For some time now I have been wanting to announce the good news of the launching of a new open access journal on ethics, especially as readers of this blog can take advantage of the opportunity to practice their language skills by comparing the German and English versions of the opening editorial! For another recent open access gem, see here.
In this post, I will first pass on a brief description of the new journal and then provide a translation of a German excerpt with a brief grammatical analysis. Since one of the things that I like about the journal is the inclusion of theses for discussion, I have selected an excerpt from Raphaela J. Meyer zu Hörste-Bührer‘s theses on the significance of the biblical texts for ethical work.
I. JEAC
The newly founded international open access journal “Journal of Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity (JEAC)” (available at www.jeac.de) provides a platform for specialized research in ancient ethics with a particular focus on its impact and interdependence with the development of Christian ethics. It attempts to establish a dialogue between biblical, classical, Judaistic and patristic research on the one hand, and philosophical and theological approaches on the other. Thus, the journal opens up opportunities for interaction between the ethical traditions of antiquity – including the origins of Christian ethics – and current ethical discourses. The journal is edited and published by the research center “Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity“ (www.ethikmainz.de) at Mainz university.
The first issue, out now, is dedicated to the reflection on the hermeneutical challenges of the venture itself, and features essays and articles by Jan Assmann, William Schweiker, John J. Collins, Adela Yarbro Collins, Robert Brawley, Wolfram Kinzig, and Christoph Jedan. The second issue will look at the role of emotion in ancient and contemporary ethics. Further open issues are planned, and contributions are welcome. In addition to peer reviewed essays and articles, the journal has a „dialogue-„section, one for reviews and miscellae, and encourages contributions on ethical theories and issues in antiquity and the present.
II. Raphaela J. Meyer zu Hörste-Bühre on the Biblical Texts as an Element of the Relation between God and Humans (cf. here)
German text: Sofern man eine Geistwirkung in der Entstehung, Redaktion, Tradierung, Kanonisierung, weiteren Überlieferung und Rezeption der Texte nicht ausschließt, lassen sich die biblischen Texte in zweifacher Hinsicht als Element der Relation zwischen Gott und Menschen verstehen: Einerseits haben sie die Relation zum Inhalt, andererseits sind sie selbst Produkt der Relation.
ET: As long as we do not rule out an activity of the Spirit in the emergence, redaction, traditioning, canonization, further handing down and reception of the texts, the biblical texts can be understood in two respects as an element of the relation between God and humans: On the one hand, they have this relation as their content; on the other hand, they are themselves a product of this relation.
Grammatical analysis: Although this is a clearly written sentence, it presents several difficulties for the translator. 1) I sometimes struggle to determine the precise force of “Sofern” – here I think “as long as” might capture the sense better than “insofar as”; 2) Geisteswirkung presents several problems; first, the translator must determine the meaning of Geist – here I think it means Spirit rather than spirit or something like mind; second, one must capture the force of Wirkung – here I am not sure if it is something like “impact” or “influence” or more durative such as “activity,” but I think the latter is probably best; 3) while I have translated “man … nicht ausschließt” with “we do not exclude”, I often render this construction by making it passive, i.e. “an activity … is not excluded in …” – but it seemed best to keep the active voice here; 4) Tradierung is challenging – I went with “traditioning”, partly because I used handing down later in the sentence and because it seemed desire to keep the term tradition in play, though something like “passing on” might have worked; 5) Unfortunately, I am not sure if weiteren goes with Überlieferung only or with both Überlieferung and Rezeption – depending on how it works, it should probably rendered either with a) and further handing down and reception” or with b) “further handing down, and reception”; 6) German authors have the option of not using an article, i.e. of writing als Element rather than als das Element or als ein Element, whereas it sounds a rather awkward in English to write “as element of the” – here “as an element of” seems best to me; the same issue arises with “Produkt”. 7) lassen sich … verb can usually be rendered with “can be x-ed”; 8) although the German text just uses the article – die Relation / der Relation – it seemed to me that it has anaphoric force, and I have therefore rendered it with “this relation”.
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German for Neutestamentler 