Religious Translation

Extract

In his collection of articles ‘on Englishing the Bible’ Mgr Knox has discussed the literary problems of translation with great thoroughness, shrewdness, and wit. But the translation of religious texts poses what might almost be called a special theological problem that he has not, I think, really considered. It is true he has devoted a whole article to the discussion of the theological contents of the words justice and scandal in the New Testament; and he remarks on the difficulty of dealing with words like grace and faith, which subsequent theological history has given a precision they lack in the Scriptures. But it is just here that he fails to locate the translator’s theological problem in quite the right place. He is concerned with investigating the precise meaning of the word just ice or grace in any given text, and then finding the best way of expressing it in English. That is the literary preoccupation of any translator of any work, sacred or profane. The peculiarity of words in religious contexts is that in the very originals they are translations, of divine realities into human terms. Revelation itself is a work of translation, culminating in the translation of the eternal Word into time-bound flesh.

MGR Knox considers all the various meanings that the word tsadiq-dikaios-justus has in the Bible, and concludes quite rightly that no one English word, be it just or righteous, really covers them. But if it comes to that, did the word tsadiq really cover them? The point is that the word’s various theological meanings are constructions by analogy on its social human meanings, and it is important that the analogy should not be lost in translation.