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From Here to There

TWO RECENTLY published English editions of Virgil and Homer prompt some scattered reflections on what it means to move from one language to another. "Translation," of course, is not limited to language. When Elijah passed his mantle over to Elisha, who had asked for "a double portion" of the prophet's spirit, "a chariot of fire and horses of fire" took Elijah in "a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:9-11). Sometimes called "the translation" of Elijah, the heavenly transportation is preceded by the parting of the waters "to the one side and to the other" (vs. 8). This, in turn, can be applied also to the personal experience of moving from one level of self-awareness to another and what this may mean for faith, doctrine, theology, and the life of the church.

I

For most of us, pastors and teachers of religion, the problems of language translation relate to the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Even those of us who have been exposed to introductory courses are mostly dependent an what the scholars produce. New translations appear with quiet regularity, so that the King James Version is followed by Moffatt, Weymouth, Phillips, the RSV, and, within the past year, the New Revised Standard Version and the British Revised English Bible (see the Symposium in the Oct. 1991 issue of THEOLOGY TODAY). It may come as a surprise to learn that since the RSV (1952), there have been twenty-five translations of the Bible with as many more of the New Testament itself.

A new translation of Bultmann has appeared, and Walter Lowrie's pioneering edition of Kierkegaard's opus is being superseded by new translations from the team of Edna and Howard Hong. The earliest writings of philosophers of language and hermeneutics, such as Wittgenstein, Ricouer, and Gadamer, have come to us through translations of the German and French, compounding the problem of moving from one language to another since the subject has to do with language itself.

Perhaps Dante's Divine Comedy (the original title is simply Commedia) deserves some sort of prize for the number of translators who have been intrigued by rendering the "tercets" of the "terza rima" structure into idiomatic English. To name a few, there is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's three-volume set with marvelous and imaginative

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illustrations by Gustave Doré, Dorothy Sayers (influenced by essays on Dante by her contemporary friends, T.S. Eliot and Charles Williams), and the American poet John Ciardi.

Translation is such a serious business as to call forth quips and jokes about the process. There is an Italian proverb, perhaps in reference to Dante, that a translation is like the underside of a Turkish tapestry. When Coleridge's familiar lines from The Ancient Mariner, "Water, water every where/Nor any drop to drink" were translated into French, they came out as "Water, water every where/But anything decent to drink-nothing." An American, speaking to a Russian audience quoted the aphorism "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," and this was translated as "the wine is good but the meat is spoiled." It used to be said that German students assigned to read Troeltsch's turgid prose preferred to read the French translation. Karl Rahner's brother, a distinguished theologian in his own right, once suggested that if he had the time he would like to translate Karl's convoluted prose into German.

II

There is another kind of "translating" when we move from one level of experience to another. In conventional evangelical terms, this is what it means to be "born again," But there are many people today unmoved by the invitation to "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior." They want something else and often are not quite sure what to do or where to go.

This issue of THEOLOGY TODAY is devoted to several of the most popular trends in our midst. The literature on the current spiritual quest is extensive and very much in view in bookstores and on lists of best-sellers. That doesn't mean that everything is to be endorsed uncritically, and some of it may be simply self-centered and selfserving.

On the other hand, there is no denying the serious concern of many today, whether in or out of the churches, who seek a new kind of spirituality. Almost every college and seminary campus knows of such people, some quietly groping in private, and others bonding together in mutual prayer and meditation groups. The widespread awareness of various "step" programs, supportive and acceptive of those who feel isolated, who have fallen victim to various kinds of addictive behavior, and who find little help or understanding from family and friends, has had undeniable effect on our competitive and achievement society of displaced persons.

Harking back to the Elijah-Elisha narrative, the "parting" of the waters may be understood as a symbol of what it means to pass over from one level of consciousness to another. Water is one of the root-metaphors of the Bible, beginning with the spirit that "broods" over the preformal chaos at the time of creation and ending with the apocalyptic vision that with "a new heaven and a new earth" there will

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be "no more sea." In between, we hear of the Exodus through the Red Sea, the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan, the sea of Galilee, "water and blood flowed mingled down" at the crucifixion, Jesus'word to the Samaritan woman that he had living water to drink so that no one would ever be thirsty again. The parting of the waters is a symbol of being translated from one place to another, and, more importantly, from one stage of selfhood to another.

III

Let us go one step farther with our Elijah-Elisha paradigm and ask what it would mean for doctrine, theology, and the church to receive a "double portion" of the prophetic mystique.

Tying into what has already been said, a spirit-filled awareness of self and of the divine presence within and around us might radically restructure our conventional doctrinal and trinitarian formulas. From the early creeds of the church until recent times, theology and church life have been dominated by the Christ figure who personifies God's redemptive purpose but more or less occludes and obscures the Holy Spirit as the third person of the trinity. Barth's so-called "Christomonism" was perhaps the last of such theological structures. It may be premature to call it the "last" Christological all-embracing theology, but there are abundant signs in our midst that question this dominant Western European emphasis.

The New Testament is quite clear and consistent in stating that the historical Jesus is no longer here or available as he once was. The ascension narratives, not often the subject for preachers or figuring prominently in theological discussion, tell us that "he parted from them" (Luke 24:51) and that "a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). The angels say to the women at the tomb, "he is not here" (Matt. 28:6), and at Emmaus, after breaking bread with the two disciples, "he vanished out of their sight" (Luke 24:31). In John's Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that he must "go away" (John 14:28) and that they will see him "no more" (John 16:16). It is the spirit that makes present for us the absent Christ.

The development of a spirit-oriented theology, to say nothing of a spirit-filled church, must stand before us as mostly unexplored territory. The "spirit" churches, such as the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God, have much to teach the rest of us, but we must be careful not to manipulate the spirit for our own purposes.

A "double portion" of the spirit is something we receive and do not control simply because the spirit moves like the wind under its own power. This is surely one of the reasons that many have taken up "new age" techniques. Those under the influence of addiction easily identify with the spirit as one way of speaking of the mystery of life and the elusiveness of the divine presence. The least, the last, and the lone, as many today can be described, know that they are out of control and

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need to be assured that moving freely among them and within them is a power greater than themselves.

In the neo-Gothic chapel of Princeton University, the great East stained-glass window in the chancel should be interpreted with reference to the great West window over the portal that beckons the worshiper out into the world. The East window puts the Christ at the center, and just below is pictured the Last Supper with Jesus and the disciples positioned around a mandorla or horseshoe design. This historical scene, near the end of Jesus' life on earth, is epitomized in the apex of the Gothic arch by the emblem of the "cross and orb," signifying the triumph of Christ and of Christianity over the whole world.

The West window bears the inscription "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Here the central Christ figure holds the Book of Life with an Alpha and an Omega, surrounded by a mandorla reminding us of the Last Supper in the East window. But now the historical Jesus is the risen Christ, and the identifying items around the horseshoe design are several familiar signs of the Zodiac. To complete the sequence, in the apex of the arch is not the triumphalist cross and orb but the "triquetra," made up of three intersecting almond-shaped abstractions standing for eternity. So, the cosmic Christ supersedes the historical Jesus.

What would it mean for us today to receive a "double portion" of prophetic vision, to live an "abundant" life, and to think of the Zodiac and triquetra as symbols of the divine?

This is where Matthew Fox and some other New Age writers, with all the criticism to be levelled at them, can be suggestive. They are, at least, peering beyond present stalemates in church and theology to sense the over-arching divine presence, that is somehow also in our midst.

Hugh T. Kerr