[B-Greek] Translation Considerations checklist: Suggestions?
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Tue May 4 13:51:14 EDT 2010
Mark Hoffman wrote:
<@Carl
I'm not sure if I'm missing a response from another "Mark" or if you were
just paraphrasing something you thought I said, but I am very much of the
opinion that the books of the NT needed to be regarded, at least on one
level, as artistic works.>
Hi, Mark,
The "Mark" with whom Carl was disagreeing is, I think me. I have found
that if somebody disagrees with something that a "Mark" wrote on B-Greek,
chances are they are disagreeing with me.
I agree with you about the "at least on one level" part, and I agree with
Carl that 1 Cor 13 is pure art. And in saying that the Greek NT is not
primarily art, I do not mean to say that it is LESS than art. In no way
am I comparing it to the tax receipts or the personal letters of the papyri. Now that
I think about it, I'm not sure WHAT the Greek NT is. A discussion of the
ontological status of the Greek NT would take this thread even farther a field
than it is now. And trust me, I'm not the "Mark" you would want to do this.
All I am saying is this. One really good artist could translate Shakespeare into
French or Homer into English and do a pretty good job. But for some reason,
the Greek NT is much better translated by committees. They may include
artists, but I don't think they primarily use their art in translating, and I
don't think that the what they produce is art.
What this has to do with your students is that you are exactly on the
right track by having them work in groups, by limiting their ambitions
to produce a variety of rough drafts that can not be considered the finished
product.
My Greek is not very good. My English is not much better. But I feel
very comfortable producing a translation of Homer, particularly since
I know that one of my favorite poets of all time, Alexander Pope,
produced an English Iliad which is a patent failure. How much worse
could I do?
But I could never produce a translation of the Greek NT because...
because I am just one guy. I would feel very comfortable working as
one guy on a Committee of 30,000. Working on this one tense here.
Researching the background of this Hebrew word here. Trying to
help put together one note there. That, in essence, is what you
are having your students do, and in that sense a little Greek is
not all that dangerous if taken with a massive dose of humility.
One final question. COULD a committee produce a good translation
of the Iliad or the Symposium? I don't think so. Then why do
committees routinely produce good translations of the Greek NT?
Why has no one, not even a genius, produced their own NT which
is as good as the ones produced by the Committees? (Maybe Luther is
the exception here, but I don't read enough German to judge
how good his is.)
Mark Lightman
FWSFOROS MARKOS
________________________________
From: Mark Hoffman <markgvh at gmail.com>
To: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tue, May 4, 2010 10:04:54 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Translation Considerations checklist: Suggestions?
@Carl
I'm not sure if I'm missing a response from another "Mark" or if you were
just paraphrasing something you thought I said, but I am very much of the
opinion that the books of the NT needed to be regarded, at least on one
level, as artistic works. There is an essay by Alain Gignac in *Translating
the NT* entitled, "A Translation that Induces a Reading Experience:
Narrativity, Intratextuality, Rhetorical Performance and Galatians 1-2"
where he describes a translation project where he work with a non-biblical
sort of person who was a skilled literary sort. They had to work together to
compose the translation, and it is a fascinating description of how the text
and 'art' can come together in translation.
And, yes, I do worry that we teach just enough Greek to make students
"dangerous" in thinking they know too much. Following the Greek requirement
(basically a year's worth), students are required to take a Gospels class
the next semester where one section each week is devoted to translating
texts. In the next school year, they need to take an Epistles class where
they have another week section on translation. Hebrew is not required, so in
the OT classes, they are encouraged to work with the LXX.
Still, despite the challenge, I am committed to teaching Greek, because it
does slow them down when they read the text. What I mean is that often the
texts become so familiar that they no longer 'hear' the text at all. Working
through the Greek slows us down so that we read it carefully and hopefully
come to a better appreciation of its richness.
--
Mark V Hoffman
www.CrossMarks.com
bibleandtech.blogspot.com | scrollandscreen.com
www.gettysburgseminary.org/mhoffman
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