Recently I was reminded about the importance of translation of God’s Word into Indigenous languages, not least because for Indigenous people English Bibles are in the language of the invader and oppressor.
Here’s another example of this in quite a different direction that shows the power of language choice.
W. L. Lorimer was a Scottish scholar of the New Testament (1885–1967). He is most well-known for his translation of the New Testament into the Scots language – an official minority language in Scotland, and something of a sister language to English, having developed separately from English from Early Middle English.
Scots is one of those languages that is close enough to English that if you mentally put on the accent and kinda squint a bit you can make out a lot of the meaning. (There’s traps and false friends along the way, but you’ll get the gist.)
The angel’s word to Joseph in Matt 1:20–21, for example, is this in Lorimer’s Scots version:
Joseph, son o Dauvit, be nane feared tae tak Mary your trystit wife intil your hame; the bairn she’s cairriein is o the Halie Spírit. She will beir a son, an the name ye ar tae gíe him is Jesus, for he will sauf his fowk frae their sins.
As you’re probably aware, there’s quite a history between Scotland and England. If the only thing you know about the relationship between Scotland and England is the movie Braveheart, keep that in mind. It’s important.
Lorimer had a brilliant idea when translating Jesus’s temptation by the Devil in Matthew 4. Brilliant, and terrible. He didn’t put this in his main, official translation, but it’s published (posthumously) in an appendix as an alternative.
The narrative and all of Jesus’s words are in Scots. But when the Devil speaks, Lorimer has him speak in Standard English. The Queen’s English.
The language of the oppressor – the language of England, down there, who dare take our freedom.
Neist the Deil tuik him awà til the Halie Citie and set him on a ledgit o the Temple and said til him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down to the ground. For it says in the Bible: ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’”
It’s a brilliant choice in a way because it builds in that automatic antagonism into everything the Devil says, even when he’s quoting Scripture for his own purposes. But the power of that language choice is what makes it, in my eyes, an irresponsible choice.
It entrenches a human political situation into a spiritual reality. Readers of this Gospel cannot help but read a historical ethnic disagreement as part of the Gospel itself. An amazing, genius, terrible, and irresponsible translation choice.
Sam Freney is translation consultant with Bible Society Australia. Sam works with heart language translators across Australia with the collective goal to translate the Bible in the most accurate, clear and natural way possible.
Sam Freney is translation consultant with Bible Society Australia. Sam works with heart language translators across Australia with the collective goal to translate the Bible in the most accurate, clear and natural way possible.
Join as we look at all things clarity, accuracy, acceptability, and more in a general series of Bible translation tidbits from around our region.
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