Of Vocabularies and the Hallowed

I've got another book coming out early next year.  To my great surprise, it's not either of the books I'd been working on recently.  THE YEARS DRAW NEAR, my half-finished manuscript on faith and aging in America?  Nope.  IN THE SHADOW OF HER MAJESTY, my two-thirds completed Cyberutopian Regency Action/Romance?  Uh uh.  

It's a book I first wrote back in 2015 and self-published for the devotional use of my little congregation.  THE PRAYER OF UNWANTING, as it's now called, recenters the Lord's Prayer as part of a personal prayer life.  As the prayer that Jesus explicitly taught, it pushes back against our tendency to approach the Creator with requests for power and prosperity.  It gets us out of our individual and collective solipsisms, which is kinda sorta a prerequisite for being a disciple of Jesus.

As nearly ten years had passed since I wrote the first draft, I had some significant reworking to do, which is why it's helpful to have a competent and thoughtful editor.  Dated references were removed or changed.  Flagrant errors of reasoning or continuity were corrected.

One of those reworkings was a little unexpected.  Ever since I was an undergrad majoring in religious studies at  the University of Virginia o-so-many-moons ago, my go-to Bible translation has been the New Revised Standard Version.  It was my jam during my M.Div. and D.Min. studies.  It's the translation in my pulpit, and in the pew-racks of my little church.  I've commended the HarperCollins NRSV Study Bible to numerous folks.

The NRSV was reworked in Twenty Twenty Two, and became the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

Some of those changes were trivial, and many are entirely comprehensible.  But some of the updating seemed less a matter of improvements in linguistic scholarship and new textual resources, and more a matter of taste and nodding to contemporary culture.

Of more significance to my book on the Lord's Prayer: among the changes in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition was a rewording of the teaching of that prayer in the sermon on the Mount.   I had an entire chapter dedicated to reflecting on the underlying meaning of "hallowed be thy name," with a focus on the word "hallowed."  I'd used the NRSV for all scriptural quotations throughout the book, which presented something of a problem.

In both Matthew 6 and Luke 11, it no longer used the word "hallowed," replacing it with the more awkward phrasing "Let your name be revered as holy."   Clumsy though it might be, "be revered as holy" is a conceptually accurate effort to transpose the Greek Ἁγιασθήτω into English. It means the same thing, even if multiple words are used where once there was but one, so it's not a question of mucking with the meaning.  

Rather, I shall surmise, it's because the word "hallowed" is slightly archaic, something we don't say often in day-to-day conversation.  That's a point I reflect upon at length in the chapter, and a fair observation.  

But then again, it's part of the prayer as it's PRAYED IN THE LITURGIES OF ALMOST EVERY ENGLISH SPEAKING CHURCH IN THE WORLD...sorry, all caps got stuck there for a moment.  And there's just no way anyone could figure out the meaning of an uncommon English word they're unfamiliar with, after all.   Oy gevalt.

As it was, it blew a giant hole in that entire chapter.  I had a choice, then.  I could reconceptualize and rewrite it because the translation that I'd used had been changed to no evident purpose.  

Or I could simply change the translation I used.  

With some regret, I chose the latter.  For consistency, I then systematically updated all of the scripture references in my manuscript to the New International Version, which is a perfectly valid and scholarly translation.

Not a big deal, in this cut-and-paste era.  No harm, no foul, and I still use the NRSVue on regular occasion.

But it did get me to thinking:  If in our faith we called to live out a discrete culture that does not conform to the expectations of broken and fractious humanity...must our choice of language be axiomatically governed by that which ain't the Beloved Community? 

And why would we expect contemporary discourse to have words for that which is holy?

We have those words.  And learning unfamiliar words isn't a chore.  It's good for mind and soul.

Reading the Quran: Finding a Translation

The first question, of course, is what translation of the Quran to read.

This is a nontrivial challenge, because there is a strong theological thread in Islam that says such a thing is not even possible.   The Quran was given to the Prophet Muhammed in Arabic, and it was written in Arabic, and it cannot be understood correctly unless it is read in Arabic.

On the one hand, this makes sense to me as a pastor in a denomination that still cares about original languages.  There are nuances to the as-close-to-the-original-as-we-can-get Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible that often do not surface in the English.    The original language helps us get to both context and intent, in ways that translations and transliterations do not.

It goes deeper than that.  The act of translation is frequently an act of interpretation, and as such, the theological and cultural predilections of the translator can impact how a passage is presented in a new language.

So I get it.  On the one hand.

On the other, larger hand, that just doesn't work.

I'm a Reformed Christian, and a Protestant.  One of the most potent and significant contributions of my tradition was the assertion that sacred texts must be colloquially accessible.   Meaning, they must be spoken in the native language of a culture.

The reason for this was twofold.  One, it prevented a hierarchy of spiritual awareness, in which one group of individuals controls access to a sacred message by being the only people who "truly" know what that message means.   God speaks in ways we can all understand, and can speak through any medium.   Language ceases to be a means of control, but a means of liberation.

Second, it facilitates the spread of that message, as it can be delivered across cultures in their idiom and according to their structures of meaning.   A translation of the Gospel into Twi or Urdu or !kung remains sacred.  Paradoxically, that sacred resonance sticks around deep into some...unusual...translations, like the KLV or the LCB.   Both of them might be a little wackadoodle, but nonetheless are perfectly capable of getting the essence of the God thing across in their own bizarre way.

Finally, and more significantly, I have irresolvable difficulty with the idea that God's relationship with us can be delimited by one particular culture or one way of articulating the sacred.   Despite what the King James Onlies might say, a god whose revelation can only be truly spoken in one human tongue just...well...doesn't feel like God.   God's language is Being.   Period.  Pesky, pesky mystic that I am.

That leaves me fuddled.  Where to find a translation of a book that isn't supposed to be translated, but that needs to be?

I own two English Qurans.   I've got an old scholarly hardback version, one I picked up at a used bookstore in Salt Lake City whilst there clinging to the last bright embers of a relationship with a Mormon ex-girlfriend.   But while still well regarded, the English is a bit clumsy.  And I've got a "pocket Quran" that I found in my Jewish son's room, one given to him by a Muslim friend.  Or, to be precise, one given to him by an Ahmadi Muslim friend.  Meaning, it's produced by a peace-loving, kind-spirited, pacifist and heretical sect of Islam.  The same peace-loving, pacifist, and heretical sect that an old friend happens to belong to, the Muslim friend who gifted me a photo of a man deep in prayer as a wedding gift.

I pored through the text, and researched the interpreter.  Seemed good enough from a linguistic perspective, although angry Wahabis bellowed their one-star displeasure at this worse-than-infidel in their Amazon reviews.  

I compared, briefly, the translation of the first sura in the Ahmadi version with the version officially approved by the House of Saud.   Honestly?   Pretty much the same, only my serendipitous translator seemed to make choices that consistently resonated more graciously in my ears.

From this, my choice will be not to read one translation, but to read several.   This is how I was trained to respectfully approach the Bible passages I am responsible for preachin' on, after all.   Where there is concurrence, I will assume the idea conveys smoothly from Arabic into English.   Where there are significant distinctions, I will assume there are challenges in translation, and look to other resources to surface the reason for the issue.

Seems like a plan.

Defending the Bible from Conservatives

Just when you thought American conservatism could not jump the shark further than it already has, it has come across my desk that a group of ultraconservatives lead by the spawn of Phyllis Schlafly has decided it needs to correct the Bible. The Bible, you see, is too liberal. The Conservative Bible Project aims to fix that.

No, really. I can't believe it either. In fact, I was initially sure this was some sort of subversive performance art project undertaken by a mischievous progressive pastor. Heck, I wish I'd come up with the idea. But best I can tell, it isn't a joke.

On the Conservative Bible Project website, we hear that much of Scripture has been translated by "professors" and people who are "higher educated." They have a point there. If you spend your days studying koine Greek, ancient Hebrew, and Aramaic, there just isn't time enough to spend getting your daily requirement of talk radio.

These "Biblical Scholars" have rendered the Bible dangerously liberal. The language they used reflects liberal values which must now be replaced with proper conservative language. There are also sections of the Bible that are troubling to conservatism...so those sections will be deleted.

Three examples:

Number One: The project is deeply troubled by the use of socialist language. One example was the term "labor" and it's related term "laborer." Labor is another way to describe unions, which are opposed to free market values. It's clear evidence of liberal influence. I checked in the Bible to see if this was true. Lo and behold, it is. In the King James Version, the term "labor" is used one hundred and six times. Clearly, the team of liberal academics convened by King James I in 1604 were under the influence of the AFL-CIO. I'm not sure what word will be used in the Conservative Bible, but I'll guess "independent contractor" and "consultant" are in the running. I look forward to reading their version of the Parable of the Independent Contractors in the Vineyard.

Number Two: The language used is unclear. It needs to be refined. Take, for instance, the terms "Holy Ghost" or "Holy Spirit." That could mean anything. So those terms are out. Instead, the Conservative Bible Project uses the term "Divine Guide." And no, this isn't Oprah coming up with this. It's the far right. Really.

Number Three: Some of what Jesus said was too liberal. The project in particular targets Luke 23:34, which I defended here in terms of language and context just a few weeks ago. The idea that a) Jesus would forgive people and b) that he seems to forgive them based on their ignorance of His True Nature flies in the face of conservative teachings about personal responsibility. The Conservative Bible Project condemns these words of Jesus as a "Liberal Falsehood." So out they go.

Curiouser and curiouser...