This could be hard to explain, but if you care about biblical texts for literary, historical, poetic, religious or any other reasons, I think it is very important.
About six or seven years ago I became aware of what can only be called a conspiracy, to water down the language of the Scriptures, thereby making their words less offensive to governments and to wealthy, powerful elites. At the time, I had other fish to fry, and so said little about it, except for a Facebook Note, "The Book of Psalms and its Various Translations," and later another, "Where is Mercy?" They are reproduced in relatively recent entries in this blog.
What I found out, back in those days, was that I had half a dozen modern translations of the Bible into English that were victims of this "spinning" of scriptural meanings. I got rid of all of them.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to determine whether the translation that you use has been affected by this modern tendency to willful mistranslation to satisfy an agenda. I call it "the acid test."
If the translation you use was produced by Protestants, who use the Masoretic numbering of the Psalms (or if it is a Tanakh), go to Psalm 18. If your translation was produced by Catholics, it will will probably use the LXX/Vulgate numbering, in which case it will be Psalm 17. In either case, go to the last verse of the psalm, which will be either 50 or 51, depending on the numbering.
Our earliest sources for this psalm are in Hebrew and in Greek. If your translation includes a phrase such as "and shows mercy to his anointed," then it MAY be a good translation; if it says "and shows steadfast love (or kindness, lovingkindness, love, etc.) to his anointed," then it has DEFINITELY been affected by the conspiracy mentioned above, and I would not use it. The word used in Biblical Hebrew is "chesed" which means, and has always meant, "mercy." The word used in Greek is "'éleos," which means "pity, mercy." The three Latin translations that I use (one based on the Greek, and two based on the Hebrew) all translate the word as "misericordia," which means "mercy."
If that example of the "acid test" is too complicated, here is a simpler one. Go to Proverbs 3.3. If it says something to the effect of "let not mercy and truth abandon you," or "let not mercy and truth be far from you," then you MAY have a good translation. But if it says "let not steadfast love and fidelity ..." or some such thing, then you DEFINITELY have a translation that has been a victim of the above-mentioned conspiracy to "soften" and "spin" meanings according to an agenda.
Why does it matter? Well, here's an example. If modern Israelis are to follow the advice of Proverbs 3.3, then their relations with the Palestinians should be characterized by "mercy and truth." "Mercy" is an accountable word that is generally tied to actions. "Truth" is also pretty accountable, since something is either true or it is false. But "steadfast love" is vague, unaccountable, relativistic, and tied to nothing. In concrete terms, it does not commit to any particular type of behavior, or any behavior at all. The same can be said of "fidelity," which is vaguer and more relative than "truth." In other words, it's a weasel word. By the way, the words used in Biblical Hebrew are "chesed" (mercy), and "emet" (truth). I've known those meanings for more than fifty years, and they are the meanings that they've always had in Biblical Hebrew. Saint Jerome knew them in 400 CE, and the translators of the Septuagint knew them in about 200 BCE. Why change them now, except to assuage some people's consciences and let them weasel their way out of doing what is just (and merciful and truthful).
I should mention here that the meanings of words are subject to change over time. Thus, in Modern Hebrew, which did not exist at the time when the books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) were written, "chesed" is often used to mean "charity" or "kindness." But to introduce these meanings into an ancient text is to introduce anachronism and distortion of the original text. The best translator for an ancient text is an ancient translator. Failing that, we at least need a respectful one.
I'm not a fundamentalist. I'm a poet and a translator, and words matter to me. I hope they matter to you, too.
Text © 2017-2019 by Donald C. Traxler.
