How do we ever understand the Bible, ever

More insight from classes…

I am taking a class called anthropology of language and culture, and of course, our readings so far have dealt with how language affects the way we think and behave (our culture)—and vice versa.

English speakers have a vastly different view of time, space, and matter than do, to use the example that my reading uses, speakers of the Hopi language. For example, English speakers are able to group days into plural periods of time, because of our cultural notion of past, present, and future. Hopi speakers, on the other hand, cannot conceive of using the phrase “five days,” because they have a different conception of time. To the Hopi, time is a relation between events, as compared to the English notion of “length of time.” English is very linear, and when we think about a phrase like “five days,” usually in our minds we have those five days lined up in a row.

Also relating to conceptions of “day,” the Hopi language demonstrates the cultural belief that days are not separate, that a new day is not another day. Rather, Hopis view a new day as a returning day, as our reading expressed it: “a little older but with all the impresses of yesterday” Of course, English speakers do not view days in this way, but as components, as illustrated above, that can be added up.

Words like “summer,” “winter,” “morning,” and “sunset” are nouns in English. It’s hard for an English speaker to wrap his or her mind around these words as something other than nouns. In Hopi, however, these words are adverbs in a way. Hopi instead has phrases like, roughly translated, “while morning-phase is occurring.” Like “summer,” etc., English speakers (and most of these examples apply to other European languages/cultures, as well) tend to noun-ify concepts. Think of time, again. We “spend time,” “waste time,” “manage our time,” do or don’t “have time,” think something is “worth our time.” Time is precious. Time is money.

In English, we take for granted the concepts of “substance” and “matter.” We instantly accept these categories; they are common sense to us. To talk about masses like “water” or “air,” we use just that: “water” and “air.” But we also differentiate between the mass and other, smaller forms of the substance, such as “cup of water” or “pool of water.” In the Hopi language, a speaker would just say, “water;” no distinction like “cup of” or “pool of” is needed, because different variations of the word “water” exist that denote whether it’s a cup or a pool, etc.

Now that I have learned a bit about different linguistic conceptions of space, time, and matter, I wonder what the implications are regarding our interpretation of Scripture. How do we ever correctly understand what the Bible is trying to communicate? For example, Genesis 1 deals with space, time, and matter, but the author came from a specific culture—one that is vastly different from ours. And what about the other languages/cultures that are wrapped up in the rest of Scripture? That’s where scholarship comes in, I suppose, but then I still wonder about our own linguistic/cultural assumptions that we bring to Scripture—ones that we may be unaware of.

Comments

[jpe]

WVO Quine sets out one of the classic statements of that problem of translation, which he calls the indeterminacy of translation.

[Leighton]

When I was in NT Greek, my professor told a story of when he was in graduate school and one of his colleagues or professors (I don't remember which) was translating the Bible into the language of a preindustrial South American tribal society. In the area where they lived, the climate and soil were such that grapes couldn't grow at all, even if transplanted; the people there had never seen a grape vine, and many of them never would. As such, one profoundly troubling aspect of translating the gospels was the persistent use of grape, wine and vine metaphors.

There was, however, a plant whose fruit was much like a coconut. This plant was omnipresent in that society in the same way that grapevines were in the Mediterranean area. It was used for all sorts of things and was honored as a special, life-giving plant.

The dilemma was this: do you translate the vine imagery into references to this plant, knowing that less than half of the metaphors will make any sense (because the structure of the plant is quite different than grapevines), or do you leave the vine imagery intact and footnote it, knowing that it won't communicate to the translation's audience? What is more important: the text or the message? And what is the message?

Such are the issues involved in translation. I stuck with math, because it's much easier.

[jvpastor]

I have had discussions like these at great lengths in class as well. When you stop to think about it though, much of what we have in the Bible does not relate well to our culture, but no one has changed the imagery, at least in the more reliable translations. Such as a Shepherd, I have never seen a Shepherd, except maybe on TV and in Children's books about Jesus. Or a Grapevine for that matter, only on television, or in a book. Someone had to teach me what it was at some point along the way.

I liked Leighton's example of the coconut plant, maybe you translate it as a grapevine, but when teaching you relate it to the plant they are familiar with, which is a very common practice for teachers, they find relationships that amplify the meaning of a particular subject.

Nat brings up a good point about Genesis, and you are right we have to rely on scholarship at that point to get into the mind of the author and the original audience. Somethings translate easily though, for example David, men haven't changed in 3000 plus years, if you put a naked woman in front of them bad things are going to happen.

I read somethings in Scripture and become discouraged at the language/culture barrier, but then I read about David, and I think they weren't so different.

[Natalie]

jpe: Thanks for pointing me to Quine's ideas--very interesting.

As to the question of translating things that may not be present in a certain culture, I like the decision of not changing the unfamiliar to the familiar. It seems sort of condescending to try to make sure "the natives" can understand an illustration in the Bible. Like Jason pointed out, not many things are changed in our English translation (But I heard from an OT prof here that "heart" replaces "intestines" at times and that Song of Songs is pretty censored).

Phillip Keller's A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 really adds meaning to, well, Psalm 23 and other passages in scripture, by the way.

[jvpastor]

"It seems sort of condescending to try to make sure "the natives" can understand an illustration in the Bible."

Excellent point that is always what I have thought when reading "the message," there is a difference between making the Bible readable, and dumbing it down.

[Leighton]

As I recall, the decision was eventually made to translate the imagery into that of the native plant, for a number of reasons.

The foremost of these was the complete lack of what we would consider an educational structure. This collection of tribes had only experienced their "first contact" with Western culture ten years or so prior, and they didn't have even the basic classroom familiarity with other cultures that we so easily take for granted. Greece? Rome? Jews? Never heard of them. Middle East? Sorry.

If it had been possible to set up simultaneously a comprehensive educational facility, not "dumbing down" the text would have been a real concern. But as it was, the text "not communicating" was not a question of the gist coming across with the depth or the specifics not being quite clear, as is the case with us and (say) shepherd imagery; it was a question of whether there would be any meaning to it at all. Their judgment was that it was better to communicate in broad strokes, and later to work in the cultural background once the foundation had been laid. You have to crawl before you can learn to walk before you can learn to run.