The Myth of Theologically “Neutral” Terms

Abstract

Opponents of Muslim-idiom translation typically object to the use of particular Islamic key terms which they feel distort the meaning. In doing so, they often fail to see that the traditional “Christian” alternatives are at least equally problematic. Bible translation projects may aspire to acceptability among both Christians and Muslims (usually with one audience considered “primary” and the other “secondary”), or they may hope that a translation’s high level of contextualisation can be offset by publishing it together with a more “neutral” interlinear text. However, even just glossing Greek words, term by term, may present a whole host of difficulties, as can be demonstrated in attempting to gloss Matthew 1–4 in Urdu.