A Style-Sensitive Translation of Luke 1:1-4

What would happen if the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of the Bible were translated with the goal of transferring to a receptor language the flavor of its various parts in terms of style and register? If that were done, the gospel of Mark would come across as plain-speaking and a bit choppy, the gospel of Luke as relatively refined, Isaiah and Job as magnificent poetry, Qohelet as written in a style that gives form to its writer’s dyspepsia, the letters of Paul, as replete with difficult, dialectical argument. Revelation would come across as borderline ungrammatical in several passages; the rough patches in Ezekiel, too, would stand out in translation.

If the attempt were made to be faithful to the stylistic choices of the authors of Scripture, something of the fusion of form and content that characterizes their writings might be clear in translation. An excellent result, it would seem to me.

Long ago in a faraway place, Doug Chaplin translated a part of the rude gospel of Mark with attention to style. I would love to see that post resurrected. On the other end of the stylistic continuum is Luke 1:1-4, styled in conformity with the high falutin’ prose in which the best history is traditionally written. In English, think Edward Gibbon or Thomas Macaulay.

Here is Luke 1:1-4, and a style-sensitive translation thereof:

Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λόγου, ἔδοξε κἀμοὶ παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι, κράτιστε Θεόφιλε, ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν.

Inasmuch as many have tried their hand at compiling a narrative of the things that were accomplished among us, as those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word from the start passed them on to us, it seemed fitting to me in turn, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it out for you sequentially, most excellent Theophilus, that you might acknowledge the solidity of the matters about which you have been instructed.

The translation I offer draws on previous translations, NAB and NASB in particular. For a discussion of the exegetical challenges the passage presents, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (I-IX) (AB 28; New York: Doubleday, 1981) 287-302.

How do current best-selling translations handle this passage?

It will come as no surprise that relatively literal translations in the Tyndale-Geneva-King James tradition preserve the long periodic sentence and a measure of its flowing rhythm. KJV, NKJV, NRSV, and ESV fall into this category. NASB, NAB, and NJB hew to the same stylistic register. Standard “high” translations in French (TOB), Italian (La Sacra Bibbia della CEI 2008), Spanish (Biblia del Peregrino), and German (Luther Bibel 1545) are no different.

Translations on the “functionally equivalent” side of the continuum, on the other hand, chop up the Greek into short sentences and simplify the syntax. (T)NIV, HCSB, NLT, and CEV fall into this category. To do so, I suggest, is insensitive to authorial intent. 

Doug Chaplin picks on this post here.

Comments

[J. K. Gayle]

John,
That's quite a sentence, Luke's opener is! It's certainly, rhetorically, a self-aware and self-validating prologue, which your translation demonstrates!!

In addition to the contrasts in style between Greek writers, there's the contrast in style that Luke makes that's rhetorical. In other words, after his stringy personal address comes the shorter sentences of his narrative history. The actually history starts with Ἐγένετο (another literary opener to stories and events) and continues with shorter clauses punctuated by conjoiners like καὶ, δὲ, γάρ, and such. If the English translators "chop up the Greek into short sentences and simplify the syntax" too soon, then Luke's rhetorical style itself gets lost.

Your post reminded me of something translator Tony Barnstone wrote, talking about the style of poetry and its translation:

"One translates formal poetry into English as free verse to make the reader comfortable with the translated poem, while simplifying the translator's task. But if, as Robert Frost commented, to write free verse is to play tennis without a net, then translating formal poetry into free verse is like presenting a game of dodgeball as an excellent example of professional tennis. If I were to show you a donkey hung with a placard labeling it Grevy's zebra, you would most likely laugh. After all, they're simply different animals."

http://www.cortlandreview.com/features/06/december/barnstone_e.html

[Doug Chaplin]

And., of course, you'd have to follow it up with a chapter written in Biblish to translate Luke's mimicking of the LXX. I think we're singing broadly from the same hymnsheet here. I note your request about Mark, and add it to an ever increasing list of things I might one day get round to doing.

[Lue-Yee Tsang]

To readers:

The Mark thing was originally discussed here:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2007/10/faithful-bible-.html

[JohnFH]

Kurk,

That's a lovely Barnstone quote you bring to the table. Thank you.

Doug,

I know what you mean. So many excellent projects. So little time to do them.

Lue-Yee,

Thank you for the fine blogging you do. Slowly but surely, I am indexing this site.

[Jonathan Allen]

Rick Strelan makes a detailed analysis of the same text in his "Luke the Priest" (2008, Ashgate). He posits that the opening of the gospel is written in this style to make a specific claim to interpretive authority - the author has the right to control and interpret the material he is handling. Richard Bauckham makes similar arguments in his "Jesusand the Eyewitnesses" (2006, Eerdmans).

[JohnFH]

Jonathan,

I guess that is what scholars do when they adopt a high falutin' style. It's their way of staking out a claim of authority.

[Wayne Leman]

Your translation of Luke's beginning is good, John. Appropriate style and register. It only bumped for me a bit on "sequentially" and a little more on "solidity."

[Bill]

Gibbon was an amateur, FWIW.
So was Luke, IMHO.

Just represeting my amateur homies.
;-)

[JohnFH]

Wayne,

Thanks for commenting here. It's great to know that you find most of my effort eminently readable.

I don't like "sequentially" either, but I have yet to find a satisfactory alternative.

I like the fact that "solidity" has two parts to it, that it a metaphor - the underlying Greek is like that.

Metaphors slow the reader down. They are like slow food. When it comes to reading, I do not consider "fast food" to be a virtue. I belong to the school of slow food. I realize that this makes me a European, not a North American.

[JohnFH]

Hi Bill,

The best amateurs best the pros. Always have. Always will.

[Bill]

Well then I shall strive harder. ;-)
Thanks for the encouragement.

[Dru]

I agree that translations should try as hard as is consonant with writing good English (or whatever their target language is) to convey as much of the style, register, flavour and metaphor of the source as they can. This is something I feel strongly about. Particularly, poetry should sound like poetry even if it does not rhyme.

Where it gets more difficult to balance though is where the source isn't all that easy to follow, is not very well written or is written with stylistic features that the target language does not rate very highly. Does one translate those or try and iron them out. C21 English is much less impressed by rhetorical flourishes or tolerant of rambling sentences than either C17 English or C1 Greek seem to have been.

[JohnFH]

There isn't a great deal of flowery language in the Bible, though I would say there is plenty of chivalrous speech, which has gone out of style in our day.

The language of courtesy and deference is difficult for us; no wonder recent translations of the Bible do a poor job of capturing these dimensions.

[Lue-Yee Tsang]

»Thank you for the fine blogging you do.«

Thank you for the kind words.

»Slowly but surely, I am indexing this site.«

The slow food way? ;)

[Wayne Leman]

Metaphors slow the reader down. They are like slow food. When it comes to reading, I do not consider "fast food" to be a virtue. I belong to the school of slow food. I realize that this makes me a European, not a North American.

I'm a slow eater, also, John. And I've eaten metaphors all my life, and will continue to relish them. Buon appetito!