Dear friends,
It used to really bother me, only being able to read the Word of God in translation. And even if I could read biblical Greek and Hebrew, it’s all an approximation anyway. I’ll never really know exactly what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, word-for-word, and I’ll never really know what the prophets saw. At least, that’s how I used to think about it.
I remember saying to a friend once how annoying it is that I couldn’t actually read the Word of God. And he said, “What are you talking about?! The Word of God is a PERSON!” Which is true, and a living Person at that. And the more I’ve thought about that living Person, the better I’ve gotten to know Him, the less this has bothered me.
Meditation upon the Word of God is a big part of the prayer life of the Daughters of St. Paul, with whom I have just begun formation. We read the daily Gospel the night before, in lectio divina; first thing in the morning, for half an hour’s meditation; once again at Mass; and most deeply during our daily hour of Adoration. I’ve taken to using different translations of the Gospel for each of these prayer periods:
I use the RSV Study Bible at night, so I can study the Word in historical context as I prepare to pray with it the next day.
I use the New American Bible in the daily missal in the morning, so I can experience the Word as it will be proclaimed at Mass, in communion with others.
I use the Torres Amat translation during Adoration, because it’s my favorite, because beauty matters, because it’s just the best. (Praying with the Bible in languages other than English is helpful to me in general, because when I’m less familiar with the wording, I can be surprised by Scripture more easily. It’s a way of letting the Word be made new for me.)
And pretty much every day, those three translations are substantially different. They all have a different tone, making Jesus convey wildly different emotions. Sentence structure and word choice will give him a different style, but sometimes it also just straight up gives him a different meaning. I noticed this especially with the Gospel of Martha and Mary the other day (English, Spanish): is Martha “burdened” or “distracted”? Is she “anxious” or “worried”? Those aren’t small differences, especially if you’re reading as a woman who has a lot of convent chores to do today and can’t stop thinking about them in chapel and needs to know if Jesus is being understanding and consoling or… well, being dismissive. (I know, I know.)
This is the sort of thing that used to make me frustrated and get upset about not being able to read biblical Hebrew and Greek! But now, I am not nearly as annoyed by those “discordances.” I’m learning to delight in them. That isn’t just because I’ve become a more serious translator in the intervening years—it’s because I’ve gotten to know Christ better, and how He likes to communicate.
I’m studying Christology as part of my formation, and yesterday in class we came to a conclusion that helped me make sense of this movement. It’s true that language is imprecise, that translation can be messy, and that capturing the meaning of our great God in tiny human words is daunting. But Christ made it possible when he became flesh. Jesus spoke about himself using tiny human words, and then he invited us to do so too. If God isn’t afraid of fitting into a tiny human body, we can rest assured he isn’t afraid of our tiny human words, or our tiny human hearts and minds either. The Incarnation means we don’t have to worry about making a mess of God, which we inevitably will, because he came down here to get involved in our mess. He’s not afraid of it.
That doesn’t mean biblical translators shouldn’t be diligent in their work (or hagiographical ones in ours). No one should deliberately make a mess of God. But when it happens, we can safely trust that God is going to be in that mess somewhere anyway. He’s definitely in the mess we made of the Gospel of Martha and Mary: some days, he might need to tell me it’s okay to be distracted, because it means you care, but you’re allowed to take a break. Some days, he might need to say work really is a burden, and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. Some days, it might be obvious that he’s inviting Martha to take a break too, not sending her back to the kitchen. Some days, this whole passage might be super annoying no matter what language you read it in. That’s fine. Jesus welcomes annoyance, so long as you stay in the conversation.
What I’m trying to say is that the differences between translations are features, not bugs, because they encourage engagement. God delights in difference everywhere else in his creation, so why not here? He loves to iterate and re-create and re-express himself in every new human being he creates, so why not in every reader he encounters too? I used to approach the Word of God as a puzzle to be unlocked if I studied hard enough, but that’s the sort of thing you can only do with a text that’s dead, fixed, done working. The Word of God is alive. Don’t be shocked when he wants to say something new.
In Christ,
Catherine
Hat tip to Leah for this reading recommendation on the forthcoming new English translation of the Liturgy of the Hours. (The best part: an anonymous nun’s brilliant metrical translation work in the hymnody. Queen. God will reward you!)
It has been rightly pointed out that an analogy exists between translation as an act of “linguistic” hospitality and other forms of hospitality. This is why translation does not concern language alone but really reflects a broader ethical decision connected with an entire approach to life. Without translation, different linguistic communities would be unable to communicate among themselves; we would close the doors of history to one another and negate the possibility of building a culture of encounter. In effect, without translation there can be no such hospitality; indeed hostility would increase. A translator is a bridge builder. How many hasty judgments are made, how many condemnations and conflicts arise from the fact that we do not understand the language of other persons and fail to apply ourselves, with firm hope, to the endless demonstration of love that translation represents.