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If you’ve been reading this blog recently you know a lot of my posts have included reflections on the Heidelberg Catechism. Part of my motivation is to honor a document that has formed generations of Christians in the Reformed tradition as it celebrates its 450th anniversary. Another part is that I’ve been very involved in my own denomination’s efforts to develop and adopt a new English translation of the Catechism.
I’ve been giving talks at various presbyteries as well as with the students at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary where I teach. Last week I was invited to record a short video that the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship could post on their website and make available for churches and presbyteries as they prepare to vote on it.
Whether you are a Presbyterian Elder and want to make an informed vote, or whether you are just curious about what that wacky tribe is up to, here’s the video on YouTube. It runs 23 minutes with brief background, discussion of key differences, and some suggestions for further study and use in faith and the church:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/CGdaXmTYDUo]
Thanks for the video – it was informative. I found it at http://www.pcusa.org news website.
One point you did not address relates to the choice to use “inclusive” language in the face of an otherwise approach toward precision. If the desire is to have a more precise translation to reflect the original language, then why was “inclusive” language used in references to God and to humankind?
If the aim was precision in translation how was it decided by the RCA/CRC translators to depart from that aim in order to reflect modern language conventions for references to God and to people? Why did the PCUSA Committtee not challenge or change that in order to reach the precision threshold?
Thanks for your comment, Thomas! Glad to have you in the conversation here.
To my recollection this issue did not come up for discussion in our PC(USA) committee, and I do not know what kind of conversations the CRC/RCA translation team had on the topic.
The answer I would give, were I charged with actually doing the translation, would be this: English language is in a constant state of change. You see the difference if you read a page of Chaucer, a page of Shakespeare, and a page of the New York Times. One way that English is changing in our time is that for many people the word “man” no longer means “humanity”. Many readers today read “man” and think “a male person.”
If a text written when my grandmother was a child said “The Gospel is for all men”, my grandmother knew she was one of the people the Gospel is for. Not necessarily so for her grandchildren, and even less likely so for her great grandchildren.
Today, in many parts of North America, to say “the Gospel is for all men” will leave half of the congregation saying “Why isn’t the Good News of Jesus for women too?” This isn’t true in every region or demographic group, but it is very common.
Now the translator has to make a choice. Imagine one is translating a text that says something like the phrase above. Imagine further that the original language has one word that does double duty, sometimes meaning “male people” and sometimes meaning “humanity in general”. The translator must ask “Is this text saying the Gospel is for all people? Or is it intending to say that the Gospel is for male people only?”
If I am convinced that the text is trying to say that the Gospel is for all people, I want my English to convey that point. If I translate this hypothetical text “The Gospel is for all people” NOBODY misses the text’s point. If I translate it “The Gospel is for all men” some people WILL miss the point.
If one thinks of “precise” translation as “word for word equivalent” the question remains: If I say “man” for a word that CAN mean “a man” but in context clearly DOES mean “a person”, then I’ve actually been imprecise.
Neither one of us has referred to any particular instances in the new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism where such choices were made, but I suspect that these principles are applicable.
In my video the issues of translation accuracy I spoke of were more about what I illustrate on questiohn 87, where the new translation presents the English meaning of the German without interpolating text that is not present in the original, and also the choices of specific theological vocabulary where the new translation carries the specific meaning of the German and the nuances of 16th century Reformed theology much better than the translation in the current Book of Confessions. If you are interested in further reading on this, see Lyle Bierma’s articles on the Catechism in the Calvin Theological Journal.