This first issue of 2024 consists of seven articles and two book reviews. We offer five Technical Papers and two Practical Papers.
David Bell reviews the use of unflagged codeswitching in the Greek texts of the New Testament—instances where the authors use a foreign word without further translation into Greek—and discusses ways of handling these foreign terms in translation. Dynamic translations tend to domesticate the text by translating these terms. Bell, however, argues that these cases of unflagged codeswitching have a function in the original texts and that the foreignizing strategy of transliteration might therefore be more appropriate. Benjamin Scolnic sheds light on the oracle against Tyre and Sidon in Isa 23 and its peculiar and much-discussed images of the stronghold (מָעוֹז māʿôz) and the male, child-bearing sea. Scolnic argues that the chapter makes more sense if “stronghold” is taken as the personified avatar of either the sea or the Canaanite cities, and the image of the child-bearing sea is understood as based on that of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea who sired many sons and daughters. David Doherty argues against Rick Brown’s thesis that the rendering of “the Son of God” with alternative terms, as practised in Muslim-idiom translation, began as early as in the Gospel of Luke. Doherty denies the existence of such substitutions in Luke. He acknowledges the validity of Brown’s missiological motivations but doubts that Brown’s exegesis can stand. In his re-examination of the meaning of τάσσω tassō in Acts 13.48, “those who had been chosen for eternal life,” Michael McKay questions the widespread interpretation of this verb as predestinarian. Rather than taking God as the active agent of the verb and translating it as “ordain” or “destine,” McKay prefers taking the apostle Paul as agent and translating τάσσω tassō with “enrol” or “arrange.” The meaning of the verse would then focus on the effects of Paul’s proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles: he arranges them to eternal life when they accept his message. Donghyun Jeong discusses the translation of ζηλοῦτε zēloute in 1 Cor 12.31: “earnestly desire the higher gifts.” Biblical scholars are divided on whether this should be read as an imperative or an indicative. The majority opt for an imperative, but Jeong argues with the minority for an indicative. He further recommends translating the sentence as a rhetorical question rather than a statement.
The first Practical Paper in this issue is by Alice Bellis. On the basis of examples from the book of Proverbs, she shows how well-meant attempts to translate gender neutrally can have the opposite effect of inadvertently emphasising gender stereotypes, rather than neutralising them. For example, when “man” is translated as “person,” the intentional pairing of man/woman qualities is destroyed. Naw Din Dumdaw calls for caution when translators want to use local terms in their translations, because this may have negative effects on the cultures from which the terms are borrowed. His example comes from the Kachin translation in Myanmar, where a neutral term taken from Nat worship was used for translating demon terms in the New Testament. The unfortunate result was an undeserved negative view of local Nat worship.
Richard Pleijel provides a discussion of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion, while Christoph Rösel has reviewed A History of German Jewish Bible Translation.
Marijke de Lang
Andy Warren-Rothlin
