The Word: On the Translation of the Bible

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Dillard’s story reflects maturity and understanding from someone who was forced to mature and understand too much too soon. Put simply, functional is about (what we think) the meaning is, and rendered as if the original author were writing in our language (whatever that is).

John Barton was Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2014. At the beginning of Goethe’s Faust, the scholar is puzzling over the best word to convey the Greek “logos”, used at the beginning of the Gospel of St John and most usually translated as “the Word”. Unlike some scholars, he gives fair weight to translations that “take the text to the reader” by finding ways to express in a target language what might otherwise remain meaningless, or even misleading (like the words “alien” and “talent” in the New Revised Standard Version). Having spent most of my review discussing the book's flaws, I would reiterate that I really do think the book is excellent. This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from antiquity to the present have negotiated the difficult task of producing usable versions of the Bible in their own language while remaining faithful to the original.The theological identities both of textual authors as well as translators play an enormous role in the shaping of their works; whether it be evangelists looking towards functional (dynamic) equivalence to proselytise their message in mission, or scholars looking towards a formal (literal) equivalence to try and more deeply understand the 'alienation' of the text in a foreign tongue. By one of the coincidences that intrigue me, he, like Peter Davidson whose poetry I reviewed last week, is a Fellow of Campion Hall in Oxford. I do think Barton took for granted that his audience would be super familiar with the Bible, and he did not always explain things super well. I think what negatively affects the reading is that the editor probably didn't worry about "getting it right" and didn't bring in expertise to guide the narrator.

Barton] has a good eye for the sort of detail that carries readers with him into what might be unfamiliar territory. Really liked Barton's history of the early Latin and Greek translations, as well as his thorough review of the 'exuberant follies' of both the Vulgate and the Septuagint.

However, I think there are parts of the audio that needs to be re-edited, especially where he reads Hebrew words, placing the accent wrongly and creating non-words such as Yahw' for Yahweh. An exhilarating exploration of the medium through which almost everyone has encountered scriptureThe Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred. This intensely academic study of translation, excellent though it is, risks losing something of the personal reality of God revealing himself to us. Or is it the story (or argument) that's being told, in which case a freer rendering might give a truer understanding.

But nobody makes life-changing decisions on the back of my word-choices for Caesar’s Gallic War or Augustine’s Confessions.In the end it comes down to the audience for whom you're translating and the purpose for which you're doing the work.