No Room in the Song
Some song forms are built to be short. But then you hand it Psalm 1, which, while compact, is packed with content. One translation team hit that wall and did not flinch.
Follow in the Footprints
Psalm 1 describes the happy person as having “not walked in the counsel of wicked people.” But to “walk in the counsel” is not a phrase that every language can render. How do translators handle this?
Nobody Writes Until Everyone Agrees
The workshop had gathered two groups who do not usually work in the same room. One rule was adopted: the agreed translation would not go up on the board until everyone in the room accepted it.
What Is Ours Built On?
A group of translators we confronted with the question: “What defines poetry in our own languages?” Nobody could answer it in full. Not because there wasn’t an answer, but because no one had yet to write it down.
The People Who Check the Work
A translation consultant is the last gate of Bible translation. Nothing gets published until they sign off. Fifty of them, responsible for oral Bible translation across francophone Africa, gathered in Cotonou in August.
The Shadow That Was Only Ever Darkness
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” It is one of the most memorized lines in the English Bible. And the phrase at its center—”shadow of death”—may be beautiful but inaccurate.
A Psalm for What, Exactly?
The superscription of Psalm 100 can be translated “a psalm for giving thanks,” or “a psalm for the thank-offering.” One points to a state of the heart; the other points to an animal on an altar.
The Word That Isn’t “Law”
Open almost any English Bible to the first line of Psalm 119 and you will read that the blameless “walk in the law of the LORD.” “Law” is the natural word, the expected word—and a growing number of translators think it is the wrong one.
Two Words Nobody Can Pin Down
Line up modern Bibles at Psalm 51:6 (Heb v. 8) and you will be pointed in different directions. The trouble is two Hebrew words: tukhot (טֻחוֹת) and satum (סָתֻם), which present translators with a double problem.
The Sign He Changed
As a deaf student was signing Psalm 23, he reached verse 4 and shaped it the way most people have heard it all their lives. After discussing it with Mari, who worked on the psalm for Scriptura, he changed it.
