Does It Really Matter? Choosing a Bible Translation for Use in Schools

TEACH Journal of Christian Education Volume 7 | Issue 1 Article 8 2013 Does It Really Matter? Choosing a Bible Translation for Use in Schools Lorinda Bruce Avondale College of Higher Education, Steven Thompson Avondale College of Higher Education, Follow this and additional works at: https://research.avondale.edu.au/teach Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Bruce, Lorinda and Thompson, Steven (2013) "Does It Really Matter? Choosing a Bible Translation for Use in Schools," TEACH Journal of Christian Education: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://research.avondale.edu.au/teach/vol7/iss1/8 This Research & Scholarship is brought to you for free and open access by ResearchOnline@Avondale. It has been accepted for inclusion in TEACH Journal of Christian Education by an authorized editor of ResearchOnline@Avondale. For more information, please contact . Research & Scholarship Does it really matter? Choosing a Bible translation for use in schools TEACHR Lorinda Bruce Lecturer in ICT and Mathematics in the School of Education at Avondale College of Higher Education, Cooranbong, NSW Steven Thompson Formerly senior lecturer in Biblical studies, now supervisor of higher degrees by research at Avondale College of Higher Education, Cooranbong, NSW Key words: Bible, choosing, school, apps “ Abstract Due to the complexities of translation and the backgrounds of readers, no single version ‘tells it all’ There are numerous versions of the Bible in print and e-copy, each of which has been thoughtfully translated by qualified persons using reliable source documents and reference works. Due to the complexities of translation and the backgrounds of readers, no single version ‘tells it all’. Each one, a product of the methods of its translators, and the readers targeted by its publisher, accomplishes some parts of the translation task, and meets some reader needs, better than others. Which Bible translation is best for your school or classroom, and how can you make use of digital versions of the Bible? This article will discuss these issues and help your school make a choice, informed by each school’s heritage and needs of its constituency. It also looks at the use of digital translations, and outlines the clear advantages and disadvantages of e-Bibles. ” Introduction Choosing an English Bible translation was once a simple task. For Protestant adults it was the Authorised King James Version (KJV or AV of 1611, latest revision 1769) or the New International Version (NIV 1978, latest revision 2011). For children, the Good News Bible (TEV of 1976, renamed Good News Bible, GNB of 2001). For Catholics, either the Douay-Rheims (1582–1610, latest revision 1750), the Revised Standard Version (RSV Catholic version of 1966) or the New American Bible (NAB of 1986). The choice could be made during a brief visit to the nearest bookshop on the way home after school. Those days of limited Bible choice have ended. The scene has changed dramatically with the appearance of a tsunami of recent translations, plus 34 | TEACH | v7 n1 revisions of some older ones. There are now more than 400 English Bible translations, according to the Encyclopedia of English Bible versions, and another thousand or so of parts of the Bible (Taliaferro, 2012, p. 1). What motivates this tsunami of translations? In the words of linguist David Crystal (2006), religious texts such as the Bible, have to satisfy two criteria, which are always incompatible, because one looks backwards and the other forwards. First, the translation must be historically accurate…Secondly, it must be acceptable to the intended users of the translation— which, in practice, means that it must be intelligible, aesthetically pleasing, and capable of relating to current trends in religious thought, social pressure, and language change. No translation can ever satisfy the demands of all these factors, and all translations are thus to some extent controversial. (pp. 471–472) This article provides information, which may help guide in the choice of an appropriate translation for school use. It will do so, first, by introducing the two methods of translation employed by translators, and by illustrating some of the gains and losses that result from their efforts to work within the incompatible criteria of accurately presenting message from the past that conforms to the parameters set by present readers. It will flag efforts by publishers and translators to target particular user groups. Finally, it will suggest ways schools can harness the benefits of widely available digital Bibles. But it will start with insights into Bible translation, and suggest what might lie behind that tsunami of recent English translations. Translation—definitions and aims What is a translation? For the purposes of this article “translation” (from Latin translationis, “handing over, bringing over”) expresses the translator’s basic task to “bring over” meaning from a written text across the Research & Scholarship gap separating the text’s language and culture into the recipient language and culture. Translators make “there and back” journeys, bringing what they find, expressing it in their own language with minimum distortion. A related Latin term, interpretationis , carries the work of translation a step further by expanding what is meant by “bringing out meaning.” In the words of translator Edith Grossman, “The most fundamental description of what translators do is that we write…in language B a work of literature originally composed in language A, hoping that readers of the second language…will perceive the text, emotionally and artistically, in a manner that parallels and corresponds to the aesthetic experiences of its first readers” (as cited in Nelson, 2010, p. 22). Bible translation consultant Stephen Pattemore defines translation’s goal as an extension into another language of one group’s wish to “change the mental state of another group by means of a coherent text” (2011, p. 265). Crystal (2006) declares that a translation aims “to provide semantic equivalence between source and target language” (pp. 417–418). Translation—methods How do Bible translations bridge the gap to achieve this “semantic equivalence” of meaning? They are divided over what they believe to be the correct answer. Some would call for what is known as a formal or word-for-word translation, which attempts to bring over into the receptor language the form of the original, translating a noun with its equivalent noun, a verb with a verb, and so on. Others believe a so-called dynamic or thought-for-thought translation brings across the meaning most effectively. Both methods have been employed and their merits debated since antiquity (Brock, 2007, p. 875). Both continue to be debated and employed by Bible translators. Word-for-word, literal translations? It is important to understand that no Bible translation in wide use today is literal, word-for-word. Such wou (...truncated)