Loving, but not Recommending, the REB
There has been a good deal of talk in the biblioblogosphere about translation theory, and in connection with that support for the REB. In particular, I would note John Hobbins post Why the REB is a Great Translation, and to his earlier posts (not directly on the REB but very relevant to this post), You need an excellent translation to understand the Greek New Testament, and Critique of “Natural English” as a Goal of Translation.
I’m not going to respond in detail to these posts. I think I’ve made my translation philosophy, such as it is, clear previously. But it’s interesting to me that I can disagree quite profoundly with John Hobbins’ view of translation, and at the same time personally prefer the REB.
But the answer is right there in my phraseology. I prefer the REB, but I eschew terms such as “the best translation.” The problem I see here is that such statements tend to ignore the audience for the translation, and at the same time prescribe goals that audience should have.
For example, John presents some rather admirable goals in terms of literary allusions and quality, as well as in terms of understanding the source language. As I always do about this point, let me simply note that if one wants to get the nuances of the source language, the only answer is to actually learn the source language. This is something Hobbins has done, and done well. But at the same time he thinks this will somehow be made widespread through a particular approach to translation.
The problem, in my view, is that many people will miss these subtle, and even not-so-subtle, literary characteristics. I believe most will miss them, but can’t prove it as I’m working from personal experience. In my experience teaching Bible classes to lay people, I have found that there is a distinct limit on what you can expect people to do.
This is not because they are stupid; it’s because they have other lives. They don’t spend most of their time studying this sort of thing. In general, when I point out details, people are happy to listen, but this doesn’t become a regular part of their Bible study. In the best cases, such things come to them through commentaries.
I would note the happy exception of my mother, who chose on retirement to learn to read both Greek and Hebrew. She’s now 90 years old and continues to use both in her own devotions. But I will note that she did this after retirement, though her retirement is a quite active time in her life!
I think it is arrogant of me to expect people in general to learn my field or expect them to have the same goals that I do in Bible reading. For some, the target will be reading for a general message, without concern with details. For others, literary beauty will be the main issue, and literary beauty is in the reader’s eye or hearer’s ear, despite centuries of “experts” trying to make certain literature “good” and other literature “bad.” (J. K. Gayle provided an interesting post on this.)
For yet others, the issue is to get to the forms of the source language, and while I recommend that they learn the language if that is their goal, a more word for word translation will help in a limited sort of way.
So how does this relate to the REB? Quite directly. I love the REB. I read it regularly. I think it does overall the best job of translating the Bible in well-formed literary language. That is something that I personally like.
But other people function differently than I do. A literary translation may actually be a distraction for them in devotional reading. I note that some congregations I’ve worked with find the REB not that easy to follow when read from the pulpit. (It shares this characteristic with some other translations like the ESV or the unfortunately NKJV.)
Now each of those translations has some things in its favor, though I find the NKJV the hardest to justify, but they also have drawbacks. It depends on who is using the translation, including when the “who” is a community, and what they are using that translation for.
I see no reason to be prescriptive here. One simply has to match the characteristics of a translation with use and user, as far as possible.
Well said.
For the Old Testament, I prefer NJPSV over REB, though I think REB, along with NRSV, NAB, and NJB, are excellent second choices.
For the rest, though you say we have different views of translation, we seem to agree. Perhaps you can point me to posts in which you make your views on translation clear.
A couple of stories. In my former UMC parish, a gift was given for the express purpose of allowing the church to purchase pew Bibles. The Worship Committee examined three options: NRSV, ESV, and NIV. They voted unanimously for ESV. The reason is simple: they grew up on RSV. My current parish has NIV as its pew Bible. It would make sense to update to TNIV the next time around. But who knows what the Worship Committee will choose, if given a range of choices?
John – I’ll try to go through it in more detail, and provide you with the quotes where I got my idea of what you’re saying, but in summary:
– I think clear, natural, English is one excellent goal for a translation
– I would place reflecting literary characteristics of the source much lower priority than communicating meaning clearly.
– It appears to me that you would prioritize idioms of the source language, transfer of metaphors, and representation of literary allusions all higher than I would as goals of translation.
Having said that, based on my own post, I have no problem with a translation carrying out the priorities I perceive you to have, always provided that these priorities are stated in the preface. Those priorities would limit the audiences to which I would recommend the resulting translation.
On your pew Bible issue I empathize to a large extent. My annoyance there is that worship committees in my experience have chosen for less relevant reasons than those you cite, such as the committee that chose the NRSV for a congregation that would have preferred the NIV (around 90%, I think), because of binding, price, and the source.
It’s nice to get a committee to at least recognize the congregation’s comfort level. If a congregation is accustomed to the RSV, the ESV is a good choice, provided that also fits any audience you would like to bring into the congregation.
Thanks for the link and even more for the great post!
Is REB available anywhere to read online?
Henry,
I appreciate your efforts at determining where our translation goals coincide and where they diverge. I wonder, however, if in practice, we are closer than you think.
Here’s an example I am working on now: Jeremiah 7:22. Here is my translation:
For in instructing your forefathers and giving them commands on the day I brought them out of Egypt, I said nothing about whole-offering or sacrifice.
To be sure, my version aims for more clarity than REB:
For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt, I gave them no instructions or commands about whole-offering or sacrifice.
Rashi I think understood the verse correctly to say God gave Israel foundational liturgical and ethical instruction – the Ten Words – as the basis of everything else, in which instruction about whole-offering and other kinds of sacrifice had no place, in accordance with a hierarchy of truth reflected in the order of the narrative:
Exod 19:5 = Jer 7:23: Obey my voice
Exod 20:1-17: the Ten Words
Exod 20:22-26: instructions regarding altar and sacrifice
Moshe Weinfeld points out that Jeremiah belonged to a current which objected to attributing any instruction whatsoever about whole-offering and sacrifice to “the day,” broadly understood, in which God brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Thus, in the book of Deuteronomy, the Ten Words alone are reported to have been given at Sinai / Horeb (Deut 5). Subsidiary instruction is given a generation hence, in the plains of Moab (Deut 6-30; the legal corpus, including instruction about whole-offerings and sacrifice, is found in 12-26).
The point is not substantially different from the one made already by the order of events in Exodus 19-20 continued in the larger Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers complex. But Deuteronomy makes the foundational nature of the Ten Words, without adherence to which obedience to additional instructions is ineffective, that much clearer by means of a 40 year separation between the giving of the Ten Words and the rest of God’s instructions.
In short, as Jer 7:22 says:
For in instructing your forefathers and giving them commands on the day I brought them out of Egypt, I said nothing about whole-offering or sacrifice.
Here’s the problem. A straight-up translation of Jer 7:22 cannot be understood without the kind of background information I just provided.
So what is a translator to do who seeks to provide a translation which – impossibly in my view – does not require the dynamic of Acts 8:31 to come into play before understanding is achieved?
How can meaning be communicated without “off-site” explanation?
Only, I submit, be rewriting the text and making it say something it doesn’t. That is precisely what NIV/TNIV does:
For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.
The translation relieves the reader of the need to think through, as Rashi does, the verse’s barely acceptable fit with the book of Exodus – – but full agreement, as Weinfeld notes, with Deuteronomy. It harmonizes the need for thought away by means of the addition of one small word: “just.” I refer to this translation technique as nuking a Bible verse for rapid, care-free consumption.
NLT1 / NLT2, trademarked “The Truth Made Clear” – note that I am being deliberately harsh but I still wish to point out this translation rocks on plenty of occasions. On other occasions, as here, it botches things) – dares to rewrite the entire passage. The sentence previous, in Hebrew, sounds something like this:
Heap your whole offerings on top of your other sacrifices, and eat the meat of them all!
It’s a sarcastic demand. (DE translators, I’ve noticed, tend to be the kind of person who thinks sarcasm is verboten in polite conversation. That may be true, but then, let’s get register and genre right: the prophets did not engage in polite conversation.) The sense depends on the distinction between whole offerings, whose meat was not shared between priest and family, and regular sacrifice, which was. NLT1 / NLT 2 will have none of it:
Away with your burnt offerings and sacrifices! Eat them yourselves! [NLT 2: Take your burnt offerings and your other sacrifices, and eat them yourselves!] When I led your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings and sacrifices I wanted from them.
I don’t know how to describe this translation. It doesn’t harmonize with Exodus-Leviticus, in which God provides a place and priesthood and instructions for making whole offerings and sacrifices – why would God do that if they didn’t want them?
It does harmonize with other biblical verses such as: it’s not sacrifice I want, but lovingkindness.
You know, that is the point of Jeremiah here.
However, that is not how Jeremiah made it.
Now, if you tell me that since you prefer a translation that communicates meaning without off-site explanation, and therefore NIV/TNIV and/or NLT1/NLT2 work for you, we do have a fundamental disagreement.
But should you concede that in this case and others like it, accuracy requires a translation along the lines of the one I offer, or what we find in NJPSV, NRSV, REB, NAB, NJB, and ESV – even though that means the verse is a head-scratcher without explanation, then we are in fundamental agreement.