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This article is part of the 'Ground Up' project.

Introduction

Translation - of any text - is incredibly difficult.  Translating an ancient text is even harder.  And translating an ancient text, when many people have very fixed ideas about its meaning, is harder still.  And when we are translating an ancient text, there is generally a significant question about which text do we want to translate - what do we choose as the definitive text to be translated?  And how much weight do we give to the other texts which have survived?  There are no clear obvious answers to these questions.

Which is not to say that it is all a matter of individual preference, or that one person's opinion is as good as another's: we have a great many ancient texts, and over the years many people have accumulated a great deal of experience in this area.  Translating the Bible presents difficulties, but they are all difficulties which have been addressed when translating other texts - and, arguably, they are smaller difficulties than we encounter with many other ancient texts - so the basic approach is that we translate the Bible in exactly the same way as we translate any other ancient text.  Some people believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, but this makes no difference to the process of translation.

To be clear: we are talking here about the process of translation; the process of selecting which texts to translate is a completely different question.   We are looking at, for example, the process of translating Isaiah or Matthew.  Each of these books exists in numerous ancient texts, some complete and some incomplete.  What we regard as the 'definitive text' to be translated is often not one of the ancient texts, but a modern synthesis of them.  The experts don't all agree on what this text should say, but the significant disagreements are well documented, and it is easy to establish at each point of uncertainty what the alternative versions say, the source of the alternative versions, and the arguments for each.

Fortunately, the Bible engages with the question of translation in various ways, so we have two starting points: the academic tradition, and the examples and uses of translation by those who went before us in the faith.

And, also to be clear: while the experts disagree, sometimes loudly, that is what they are paid to do - to question and challenge assumptions, and argue for what they believe to be the best text - what is most likely to be the original version of the text.  Progress is made, often very slowly, as the issues are debated.  But, in all the many arguments and versions of the Biblical texts, the actual theological impact of these arguments is somewhere between very small and zero.  As a matter of principle, we want the best possible text to translate; in practice, while people can get very agitated at times, very little of any practical difference rests of these arguments.  Nothing of any significance in the Christian faith rests on which of the possible alternative readings we choose.  We are not entirely clear about some of the precise words, but the meaning of all the significant passages is not disputed.

The Text

The word 'Bible' simply means 'book' - for many people around the word and across history, it is the book.  It is a collection of some 66 ancient texts, themselves called books, although some of them are the length of a book and some are just a page or two long.  It is divided into the 'Old Testament', containing the Jewish sacred texts, and the 'New Testament', containing early Christian writings.

The Old Testament was written mainly in Hebrew, and was translated into Greek - the Septuagint, or 'LXX' - which many of the New Testament writers were familiar with.  And Jesus spoke mainly Aramaic, but His words are recorded in Greek - so, with a handful of exceptions, what we have recorded as the words of Jesus are actually a translation of His words.  And then we take the original texts, or the closest we can get to the original texts, and translate them into English - and this English translation is also called 'the Bible'.  Translation, both the fact and the process, is baked into the Bible we hold in our hands.

The Septuagint

Paul Pavao provides a helpful summary about the New Testament use of the Septuagint:

"The fact is, a lot of quotes in the New Testament line up with the Septuagint, but not all of them. I've heard estimates from 50% to two-thirds. It is very hard to come up with an exact figure because so many passages are loosely quoted. For example ...

• Matthew 4:10 clearly quotes the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 6:13, using terminology only found in that version and using it exactly.
• In 1 Corinthians 15:58, the Septuagint of Hosea 13:14 is much closer to Paul's quote than the Masoretic text, but the difference is still significant. Some will say Paul was quoting the Septuagint; others will disagree.
• In 1 Corinthians 2:8-9, Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4, and the quote is clearly from the Hebrew. The wording in the Septuagint is much different.

"In the first century, a large percentage of the church was Jewish. The apostles who stayed in the Roman Empire—which are the ones who wrote most of the New Testament—would have had need for the LXX, but they also would have been familiar with the original Jewish text from their days in Israel.

"Thus, the New Testament is a mix of quotes, some of which match the Septuagint, some of which match our Masoretic text, and some of which match neither."

[There is much more which needs to be said here; this is offered as a starting point.  As always, any suggestions or pointers are welcome.]