“This Bible belongs to us!” Ethical Issues Surrounding A Bible Translation’s Name

The names of Bible translations have not been discussed from an ethical standpoint. Hence, a new Bible translation’s name may become an unrestricted branding tool creatively used to target a wide or specific demographic. Conventionally, in Malaysia and Indonesia, Bible translations are named based on their language, translation philosophy, or the model translation they refer to. Recently, a new Bible translation in Standard Malay (zsm), Malaysia's national language (from the West Malaysian Johor-Riau dialect), has been published with an unusual subtitle: the name of a region in East Malaysia (i.e., Bible: Beta Version). For security and sensitivity reasons unique to Malaysia’s socio-political climate, this Bible will be identified in this abstract as Alpha, whereas the region will be referred to as Beta.

Beta has 71% of the total number of Christians in Malaysia. Comparative analysis with other Malay and Indonesian Bible translations yields that Alpha adapts existing Indonesian and Malay translations into Standard Malay, which neither correspond to Beta’s unique forms of Malay nor do they fit the unique context of Beta. Consequently, having Beta in Alpha’s name has led to the belief among Beta’s Christian communities that this is a translation made by Beta translators for the Beta people.

Such practice of including regional names in a Bible translation will be evaluated through ethical cultural/geographical branding principles (e.g., Sloan et al., 2018). Two major ethical issues arise from geographical branding: cultural appropriation (Lin et al. 2024) and the potential of misleading consumers (Hastak and Mazis, 2011). After investigating Alpha's content and verifiable data, it is found that Alpha’s use of Beta as its subtitle is ethically problematic and a potentially dangerous precedent if left unaddressed by the Bible translation community. More Bible publishers may eventually strategically stake a claim to certain regional names for the best marketing effect. This paper serves as a warning tale to the Bible translation community that ethical issues abound in all aspects of Bible translation, including the name of a Bible.