Another look at the Bible

How many Bible translations do we really need? As with millionaires with their millions, it seems, just one more. Not only does the English language change, making some usages obsolete and difficult for new readers to understand, but scholarship provides new ways of understanding the ancient Hebrew and Greek scriptures. Sometimes older manuscripts are discovered, and older is better when it comes to Bible translation because those who copied books of the Bible in ancient times (Christians more than Jews) had a way of changing them. Even many centuries ago there was something like political correctness.

And so the insights of Sarah Ruden in her book The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (2017) make fascinating, if sometimes difficult, reading.

There are "large territories of meaning in a single word," she writes. Translators must try to choose the most likely meaning, while at the same time allowing other possible interpretations. The Hebrew language, in particular, can pack a lot into a single word. She cites an example of an Old Testament verse that has just 17 words in Hebrew but 33 in King James English.

Mostly what Ruden does is to discuss some of the most familiar passages in the Bible (the creation story, the 23rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, etc.), giving first the King James translation, then her own, with a variety of possible alternatives on just about every word.

My own conclusion is that the KJV, published in 1611, holds up remarkably well. Many of the changes she suggests do not really improve the text, even if they do slightly improve accuracy. Instead of the word Lamb in Revelation to refer to Jesus, she prefers "little lamb." But isn't a lamb, by definition, little? In the 23rd Psalm, she advocates "wagon-tracks of righteousness" instead of "paths of righteousness." I guess that's better than "ruts of righteousness," but there is something to be said for eloquence and grace in scripture, which is why the KJV remains the go-to translation for so many, especially when it comes to important and familiar Bible passages. Would you want "wagon-tracks of righteousness" read at your funeral?

One of her more intriguing suggestions is to translate the opening verse of John's gospel with the phrase "the Idea was with God and the Idea was God," rather than "the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The book's subtitle may be a trifle misleading. She has translated various books of classical literature, including Augustine's Confessions, but nowhere does it say she has actually worked as a Bible translator, other than for this book. Raised a Quaker, educated at Michigan, Johns Hopkins and Harvard, Ruden has had a lifelong devotion to the Bible, whatever the translation.  “When someone gives me a Bible on the street, I take it and use it,” she writes.