I've now found on David Moore's website more information about how this translation came about. During a Radio 4 conversation (2001) about the history of humanism in European thought, the discussion moved to the work of Erasmus, who in 1516 produced his own translation of the New Testament in which he translated ‘Logos’ in John’s Gospel not as ’Word’ but as ‘Conversation’. Although at the time this was an acceptable translation, the weight of popular usage gives an impression of sole correctness of ‘logos’ as ‘word’! Moore's friend Clive Scott heard that radio programme and Moore urged him to produce a translation of John 1 with Erasmus in mind.
Clive Scott writes:
"I can hear some people saying that this is a paraphrase and not a translation. But I would dispute that. A paraphrase in this context is a 'filling out' of the traditional interpretation (translation) to try and cope with the transition from the Greek of the traditional interpretation into English.
But this is not what I have attempted to do here. I have taken the premise that logos is to be understood as 'conversation' and then listened to the Greek in the light of that. It puts a different slant on everything. If the original readers heard 'conversation', what would they then go on to hear? Now put that into English. That is translation.
The first translators into English heard the Church Fathers (and their Greek Philosophy), and put that into English, most translations, if not all, build on that.
We value the translation “Logos as Word”, because that dealt with the Jewish/Greek listening. The two translations need to be heard in stereo!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime.
No comments:
Post a Comment