The Economist features a regular column about language, written by an anonymous author known as 'Johnson.'  In his September 10, 2016, column, Johnson asked, "Should religious language keep up with the times or stick closely to the original?"  He sees a conflict between those who emphasize their faith's accessibility by favoring translation, and those who emphasize fidelity to the (divine) sources by insisting upon the original languages.

According to Johnson, those dubious of translation have historically held sway in Judaism and Islam.  Both religions place special emphasis on adherents learning and using ancient Hebrew and ancient Arabic respectively, despite their differences from their modern versions.  (Is this because those religions stayed relatively ethnically homogeneous for a long time?)

On the other hand, translation has been integral to Christianity throughout its history.  Jesus spoke in Aramaic, which was then translated by the writers of the New Testament into Greek, which was then translated by the Romans into Latin, which was then translated by the Reformers into all the European languages.  And the modern missionary movement has now seen the entire Bible translated into over 600 languages, with significant portions translated into a further 2,500 (out of roughly 7,000 discrete languages on the planet).  As a result of this, Christians have been dealing with interpretation issues for a very long time.

Johnson provides an interesting early example.  A common word in the New Testament is κύριος (kyrios), which refers to a person who has power or authority over someone else; it frequently refers to Jesus and is usually translated as 'lord' in English.  As Christianity reached German tribes in the fourth century, the Goth missionary Wulfila translated kyrios into Gothic as frauja, meaning the head of a household.  According to Johnson, "Other tribes chose a word more suitable for a military chieftain."  The implication is that Wulfila tried to subtly discourage the Goths' warlike tendencies by invoking domestic rather than military authority.  Such are the politics of the art of translation.  (Interestingly, the etymology of 'lord' itself is similarly domestic: it comes from Old English meaning 'keeper of the bread.'  'Lady' comes from a word meaning 'maker of the bread.')

At the heart of Johnson's belief that we must choose between accessibility and accuracy, is the argument that translation necessarily leads to some loss of meaning.  It creates a semantic gap between what the original writer meant, and what the reader-in-translation understands him to have meant.  This gap forces us to decide between the easy, accommodating route of translation, or the precise-but-burdensome course of learning the ancient language.

Every language is deeply intertwined with how its speakers live — hence the old joke that the Eskimos have fifty words for 'snow' (which apparently is true).  As a result, this semantic gap should vary in width depending on just how different the ways of life underlying two languages are.  In light of the profound changes in human life over the past 2,000 years, it is not odd that translating the New Testament is challenging.  The problem is not so much ancient Greek but ancient Greece, which is so different from today (or fourth-century Germany).  At least that's Johnson's theory.

I have my doubts about the resilience of this 'semantic gap' metaphor, which strikes me as depending on a thin vision of language.  Language is so tightly interwoven into human existence... might the gap actually be quite narrow, so narrow that translation doesn't really cause meaningful problems?  Is it possible that what really matters in the Bible can't be obscured by translation?

I don't mean that someone acting in bad faith, or without sufficient training, or under the influence of some ulterior motive, couldn't succeed in creating a misleading translation.  I mean that the systemic problems that afflict even the best translation (i.e., the semantic gap) can't affect the central message of the Bible (let's call that the 'Gospel').

The Gospel is God's message to all of mankind at any time and at any place, good news that heals the human condition.  And while the ancients were not like us in many respects, in others they were — physiologically, psychologically, existentially.  The ancients struggled with purpose, duty, love, desire, anxiety, guilt, achievement, disappointment, and everything else that occupies our hearts daily.  While living conditions have changed in 2,000 years, the human condition has not.  Neither has God.

If short, a Word from an ceaselessly-faithful God, spoken into the universal and timeless broken condition of humanity, will survive.  The problems of the human heart are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow — and so are the solutions.

But there is a greater problem for Johnson's position than that.  I have posited that because of the close connection between human existence and language, and because the most significant parts of human existence have not changed over the centuries, the semantic gap cannot be that wide.

The greater problem for Johnson may be: how could we know if he were right (the semantic gap is wide and problematic) or if I were (the gap is narrow and not worrisome)?  What are the facts or criteria we would use to evaluate the (purported) differences between how the original audience understood the text and how readers-in-translation understand it?  This is perhaps possible where native speakers of both languages are alive (and can probe one another's understanding in various ways), but for ancient Greeks, it is hard to imagine.  The entire lesson of the gap (on Johnson's theory) is that we can't quite know how the Greeks understood a text.  But if we can't know how they understood it, how can we know if we have misunderstood it?  We would have no vantage point from which to pierce that dark past.

So where does this leave a Bible translator?  In my opinion, it leaves him with a theological comfort that he can't do too much damage to the Gospel, and an epistemological freedom arising from the modest power of the semantic gap.  It leaves him boldly charging ahead, striving to do his best, without letting himself be dragged down by the kind of questions Johnson entertains.  In short, it leaves him grateful for a faithful God — faithful even in translation.

If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you.  Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.