Lost in translation

At the end of each chapter in The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, there is a set of questions for reflection and discussion. One of the questions at the end of the second chapter is:

Why is the gap between the earliest extant copies of the Hebrew Bible and their time of composition significant? How can we be sure that surviving manuscripts accurately represent the work of their authors? What commonly happens to a document during the long process of copying, editing, and transmitting the text?

The gap between the earliest extant copies of the Hebrew Bible and their time of composition is troubling for many reasons. As the text states on pages 19-20, “our knowledge of the Tanak’s formation and transmission is severely limited by the fact that not a single scrap of any biblical writer’s original composition has survived. Many centuries separate the time in which the older parts of the Hebrew were written from that in which the earliest extant copies were made. The great chronological gap between a given book’s date of composition and the oldest version we have of it is significant because it is during a document’s earliest stages of copying and transmission, before it acquires the status of recognized scripture, that the text is most fluid, subject to editorial additions, deletions, and other changes … In the earliest stages of transmission, many ancient scribes apparently also acted as editors, adding explanatory phrases, or otherwise modifying the text to reflect the covenant community’s ever-changing circumstances. Many editorial changes were minor, mere errors in copying, but others produced notable differences in content … Because neither the author’s original text nor copies made soon after a book first appeared survive, it is impossible to determine the full extent to which later copies differ from the writer’s original version.”

One area of conflict between Muslims and Christians, for example, is the Muslim belief that the Bible is not the word of God as there are likely a number of items that were compromised by human involvement. Where the Bible and Koran differ, the Koran should serve as the definitive source (according to Muslims) since it is a “direct transmission” from God (through Muhammad). This is, of course, what we all care about – the “direct transmission” from God – not a modified or editorialized version based on human biases or limitations. We’ll likely never know the full truth, however (at least not while we are on this Earth). Even with new editions of the Bible (like the NRSV) going back to many of the earliest sources, we’re still not working off the truly “original sources”. Also, as the text points out, “language changes over time and words lose their original meanings and take on new connotations” (page 28). Therefore, we can’t be totally certain how the original text should be interpreted in a modern context. Also, some words or phrases do not translate perfectly from one language to another. In the preface to the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, the author’s grandson bemoans the enormous difficulty translators face in trying to express the exact meaning of a text in a different language (page 24):

For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this book [Ecclesiasticus], but even the Law [Torah] itself, the Prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little when read in the original.

Here's one personal example of meaning changing slightly (but meaningfully) in transmission from one version to another. We just had a board of directors meeting at work and prepared a modified version of our company P&L that showed the relative profitability of each line of business. When we asked the CFO what the BOD thought of the analysis, he stated that they were "very interested" in it. When someone else asked one of my co-workers the same question, he said that the BOD "liked" it. The restated version (while mostly correct) is materially different from the original version - but it's very easy for these changes to creep into the historical record and cause people to form very different judgments than they might have otherwise form given a full understanding of the true reality.