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Language, Ethics, and Power in Bible Translation

  • Korean Journal of Old Testament Studies
  • Abbr : KJOTS
  • 2018, 24(3), pp.21-52
  • DOI : 10.24333/jkots.2018.24.3.21
  • Publisher : Korean Society of Old Testament Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology
  • Received : July 13, 2018
  • Accepted : July 27, 2018

Youngjin Min 1

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ABSTRACT

The Hebrew word ‘dabar’ (or ‘lashon’, ‘safa’, ‘mila’, ‘tora’, ‘maamar’) had been translated into ‘logos’ in the Greco-Roman period (cf. John 1:1). In the 19th century, the Greek word ‘logos’ was translated into “Tao(道)” in the Asian culture of Chinese characters. Such a choice of the equivalent is a representative example of Hebraism that has successfully met Asian ideas through the Greco-Roman Hellenism. This is an example of the effective transfer of meaning from one “language” to another “language.” When a translator fails to accumulate and utilize the translation experience as a public property, it is a matter of “ethics” of the translator. When a translator exposes the intellectual limitations, the problem of the translator’s ethics will be raised. The responsibility and ethics of a translator are first and foremost related to his or her ability to use the translation software that helps him or her. A translator is not a researcher who is buried in the lab all the time, but rather a person who is close to the material containing the accumulated research results in Biblical studies, and who is responsible for translating through the proficiency by using such tools and cooperating with the translation team members to complete the translation by the deadline. One of the intellectual tools, whchi has systematically organized the translation experience and knowledge for many centuries in the field of Bible translation, is a software called PARATEXT made by UBS translation technical support team. PARATEXT is a tool designed to help Bible translators. When church authorities, who are in charge of planning and promoting the translation of the Bible and publishing and distributing the Bible, try to keep the Bible under the authority of the church and create an ideology to dominate the Bible, it becomes difficult to prevent the church authorities from engaging in the translation of the Biblical text during the translation process. This raises questions about the “power” that forces translators to distort the text. For example, the translators of Isaiah 19:24, who would have attempted to translate the original Hebrew into Greek. Isaiah's radical vision that Egypt, Israel, and even Assyria will be a blessing for other nations on the earth as channels for God's blessings to all the people of this world, was unpleasant to the nationalist who thought only Israel as the chosen one. The power of religious authorities may have urged the translators to distort the text. As a result, only Israel has been chosen to be a blessing for other nations in the Isa-LXX 19:24.

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