Improve the Bible? Who would dare? Translators for one thing. If they didn’t do their job most of us would be unable to read the Bible at all. Translators make the Bible accessible. And inevitably they do slightly more than that. They choose the best words they can find to equate the original words and sentences. That means their individual choice comes into it. That is why the French say: traduire, c’est trahir, to translate is to betray.
We can’t do without translators. Most of us agree with that. But there is nowadays another way of improving the Bible. Those who set about making the Bible inclusive are, in their own way, setting out to improve on the original. This may or may not be a legitimate move but it has parallels with what the translators do.es. If we take one of the best-known psalms, 46, we have to consider the effect of an English poet translating for English-speakers a poem that first appeared in a Middle Eastern language hundreds of years before there were such people as the English and well before the English came to have a language of their own.
Most readers will have made their minds up about the inappropriateness of dealing with the word ‘man’ and its derivatives in the formation of an inclusive Bible. Other equally daunting choices emerge.
The King James Version of the Bible has a majesty that is not commonly found in street English today. The opening words of the psalm in Peterson’s translation ‘The Message’ are seriously deflating. Instead of the majestic temper of the AV we have the street-wise ‘God is a safe place to hide.’ This is doubtless a satisfactory rendering or the original. So is the following assertion ‘ready to help when we need him’. That echo of the NHS slogan ‘help free at time of need’ is a boost. In both cases we find turns of phrase have their own merits. Both gifts enhance the originals. But to use that language for the translation of the whole Bible is out of place, as J.B. Phillips made clear with his translation of Paul’s letters.
Poetry is not just about being understandable. Many kinds of language aim at that. Words have overtones, flavours, allusive qualities. When the prodigal son in the parable says ‘I am no longer worthy to be called thy son’, (Luke 15 AV) he is talking the language of utter abasement. This is more than saying ‘I have let you down’ or ‘I no longer deserve your respect’. This is a comprehensive acceptance of an indictment to which there is no appeal, a verdict in world-justice.
This is theology in its best clothes. We may well feel free to say that it is an improvement on the original. In fact it is so good that it is a style of language that is called upon for all kinds of biblical literature – narrative, history, law, poems. It is so accomplished that it obliterates the original styles and uses the same verbal majesty for all the varied jobs we give to words.
But we do not read Psalm 46 for its coherence. We read it for its string of majestic ideas, for its hyperbole, for its daring metaphor, because it leaves unsaid as much as it proclaims.
That an original text can be treated like this is a salute to the original writer. As is so often the case, he was probably writing more than the realised. He did not accept what was beyond the horizons of his language. But despite its inaccuracies and shortcomings, we should all probably prefer the AV rendering of this poem to any other. Why? Because we have one poet speaking to another.
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