The Ethics of Word Choice in Bible Translation: A Socio-Scientific Approach

Bible translators often have to choose between ‘foreign’ borrowings and ‘domestic’ phrases or terms. This can be a difficult choice as both approaches have advantages. Venuti, who came up with ‘foreignizing’ & ‘domesticating’ translations, preferred the former: 1) the translator should respect the source text, and 2) it is good to let a translation retain the foreignness of the original text as an issue of transparency. Therefore, a foreignizing translation is arguably more ethical than a domesticating one. The problem with foreignizing translations is that they carry negative connotations. They imply that the receptor language lacks the necessary vocabulary to express certain ideas. They also rely on having church leaders who are able to explain such foreign terms. One might think, therefore, that a postcolonial approach to translation would encourage translators to use ‘domestic’ terms, but that is not always the case. The example of badimo ‘ancestral spirit’ to translate δαίμων ‘demon’ in the Setswana translation, for example, is seen by Musa Dube as planting cultural time bombs in the translation. The issue is yet more complex: words and phrases point to ideas, and in this case the domain within which those ideas work is one of ancestor veneration. Without a good grasp of how this works in Setswana society, the translation team is not likely to come up with a good equivalent for δαίμων. In this paper I propose a way through this minefield, using a socio-scientific approach to reading Scripture, referring to examples from both ancient Greek and biblical texts. The goal will be to help translators make good word choices as they translate.