Month: January 2014

Urchristentum, Primitive Christianity, and Early Christianity

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In the first post of this blog, I discussed my reasons for translating Wissenschaft/wissenschaftlich as “science/scientific” in my 2013 translation of From Jesus to the New Testament and as “scholarship/scholarly” in my forthcoming translation (with Brian Pounds) of Jesus of Nazareth: Jew from Galilee—Savior of the World, both by Jens Schröter. While it is possible that I will continue to vary my translation of this term on a case by case basis, I think that I will most likely make a general shift in the direction of “scholarship/scholarly” in future translations, i.e., toward a translation that gives greater priority to the conventional language pattern of the target language. In this post, by contrast, I will discuss a case in which my thinking has moved in the opposite direction.

From the very first time that I read German works in translation it had annoyed me to read the words “primitive Christianity”. In short, the negative connotations of “primitive” always struck me as problematic and unnecessary. Accordingly, I never seriously considered employing these words as a translation for “Urchristentum” in my translation of From Jesus to the New Testament. Instead, my initial plan was to translate this phrase as “earliest Christianity”, which would allow me to maintain a distinction between “Urchristentum” and “Frühchristentum”. Upon further consideration, however, I settled on “early Christianity” for both terms, regarding the desire to maintain a distinction between them as less important than the priority of readability. While this approach seemed quite sensible at the time, I have subsequently changed my mind for two reasons. In fact, against my earlier inclinations I have decided to translate Urchristentum as “primitive Christianity”. What changed my mind?

First, I came across John Bowden’s translator’s note at the beginning of his translation of Gerd Theissen’s work Die Religion der ersten Christen: Eine Theorie der urchristlichen Religion (2000/2009), which was published by SCM as A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion (1999) and by Fortress Press as The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World (1999). Bowden’s note convinced me that the meaning of “Urchristentum” was not adequately conveyed with translations such as “early Christianity”, “earliest Christianity”, or “nascent Christianity”. This note reads as follows:

“One aspect of this translation calls for comment, namely the way in which I have chosen to render the words Urchristentum and urchristlich which occur so often in this book. I recognize that many New Testament scholars regard ‘primitive’ as a ‘taboo’ adjective to apply to Christianity. However, I have discussed the question at length with friends who are expert in this field, both in Britain and in Germany, and they have confirmed me in the conviction that there is no other possible translation. ‘Ur-‘ does not mean ‘early’ or ‘earliest’ or ‘nascent’ or ‘in the making’, even if such terms are commonly used. It is a far richer term. ‘Primitive may not be the ideal rendering, but I hope that readers will agree that it does the job effectively.”

(For my own memories of John Bowden’s advice for translators, see here)

Secondly, a passage from my current BMSEC translation project, namely Christoph Markschies’ book Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen (Christian Theology and its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire) strengthened my conviction that it was necessary for the translator to maintain a clear distinction between “Urchristentum/primitive Christianity” and “Frühchristentum/early Christianity”. In short, through Markschies’ work I became aware of the fact that there has been extensive discussion within German scholarship about the connotations and appropriateness of the term Urchristentum, with some scholars arguing that this term should be  replaced by alternatives such as or “Frühchristentum/early Christianity” (S. Alkier) or “frühe Christentümer/early Christianities” (F. Vouga). Markschies himself contributes especially to the question of whether it is preferable to speak of “Christianity” or “Christianities” in relation to the findings of the second and third centuries (see p. 6 and pp. 337-383).

In relation to the term “Urchristentum”, Markschies (p. 5) observes that Francois Vouga (Geschichte des frühen Christentums, p. 13) has raised two objections against the use of this term: 1) it is said to imply “the equation of beginning and nature and the falling apart of truth and history” and 2) it is also said to contain “the idea of a degeneration of an original unity into groupings and heresies that are independent of one another”, which is viewed as untenable after Walter Bauer’s work. Moreover, Markschies notes that Stefan Alkier has both carefully traced the ideological implications of this term in his 1993 book Urchristentum. Zur Geschichte und Theologie einer exegetischen Disziplin (pp. 5-254!), and argued that the term “Urchristentum/primitive Christianity” should be abandoned in favor of the alternative term “Frühchristentum/early Christianity” (261-266). On the other hand, Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer have explicitly challenged the validity of Alkier’s line of argumentation (Jesus und Judentum, p. 5n. 8).

Against the background of this extensive discussion around the connotations and appropriateness of the term “Urchristentum” within the German language sphere, it now seems essential to me that translators not only translate “Urchristentum” in such a manner that it is clearly distinguished from “Frühchristentum”, but also that we render it in such a way that it reflects something of the nuance of meaning that has given rise to such debates about its appropriateness. And with this in mind, it seems to me that “primitive Christianity”, despite its shortcomings, comes closest to achieving these goals. This does not necessarily mean that Vouga’s analysis of the implications of the term is correct or normative. And it certainly does not mean that a given German author is necessarily using the word “Urchristentum” to imply what Vouga suggests the term implies, since some German authors may simply alternate between “Frühchristentum” and “Urchristentum” for reasons of style. But it does mean that unless the German author clarifies that “early Christianity” is the force that is intended throughout, the translation should reflect the word choice of the German version, so that the possibility of a difference in meaning and connotation may be considered by the English reader. This doesn’t, however, necessarily mean that it was a bad decision for Fortress Press to revise Bowden’s initial translation of the title of Theissen’s work, for one of the most important aims of a publisher is to sell books, and it makes sense to conform the wording of a book’s title to the speech conventions of the target audience if this is likely to improve sales, even if this should not always be done with the work itself.

Appendix: for the relevance of this question for translation, consider the following sentence from Kaiserzeitliche christliche Theologie und ihre Institutionen/Christian Theology and its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire (p. 76/p. ?): “Über ur- und frühchristlicher Lehrer und die Unterschiede zwischen beiden Gruppen sind ausführliche Monographien und detaillierte Aufsätze geschrieben worden”/”Comprehensive monographs and detailed articles have been written about primitive and early Christian teachers and the differences between the two groups”.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.

 

Always Choose the Stronger Word and Beware of False Friends: A Translator’s Memories of Martin Hengel (1926-2009) and John Bowden (1935-2010)

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Reflections

As a way of marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it seemed appropriate to attempt my first post in the category of “reflections”. For the most part, these will be related to German New Testament scholarship, though I may deviate from this plan now and then. In this post, I will simply share a few memories that I have of Martin Hengel and John Bowden, two of which bear directly on the task and challenges of translation.

Martin Hengel

Although I participated in one of Hengel’s block seminars during my studies in Tübingen, it was only later, during the time of my PhD, that I had the opportunity to speak with him at greater length. Two memories have stuck with me from these conversations.

As someone who struggled deeply to complete his PhD, I remember especially well the helpful advice that Hengel gave me about writing a PhD (even if I can’t remember if we were speaking in German or English or the extent to which my resulting memory reflects his words or my paraphrase of what he said):

1) Sit down and write your dissertation;

2) Make a selection of the most important works from the secondary literature, and give priority to the full range of relevant primary sources;

3) The real art of a scholar resides in the ability to improve what s/he has written.

(For further reflection on these points, see my discussion of them in the PhD section of my document “A Roadmap for Aspiring New Testament Scholars”.)

My second memory comes from a series of discussions that I had with Hengel concerning my translation of his contribution to Graham Stanton’s Festschrift, The Written Gospel, namely “Eye-Witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels.” I had dutifully completed my first draft translation, marking in workmanlike fashion the many passages and words for which I sought his advice. Coming to the first word in question, I tentatively asked him whether he thought this word or that word was more appropriate for his purposes. Leaning forward slightly, he said to me: “Always choose the stronger word; this, you see, is a polemical essay” (since I can’t remember if we were speaking in English or German, I remain very uncertain about the extent to which this represents an exact quotation of what was actually said). This exchange, I think, captured well one of the most striking features of Hengel’s character: he was a fighter, at least when it came to convictions that he held deeply. And I think that much good came from this polemical forcefulness, even if I also think that it sometimes became unwieldy and unhelpful. For me, however, it also shed some light on the task of translation. In short, the translator should make at least some attempt to capture the tone of a work, which may indeed mean “always choosing the stronger word”.

For further reflections on Martin Hengel’s life and work, see esp. my translation of his essay “A Young Theological Discipline in Crisis” in Earliest Christian History (cf. e.g., Larry Hurtado 1 and Michael Bird) and Roland Deines’ heavily documented essay in this same volume. See also e.g. Roland Deines, John Dickson, Larry Hurtado 2, David Neff, Daniel B. Wallace, and The Telegraph.

For my other blog posts on Martin Hengel, see here.

John Bowden

I remain uncertain of the exact occasion when I met John Bowden, but I believe that it was at the commemoration of Martin Hengel’s 80th birthday in Cambridge. Two points have stuck with me from our conversation, and I hope that I will succeed in passing them both along, especially the first!

At the outset of our conversation I said something like, “It’s a great honor for me to meet you Dr. Bowden”. Unfortunately, I pronounced the “Bow” in “Bowden” as if it rhymed with “Now” or “Cow”, whereas it actually rhymes with “Snow” or “Know”. And accordingly, he responded by saying something like “It’s Bowden not Bowden, but that’s ok, you get to say it wrong once, but only once.” And I have been correcting people’s pronunciation of his name ever since.

After this somewhat awkward start, we then had a very enjoyable conversation about translation. Among other things, he shared with me how he had begun by translating words as the unit of translation, and then moved on to sentences, and then to paragraphs (I am mostly still on words, I’m afraid). But it was another tip that made a deeper impression on me, namely his warning that “false friends” are the greatest danger to the translator, by which he meant that there are sometimes words that are the same (or similar) in two different languages but have rather different meanings. For example, the translator may make a slip and translate “Art” as “art” (instead of “kind/sort/type”) or “sensibel” as “sensible” (instead of “sensitive”). For it is one thing to say that your friend is sensibel (sensitive) and quite another to say s/he is sensible (vernünftig), though s/he may, of course, be both.

For further reflections on John Bowden’s life and work, see e.g., Robert Morgan, Robin Baird-Smith, Jim West, Mark Goodacre, and The Telegraph.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

Facebook Page: To receive notifications of future blog posts, please subscribe to this blog and/or like my facebook page here.

German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.

Constructing History with Droysen and Jens Schröter

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German Mondays

In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I have decided to commit myself to making one post each Monday. Hopefully, I will be able to stick to this plan and it will prove a good way to start the week for me and for others.

Model Sentences

In my last post I commented on the phrase “Es geht um” and the words “Wissenschaft/wissenschaftlich” under the category of “words and phrases”. In this post, I wish to introduce the category of “model sentences”, which will involve an English translation of a German sentence (or several German sentences) that I regard as especially insightful or important as well as a concise grammatical commentary and perhaps some critical analysis. In some cases, I will select these sentences from works that I have translated or am translating, but I also want to invite my readers to submit German sentences that they regard as especially important or insightful. For instructions on doing so, see here.

Constructing History with Droysen with Jens Schröter (pp. 25-26; cf. # 2 on p. 31).

As a number of bloggers (see C. Keith 1, M. Skinner, A. Le Donne, L. Hurtado, C. Keith 2, C. Keith 3) have indicated in their responses to the publication of Jens Schröter’s work From Jesus to the New Testament, this book is especially important for its discussion of the relationship between new developments in historiography and New Testament scholarship. In my own view, it is important not only because of the specific perspectives that Schröter himself advances, but also for the way in which he develops these in relation to earlier phases of (German) research (cf. Schröter’s own assessment on p. xi), especially in chapters 1-4. Here, Schröter’s sustained engagement with Johann Gustav Droysen’s work is particularly important (see esp. pp. 11-12 and 22-32). Accordingly, my first “model sentence” will be taken from a section in which Schröter attempts to show how more recent developments in historiography have moved beyond Droysen. I will first provide the quotation in English and then in German, so that my grammatical commentary directly follows the German quotation.

From Jesus to the New Testament, p. 26: “Rather, the occupation with the historical material represents from the beginning an interpretative, meaning-creating activity that does not first begin, as it still does in Droysen’s conception, after the steps of the heuristic and criticism. Rather, the hermeneutical process must be defined more comprehensively than is the case with Droysen: the selection of the sources and their critical analysis are already interpretive activities and thus constituent parts of historical knowing.”

Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament, p. 28: „Die Beschäftigung mit dem historischen Material stellt vielmehr von Beginn an eine interpretierende, sinnstiftende Tätigkeit dar, die nicht erst, wie noch in Droysens Entwurf, nach den Schritten der Heuristik und Kritik einsetzt. Der hermeneutische Prozess ist vielmehr umfassender zu bestimmen, als dies bei Droysen der Fall ist: Bereits die Auswahl der Quellen sowie ihre kritische Analyse sind interpretierende Tätigkeiten und damit Bestandteile des historischen Erkennens.“

Vocabulary Help

“Beschäftigung” can sometimes be translated as “occupation”, but “engagement” is often better. “Vielmehr” can often be translated as “rather” or “instead”, though it sometimes has the force of “to a greater degree”. The most difficult word is “Entwurf”, which I have almost always rendered as “conception” in From Jesus to the New Testament (I hope to devote a blog post to this word in the future).

Grammatical Analysis

As a general rule, remember that the order of German phrases follows the acronym TeCaMoLo (Time, Cause, Mode, Location). Any element, though, can be in the first position, whereas the verb always appears in the second position. Here, the subject stands in the first position, namely “Die Beschäftigung mit dem historischen Material”. Since“mit/with” takes the dative we find “dem Material”. When a verb has two parts, part of it is placed in the second position (stellt) and part of its goes to the end (dar). Here, the compound verb is darstellen, which can often be translated as “present” or “represent”, though “portray” is also a good option in many contexts. “Von Beginn an/from the beginning” comes next, as one would expect since it concerns time (Te). The direct object of darstellen is “eine interpretierende, sinnstiftende Tätigkeit”: “eine Tätigkeit/an activity” is the noun, which is modified by the participles “interpretierende” and “sinnstiftende”. Though I was originally translating the former as “interpreting”, I subsequently decided that this was too wooden (at the prompting of Ron Herms) and settled on “interpretive”, whereas I adopted the awkward solution “meaning-creating” for “sinnstiftende” since it was not desirable to transform this participle into a relative clause here. A relative clause is then introduced by “die”, which is feminine singular because it looks back to “Tätigkeit” and nominative since it functions as the subject of the relative clause. Because it is part of a relative clause, the verb einsetzt moves to the end of the sentence. The construction “ist … zu + verb” in the next sentence is always difficult to render. While the wooden solution “is to be defined” is sometimes preferable, it is usually better to adopt translation options such as “must be defined”, “has to be defined,” or “should be defined”. The use of the comparative “umfassender + als” signals a comparison and the verb “ist“ moves again to the end of the subordinate clause. It is probably best to leave “dies” untranslated. In English, it often works best to translate “Bereits/already” with the verb. “Sowie” can sometimes be rendered with “as well as” but “and” is often better. “Damit” is always very hard to render: often it is best to leave it untranslated, but sometimes it can be conveyed well with “thus”, “with this”, or “thereby”. The infinitive “erkennen” has been transformed into a noun (“Erkennen”) by being capitalized, and the “s” together with “des” lets you know it is genitive.

Substantive Analysis

While I will usually forgo a substantive analysis of my model sentences or keep my comments to a minimum, I will be happy if people wish to tackle this (more important) topic for conversation in their comments. As I see it, Schröter’s point here is that while Droysen represented an advance over many of his peers insofar as he had a heightened awareness of the crucial role that was played by the interpretive activity of the historian for some decisive aspects of the historical task, his successors have taken this insight further by stressing that the entire process of constructing a conception of history is shaped by the historian’s interpretive activity.

For my other Schröter posts on historiography, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

Facebook Page: To receive notifications of future blog posts, please subscribe to this blog and/or like my facebook page here.

German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.

 

Es geht um die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

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Since much of my time is spent grappling with issues of German translation, I have decided that it might be helpful to me to start a blog on this topic, with the hope that it might also prove useful to others who are seeking to read or translate German New Testament scholarship. It is difficult for me to predict the exact shape that it might take, but I suspect that this blog will focus on the translation of various German words, phrases, and sentences. And perhaps it will sometimes include sentences concerning which I am badly lost or stuck between multiple options. For this initial post, I want to comment briefly on the expression “Es geht um” and the translation of “Wissenschaft/wissenschaftlich“.

I often find it difficult to translate the phrase Es geht um, as in Es geht um die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. Options that I have adopted include “The concern is with New Testament scholarship”, “It is a matter of New Testament scholarship”, and “What is at issue is New Testament scholarship”. Often, however, I adopt the translation “We are dealing with New Testament scholarship”, which is less close to the German wording but seems to read a bit better in many contexts. And sometimes I basically drop the idiom and simply translate: “This is New Testament scholarship” if other options seem too cumbersome or unnecessary.

In my view, the translation of “Wissenschaft/wissenschaft” is much more difficult. Most translators render Wissenschaft and wissenschaftlich with “scholarship” and “scholarly”. I think there is much to be said for this solution, since it conveys with reasonable accuracy the force of the German term and since it accords especially well with the target language. Hence, I have also adopted this solution in my forthcoming (2014) translation (with Brian Pounds) of Jens Schröter’s book Jesus of Nazareth: Jew from Galilee—Savior of the World, with the rationale that this translation probably works best for the broad audience that is intended. For my 2013 translation of Schröter’s book From Jesus to the New Testament, however, I chose to translate these terms as “science” and “scientific” for two reasons. First, I think that the translation “scholarship/scholarly” is less loaded or strong than the German term Wissenschaft, and secondly I think the common use of Wissenschaft for a wide range of disciples, such as Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Geschichtswissenschaft, Literaturwissenschaft, Naturwissenschaften, etc. conveys a claim to a commonality or similarity among different disciplines that is worth retaining in a multidisciplinary work such as From Jesus to the New Testament. On the one hand, I can understand well that others may not agree with this decision, since the translation “science/scientific” is somewhat awkward and potentially misleading from the perspective of the target language. On the other hand, I think one of the most important principles of translation is that it is not usually a choice between a perfect translation and a bad translation but between multiple options that excel and fall short in different ways, and in my judgment the balance favored “science” over “scholarship” in this case. For further discussion of this point, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

Facebook Page: To receive notifications of future blog posts, please subscribe to this blog and/or like my facebook page here.

German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.