In other words I'm interested in discussing: How recent or how ancient does a Bible translation sound?
One of the reasons I ask is to follow up again (already followed up briefly here) on a postscript from my second blog post where I said:
The question of the first Bible translations in modern speech will of course depend on one's definition of "modern" and "modern language." Suffice to say here (other posts will pick it up) the King James Version (1611) simply consolidated (revised) the earlier 16th century Bibles and avoided modern speech in preference for archaic speech--it was not (contrary to misconceptions) either a completely "new" translation, nor was it a "modern language" versionThat is, the King James Version chose to use archaic mid-sixteenth century language (mid 1500s English) rather than contemporary English. One reason was that the translators were attempting to produce a single version out of the many sixteenth century English versions:
Truly (good Christian Reader) wee never thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, (for then the imputation of Sixtus had bene true in some sort, that our people had bene fed with gall of Dragons in stead of wine, with whey in stead of milke:) but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath bene our indeavour, that our marke.But in creating a 'single version' by using old-fashioned English, the translators are doing something quite different to what Tyndale did. It's not that they differed much from Tyndale's version at all. But Tyndale's English was more contemporary at the time he translated. So the result of the KJV's use of Tyndalian English would seem to suggest that a Bible translation should sound archaic, right from the very time it comes off the press.
So how old should a Bible translation sound?
I have also pondered (from a Christian perspective) whether a translation of the Hebrew scriptures should be made to seem/sound 'older' than the way the Greek New Testament is translated...given that a Christian approach to the Older Testament develops from first century (Christian) readings of OT texts. I cannot fully bring myself to accept that approach. It would be a kind of anachronistic approach (the OT Scriptures were not Christian scriptures prior to the first century). Yet the different Testaments need some kind of coordinated attempt to explain the different approaches to their reading audiences.
For example, although the NRSV translated the Greek ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as the formal and stilted 'The Son of Man' the translators went with a less literal mode for OT verses that mention בַ֥ר אֱנָ֖שׁ ('Son of Man' in Aramaic) and בֶּן־אָדָ֔ם ('Son of Man' in Hebrew) and instead translated these as 'Mortal'. It could be that the NRSV translators had particular reasons for this, or that the translation approaches differed between the OT and NT.
A related question is the given perceptions of the source language in relation to how the target translation might/should sound... should something translated from biblical Hebrew sound like it was translated from a more archaic language (more exotic?) than texts translated from Koine Greek? If so, how obvious would the results of such translation need to be?
I would be interested in what other people have to say about these questions.
