I want to start off with a general disclaimer–the field of translation is vast and complex, and the theories about how to do it and why are equally diverse. Scripture translation is one of the most difficult specialties in translation because of the unique nature of the source text, so I just tried to give some general and high-level answers hitting the main points above. I’d love to be able to talk about each of the points in a lot more detail, but didn’t because of time or in some cases because I’m not authorized to talk about the particulars. Sorry. (But also sometimes because it’s just too hard to explain in a blog. If I ever have the chance to meet any of you in person I will be happy to say more about these things when I can just talk…)

As mentioned above, I spent a lot of time as a freelance translator before working for the Church–translating legal, medical, and educational material from German, Russian, and Icelandic into English–and have a fair amount of experience with literary translations–Old Norse into English–as welI as some limited “scripture” translation (apart from my work for the Church)–Middle High German Bible fragments into English. Because of this I have some very specific ideas about certain translation theories and philosophies and when to apply them–when I’m doing my own translations–but when I’m working in my capacity as senior linguist in scripture translation support for the Church, I am bound to follow “company policy” which I feel I explain pretty well in my answers in Parts 2 and 3 below. Having said that, I must also say that I am fully convinced of the efficacy of what the Church understands as literal translation (for scriptures), and will try to give some concrete examples below.

Now to answer a few of the questions above.

Regarding the timing of work on the Spanish Bible versus the triple–there was a plan proposed to work simultaneously on the Bible and the triple, but direction was given to concentrate on the Bible first and make sure we’d given full and complete attention to it (being the first LDS edition of the Bible in another language besides English). Also, there was a proposal in place to do an extensive revision of the triple and it was felt that there would not be time to finish that before the Bible was ready (which turned out to be the case). So we published the Spanish Bible when it was ready and then started in on the revision of the triple and had finished preliminary work when the 2013 updates were approved, so we went back and added those in, too, and now have both the updated triple and a slightly corrected Bible ready in Spanish. It’s already on the web, and a quad will be on shelf in the next several months.

Regarding the difference between translation and interpretation–In my response I am talking about “interpretation” as exegesis–explaining what the source text means so that translators can (hopefully) reproduce the full and complete meaning of the original. And yes, we have done some limited work in “chain translation” where translators were not able to access either the source text or translation support material in English–so for example there has been some translation done from both Spanish and French into secondary target languages (like Kekchi in Guatemala and Tshiluba in DR Congo, respectively). But there is also a difference between “translation” as an effort to transmit meaning between languages using the written word and “interpretation” as an effort to transmit meaning between languages using the spoken word (like what happens at General Conference). There is an entire section in our division that works with interpreting events.

And yes, Rosalynde, your assessment of why we did what we did to the Almeida is fair. I will say more in Parts 2 and 3 about both what we are trying to do by attempting to “replicate the experience of the English-speaking reader” and about the Church’s continued reliance on the KJV.

One last comment for today–Rosalynde picked out a great example that shows the tension between trying to maintain a literal translation and making one that is acceptable to the target reader with her comment on the Phoebe/deacon issue. Over my years working with translators I have found that I can only push certain things so far, both with ecclesiastical reviewers and with the General Authorities approving certain things. In this case let’s just say we pushed as hard as we could for concordance with the source text, but were overruled by others’ desires for what was judged to be acceptable to the target language speakers. I will try to say more about this in later answers, too.

Thanks again to all for your time and interest.

–Tod Harris

I detest reading modern practices into ancient texts and I think there is a persuasive case to be made that NT documents reflect a far more expansive view of women’s authority than modern LDS practice/belief . . . but I don’t know that this translation is a problem.

My instinct here would be to choose a word that I could use in both 15:8 and 16:1 to make the link between Jesus’ work and Phoebe’s work clear; “minister” is a good choice in English. Conveniently for modern LDS, “minister” suggests an office but doesn’t perfectly align with any LDS office and thus, I think, creates an ambiguity which appropriately reflects the situation. One concern that I do have with the Spanish Bible rendering is that the phrasing (“gives service”) completely eliminated the possibility that it is describing an office for Phoebe; ideally, that possibility would have been left in. However, I don’t know enough Spanish to know if there is a Spanish word that could represent that possibility, so they may have made the best choice possible.

WOW! I guess literal translation went by the wayside there in favor of an interpretation that accords with present-day LDS practice.

Anybody want to defend that particular change? Is there a more legitimate reason why that wording might have been changed?

http://byustudies.byu.edu/content/santa-biblia-latter-day-saint-bible-spanish

I’m also struck by the “conservative revision” of the Portuguese Almeida Bible. It sounds as if the goal was to update only the bare minimum to make the text readable for modern audiences, leaving the archaic mood and cadence intact. Presumably this is done to replicate the English-speaking experience of reading the KJV, which is taken to be the normative scripture reading experience. Tod, would you say that’s a fair assessment?

Athena, I will keep your request in mind. I’m your opposite: I much prefer the speed of reading a post over the (for me, painfully slow) pace of a podcast. But I know you are not alone in your love of the podcast format! We will keep the request in mind as we consider future directions for the blog.

El Oso, I believe that Tod will be available this week to answer questions. I think the answer to yours, though, is that after the Spanish Bible was ready, new updates to the English scriptures were released, which then needed to be propagated through all the other language editions. It didn’t make sense to issue a Spanish quad when the triple was about to updated. But the Portuguese Bible was finished about the same time as the updates were made to the triple, thus it made sense to issue it as a quad.

John, I hope Tod will be able to respond to your question this week — do check back!

B) It’s not a mechanical shortcut for known languages like Google Translate, you troll.