[B-Greek] Text and translation

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Nov 6 13:55:51 EST 2007


The following is a reply to the sender's direct question put to me  
and intended to be sent on to B-Greek.

On Nov 6, 2007, at 12:11 PM, charlie reich wrote:

> "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote: We deal  
> primarily with the Greek text rather than translations here.
> hello,
>
>        on 11/03/07 dr. conrad made a comment that has me a little  
> confused. he said: " we deal primarily with the greek text rather  
> than translations."
>
>         my question is two-fold:
>
>         1. does that much info get lost translating from greek to  
> english?

You're asking a question about translation, and implicitly, about  
translation theory. This is not the appropriate forum for that (you  
might put that question on the B-Translation list (https:// 
lists.kastanet.org/Lists/Bible-Translation/List.html). Nevertheless,  
since you posed the question to me, let me just note a couple of points:

(1) Although there are some few who may think that translation from  
any one language to any other is essentially (or even approximately)  
a matter of one-to-one correspondence, it is not easy to produce  
convincing evidence for that proposition: some texts may give  
expression to factual propositions about concrete things, but quite a  
few give expression to rather abstract propositions about  
abstractions. Since the discussion referred to here is the Johannine  
prologue (John 1:1-18), it might be an interesting experiment to  
compare the word-count of the Greek text with the word-count of ten  
English translations of that text. Translators generally want to make  
their English versions (a) express the same content, as nearly as  
possible, that is expressed in the Greek original, and (b) formulate  
that content in idiomatic English that is (at least) as intelligible  
to the English reader/listener as the Greek original was to the Greek- 
speaking reader/listener. Just achieving those two objectives may  
very well require expansion of the phraseology to make the version  
more intelligible or it may possibly involve reduction of a more  
verbose Greek original. I would say that expansion is more  
characteristic of translations of the Johannine prologue; reduction  
may very well characterize translations of Ephesians 1.

(2) In the case of John 1:1-18 I think that translation almost  
necessarily involves interpretation -- in the sense of making  
explicit what the translator believes is implicit but not expressed  
in the Greek original. Most of our disagreements over the  
interpretation of the Johannine prologue, particularly about 1:1-3,  
have focused upon questions of what should and what should not be  
assumed to be implicit in the phraseology of the Greek text.

>
>         2. if so, can anyone give an example?

I really think that exemplifying these notions would bring the focus  
more upon translation than upon the Greek text; that's a discussion  
that really should be taken elsewhere rather than to B-Greek. But I  
would suggest that you yourself do a word-count of the Greek text of  
GNT passages expressing highly abstract content and of several  
English translations of the same passage. You may then raise and  
attempt to resolve the question whether the translators of such  
passages have added to or subtracted from the "real" content of the  
Greek originals. I think that might very well lead to an appreciation  
of the old Italian proverb regarding translation: "Traduttori  
traditori" -- a phrase that might be conveyed word-for-word by,  
"Translators (are) traitors" -- but that might be more accurately  
expressed by, "Translation is a betrayal of trust."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)




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