Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology ed. by Stanley E. Porter and Mark J. Boda (review)

In 2005 the Canadian Bible Society, celebrating its hundredth anniversary, co-sponsored a three-day colloquium at McMaster Divinity School in Hamilton, Ontario. The sessions, organized by Stanley Porter and Mark Boda, featured a number of authorities and experts and were attended by scholars and laypeople alike. The highlight of the conference was surely watching Barbara Aland field open questions. One of her responses included a lengthy quotation that she knew only in German. She carefully recited the quotation completely from memory and then, looking up as if she could now see her German words floating in the air above, expertly translated them into English for the benefit of the crowd. When the audience applauded, Aland's only response was to apologize for her "poor English," which led to Philip Comfort's memorable comment, "Your English was great, Barbara, and your German isn't that bad either!" Such was the atmosphere of the conference—both relaxed and professional, serious but informal—and the result was many fruitful conversations. It is to everyone's benefit, then, that the proceedings of that conference have now found their way into print and can be shared with the larger audience that was not able to make it to Hamilton that year.

The conference planners served as the volume's editors, and they should be lauded for the structure of the book, which well ties together the thematic unity and diversity of the subject areas. There are three main parts: "Text," "Translation," and "Theology." The three parts do not stand on their own, however, but are connected through their common treatment of the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus as found in Luke 16:19-31. In each section the contributors, after giving their own substantive essay, provide a second essay that brings their perspective to bear on that common Scripture. The reader can then watch the same text turn and grow as it moves through the different types of study, the effect of which must be a greater appreciation for biblical studies as a whole.

The first part, "Text," deals with the traditional field of textual criticism and asks, as Porter explains, what text do we use and what principles do we use to get it? The first essay, by Barbara Aland, surveys the history of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Muenster, Germany, the work on the new Editio Critica Maior, and finishes with a discussion of the traditional goals of textual criticism, including the recent debate over whether an "original text" should or even could be sought. The next essay is by majority-text proponent Maurice Robinson, who argues that the local-genealogical method followed by the majority of textual critics results in a "test-tube text," which never existed as a complete, continuous whole in any one manuscript. Philip Comfort's contribution argues for a more prominent place for the early papyri in text-critical decisions. Some of the papyri appear to be the work of careful, professional scribes, Comfort argues, and some of their variant readings are stronger and more likely to be original than the modern critical apparatus lets on.

The second part, "Translation," looks at the ways in which the established text can be rendered into different languages. Stanley Porter, with Matthew Brook O'Donnell, gives a fine survey of different theoretical models of translation, though the essay is curiously prefaced with what appears to be an advertisement for the website opentext.org. Next is Alain Gignac, whose warm and creative essay explores translation method by showcasing the more literarily styled French translation Bible Nouvelle Traduction and concludes that a good translation must focus on the kind of reading experience it will create. Finally, Luke Timothy Johnson offers the reader an interesting opportunity to step inside of his head, as it were...