September 29, 2011
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

The hardest problems in biblical translation aren't about the English, they're about the Greek or the Hebrew, according to one Episcopalian involved in production of the new Common English Bible.

Firstly, said the Rev. Dr. William F. Brosend II, translators have to agree on which Hebrew or Greek text to use, and even after that choice is made, questions arise because scholars disagree on some of the words in those manuscripts.

"That's probably where most conversation happens, not which English word to use," Brosend said of translation work in a recent interview.

Brosend, associate professor of homiletics at the University of the South's School of Theology, was one of 17 Anglicans and Episcopalians, among 120 scholars drawn from 24 denominations, involved in the project. More than 500 readers in 77 groups later field-tested their work. Two of those groups were led by Episcopalians. The complete list of translators and group leaders with their denominational affiliations is here.

The 4-year, $3.5 million project was run by the Common English Bible Committee, whose goal was to create what it calls a "denomination-neutral" Bible. The translation was funded by the Church Resources Development Corp, which allows for cooperation among denominational publishers in the development and distribution of Bibles, curriculum, and worship materials. The committee is an alliance of five publishers that serve the general market, as well as the publishing arms of the Disciples of Christ (Chalice Press), the Presbyterian Church (Westminster John Knox Press), the Episcopal Church (Church Publishing Inc.), the United Church of Christ (Pilgrim Press) and the United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press), according to a press release.

And, because of the technology available today, nearly all of the translators' work was done virtually.

"I never went to a meeting," Brosend said. "It was all done using [Microsoft] Word and a heavy-duty lot of ‘track changes' so that in the passing back and forth, by the time we were looking at being ready to sign off on our work, there was more on the side in the track changes [area] than there was in the text."

Translators worked in small teams on individual books of the Bible. Brosend was paired with Duane F. Watson of the Malone University Department of Theology and Emerson Powery of Messiah College (http://www.messiah.edu) to translate Jude and 2 Peter. They were assigned those epistles based on the fact that they have done work on those books in the past, he said.

While Brosend said that translators have most of their conversations about which Hebrew and Greek words to translate, he said that there are times when they have to decide how to translate those words into English.

"What I look for … is how faithful we were in using the same English words for the same Greek and Hebrew words, even though stylistically that's not that attractive," he said, noting that the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible "famously chose to use synonyms for the sake of a more elegant prose but when you're studying a biblical text you really like to have continuity so you realize that ancient language sure is repetitive."

And, sometimes, the stylistic choice does not always take into account "the freight of a word," he said.

For instance, the Greek word that is transliterated splangnis has in the past been translated as pity, mercy or compassion.

"In English, those [words] really resonate differently and it's important to me that we don't say pity when we mean compassion," Brosend said. "When Jesus looks on someone and has compassion, that's just different than having pity."

Because of all those translation choices, more editing was needed after the translating teams completed their work, according to Brosend. "There was another layer of editing that was done by a smaller group whose task was to even out the language so that it didn't read that it had been written by a very large committee who didn't see each other's work," he said.

In addition, the reading groups read aloud every verse and identified potentially confusing passages. The editors considered the groups' responses and, where necessary, reworked those passages to clarify in English their meaning from the original languages, according to a press release.

This is not to say that there aren't translation decisions that some readers – and scholars – might dispute or at least find different from the version of the Bible they know. For instance, the seemingly standard opening words of Genesis, "In the beginning …" are gone. Instead, the Common English Bible begins "When God began to create …" And Jesus is no longer known as the "Son of Man" but, rather, the "Human One." The latter is part of the translation's effort at gender neutrality.

The end result of all the work is an "altogether impressive translation of the scriptures," the Rev. Chuck Robertson, canon to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in a publishers' press release.

Brosend said the new translation is "companion translation. You're still going to want to have your NRSV study Bible but, it would also be a very good devotional Bible for the Daily Office and more worship-oriented reading compared to Bible study reading."

Robertson seemed to echo that feeling, saying "you'll find yourself reading certain passages as if for the first time."

"It's a rare and wonderful thing when undisputedly strong scholarship and reader accessibility come together" as it did in the Common English Bible, he added.

Margaret Odell, an Episcopalian who is a professor of religion at St. Olaf College who helped draft the translation of Ezekiel, called the experience "one of the most theologically satisfying projects I've ever contributed to."

New Testament-only print editions of the Common English Bible were released a year ago. The complete translation debuted online and on 20 digital platforms in June. Originally expected to be released this fall, paperback formats became available in mid-July. The entire translation is now in its third printing. Six other editions, including one with the Apocrypha (a collection of books not included in either testaments but considered for centuries to be instructive to Christians and contained in many translations of the Bible), became available in August.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.