The Making of the New Zürcher Bibel: Highlights

Johannes Anderegg is a professor emeritus of German language and literature. He is affiliated with the Universität St. Gallen. The new Zürcher Bibel, an instant bestseller since it came out (go here for a presentation), owes much to this expert in German style and literary aesthetics.

Over a 25 year time period, he went over the entire contents of a translation of the Old Testament prepared by two other specialists. The work of translation went like this – I provide the German, and an idiomatic rendering thereof:

Erstaunlich: Das Übersetzer-Kernteam bestand aus lediglich drei Personen. Ein Hebraist – der grösste Teil des Urtextes ist Hebräisch, ein kleiner Teil Aramäisch – lieferte eine Rohübersetzung, was aber «noch kein Deutsch ist». Damit bei der Übersetzung eine angemessene Interpretation getroffen wird, gehörte als zweites ein Exeget dazu. Schliesslich – und das war Andereggs Aufgabe – brauchte es eine Fachperson, welche aus der Rohübersetzung «Deutsch macht». Anders gesagt: Die Endgestalt des Alten Testaments in der Zürcher Bibel hat Johannes Anderegg massgeblich mitgeprägt – Satz für Satz. (Source: Daniel Klingenberg of the St. Galler Tagblatt)

It’s hard to believe: the core translating team consisted of three persons. A Hebraist – the largest part of the source text is in Hebrew, a smaller part in Aramaic – prepared a base translation, which however “was not yet in German.” It was then up to an exegete to ensure that the translation was adequate to the sense of the original. Finally – this was Anderegg’s task, it required a specialist to “make German” out of the base translation. The final wording of the Old Testament of the new Zürcher Bibel was codetermined in large part by Johannes Anderegg – one sentence at a time.

Anderegg set out, it is clear, to translate the Bible in an “old-new” way:

Mit dem Übersetzungs-Spielraum wird – wie Bibelausgaben von «Volxbibel» über «Bibel in gerechter Sprache» bis «Gute Nachricht» zeigen – sehr unterschiedlich umgegangen. Die Zürcher Bibel zeichnet sich durch ihre Nähe zum Urtext aus. Die populäre Forderung, die Bibel müsse «unsere Sprache» sprechen, weist Anderegg zurück. Die Texte der Bibel seien eben keine leicht zugängliche «Unterhaltungsliteratur». Zudem gebe es «unsere Sprache» gar nicht. Denn diese zerfalle in eine Summe von Fach- und Gruppensprachen, abhängig von sozialen Schichten und beruflichem Hintergrund. Die Linguistik spricht von «Soziolekten». (Source: Daniel Klingenberg of the St. Galler Tagblatt)

When it comes to the field of translation – with editions of the Bible running from the Volxbibel [in Swiss dialect] to the Bibel in gerechter Sprache [a PC translation] to the Gute Nachricht [a DE translation, like the Good News Bible in English] – very different approaches have been taken. The Zürcher Bibel is marked by its nearness to the source text. The popular demand, that the Bible must speak “our language,” Anderegg rejects. Biblical literature by definition is not easily accessible, as if it were meant for entertainment. “Our language,” furthermore, does not exist. What actually exists is a series of trade- and group-specific languages dependent on social class and professional background. Linguistics speaks of “sociolects.”

Anderegg did not “make German” with the readers / speakers of a particular sociolect in mind. The goal instead was to hew to the content and form of the original text as closely as possible. The result, according to Anderegg, “must necessarily contain the strange and contradictory.” Anderegg’s method is summed up by Klingenberg in the following phrase: Fremdes fremd sein lassen.

A hard-hitting but correct paraphrase: what is strange to us in the source text must remain so in translation.

Once I have familiarized myself with the Zürcher Bibel, I will go about demonstrating how the theory works out in practice.

Here is a full Anderegg bibliography.

Comments

[Robin Lutjohann]

Great comment. As a German/American dual citizen and a lover of both the Bible and the German tongue, I am glad the ZB is receiving some attention through you. As you probably know, the ZB is only one of several major Bible translation projects that recently have been or are near to being completed in the German speaking world. Each follows a different translation philosophy, usually having to do with the target audience. Please check out:
(1) The "BasisBibel" - a project by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft to create a DE translation tailored specifically to the habits and language of internet-savvy 21st century youth. Somewhat closer to the sourcetext than the "Gute-Nachricht" and a great deal less wordy, it is designed to read (not unlike much internet English) in short sentences and short, confined thought entities and be used especially in new media. So, think of it as a blend between the CEB and the NET, but in German. See basisbibel.de

(2) "The Neue Genfer Uebersetzung" is a Swiss project by the fairly conservative Genfer Bibelgesellschaft. It aims for a niche market by being more formal than the "Gute-Nachricht" but more dynamic than the Luther, ZB or Einheitsuebersetung. The NT and Psalms are already out, and I bought myself the NT a year or so ago, when it came out. Super-snazzy design is part of their marketing strategy. It was published to look and feel just like a moleskine notebook, with rubberband strap, pocket in the back and everything. Plus: single columns! I loved the design but was underwhelmed by the translation. The NGUe translators seem to think that the solution for the dilemma between readability and accuracy is translating fairly formally and then adding additional adjectives or explanatory phrases IN the text, although marked off with apostrophes. It ends up just sounding awkward and being way too chatty. The whole thing sounds offputtingly much like business-German to me, but that's my personal taste. (I will resist the temptation of making an uncharitable comment about the Swiss and their business culture here.) Still, worth checking out at ngue.de.

3) The Volxbibel: I have to correct you here. The VB is NOT a Swiss German Bible. It is a Bible written in German street slang by the Berlin-based youth evangelist Martin Dreyer. Here, Jesus talks with all the swag of a Kreuzberg Turkish rapper or a Berliner "Proll" (thug). It's a lot of fun for me to read, especially since I grew up in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Although of course German academia was quick to look down its noses at the project and its "tasteless" language, I think it's a worthwhile effort, not unlike the Cotton Patch Gospels were in the southern United States. One notable supporter is the newly (sort of evangelical) Christian pop icon Nina Hagen, who is just as nuts about Jesus today as she used to be about Indian gurus and UFOs before, and she lends her formidable Berlin street cred to the VB translation -- or rather paraphrase. Check it out at www.volxbibel.de. (BTW, the VB is also a pioneer in trying to be the first German opensource Bible project. Cool, eh?)

BTW, John, as a lover of Hebrew, English and the Bible, I have enjoyed your blog for quite some time. As an MDiv student, I continue to gain useful insights from the discussion threads you initiate. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please keep up the good work!
And just for fun, here are some examples from the Volxbibel. With a friendly wink to Luther, let's look at two important Reformation texts (One could argue that Martin Dreyer followed Luther's instruction to look at the language of the common people a lot more closely than Luther himself ever did.):

Rom 1:17: "Sie macht ganz deutlich, wie man mit Gott wieder klarkommen kann. Und zwar nur dadurch, dass man sein Vertrauen auf Gott setzt. Es steht ja schon in dem alten Buch: „Wer sein Vertrauen auf Gott setzt, wird leben.“"

Rom 3:28: "Ich fasse noch einmal zusammen, was für jeden Menschen gilt: Meine Schulden bei Gott sind bezahlt, weil ich auf Jesus vertraue und nicht, weil ich so toll lebe und mich genau an die Gesetze halte, die Mose mal aufgeschrieben hat."