Bible translation can be done well, and it can be done badly, and anything in between

 

Much of what I'm going to write here is a direct consequence of what was expressed in other blog entries. If Bible translation really is a complex task, if it is indeed more technical in nature than spiritual, and if it does require a serious amount of linguistic knowledge, then it shouldn't be too surprising to find out that some Bible translations come across as nice pieces of work, whereas others don't. We all know this to be true, because no matter what we think about Bible translation methodology, we are very happy to read one or two particular English translations, very dissatisfied with a number of other English translations, and we probably don't have much of a strong opinion regarding many others. The English Bible translation landscape gives us a lot of options to choose from, which is great.

There can be a number of reasons why we dislike certain Bible translations, and not all of them can be traced back to the translators doing a less than perfect job. The team may have put in a technically credible effort, though following a translation methodology that I don't agree with. Or they may have chosen a style that I don't find appropriate, but that resonates with lots of other readers.

But here it is: with any translation approach, there is the possibility to do it in a good way and in a bad way. And before I continue down this road, it is very important for me to state firmly that I don't want to use this blog post to needlessly bash someone else's earnest effort to create something valuable. Today's painful subject is a necessary one to talk about, especially because it is so easy to get ourselves into a warm fuzzy feeling that because someone is motivated and doing something with a potential spiritual impact, God will automatically grant success to their hard work. This is usually not the case with technical tasks – for them to turn out well, competence is required. If I lack competence as a translator, any of the following things may happen:

• I fail to realize that my mother tongue works in very different ways from the language I translate from, and therefore I too often copy structures of the source language that communicate something very different in the target language – if they communicate anything at all.
• I may be inconsistent in spelling things, and therefore the same words are spelled in different ways even on the same page. The reader would not know for sure that this is indeed the same word.
  
• I do not dare to use good and colorful idiomatic expressions of my language in the translation, because they deviate too far in form from the expression in the source language.
• I translate sentence by sentence and therefore fail to compose the paragraphs and even the whole text in a way that the logical structures become clear.
• I have no idea how to activate a larger vocabulary for the translation, and therefore everything comes across as bland and boring, often also with hazily-defined meanings.
• My English ability is not sufficient to benefit from the commentaries and translation guides that exist, so there may be some misunderstandings and wrong interpretations creeping into the translation.
• I have no clear picture as to how the Biblical culture differs from my own culture, so I cannot provide clues in the translation that help with seeing things in the correct light.
• I may have a quirky theological understanding and let this flow into the translation in places where the text does not support my theology as much as I'd like.
  

All of these shortcomings in a translator or in a translation team can usually be overcome by training, although there is also a certain need for talent. But if we accept that training or the lack thereof are the critical resource that determines how successful someone translates, then it is indeed not justifiable to point our fingers at the translators when things are not as they should be. Rather, we need to ask ourselves why so little training has been given to the translators before they started their translation work. Maybe training has been given, but not in such a way that it could be absorbed by the translators.

Consequences of good and bad translations

It would be nice if we could consistently observe that good translations are always put to good use by the language community, and that bad translations are mostly ignored. But the reality is more complex. 

Unused bad translations

There are countless excellently made translations that are not being used in the churches and that nobody reads at home. So there are clearly other factors than just the quality of a translation that can lead to a Bible that is not in use. On the other hand, badly translated Bibles have indeed very little chance of being used by their communities – if understanding a passage requires a lot of oral explanation, if the orthography is at the point of being unreadable, if the language is boring the readers to tears, there is very little chance that the Bible is going to become a bestseller among the Christians. So good quality in translation is almost a necessary condition for a well-used Bible, but it is not the only one.

This gets us to the problem that it may not be that easy for us to determine how good a translation really is. The potential users in the language community quite often are not in a position to tell us about it – they just don't know how to distinguish a good translation from a bad one. I wrote in a different entry that first time Bible readers in their language may not be unduly alarmed when their translation doesn't make much sense to them, as this is what they were led to expect from a holy and religious text. It usually comes as a surprise to Bible readers when they finally realize that most Biblical texts were written in a rather clear and mundane language.

Abused bad translations

This may also lead to the few situations where truly poor attempts at translation may still have an impact among the Christians of a community. They are excited that finally God's word has come to them, and they use it in spite of it not clearly communicating. These are really tragic situations, because they have the potential that the translation has a net negative impact on the community. If good content is not consistently and sufficiently getting across the language and culture divide, then it may be overshadowed by the undesirable things that come out of a badly done translation:

• Severe theological misunderstandings because of unclear or even falsely translated passages.
• Simple and clear theological truths are not gleaned from the biblical texts.
• Unnecessary discussions and dissent among Christians about differing interpretations of unclear passages.
• The confirmation of the idea that God's word is not supposed to be a book that communicates easily, and that God in general prefers to not be understood by his followers.
• The abuse of the Bible as a kind of magical text where the correct recital of the form leads to higher blessings than the understanding of its content.

All of these things have indeed happened in church history to varying degrees, and Bible translators should attempt everything within their power to prevent them. This means that a translation can in fact be so bad that it would have been better if it never had been published – particularly if it is being used by the community. But these are the worst-case scenarios. Most poorly done translations are just not being read by the people, and that may be a blessing. 

Evaluating Bible translations

What I have written so far may give a different impression, but most translations are not clearly near one of the endpoints of a scale between stellar and abysmal. We all would agree that no translation is ever perfect, even in the best of circumstances. In the same way no sincerely created translation is devoid of any potential to be a blessing to some of its readers. Most translations are really a mixed bag with some light and some shadow. Some translators may have had a knack for finding good idiomatic expressions, but they may have been poor exegetes. Other translators show good understanding of cultural differences, but are found lacking in applying the structures of their own language. Others again do a credible job in all of that, but for their life cannot spell consistently. Some translations may be well done for some parts, and poorly done for others.

It would be quite nice if we had tried and tested ways to evaluate Bible translations for their quality, so that we had some clear guidance as to which Bible translations need to be redone or at least revised. Not that such revisions can be taken for granted, as we are guaranteed to face some resistance to any proposed revision, but at least we want and need to know where there is a definite need for such an expensive overhaul. Unfortunately, though, such ways to evaluate Bible translations do not really exist.

An important first step, though, has been taken by René van den Berg with his SURAM process. This methodology had some very useful results in Papua New Guinea with evaluating the impact of eleven Bible translations after a number of years after their publication. Sadly, the survey concluded that less than half of the translations enjoy good use in church contexts, and even less in non-church environments. It then tried to correlate this impact with a number of known factors about the translation projects. As it happened, though, all eleven translations were said to be of an adequate technical quality, and they were written in orthographies that were deemed to be readable. This only confirmed the idea stated above that technical competence is by far not the only factor in the success of a Bible translation. Unfortunately, no robust study exists to date that clearly correlates poor quality with low or even negative translation impact. To be frank, all the evidence that I claim to have to this effect is clearly anecdotal, although I am convinced that it is also representative.

Why is it that we don't have this data on quality and translation impact? There are a number of reasons for that:

• As stated above, it just doesn't do to go to the community and ask about the quality of their Bible translation. They are usually not in a position to give an objective assessment, as they probably never experienced quality Bible translation in a language they understand well.
• The linguistic quality of the Bible translation can only be assessed against any documented linguistic knowledge about the language. As this knowledge in most cases doesn't exist, the evaluators would be as much in the dark about the linguistic features of the language as the translators were when they translated.
• It may be possible to design some interview questions that may provide clues about the linguistic quality of the Bible translation – if there are many indications that the language of the translation sounds different from everyday language, is perceived as "holier" than what is said or written normally, if the readers have apparent difficulties to state some simple biblical truths – all that may show that the translation did not go too well from a technical perspective. Some reading experiments may show whether reading is fluent or requires constant false starts by the readers, which would point to orthography problems. But none of these things have been systematically designed for a principled evaluation process up to this point.
• Evaluating Bible translations is a touchy issue in an environment where Bible translation is undertaken by a large number of different agencies following sometimes radically different approaches. No current agency has the necessary standing to embark on such a politically and socially fraught endeavor.

All this is to say that, although it is quite clear that existing Bible translations and those that are currently worked on are likely to vary considerably in their quality, particularly in light of the many projects that are currently under way without any linguistic input, we just don't have much to go by when we want to evaluate a particular product. I believe this idea should become a priority of the worldwide Bible translation movement, so that we get a much clearer picture regarding how well each translation serves its intended language community. Right now we just charge ahead in the dark and hope for the best.