> > Translators take certain freedoms in word choice, no matter what is being translated. Many of us have studied another language and understand that, many times, things just don't mean the same thing if translated literally.
> >
>
> Actually, I tend to believe that interpretation is one of the cardinal sins of translation. [...]

I would agree with you there, insofar as I recognize that ALL translations of any text (whether biblical or secular) are always unfaithful to the original. Yet I cannot see how you can translate anything at all without making necessary judgement calls as to what is appropriate. In other words, I think a translator is by neccessity *forced* to interpret the text; and even leave out lesser connotations. If the "effective meaning" of the text is retained and conveyed properly, that is the most we can usually hope for.

Case in point: I occasionally do translation to and from French. For example, consider the phrase,

"Un CHEVALIER se tient prêt de son CHEVAL et il pratique la CHEVALERIE".

Without resorting to footnotes to explain the relationships more fully, the only way I can translate that sentence into English is as, "A KNIGHT stands by his HORSE and practises CHIVALRY". The translated meaning in itself is absolutely correct. But, at the same time, I've lost the unconscious poetic association that existed between the three objects bearing the same etymological root (CHEVAL).

Then there are other issues that require interpretive calls during translation. Consider the corresponding phrase for "nitpick" in French. The everyday phrase for that term is a *much* more colourful and amazing metaphor than the English imagery that means "Searching out insignificant nits." However, there's no way that I'd do a literal translation of the term from French to English. The metaphor may be in common usage, but it also happens to be incredibly obscene. In that case, I'd rather read the text for its essential sense, rather than to get pulled up short and totally discombobulated.


> Here's a long quote from Robert Alter, a major biblical scholar, on the subject, taken from his awesome translation of Genesis (I've got to buy his new version of Samuel.) It's just that he can say it far better than I can:
>
> "Literature in general, and the narrative prose of the Hebrew Bible in particular, cultivates certain profound and haunting enigmas, delights in leaving its audiences guessing about motives and connections, and above all, loves to set ambiguities of word choice and image against one another in an endless interplay that resists neat resolution. In polar contrast, the impulse of the philologist is -- here a barbarous term nicely catches the tenor of the acitvity -- 'to disambiguate' the terms of the text. The general result when applied to translation is to reduce, simplify, and denature the Bible...The unacknowledged heresy underlying most modern English versions of the Bible is the use of translation as a vehicle for explaining the Bible instead of representing it in another language."
>
> In other words, it is almost never overwhelmingly clear what the Bible is trying to say; even when a message is obvious, you're losing something if you don't attempt to represent the literary form and diction of the original. It's possible -- as I think Alter's book demonstrates -- to make a readable, basically literal translation that attempts to mimic both meanings and poetic forms of the Hebrew text, without resorting to presumptuous guesses at the connotations of terms or ideas.
> tmschm@wm.edu

So what are you saying? That the text of the Old Testament is deliberately ambiguous due to poetic license, and that we should revel in its richly haunting vagaries? That's fine, if you're looking at it mainly as a literary device... like one huge long piece of prose. But the Bible is also a fascinating historical document that does not pull all the punches. You already know how many of its prophets and saints are not portrayed in the most flattering of lights. The People who preserved these Scriptures, first by oral tradition and then by text, did so out of a near-fanatical sense of obligation and a desire to maintain the truths they held sacred. Had they not literally believed that each Word came from God, we wouldn't have this millenial-old text in such good condition today. It would have passed into the detritus of history long ago. Yes, we may dispute their (and our) beliefs in the divinity of the Scriptures. But the Bible offers deep spiritual truths and psychological comfort in ways that aren't expected of other works of literature. *That* is why past biblical translators have been so keen to pick over every word and try to glean the "best possible" meaning out of every thought-unit. It's true that better translators should work to convey a greater sense of the Bible's literary power.... yet not, I pray, at the expense of its deeper meanings. And again, it's hard to find those meanings in such an ancient language, without making interpretative guesses.

Anyway I believe that you know all this already; I'm rehashing the obvious. I suppose my response is a roundabout way of asking: Yes; so what are you really getting at?

Wolfspirit