Series: Nida Lecture

A Blast from the Past: Revisiting the Manuscript Tradition as a Paradigm for Quality in Learning Biblical Languages for Bible Translation

Dr. Edgar Ebojo - United Bible Societies

The widely recognised quality assurance pillars of modern Bible translation include the components of fidelity (accuracy/faithfulness), naturalness, and acceptability.  Accordingly, it is commonly assumed that to satisfy the rigid requirements of fidelity in translation, appeal to and use of the original biblical languages have to be made as part of our translation process—which in practice actually refers to the critical text editions of Hebrew (and Greek) OT and Greek NT.  This means that our working concept of fidelity to the original biblical languages is essentially based on the scientifically reconstructed critical editions of OT and NT texts, brought about by carefully comparing and analysing surviving manuscripts of the Bible.  Hence, it is the text of these critical editions that we are patiently and deliberately learning to help us in our Bible translation task.  But how do we guarantee quality learning of biblical languages in this context?   

This presentation focuses on the biblical manuscript tradition that was handed down to us through the centuries of Scripture transmission history, which in turn had conscientiously served as the basis for the translations that our spiritual forebears subsequently produced.  Correspondingly, this paper is an integrative search for paradigms from the past derived carefully from the history-filled pages of these extant manuscripts that will hopefully help us in appreciating better the value of learning biblical languages (in this paper, inclusive of both teaching and applying biblical languages), specifically for our task of Bible translation and engagement.  In more details, we will look at the text and paratextual features of an ancient papyrus manuscript popularly known as P46—one of the earliest  and most extensive surviving manuscripts of the NT—and derive from them some paradigmatic implications for modern translation teams, as we learn the biblical languages, to ensure quality in translation.