of literary art, using wordplay drawn from current Western parlance, substituting the word 'boner' for 'bone'. Sadly, I wasn't able to hear the rest of this 'translation' and so am unable to reproduce it accurately here.

Despite the obvious maturity of this scholarship one could, perhaps, accuse the student in question of having an over-realised sexchatology. I keenly await the publication of this forthcoming translation.

In whose judgement

There is an interesting ambiguity in Paul's grammar in Romans 3:4. The NIV reads:

Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
"So that you may be proved right when you speak
and prevail when you judge."

While the quote reads a little differently in the ESV:

"That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged."

The change of the final word makes us ask: "Is God judging, or being judged?". We'll go into the fascinating use of Psalm 51 in this chapter tomorrow, but for today it will suffice to ask the question, "in whose judgement?".

Why did the different translations choose to make the meaning of the words different?

The answer is that in Greek the phrase is ambiguous. The words are:

kai nikeseis en tw krinesthai se

Or, word for word translated,

and be victorious in the judging you

So is the phrase objective or subjective? Is it 'in your judging' with God doing the judging of with God being judged?

The implications of the decisions are interesting (though not completely earth-shattering). The change from the NIV to the ESV brings the verse to mean that when God stands trial his testimony will always be found true, and the verdict will always display him victorious. In any proceedings. The implications of this are vast, especially given our propensity not to trust God. There is no situation we find ourselves in in which God's words and actions will not be shown to be right.

With context being the basis for the decision as to which we should go with, we've got plenty to help us think through the answer, especially given that it's an OT quote. But that's for tomorrow...

Anything you ask for...

Now, perhaps like many of you, I've heard a lot of defences for why "ask for anything and you'll get it" doesn't mean "ask for anything and you'll get it". Perhaps, like me, you've always thought that they sounded weak as a skinny white guy drinking diet-caffeine-free coke on a weekday.

Especially that whole smug "Well, what does 'in my name' mean then, hey?" comment. Pffft....

Well, today I was priveleged to have a crack at translating John 15, and get a bit of an insight into what is going on under the hood. It comes up a couple of times, but in particular vv16-17 are one which seem different in Greek than in English.

ESV:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
(Joh 15:16-17)

Now this is a good translation, I'm not complaining about it. What I had missed previously was 2 things.

1: The links between the sentences: the 'that's and the 'so that's.
2: That everything in the sentence after the first 'should' is in what is called the subjunctive mood. That means, it's a more hypothetical way of speaking. This is what the 'should' is trying to achieve.

Putting these together, you could outline the verse like so:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and have placed you
- so that
- - - - you might go
- - - - and you might bear fruit
- - - - and your fruit might remain
- so that
- - - - whatever you might ask the father in my name
- - - - he might give to you

When placed in this context, and so understood as a purpose statement (ie, it is the goal of the choosing, not a universal promise) it starts to look a little different to my eyes.

However, I don't think this gets completely gets Jesus off the hook for me not being in Spain playing professional roller hockey. More to come tomorrow. (some hints in the bolding)

What did a faithful Israelite believe?

My favourite 2-hour period of the week is the 2 hours on a Tuesday when I translate a chapter or so of John's gospel. Not least because it means I feel good about my ability to translate when it's really because John is the easiest thing in the world to translate!

Now, on to another cool discovery.

John 5:46(ESV)
For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

However, the word 'believe' is both times in the imperfect tense. (ἐπιστεύετε) This means it is talking about a continuous action that happened in the past. The following translation would bring this out more:

For if you were believing Moses, then you were believing in me.

I reckon this is a fascinating little saying of Jesus. Is he essentially saying here that a faithful Israelite who was trusting in the testimony of the OT that pointed to Christ was in effect trusting in Him?

Very cool.

How does God give the Spirit?

To be honest, I'm not quite sure. But I do know how he doesn't give Him to us.

My translation of John 3:34 (which, some Greek scholar can correct me on later) I think is actually more encouraging than the standard:

"For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. "

I think a more literal rendering for the final phrase would be:

"for he does not give the Spirit with a measuring cup."

I really like that. It's not all gushy about how generous God is, it's a beautifully negative statement about God not using a measuring cup when he liberally pours out the Spirit. I like that image. No stingy shop owner making sure he doesn't give too much away, no finicky worrying about putting too much flour in a cake.

God just pours.