As the world moves into its second year living with Covid-19, the Bible translation community continues to grapple with what it means to do and support translation in a changed and ever-changing context. But some things remain constant, such as the need to work towards understanding the meaning and significance of a unique 2000-year-old text, and the best way to communicate its message across the temporal, linguistic, and cultural gaps with our present-day communities. In this task, The Bible Translator offers another mix of practical and technical, biblical, and methodological papers.
Two Practical Papers lead this issue: Martha Wade examines strengths and weaknesses of our increasing reliance on technology, and in particular the UBS/SIL translation software Paratext. The very powerful Parallel Passages tool in that software can inadvertently lead to missteps in translating the texts into indigenous languages. Achieving both accuracy and naturalness in translation remains an important critical task for translators and consultants, and use of the tools of translation can aid in that task as long as the tools are understood and used properly.
Ji-Youn Cho (a member of TBT’s Editorial Board) chronicles the history of our sister journal, the Journal of Biblical Text Research, published by the Korean Bible Society’s Institute for Biblical Text Research. Although its main audience is Korean, JBTR and the scholars behind it have both benefited from and contributed to the world of Bible translation in a global context, in a mutually beneficial partnership.
The Technical Papers in this issue come from the fields of translation studies, Old Testament, and New Testament. Xiaojun Xu examines the footnotes in both Catholic (SBV) and Protestant (CUV) Chinese Bibles. This study, which is both qualitative and quantitative, finds interesting differences in the footnoting of Bibles produced by the two confessions, and suggests that further research is needed. Mary Mercy Kobimbo takes us back to a topic which has occupied many pages of this journal over many years—the translation of the divine name in the Old Testament. Writing from within the Luo cultural context, the author examines the history and principles behind renderings of the name of God in Bibles in the Dholuo language. While this study is historical and descriptive, it is also preparatory to further constructive proposals for the future.
The four New Testament articles in this issue begin with Jamin Andreas Hübner’s discussion of the pleonastic negation οὐ μὴ. Although this is generally recognised as signalling extra emphasis, Bible translations have not always consistently rendered it so. Hübner argues that it should always reflect that added emphasis. J. Michael McKay Jr. focuses our attention very closely on the phrase εἰ δοθήσεται τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ σημεῖον in Mark 8.12. Against the trend, he argues that it should not be regarded as a Hebraism and thus a direct negation, but rather as an example of aposiopesis, a conditional phrase in which the apodosis tails off into silence. Yongbom Lee takes us to the familiar location of Rom 1.17, arguing that the phrase ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν should be translated in such a way as to reflect the movement of thought in the Epistle as a whole: from faith to faithfulness. Jordan Atkinson also encourages a very close focus—this time on the phrase ἐν ᾧ in 1 Peter, arguing that it functions differently depending on the context, and therefore requires a context-sensitive approach in translation.
Quite apart from the impact of Covid-19, we appear to be in a transitional period in Bible translation, when giants of a former generation are passing on. We noted, at the end of last year, the death of René Péter-Contesse on November 11, 2020. In this issue we print tributes from three colleagues (Brigitte Rabarijaona, Philip Noss, and Lynell Zogbo) in honour of his memory. We are also sad to note the passing on July 16, 2020, of Rev. Dr. Louis Dorn, Editor of the UBS Handbook series from 1978 to 1998, and on March 2, 2021, of Dr. Joachim Somé, retired UBS Translation Consultant in Francophone Africa. And as we go to press, we have heard of the death of Ms. Rosario U. Yu in the Philippines, as a result of Covid-19. Rosario, among her many roles in the Bible Society movement, was the Editorial Assistant for The Bible Translator from 1995 to 2008. Our sympathy goes to all their families, and we honour their contribution to the cause of Bible translation around the world.
This first issue of 2021 is rounded out with our usual annual list of publications in the field of Bible translation by, or related to, UBS.
Stephen Pattemore
