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How have your ideas on translation changed over the years?

When I was working on my doctorate I studied linguistics, communications, and lexicography, and at the same time I took courses in anthropology, because words only have meanings in terms of the culture of which they are a part.

Language is a part of culture. Therefore, we have to understand the cultures of the New Testament period if we're going to understand what the writers were trying to say.

Some metaphors seem to be culturally bound to their original context. Others travel well to other cultures. Consider the shepherd metaphor, which has links to the Davidic kingship and to Jesus. How important is it to maintain consistency in shepherd references?

Look out, because in most of Africa, sheep are regarded as very bad animals! Goats are greatly appreciated. If a woman were exchanged for a number of goats, she would have prestige. If she were exchanged for a number of sheep, she could never live it down.

The translator, of course, cannot change all the sheep into goats and the goats into sheep. But you've got to have footnotes to explain the cultural difference. Otherwise, you're going to give an entirely wrong impression.

Animals have a different metaphorical potential in various languages. One fellow was anxious to change all the sheep to pigs because in his part of New Guinea, pigs were the important animals. (I have actually seen women in New Guinea nursing piglets.) I said, Wait a minute, because for the Old Testament, pigs were not kosher. So you've got to have a footnote explaining the cultural differences. These people are smart enough to recognize the difference.

You respect the intelligence of the reader even in nonliterate societies.

They're not stupid. Most primitive people know different cultures do things in different ways from the way they do it. They are much more adaptable than the translators. They don't worship their own particular culture as much as the missionaries worship their own English interpretation of Greek and Hebrew culture.

In fact, the smartest committee I ever worked with were five Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. Linguistically, they have a highly complicated language with tonal differences. And culturally they were extremely sophisticated. Never met with five better men in my life than in the Kalahari Desert.

We have an interesting way of testing translations. We always get somebody who's a very good reader—a local person, never a missionary—to read the translation to a group of people. We watch their eyes and especially around the mouth. If the people begin to open their mouths, you know they're understanding. If they sit there with the mouth closed, you know they don't understand.

What units of written texts carry the most meaning?

The phrase. In all communication, the context (not the individual words) has to be focused on. In semiotics and information theory, it is the context that has the most possibilities for indicating the meaning of the core element. So we try to have people understand that they've got to build context into expressions in order for key words to make sense.

Do you sometimes add context?

Of course. You may have a word like logos, which has over 70 meanings. How do you know what meaning out of 70? It's by the context. Therefore you've got to build meaning into your translation of the word logos by indicating a meaning.

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October 7 2002, Vol. 46, No. 11