Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World

Chapter 4: Translations in Contact: Early Judeo-Arabic and Syriac Biblical Translations

c h A p t e r 4 translations in Contact Early Judeo-arabic and Syriac Biblical translations sAgIt butbul The histories of biblical translations into Greek, Latin, Syriac and Judeo-Arabic reveal remarkable similarities, particularly in matters of strict literalism. Although literalism can vary, it seems that, by and large, the principle underlying these literal biblical translations was very much opposed to that of Horace in his Art of Poetry: “and care not thou with over anxious thought / to render word for word.”1 Syriac and Judeo-Arabic biblical translations seem to reveal a particular affinity to each other in many respects, including their tendency toward literalism . While the Syriac tradition of translating the Bible is well attested and documented, the emergence of early Judeo-Arabic biblical translations is yet in need of elucidation. The Syriac tradition may help us shed some light on this obscure episode in the history of biblical translation into Arabic. I will attempt to establish this hypothesis in the following pages. Literal and Free in Ancient and Medieval Biblical Translations In bird’s eye sketches of the history of biblical translation, ancient and medieval biblical translations are usually considered to be very different from modern versions. It is customary to draw an imaginary line, a spectrum, one pole of which, with reference to the ancient and medieval translations, is labeled “literal,” whereas the opposite pole, that of modern translations, is 58 sAgIt butbul defined as “free.” This seemingly neat pair of opposed categories, “literal” and “free,” is far from being simple or clear-cut. In an attempt to elucidate the two, there is a need for yet another spectrum, the two poles of which this time are the point of departure, “the original text,” and the destination, “the reader.” According to this view, a literal translation would be described as “text-oriented,” whereas a free translation would take the opposite position and be “reader-oriented.” In other words, “text-oriented” translation is directed toward the original text; it is a translation that, in an attempt to be faithful to the language of the source text, will strive to represent every detail in it and is therefore described as verbum e verbo, “word for word.” In contrast , the “free” translation, which is oriented toward the reader, does not linger too much on the details of the original text but rather wishes to give the reader the general meaning by way of a free paraphrase of the source text to the reader and thus is described as sensus de sensu, “sense for sense.” The mediator between these two poles—the source text and the reader—is none other than the translator. It is thus clear that the character of a translation will always depend to a great extent on the attitude of the translator toward the source text.2 This division is, clearly, a rather simplified portrayal of biblical translation technique. Without a doubt, as any closer examination of the long tradition of biblical translation will prove, there are different ways for a translation to be literal or free, as James Barr has shown in his Typology of Literalism.3 Yet, at the same time, it is convenient for the sake of argument to use this terminology , and for this reason these two terms will be used throughout the following discussion. another distinction should be made: I use the two traditional poles “literal ” and “free” to describe the difference between the ancient and medieval translations on the one hand, and the modern translations on the other. “Free” translations, however, were not a complete novelty, restricted to modern times alone. The same division is to be found within the boundaries of ancient biblical translations themselves. While certain sections of the Septuagint, such as Ecclesiastes , are viewed as extremely literal, others, such as Job and Proverbs, are usually considered to be free.4 Over the course of time, the practice of literalism was modified by later biblical translators. Following these modifications, biblical translations became more reader-oriented.5 Before turning to Bible translations in Judeo-Arabic, it is useful to first consider the history of Greek and Syriac biblical translations. translations in Contact 59 Greek and Syriac Bible Translations The histories of both the Greek and the Syriac Bibles reveal a very similar course of development. The earliest translations do not show a consistent tendency to be either literal or free. According to Brock, this was...