I would like to respond to two of the statements in this article which seem to lie at the foundation of all the other verbiage, and also are the rationale for the petition it seeks to justify. In the first paragraph of the section titled The beginning are these assertions:“It is our contention that the text must remain as it is in the original, that is with Father, Son and Son of God translated as they are regardless the meaning the host culture may give the words. Meaning begins in the mind of the author (God) as opposed to the audience (if one thinks otherwise, postmodernism may be the cause).”
First, I would have to ask, “Does the author contend that all translations of the New Testament must contain the English words, ‘Father’, ‘Son’ and ‘Son of God’ at all relevant points?” This seems an absurdity, but if the answer is “No”, then the wording of the article is relatively incoherent in its core contention. The English words “Father”, “Son” and “Son of God” do not exist in the original, so what am I to understand is to “remain”? The Greek words which are original perhaps, untranslated? But there’s the bit says, “translated as they are”. What are we to make of this confusion?
This is the point I’m trying to make. It would seem the author imagines that there will be words in Language X which are the exact analogues of the English words “Father”, “Son” and “Son of God” (which, of course, in this thinking, are exact analogues of the Greek originals) and that a translator’s job is to just find those analogues – no others – and put them in the translation without fail. Otherwise the charge is leveled that these words (which words exactly?) have been “removed” from the text.
But translation does not work like that because language does not work like that. Language X does not match up in a word for word pairing with any other language. Anyone who has been engaged with actually doing translation in whatever domain – school, mission field, industry, whatever – learns very early on that what is commonly called “literal” translation is not possible. For those who have not done translation themselves it should still be obvious if they have ever read certain instructions on packaging translated say, from Chinese to English, or translations done by a web application like Google Translate. These often come off imperfectly, usually because “literal” translation has been attempted. What you are saying above “must” happen simply cannot be mandated – your stipulation is impossible to accomplish. (You may wish to refute my argument by examples of close match-ups in certain languages, but I need only provide a counter-example from one of the 6,900+ languages in the world, a trivial task, to invalidate your categorical contention.)
The second glaring issue here is the notion that words have meaning outside what the speakers of that language give them. This is not a post-modernist ideological stance, just simple observation. You understand the English word, “son”, to mean something in particular because that is what speakers of your variant of English tend to think when they hear or read that word in that context. It’s a blend of what you were taught it means and how you personally interact with the contexts in which you’ve heard or read it. It has no separate, abstract reality outside of your culture and experience – where would such a meaning reside? You assert that meaning begins in the mind of God – well and good, but as soon as it is communicated via human language it enters into the vagueries of human experience. Or do you suppose, like the Muslims, that Scripture was given in some sort of celestial language that is by nature untranslatable?
This is the way language and culture work: meanings of words are generally negotiated by speakers of the language who use them. Those meanings are not infinitely variable, but they are dynamic, changing over time and across geographic distribution, and for completely explicable sociolinguistic reasons. One can wish that a word meant something in particular, but that doesn’t make it so, certainly not if the one wishing is a speaker of a different language.
Every translator has to operate within the constraints of the language and culture they are working in, seeking to communicate as accurately and clearly as possible the message of Scripture. One of the realities that has to be factored into the translation process is how the receptor culture understands the words. It’s not the only controlling factor, and it is not a pandering to theological or ideological prejudices, but that general cultural understanding must be taken into account if anything at all is to be communicated effectively.
What you and your fellow petitioners are demanding is an impossibility predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of what language is and how translation is done. Along the way you have done your best to besmirch the good name of some fine Christian brothers and sisters who serve the cause of Christ sacrificially, some in great peril. And you have attempted to put roadblocks in the way of the most effective means of giving people access to God’s word. It is not my place to judge you, sir; it’s not me who will have to stand before God and explain why you’ve done what you’ve done, but you will. So it is my advice to you, in all Christian sincerity, that you repent of “perpetrating a public, church-wide nuisance”, withdraw this petition, and apologize to all those trusting, but equally ill-informed people you’ve led down this path of error. It serves no-one’s cause but that of our common enemy.
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