No culture shock? Addressing the Achilles heel of modern Bible translations

Abstract

Modern Bible translations are often more sensitive to the needs of their intended readers than to the right of biblical texts to be heard on their own terms as religious artefacts from the ancient Mediterranean world. Since all biblical documents linguistically embody socio-religious meanings derived from ancient Mediterranean societies, they also need to be experienced as different, even alien, by modern readers. Without an initial culture shock in encountering a Bible translation modern people are held prisoners by Western translations of the Bible. Therefore, translations should instil a new sensitivity among modern readers to the socio-cultural distance between them and the original contexts of the Bible. In order to help facilitate this historical awareness, a new generation of "value added" translations must, in creative and responsible ways, begin to provide a minimum amount of cultural information to assist modern readers in assigning legitimate meanings to the linguistic signs encapsulated on the pages of the Bible.

Emotional Consistency as Evidence of Dynamic Equivalence among English Translations of the Bible

“…Although it has had its critics (e.g., Thomas, 1990; Joubert, 2001), Nida and Taber's (1969) emphasis on dynamic equivalence has provided the “basic framework” for Bible translation for several decades (Wilt, 2002, p. 140). Translators of the 21st century agree that “translation invariably implies a degree of manipulation of the source text in order to achieve a certain purpose” (Naudé, 2004, p. 59).…”

“…Although differences among translations were minimal, translations focusing on accessible language (WEB, BBE) were fractionally more pleasant, active, and concrete than older standard translations. “Accessible” translations may be emphasizing readers' need to understand the Bible over “the right of biblical texts to be heard on their own terms” (Joubert, 2001, p. 324). Joubert observes that by focusing on dynamic equivalence at the expense of literality, modern translations may be failing to communicate a sense of distance from the reader appropriate to the unique cultural milieu in which the Bible was generated.…”

“…The distinguishing characteristic of a first-class translation is the faithful conveyance of meaning from an original to a target language. One of the most-translated texts of all time is the Bible, and arguments as to how its meaning should be translated continue to occupy scholars (e.g., Thomas, 1990; Joubert, 2001; Naudé, 2004; Karlik, 2010). This paper examines the conveyance of emotional meaning in several English translations of the Bible.…”

Measuring the Adequacy of the Host Text Using Skopostheorie in Bible Translation: The Ethics of Operational Transparency

“…In relation to domesticating and foreignizing translation approaches in Bible translation, see Esala 2013, 305-306. For an argument that prefers foreignizing approaches in Bible translation, see Joubert 2002.…”