As we hand over more and more to national colleagues to do
Bible Translation and be in charge of their own exegesis there is always going
to be a danger of syncretism. The pendulum can swing from appropriate
contextualisation to syncretistic approaches that over-emphasize local,
traditional beliefs. To avoid this there is a temptation to choose translators
and consultants who are demonstrably ‘sound’ – they can sign all the correct
doctrinal statements, and have been trained by all the right (Western-funded[1])
theological institutions, as well as having been instructed by missionary
trainers and consultants on how to do dynamic translations that make truth
clear and simple. This would be fine if it were not for the fact that there are
some much more subtle influences coming into play. In India, for instance,
scriptures, to sound true, must be beautiful literature written in poetic form.
If we, as outsiders, over-stress the clear, simple (propositional truth?)
meaning of scripture we can do violence to the national translator’s desire to
write beautiful literature that will be read and accepted by many as scripture.
The missionary-advised translation is useful, but only for evangelism. As soon
as a church is in existence the believers crave a translation that reads and
sounds like a holy book. And so it is that the church starts a second translation
project, perhaps producing a high-literary style and somewhat more
word-for-word translation that is more useful for preaching, teaching, and Bible-studies.
It may be worth pointing out that within the Bible there are
a variety of literary forms, and some books ought not to be high style. The
gospel of Mark is one of those. But Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophets, John’s
gospel, and many other parts of the Bible can be written in beautiful language
and still reflect the genre of the original scriptures. This is probably the best
way to go – choosing to work on the books that are high in style first, so that
the people and language group accept these books as scripture, before moving
onto books that ought really to be in a simple straight-forward style.
