Abstract
This article will explore the Good News Bible (GNB) as an example of a translation designed to “localize” the source text—in this case, by virtue of its strategy to produce a translation in contemporary language. In this approach, designed to enhance the reader’s chance of making meaning, there are gains and losses. On one level, greater accessibility to the text for a wider audience may seem to be achieved, while at another level, access to the otherness/alterity in the source text (intertextuality, wordplay, etc.) is closed off. Several examples will illustrate some of these gains and losses in GNB.
A lot has happened in translation theory since the initial launch of the Good News for Modern Man (GNFMM) New Testament, the addition of the Old Testament, and christening of the Good News Bible (GNB or TEV) and of its second edition in 1994. My task is to reflect on GNB in light of some of these developments. But first, let’s be clear on the minimal amount of theoretical territory I plan to cover, partly because of the simple matter of space constraints, but more importantly because it is something of a vain exercise to evaluate a fifty-year old translation on the basis of theory and praxis that belong in large part to the period after GNB was conceived and produced.
The topics I take up have come into the world of Bible translation criticism/analysis through influence from and involvement in the disciplines behind and within translation studies (literary criticism, cultural studies, developments in philosophy, etc.). What Bible translators and translation scholars are taking away from the ongoing conversations among these disciplines varies. But as a sort of baseline, we could say that what Bible translators were once probably aware of on some level, they are now (hopefully) consciously aware of: namely, that language must be understood as embedded in culture, that translation is a cultural activity, a means by which information is moved from a source language and culture to a host language and culture, and in that activity the translator is a mediator—and a good many other things as well. The translator interprets, rewrites, applies force, and gives shape to a new message. But translation is most certainly not simply an operation done on a text (see Snell-Hornby 2006).
From the interest in translation studies in such matters as software and website translation, the concept of “localization” emerged to describe what translation does in order to make a source text and language contextually meaningful, accessible, and relevant for a specific audience (see Pym 2004). Such language may not have crossed the minds of those who brought GNB into existence; but from the moment they identified their audience, and chose to translate in a way specifically designed to make the ancient texts understandable to them—“easy to read,” “today’s readers”—they were engaged in localization.
Emmanuel Levinas was already widely published by the time the GNFMM project was launched (e.g., Le temps et l’autre [1948] or Totalité et infini: essai sur l’extériorité [1961]; see also Critchley and Bernasconi 2004)—and the philosophers of difference were already busy as well (Derrida, Deleuze, et al.), though some key writings that would engage with and extend the influence of Levinas, and move in some new directions, were still to come or as yet available only in French. In any case, the theme of alterity—with its ethics of a responsibility to recognize “otherness,” “difference”—was only dimly in view, especially in the case of the translation of sacred/ancient texts, and then only indirectly in the ongoing debate about the relative virtues and vices of formal equivalence and dynamic/functional equivalence. From the standpoint of the reader, formal equivalence, designed to replicate closely the source text, may deliver a translation that is “foreign-sounding/reading” and (depending on the audience) more difficult to penetrate. A dynamic or functional equivalence translation strategy, such as GNB essentially follows, is sometimes said (a bit stereotypically) to domesticate the source text, to make it read and sound “normal” and “fluent” for the host audience. Alterity thought of in this context refers to what I have called (in reference to the writers and communities who gave rise to the Scriptures) “the foreign voice” of the text (or of the author of the text; but note Riffaterre 1983). Translating alterity seeks the source text’s “difference” and attempts to render the source text in such a way as to make that “difference” (which might be something new) accessible to the audience, a way of disturbing conversations and discourses that have become a bit too familiar. At least, this is the theory.
There is a false assumption sometimes made—namely, that contemporary language translations such as GNB are incapable of (or less prone to) doing any justice at all to a source text’s alterity. Alterity may be found at those points where a source text’s language most resists translation: in unusual syntax, polyvalent or unfinished expressions, units marked by lexical repetition, in unusual word choice, “ungrammaticalities,” metaphors, imagery, and in that feature of all human communication called intertextuality. Often the contemporary language approaches regard these features of the source text as translation problems, bumps in the road that the translator must smooth out. But this is not always the case.
One window onto a source text’s alterity is its intertextuality. My interest is less in the phenomenon as it used to be thought of in biblical studies—the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, or echoes of the Pentateuch in the Psalms—that is, the search for the source of a text or utterance. Rather, it is intertextuality as a fundamental feature of human communication that is of interest to me. To quote Bakhtin, “The text lives only by coming into contact with another text (with its context). Only at this point of contact between texts does a light flash, illuminating both the posterior and the anterior, joining a given text to a dialogue. We emphasize that this contact is a dialogic contact between texts. . . . Behind this contact is a contact of personalities” (Bakhtin 1986, 162).
Rigidly formal equivalent translations can offer the reader one kind of access to intertextuality by sticking close to the source text and offering up treatments that are lexically concordant, utilizing paratextual devices (footnotes and marginal notes)—though there is a tendency to stick to the big, obvious intertextualities. But when the translation intends to be functional and meaning-based, as GNB does, then the translator becomes, first of all (in Barthes’s terminology), a “writerly reader,” a reader who probes the connotative and “finishes” the original writer’s communication; and then secondly becomes a translator who is a rewriter of the source text for a new audience (making explicit what the author, even if intentionally, has left implicit). Two questions emerge about this rewriting: (A) What is done with intertextuality (the ancient text’s alterity)? and (B) What new intertextualities are introduced into the translated text (new resonances and patterns produced by writerly reading—the translator’s alterity)?
A. What happens to intertextuality?
To address briefly and generally the first question, GNB is quite capable of detecting patterns and translating them in such a way as to give the alert reader access to them. This is exemplified in the way it picks up Moses’s command to the people who are about to enter the Promised Land, which Moses (and then God) repeats specifically to Joshua.
Deut 31.6
GNB, after introducing the translation in Deut 31.6, repeats the phrase seven times on into the Joshua story (Deut 31.7, 23; Josh 1.6, 7, 9, 18; 10.25). The LXX (ἀνδρίζου καὶ ἴσχυε . . .) is perhaps the model: it uses the same language, only reversing the order of the verbs about half the time. GNB only reverses the order once. The Hebrew text uses the same verbs consistently but in less formulaic expressions.
The straightforward consistency exhibited by GNB in the case of the intertextuality of the Joshua theme just noted is, however, somewhat less clear in other cases of intertextuality. Two examples of intertextuality in the Pauline corpus, each consisting of the possibly deuteropauline 2 Timothy reaching back into undisputed letters of Paul—2 Tim 4.6/Phil 2.17 and 2 Tim 1.7/Rom 8.15—triggered rather inconsistent GNB translational responses.
2 Tim 4.6/Phil 2.12-18
2 Tim 4.6 Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδομαι, καὶ ὁ καιρὸς τῆς ἀναλύσεώς μου ἐφέστηκεν. Phil 2.17 Αλλ᾿ εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι ἐπὶ τῇ θυσίᾳ καὶ λειτουργίᾳ τῆς πίστεως ὑμῶν
The language of this section of 2 Timothy is thought to echo (or depend upon) Phil 2.12-18; the passages are comparable in terms of topic (Paul’s suffering as sacrifice), and Phil 2.17 contains the only other occurrence of the graphic verb σπένδομαι, “to pour out [as a drink offering].”
Second Timothy 4.6 imagines an event in Paul’s mind. How does the author conceptualize it? Both parts of the sentence allude to Paul’s death. The first indication of this comes in the first half of the sentence and the passive verb, σπένδομαι, which refers to the libation that was (often) poured out to accompany and complete a (grain or animal) sacrifice. In technical use, the term does not refer to sacrificial death, but the metaphor with its allusion to wine may well intend to evoke the imagery of (Paul’s) blood (= life) being poured out. And the language clearly places the apostle’s imagined death into the sacrificial context as an offering (a divine passive?) that accompanies another, perhaps more fundamental, offering. The present context takes up the Pauline theme of the apostle’s death as complementing the ultimate bloody sacrifice of the Messiah (Col 1.24). In any case, the sacrificial imagery underlines that this death is not a meaningless but rather a “necessary” event in the furtherance of the Pauline mission.
There are indeed grounds for thinking that 2 Timothy may be intentionally echoing the Philippians letter at this point (and below), just as it has echoed Romans in earlier passages (1.7; 2.11). Reading the relevant texts of Philippians and 2 Timothy side by side reveals some interesting relationships. Notice also the thematic affinity of the passages (also cf. 4.6b with Phil 1.23) in the references to “crown” (στέφανος) in Phil 4.1 and 2 Tim 4.8; in the use of athletic imagery in general in both letters; and in the role played in each letter by the theme of “departure” constructed from the ἀναλύω word group (verb, Phil 1.23; noun, 2 Tim 4.6b). All of this suggests the later text is in some way intentionally engaging with the earlier. And in that connection, it bears noting that while in the possibly fictive scenario of 2 Timothy, Timothy is the addressee, in the earlier historical context, he is named with Paul as a co-sender of the letter to the Philippians (Phil 1.1).
Another rather fine touch in the ancient Pauline narrative should be noticed—the difference in the degree of certainty registered in each text employing the “pouring out” imagery. Philippians 2.17 has “if indeed” (“even if”; Ἀλλʼ εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι . . .), while 2 Tim 4.6 states “I am already” (Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδομαι . . .; cf. also the related denial of Phil 3.12, “not that I have already . . .” Οὐχ ὅτι ἤδη ἔλαβον). The climactic “departure” of the apostle presented as a distant possibility in the earlier setting has, in 2 Timothy with a deft narrative touch, become a matter of imminent certainty (cf. the discussion in Merz 2004, 168).
Now let us consider some translation strategies: NIV represents more or less a formal equivalence option; GNB offers a more functional example.
2 Tim 4.6 Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδομαι, καὶ ὁ καιρὸς τῆς ἀναλύσεώς μου ἐφέστηκεν. For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. (NIV) As for me, the time has come for me to be sacrificed; the time is here for me to leave this life. (GNB)
My working principle, a question emerging from what was said about the interrelatedness of texts, is as follows: If the connection between these two passages seems likely, then should translations of each text explore ways of granting access to the intertextual connection?
Phil 2.17 Ἀλλ᾿ εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι ἐπὶ τῇ θυσίᾳ καὶ λειτουργίᾳ τῆς πίστεως ὑμῶν . . . But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith. (NIV) Perhaps my life’s blood is to be poured out like an offering on the sacrifice that your faith offers to God. (GNB)
A comparison of the translations offered above allows a very simple conclusion: the more literally inclined NIV allows the attentive modern reader to make the connection by treating the unusual NT word σπένδομαι consistently in each case as a reference to the drink offering.
GNB obscures the link somewhat by resorting to a translation that settles for what is the semantic lowest common denominator:
If GNB was aware of the broader verbal linkage (chiefly through σπένδομαι and the ἀναλύω word group), one might conclude that it has taken a rather minimalist approach in rendering what seems on the basis of the Greek texts to be a compelling original intertextual connection.
2 Tim 1.7/Rom 8.15
In this next example, the text in 2 Timothy reflects a clear connection with the language of Rom 8.15. Within the larger “Pauline” story that is unfolding, the suitability of a text from Romans for instructing Timothy is certainly appropriate if not anticipated (Rom 16.21). Both texts are “spirit” texts, though the situation in which we find Timothy in 2 Timothy requires a reshaping of the earlier teaching. It is in the reshaping of the text, I would argue, that the evidence for conscious intertextuality emerges.
2 Tim 1.7 οὐ γὰρ ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ θεὸς πνεῦμα δειλίας ἀλλὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀγάπης καὶ σωφρονισμοῦ. Rom 8.15 οὐ γὰρ ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα δουλείας πάλιν εἰς φόβον ἀλλ᾿ ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας . . .
In this case it will be helpful to compare immediately the translations’ renderings of 2 Tim 1.7. Here we have NIV and GNB translations of 2 Tim 1.7. Note the differences in the translations from the Greek text, and from one another.
2 Tim 1.7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (NIV) For the Spirit God has given us does not make us timid; instead his Spirit fills us with power, love and self-control. (GNB)
What does GNB do in translating 2 Tim 1.7?
Foregrounds “Spirit.” In two ways: by moving it forward and by adding a second reference to Spirit.
Stresses the agency of Spirit by adding “fills us with.”
Switches to the present tense in the added verb.
Now consider the two treatments of Rom 8.15, both in the differences from the Greek and from one another.
Rom 8.15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. (NIV) For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead the Spirit makes you God’s children. (GNB)
A basic observation to be made from this comparison of translations is that NIV (and NRSV) treats the initial reference to “spirit” in each text as a reference to the human spirit (in Romans taking the second reference as to the Holy Spirit). Though in my judgment this interpretation seems unlikely in view of the dominance of the Holy Spirit in each text, it does not affect the matter of intertextuality. (TNIV has revised NIV; and GNB’s theological reading of the texts in question probably shows good Pauline instincts, though perhaps overdetermines in this case.)
What does GNB do in its translating of the Romans text?
Foregrounds “God” (actually this might be called explicitation—there is no reference to God in the Greek of Rom 8.15).
Changes the verbs: Greek “received, received”; GNB “given,” “makes you.”
Both these moves are open to question. But now notice what the GNB has done, perhaps to create connectivity of texts.
2 Tim 1.7 For the Spirit God has given us does not make us timid; instead his Spirit fills us with power, love and self control. (GNB) Rom 8.15 For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” (GNB)
GNB, while expanding the language of each text (explicitation), actually in three specific and noticeable ways, invites the two texts to be connected, though I cannot be sure the goal was to enable readers to observe the intertextuality.
First, GNB harmonizes the key opening verbs: the preference is for the verb “to give” (from 2 Tim 1.7) over “to receive” (Rom 8.15), which in the end causes both texts to emphasize the Spirit as a gift given by God (whom GNB makes explicit in Romans as the subject of the verb “give”).
Second, in translating 2 Tim 1.7, GNB repeats (for clarity) the term Spirit, which then creates an affinity for the dominant twofold reference to Spirit in the relevant first two parts of Rom 8.15.
Third, in translating the original relative clause of Rom 8.15 (“by [in] whom we cry out”) by means of the expanded idea “by the Spirit’s power we cry out,” GNB adds to the Romans text the concept of “power,” not originally present, which again creates a balance with the explicit reference to “power” in 2 Tim 1.7 (“[the Spirit] of power”). GNB also adds a third reference to Spirit in the Romans text.
In view of the minimal attention paid to the relationship between 2 Tim 4.6 and Phil 2.17, I am tempted to conclude that the adaptive surgery done to Rom 8.15 actually had little to do with creating symmetry with 2 Tim 1.7. But if in fact 2 Timothy is a text that was designed to reflect a “consciousness” of Romans (see also 2 Tim 1.3/Rom 1.8-10; 2 Tim 1.12/Rom 1.16; 2 Tim 1.14/Rom 8.11; 2 Tim 2.8/Rom 1.3; 2 Tim 2.8/Rom 2.16; 16.25; 2 Tim 2.11-12/Rom 6.8; Theobald 2016, ch. 4; Merz 2004, 195–244), and if the modifications made by GNB to Rom 8.15 were done to create concordance (in English) with 2 Tim 1.7, the translator’s aim must have been the limited one of simply elucidating a “parallel text.” From the standpoint of intertextuality, the heavy hand has interrupted an original relationship between the texts, and (unintentionally, of course) closed off from GNB readership any access to this alterity. Under the influence of more current fashions in the world of literary theory and intertextuality, I would venture to say that there is much more going on between 2 Timothy and Romans than has been observed to date—a story that begins at the obvious level of intertextuality, before the ricochet of paronomasia (e.g., δειλίας//δουλείας in 2 Tim 1.7 and Rom 8.15) prolongs the echoes into subtler, wilder, and still largely unexplored territories, where only a translation that is a rewriting can follow (see Lecercle 1990; Towner 2014).
B. What new intertextualities are introduced?
To explore the second question—whether GNB introduces new intertextual patterns—let us turn first to a sample from 2 Cor 1, specifically the text of 2 Cor 1.3-7. Reading the Greek text carefully reveals a curious pattern. We see ten occurrences of the παρακαλέω word group. We will consider the implications of this below.
3 Εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν καὶ θεὸς πάσης 4 5 ὅτι καθὼς περισσεύει τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς, οὕτως διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περισσεύει καὶ 6 εἴτε δὲ θλιβόμεθα, ὑπὲρ 7
Here we have the GNB translation of the same text, marked up to show how it handled the multiple uses of the παρακελέω word group:
3 Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father, the God from whom all 4 He 5 Just as we have a share in Christ’s many sufferings, so also through Christ we share in God’s great 6 If we suffer, it is for your 7 So our hope in you is never shaken; we know that just as you share in our sufferings, you also share in the
Some basic observations: first, GNB has caught the thematic use, counted it to be significant, and so chosen a translation and held to it. In this way, the alert reader will see that something is going on. One change brought about by translation is the elimination of one of the occurrences of the verb in v. 4.
4 4 He
Had GNB retained the fourth occurrence in v. 4, the translation might have looked like this:
He
The change was designed as a way of avoiding the passive construction. Let’s consider quickly some other aspects of GNB’s reshaping of this text. First, while NA28 punctuates the text to give four sentences (RSV, though working with an earlier edition of the Greek, reproduces this exactly), GNB renders the text into five sentences, one neatly for each verse.
Second, although this might seem like liturgical quibbling or oversensitivity on my part (in my Episcopal tradition, worship commences with, “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”), GNB has rendered something of an interpretation of a standard formula of blessing with its “Let us give thanks to God.”
3 3
The question is really whether “thanksgiving” is the thrust of the original statement. It conforms only minimally to a Pauline liturgical register, and possibly diminishes the solemnity of the blessing/doxology moment, designed to focus concentration on the person and work of God. What GNB offers is more in keeping with the Pauline thanksgiving formula (e.g., 1 Cor 1.4—Εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ μου = GNB “I always give thanks to my God”). The translation of the original Εὐλογητὸς by “Let us” invites reflection on the people themselves. While readerly interest and a sense of immediate relevance may be thought to be established in this way, the subtle shift of emphasis away from God to the “us” as the recipients is noticeable (see also below).
Now a couple of observations concerning v. 4.
4 4 He helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles, using the same help that we ourselves have received from God.
First, it should be acknowledged that this verse’s fourfold use of the παρακαλέω word group, and the tortuous concluding διά phrase, poses a challenge for English translation. The decision made by GNB to insert the words “the same” is a neat way of dealing with the awkward διά phrase—though the solution involves the loss of one occurrence of the theme word. But some questions arise. I suppose the commitment to find common language solutions led to the decision to translate τῇ θλίψει ἡμῶν as
Θλίψις (16x in LXX Isaiah; 24x in Paul) might strike some (like me) as a term that intends something more profound than “our troubles.” (Although the use of this language in Northern Ireland in reference to a situation of injustice, danger, and near intractability could suggest rather its suitability here, I wonder whether such language is designed to normalize and understate the situation in a way Paul’s θλίψις does not.) Paul’s use of the term reaches back to Isaiah (see below), and serves as a paradigm of Paul’s missional suffering. GNB’s colloquialization of the more formal “our affliction” (RSV) renders Paul’s references to his missional suffering into ordinary terms that may indeed pave the way for a “pastoral” reading of the text that is relevant to its readership, but it might fail to capture what Paul is actually driving at by engaging Isaiah’s reflection (and that of the Psalms) on affliction. However, Paul has marked his text very heavily to emphasize divine initiative (in three of the four occurrences of the παρακαλέω word group and the extra effort of the διά phrase). Presumably, again, GNB has reshaped the Greek into a text deemed to be more readily accessible and interesting to modern English readers. While that may be, the translating voice that has staged the actors and the action for this effect is noticeably different from that of the text.
Moving on to v. 5, GNB follows RSV closely and continues the subtle shift in the direction of readerly interest. The addition of the notion of “sharing” owes a debt to RSV’s strategy.
5 ὅτι καθὼς περισσεύει τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς, οὕτως διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περισσεύει καὶ ἡ παράκλησις ἡμῶν. 5 Just as
The strategy is evident. The question is whether the subtle transformation of emphasis, from, we might say, Christology (the sufferings of Christ / the [divine] comfort through Christ) to anthropology (“we have a share . . . we share”), represents a fair trade and a benefit for the GNB reader who can now enter directly into the discourse, or a missed opportunity, depriving the GNB reader of Paul’s rather more subtle rhetorical strategy designed to “entrap” the skeptical Corinthians, step by step, as already involved in the apostle’s mission. And this is always the risk taken by translations designed to grant readerly access to the ancient text: to get ahead of the original argument by drawing back the curtain before the stage has been set (see Towner 2011; Kraftchick 2002; and further below).
In v. 6, the GNB translation captures the balanced εἴτε . . . εἴτε structure. Further adjustments make it possible to eliminate the awkward relative pronoun “which” that is retained by RSV.
6 6 [If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort,
To make a brief summary of these detailed observations, it is in the GNB treatment of v. 4 that I find most noticeably a shift away from Paul’s discourse to another—the colloquial and rather banal term “troubles” for θλίψις, which combines with the whole passage’s rendering of the παρακαλέω word group with “help.” Even if it was not the intention or understanding of the translator, what has been done to create readerly interest and relevance and to render the language into a contemporary mode sets the stage for a reading of this text as Paul’s “theology of pastoral counseling”—a popular but erroneous understanding of this text. While one might say at a distance, on the basis of lexical choices made to render a pattern in the source text, that GNB has caught a theme in the Greek, the question to be asked is, what theme? And the next question is whether or not the translation has instead introduced a theme. I think the theme established by the Greek text of 2 Cor 1.3-7 cuts in a direction other than that of the translation, and it does so on the basis of the resonance it creates with the theme launched in Isa 40.1.
Let us return to the Greek text: Ten occurrences of the παρακαλέω word group in such a short span of text is, as I said, unusual (see also 7.4, 7, 13; 8.4, 17, where, as elsewhere in 2 Corinthians, GNB abandons the translation “help” as a thematic link). It attracts attention, but to what? Not, I think, to what I have called a pastoral theology, at least not as a first stopping point. Paul, by way of a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (LXX), is engaged in a rather thoroughgoing intertextual exercise designed to “locate” his eschatological apostolate in the prophecies of Second and Third Isaiah. How and why?
How? By taking his audience back to Isaiah, and the important turning point of 40.1 (Παρακαλεῖτε παρακαλεῖτε τὸν λαόν μου, λέγει ὁ θεός), and from there onwards. The παρακαλέω word group occurs twenty-two times (Isa 40.1[2×]; 49.13; 51.3[2×], 12; 54.11; 57.18[2×]; 66.11, 12, 13[3×]; see also Jer 38.9; Ps 134.14). We should note especially the fivefold use of the term παρακαλέω in Isa 66 in such close proximity to an OT promise concerning a mission to the Gentiles (66.18-20).
Why do this? Paul’s rhetorical strategy in 1.3-7, stressing mutuality and partnership, an inextricable intertwining of fortunes of the “we” and “you,” is often interpreted as designed mainly to heal a rift that has occurred between himself and the community by emphasizing how deeply connected Paul feels to the church. While that might be a secondary goal, and designed to salve hurt feelings, there is a more subtle argument underway designed to compel partnership, to entrap the Corinthians (logically) in the very apostolic mission they were on the verge of rejecting. If Paul were making negative statements about wrongdoing, this kind of argumentation would aim to implicate the addressees in the crime being described, to catch them in his logical trap, to establish their criminal involvement. “Implicating” is, however, still the goal here, though Paul is describing not crimes, but experiences of suffering, weakness, divine salvation, and thanksgiving. Paul is giving answer to the misunderstanding (or opponent’s charge) that his sufferings are proof that God is not with him, that his apostolic authority is invalid. His answer is launched in 1.3-7, and deftly woven through the next several chapters—an answer designed to convince the first audience not simply of Paul’s apostolic bona fides, but also that their “Christian” DNA is in fact Pauline (for details, see Towner 2011; also Kraftchick 2002).
To evaluate GNB’s translation of this patterned use of language, however, it is sufficient that we note the strong intertextual contact that Paul is making with the opening of Second Isaiah (40.1) and the subsequent theme of divine comfort on into Third Isaiah. GNB’s choice to render the Hebrew of Isa 40.1 with the term “comfort” suggests that an original contact with Second and Third Isaiah on the part of Paul via the παρακαλέω word group went unnoticed.
And here we return to the question of what GNB introduces by way of something new (whether this is intentional or accidental, desirable or unfortunate). First, let us establish a sort of baseline, using RSV and NRSV. The statistics alone tell a story. Somehow, in the mind of the translator, “help” covers a multitude of verbs, nouns, connotations, and imprecisions.
NRSV “help”
2× in 2 Cor (at 1.11 and 6.2 for two different Greek verbs)
12× in all of Paul (a few verbs and twice to explicate χρεία)
RSV “help”
2× in 2 Cor (as NRSV)
12× in all of Paul (as NRSV)
GNB
9× in 1.3-7
34× in 2 Cor (a handful of verbs, including διακονέω; multiple cases of “help” used in explication)
84× in all of Paul (as previous)
Here is the larger picture concerning the use of “help” in GNB:
GNT RSV NRSV
Isa–Dan 92 27 32
Gospels 41 6 7
Luke–Acts 34 8 13
Pauline Ep 85 11 12
2 Cor 34 2 2
1.3-7 9 0 0
Conclusion
The GNB strategy is one which requires that the translator-as-interpreter (and as rewriter) be the Roland Barthesian “writerly reader,” who goes down the rabbit hole of connotation, armed with an array of presuppositions about what Bible is, what it is meant to do, and what is required to create meaningfulness and relevance for the audience. And I fully support this adventure. In the creative space allowed to (or required of) the functional equivalence paradigm, there will be the introduction of new intertextualities, based on translation decisions and lexical choice. All translations unavoidably create these new resonances. Now “help” becomes a Pauline theme; and as the Pauline letters (thanks to their collection into a corpus and a wider canon) form a conversation that readers of GNB are summoned to enter into, “help” produces a new echo reverberating in the room, attracting attention, inviting interpretation.
However, this decision to introduce “help” into the Pauline conversation cuts off access to an original Pauline conversation which depended upon connection with Isa 40–66. The connection is established by the use of the παρακαλέω word group and citation of other Isaiah texts; first sounded unmistakably in 2 Cor 1.3-7, it is then developed through the first half of the epistle. Through intertextuality and the design of his argument, Paul identified his mission to the Gentiles with the prophetic, eschatological proclamation of comfort to God’s people, and implicated and emplotted the skeptical Corinthian audience in his mission.
There are gains and losses, if the introduction of new intertextualities via translation can/should be assessed in terms of gain. The loss—with a view to allowing the foreign voice of the Pauline text to speak afresh—comes in the cutting of the lifeline that connected the message of 2 Corinthians to the prophetic hope articulated in Second and Third Isaiah. But fifty years is a long time, and scholarly interests, methodologies, and expectations have changed significantly in that time. Were a revision of GNB to be undertaken, those involved would need to reevaluate such features of language as intertextuality in terms of alterity, and decide how occurrences of it in the source text might be made accessible for a new audience. Then, there is the trickier business concerning the introduction of new intertextualities into the retranslation (Eugene Peterson’s, Tom Wright’s, David Bentley Hart’s, CEB’s, NRSV’s, and so on), which while granting access to the alterity of the translator, makes, in this localizing activity, something new of the source text. 1
Footnotes
Notes
Abbreviations
CEB Common English Bible (2011)
GNB Good News Bible (1976)
GNFMM Good News for Modern Man (1966)
LXX Septuagint
NIV New International Version (1978, 2011)
NRSV New Revised Standard Version (1989)
RSV Revised Standard Version (1952)
TEV Today’s English Version (= GNB)
TNIV Today’s New International Version (2005)