Re: Pater Noster (purely linguistically)

Chris Bates:
> I think religeous texts are almost always amongst the most difficult
> things to translate. I remember hearing once about a missionary who
> wanted to translate the bible into the local language, but this was
> somewhere where they didn't have donkeys, horses or anything similar.
> How do you translate the story of the birth of Jesus without mentioning
> a donkey!?! You could translate it as "big four legged beast that
> carries things" I suppose, but if you don't mention that these were
> common place then readers not familiar with donkeys or horses etc might
> assume that this beast is a miracle rather than something you see every
> day. So you have to include way more than just one word just to get
> across the basic idea of Mary riding on a donkey.
Eugene Nida, with a lifetime of Bible translation behind him, has
written a book on this matter, the title of which I would google
up for you, were I not sat on a train at the minute.

>  One thing I do often wonder is, given the fact that the bible has
> already been translated into english, why don't they retranslate it into
> modern english so everyone can easily understand it? At the moment it
> can be quite a dense and difficult text for the average person to
> follow. I guess actually I've answered my own question: no priesthood
> wants to make itself partly redundant, so the bible will stay difficult
> to follow so that priests are still needed to interpret it properly. I'm
> sorry for being so cynical. But anyway....
Eh? There are a number of Present Day English versions (at least
of the NT, though necessarily not the Book of Common Prayer, afaik
-- these two being the source of the bestknown debts/traspesses
versions). Presumably some are available online too.

--And.

--And.

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