Love lost in translation - a possible source for substantial debate

The Church Times carries reports of Bishops seeking to show regret for how "divisive" the House of Bishops' pastoral statement on same-sex marriage had been.

The article says that the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, has described the statement, which he signed a fortnight ago, as "Anglican fudge". While the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, issued a very carefully worded and pastorally appropriate letter to clergy in his diocese on Wednesday.

Bishop Pritchard also said that he accepted most people would not change their minds during the facilitated conversations recommended by the Pilling Report. This, it seems to me, is a key aspect of what is at the heart of the current impasse on this issue; the processes of dialogue that have been and are being initiated are not resulting in greater understanding of the issue because most participants enter the dialogue from entrenched positions. At the heart of this is our differing understandings of scripture and the reality that, for all the excellent biblical and theological work that has been done on the issue in recent years, this has not, to date, succeeded in moving the dialogue onto more constructive ground.

This is, in part, because much of that work does not seem to have been given prominence in the formal dialogue processes which the Church of England and the Anglican Communion has been using but also because that work has not perhaps, to date, been widely seen as sufficiently robust biblically to challenge the current and traditional consensus. Renato Lings' Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible seems to me to be a substantial contribution to this issue around which substantial debate could occur.

Lings has posted a summary of the main findings of the book on his website but the detail and thoroughness of his Biblical analysis mean that this is a book that must be read and not simply read about:

"For decades, a painful controversy about same-sex relationships has rocked Christian churches, and no solution is in sight. Frequently the Bible is quoted. In response to this crisis, this exciting new book systematically examines the biblical stories and passages that are generally assumed to deal with, or comment on, homoerotic relationships: Noah and Ham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Judges 19, Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10, and the letter of Jude.

Love Lost in Translation documents how mistranslations of these texts into Greek, Latin and other languages occurred early, and how serious errors are committed by translators today ... The book proposes a fresh approach to translating the Bible by means of linguistic and literary criteria. The method enables readers to discover the amazing literary sophistication, psychological insights and spiritual depth of the Bible."

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The Danielson Famile - We Don't Say Shut Up.

Love lost in translation

My retreat reading has been Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible by the Quaker scholar Renato Lings:

'For decades, a painful controversy about same-sex relationships has rocked Christian churches, and no solution is in sight. Frequently the Bible is quoted. In response to this crisis, this exciting new book systematically examines the biblical stories and passages that are generally assumed to deal with, or comment on, homoerotic relationships: Noah and Ham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Judges 19, Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10, and the letter of Jude.

Love Lost in Translation documents how mistranslations of these texts into Greek, Latin and other languages occurred early, and how serious errors are committed by translators today. Biased translations make biased theology. The book proposes a fresh approach to translating the Bible by means of linguistic and literary criteria. The method enables readers to discover the amazing literary sophistication, psychological insights and spiritual depth of the Bible. The final chapter of Love Lost in Translation provides a detailed discussion of biblical texts with life-affirming visions of same-sex love.'

This wonderfully well written, fascinating, detailed, apposite and illuminating book was particularly relevant reading, given the House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage issued at the weekend.

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Jesus and Mary Chain - God Help Me.

Logos as Word and Conversation

A significant number of my posts have been on conversation as a theological theme and as a frame for understanding both the content and structure of the Bible. Many of these posts have referred to a translation/paraphrase of the Prologue to John's Gospel which I came across in a Methodist report entitled Time to Talk of God.

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!"

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Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime.