A Ramble About Theology and Translation

I've been thinking today about Bible Translation, Theology and how the two inform each other.

In the first and second century Southern Europe and Near and Middle East, almost everyone spoke Koine Greek in some form, and they all had basically the same socio-cultural worldview with a few local tweaks here and there. When the writings and letters which would become the New Testament were originally disseminated, just about anyone who got a hold of them knew exactly what they were saying and what they meant for the most part. When they were translated into Latin by Jerome in the fifth century, there was still that more or less common cultural worldview understanding between Latin speakers and Greek speakers that enabled them to understand what was written without too much further explanation.

This immediate familiarity with what the writers of the New Testament were discussing, the immediate familiarity with concepts like "pneuma" and "sarx" and "logos" even, informed the theology and practice of those first and second century Christians and their writings reflect their immediate understanding of what was meant by Paul, Peter, and John when they wrote.

But fast forward to when the Scriptures began to be translated into other vernacular languages such as English, German, French, etc. and it is a different story. Many people in the western world from the fifth century on thought the original texts were in Latin. It was only after the fall of Constantinople in 1451 and the exodus of scholars and educated men from the Eastern capital into Western Europe that the Greek texts of Holy Scripture were "rediscovered" and translation attempts began within a couple hundred years.

These people, a thousand years later, did not share the worldview of the original texts, much less the spoken or written language. And the vernacular languages into which they were translated were never 1:1 with the original meanings. Furthermore, the theologies which had been developed over the course of that thousand years informed the translators as to what the texts meant, and the translations which emerged reflected both their imperfect understanding of the ancient language and their own theologies.

And this is my point, that it is ideal that the original Biblical text should inform theological understanding, but what I see far too often in most English translations is theology informing how something is to be rendered so that the reading in the translation reflects the theological worldview of the translator and not the other way around.

As a result, there are still large numbers of archaic English words in modern translations because theologically conservative translators refuse to part with them. As another result, the same word "pneuma" is translated as either "spirit" or "Spirit" depending on when the translator believes it is talking about the third Person of the Holy Trinity or "spirit" in general, and John 3 in this regard is just a mess to translate because in English "pneuma" represents completely unconnected concepts in the modern worldview, "breath, wind, spirit," where in the ancient world view they were all one and the same.

The consequence of this mess is a never ending circular theological reasoning. The translation of Scripture informs theology, but then that theology informs how we translate Scripture, which then informs our theology. Sooner or later, we translate and interpret the Scriptures in such a way that they will always justify our theological bent. And you see this in many Christian faith communities now, as many will refuse to use any English translation but the one which confirms their theological viewpoint even when they know that it is, after all, only a translation of the Scriptures, and not the original words of Scripture themselves. There is even the theological justification for this given in the idea of certain translations being divinely inspired or a transference of divine inspiration from the original texts to the translations!

Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because in them you think that you have life, but these are they which testify about Me." For the Christian, the center and foundation of his or her theology must be Jesus Christ. The Holy Scriptures inform us about Jesus Christ, but they cannot take the place of interaction with Jesus Christ. They cannot take the place of listening to Him, talking with Him, and spending time with Him. The Scriptures are not Him. They are a sign post to Him.

Theology, by definition, is not a study of religion or religious concepts. Theology is, by definition, a study of God. The best way to observe and study your subject is to actually observe and study your subject, to interact with it under various circumstances and take notes. This is no different in the study of God. You can read about Him all you want to, and formulate numerous theories and hypotheses, but until you get to know Him, until you interact with Him, all your theological theories remain just that. Theories.

I believe the Scriptures should inform us, but I also believe we should stop trying to force them to speak our language (and for that matter stop trying to interpret them through our own modern western theological worldviews), and start learning to see the world through the Scriptures' eyes so to speak. We need to converse with them in their language in order to really understand what they're saying, especially if we're responsible for explaining it to others.

I do know this, the Christian writers of the first and second centuries, the ones who did speak the language of the Scriptures, had a very different understanding of what they meant, and their Church looked very, very different from the various churches today. I would encourage anyone reading this to take a look at the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and especially the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. "A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs" is a very good place to start as well. This was the Church where the miraculous charismata were still a daily occurrence, even routine. This was the Church that went to their executions joyfully, and sang hymns even as Nero burned them for torches in his gardens. This is a Church whose understanding of the original Scriptures I don’t believe we can ignore any longer.