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Trials of the Translator
By Bruce M. Metzger

IF "the way of the transgressor is hard" (Prov. 13:15), the way of the translator is scarcely less hard. Not only does translating require the utmost in concentrated effort, but the result will seldom please everyone-least of all the conscientious translator. The Italians have put the matter in a proverb: traduttore traditore ("the translator is a traitor"). Since not all nuances in a text can be conveyed into another language, one must choose which one or ones are to be rendered and which are not. For this reason the cynic speaks of translation as "the art of making the right sacrifice." In short, except on a purely practical level, translation is never entirely successful. There is always what Ortega y Gasset called the misery and the splendor of the translation process.1

The translation of the Bible presents special difficulties. Since it is a source both of religious information and of religious inspiration, translations of it are required to be both accurate and literary. They should be suitable for rapid reading and for detailed study, and suitable also for ceremonial reading aloud to large and small audiences. Ideally they should be intelligible and even inviting to readers of all ages, of all degrees of education, and of almost all degrees of intelligence.

Such an ideal is impossible of realization. For one thing, we cannot know today the tone of voice or nuance in which a statement was originally uttered. Is there, for example, a note of sarcasm in Paul's reference to the Jewish-Christian leaders in Jerusalem as "those who were reputed to be something" (Gal. 2:6)?

Furthermore, apart from such irretrievable over-tones, before one can translate a passage, it is necessary to understand it, and where it is understood in different ways, the words chosen to translate it will differ. To be specific, what shall the translator do with proper names that can also be used as common nouns? Do we transliterate the name or translate its meaning? For example, in Hebrew the word adam is both a common noun meaning "man" or "mankind" as well as a proper name. In translating the book of Genesis the question arises at what point the translator should begin to use "Adam" rather than man." On this matter there is no agreement among either ancient or

Bruce M. Metzger is Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books dealing with the text and literature of the New Testament, such as A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (1971). For nearly ten years he has been editing the series New Testament Tools and Studies (9 vols.). He is a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature and of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. He serves as a member of the continuing RSV Bible Committee (of which he is chairman), the International Greek New Testament Project, and the board of managers of the American Bible Society.
1 J. Ortega y Gasset, "Miseria y esplendor de la traducción," Obras completas, 5 (Madrid, 1947), pp. 427-455.

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modern versions. At Genesis 2:7 the Targums and some Latin manuscripts transliterate "Adam," while the others translate. The Greek Septuagint begins to employ transliteration at Gen. 2:16; the Latin Vulgate and the King James version at 2:19; the Revised Standard Version at 3:17; and the New English Bible at 3:21. Furthermore, the translator's dilemma concerning adam is not limited to the first chapters of Genesis, for there are occurrences of the word elsewhere that are equally ambivalent (for example, Deut. 4:32; 32:8; II Sam. 7:19; Eccl. 3:2 1; Hos. 6:7; Zech. 13:5 ).2

I

A perennial problem that confronts all translators involves the literary level at which to pitch the rendering. People differ in socio-linguistic attainments and therefore one type of translation will scarcely satisfy the needs of all readers. The range of modern translations extends from the severely literalistic New American Standard Version, sponsored by the Lochman Foundation, to various kinds of paraphrastic renderings, of which Kenneth Taylor's The Living Bible Paraphrased is the most widely used. There is also a British edition of The Living Bible, purged of Americanisms and adjusted to idioms current in England. Thus, the American "clothes closet" (I Sam. 21:9) becomes the British "wardrobe," and the chatty "I guess" becomes more primly "I suppose" (I Sam. 21:4). Since Britons are not likely to know the meaning of "volunteer wheat" (II Kings 19:29), it is spelled out for them as "the wheat that has grown of its own accord," and where Americans speak of transgressing covenants, the English simply break them (II Kings 18:12). Instead of the anachronistic euphemism, "Saul went into a eave to go to the bathroom" (I Sam. 24:3), the British edition reads more literally, "Saul went into a cave to relieve himself."

The problem is not so much whether to paraphrase or not to paraphrase-for there are certain expressions that all modern translators agree must be paraphrased. For example, in Hebrew psychology the kidneys were regarded as the seat of the innermost emotions. In the King James Bible, the prophet Jeremiah (12:2) complains of the wicked that God is "near in their mouth, and far from their reins" (reins is the now archaic English word for "kidneys"). Here the Revised Standard Version substitutes "heart" as more comprehensible to modern readers.

It must not be supposed that the King James translators always eschewed paraphrase. Most people will be surprised to learn that the Greek text lying behind the 1611 rendering of Matt. 27:44, "The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same into his teeth," has no verb meaning "cast" and no words for "into to his

2 For instances of other Hebrew words that can be either transliterated or translated, see Benjamin Kedar-Koppstein, "The Interpretative Element in Transliteration," Textus; Annual of the Hebrew University Bible Project, 8 (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 55-77.

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teeth." The literal rendering " . . . also reviled him in the same way" (so RSV) may have seemed too pale and too tame to the King James translators to express the tragic drama of the context.

II

Besides problems involving the rendering of the text into English, the translator is also confronted with problems of different readings in the original manuscripts .3 What is to be done when the witnesses to the Hebrew or Greek text differ in their wording of a passage? It is not enough to say that one reading can be put into the text and the other(s) in the margin; the problem is how one shall decide which should be relegated to the margin. From one point of view the King James translators were fortunate in not having to face this problem as often as modern scholars are forced to do. In 1611 the so-called textus receptus reigned supreme-that form of the Greek text of the New Testament that rests upon a handful of late manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages and containing the accumulated scribal blunders of many previous copyings. The fifth-century codex Alexandrinus did not reach England until 1627, and the fourth-century codex Sinaiticus had to wait until Tischendorf brought it to light just over one-hundred years ago. Today, however, we have the third-century Chester Beatty papyri and the second- and third-century Bodmer papyri containing books of the Greek New Testament, along with the still earlier Dead Sea Scrolls containing books of the Hebrew Old Testament. Thus, the textual critic is able to provide the translator with editions of the Scriptures based on manuscripts that are hundreds of years older (and therefore presumably more accurate) than those available in the time of King James I. But, with the increase of textual evidence and the settling of certain textual problems, others remain just as perplexing as ever. For example, there is still no agreement as to what should be thought of that form of the Book of Acts preserved in what is known as the Western type of text, which is almost ten percent longer than the form of that book which is generally accepted as the canonical text.

III

The most recent set of problems to confront translators arises from the current concern over so-called "sexist" language .⁴ The question can be put on two levels: (a) How far is it advisable to rid English translations of those idioms in our own tongue that are becoming offensive to increasing numbers of readers? (b) How far is it feasible to

3 The fundamental distinction between renderings and readings can be appreciated when one observes that in the margin a different rendering (of the same Greek or Hebrew word) is introduced by the word "Or," whereas a different reading is introduced by the phrase "Other ancient authorities [or, witnesses] read, . . ."
⁴ See the comments on sexist language in the Editorial of THEOLOGY TODAY, January, 1975, pp. 290f. Several publishers have issued manuals for their writers and copy-editors, relating to this problem of style. See, for example, McGraw-Hill's Guidelines for Equal Treatment of the Sexes (1974) and Macmillan's Guidelines for Creating Positive Sexual and Racial Images in Educational Materials (1975).

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eradicate from an ancient text those features that belong to the patriarchal culture in which its narratives had their origin?

Over the years there has been in English a diminution of the use of the masculine pronoun. In the original King James Bible there was only one instance of the possessive pronoun "its" (namely, in Lev. 25:5). Elsewhere we read, for example, of the altar and "his pans…. his shovels, and his basins, and his fleshhooks, and his firepans" (Exod. 27:3). During the three and a half centuries since 1611, editors and printers of various editions of the King James Bible have replaced here and there, in a rather haphazard fashion, "its" for "his."

It is perhaps not surprising that the word "man" occurs in many passages of the King James Bible where it now seems to be intrusive. One such example is Rev. 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." The Greek text here has no word for "man," and so the Revised Standard Version quite properly renders the passage, " . . . if any one hears my voice . . . . But there still remains the problem of what to do with the latter part of the verse: "I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."

IV

Such problems, along with others arising from new manuscript discoveries, are currently being considered by the Revised Standard Version Bible Committee,⁵ an on-going committee that meets annually. Like Luther, who in repeated revisions sought continually to refine and polish his German translation of the Scriptures, the RSV Committee has not hesitated "to bring back to the anvil that which they had already hammered"-to quote an expression used in the Preface to the King James Bible. In 1971, the Committee issued the second edition of the RSV New Testament, twenty-five years after its initial publication in 1946. Among the changes of text are those introduced in accord with the third edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament. These include the moving of the ending of the Gospel of Mark and the pericope de adultera of John 7:53-8:12 from the footnotes into the text ⁶ though separating the passages from the context by a blank space to show that they were not part of the original text. Among smaller changes one may mention the improvement at Luke 17:34. In the King James Bible this is rendered, "I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left." The italicizing of men indicates that this word is not in the Greek but was inserted by the translators. For obvious reasons, in the

⁵ The RSV Bible Committee, under the aegis of the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of the Churches of Christ, is ecumenical in composition. Of its twenty-four members, five are Roman Catholic (two from Great Britain), one is Greek Orthodox, and one, who is in the Old Testament section, is Jewish.
⁶ For the reasons which led the United Bible Societies' Committee to make these (and other) changes, reference may be made to the present writer's volume, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971).

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second edition of the Revised Standard Version the Committee has omitted the word "men," thus returning more closely to the Greek and, incidentally, to all English translations of this verse in pre-1611 Bibles.

At the present time, the RSV Committee is at work on the second edition of the RSV Old Testament, which is expected to be finished in the mid-80's. It has been voted to drop "thou, thee, thine," which had been retained from the King James version in prayers and psalms addressed to God. It is also expected that there will be modification of such masculine usage as can be eliminated without changing the intent of the original writers. Furthermore, the second edition will be able to take into account a fuller appraisal of textual evidence derived from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had begun to come to light just before the publication of the RSV Old Testament in 1952.

Such work is slow and tedious. At the same time, it has its rewards, for though the individual translator's labor remains anonymous and without financial remuneration, the camaraderie enjoyed during the Committee sessions and the intellectual stimulus involved in preparing agenda for face-to-face discussion more than compensate for the varied trials of the translator. And, of course, even greater is the satisfaction of having attempted the impossible, namely, conveying in the translation the same impression to its audience as the original did to its original audience.