Translating the Son of God to Muslims

Faithful translation always requires contextualization.  If the intent of scripture is for God to reveal His purposes in Jesus Christ to all people, then our translations should be faithful to that purpose and strive to make scripture accessible to all people - while still remaining faithful to the original text.  This balance is often tricky especially when it comes to recognizing what might be more idiomatic language which is often very culture bound.  Is it ok to translate αδελφοι as "brothers and sisters?"  Contemporary translators seem to think so, and I tend to agree.  Is it ok to translate "kick against the goads" as "bang your head against the wall?"  Well, perhaps...if you're paraphrasing.  Is it ok to translate "Son of God" as "the Beloved Son who comes (or originates) from God?"  I must say that this makes me very uncomfortable, but this is the current debate revolving around the translation of the NT into Arabic.  Is the "Son of God" an idiomatic phrase which should be flexible in contemporary, contextualized translations or is there something about that specific title which communicates an important and essential truth about the nature of Jesus Christ? Ed Stetzer on his blog, shares a very thoughtful and critical response to this recent trend (most recently expressed and defended in an article in Christianity Today) of contextualizing the title "son of God."  The newer and less offensive translations have proven incredibly effective in reaching Muslims, but nevertheless the question remains: is there something about the title "Son of God" which is more than mere idiom and must be retained in our translations regardless of how it may cause others to stumble?  After all, a crucified prophet is a stumbling block to Muslims as well.  Mere pragmatics and the itching ears of culture cannot guide our translations.  This is a question which reaches far deeper than the contemporary gender-inclusive debate circling around many newer translations.  This contextualization question goes to the very heart of biblical christology.  I strongly recommend reading both articles.

Genders were an afterthought?

There is not much new in this article.  She mostly recycles old (and silly - David and Jonathan?  We're still making that argument?  Really?) arguments.  She does avoid semantic arguments with interpreting Paul.  Rather, she chooses to simply dismiss him.  There was one argument which was new - at least to me.  I have personally never heard the argument made that God originally created humans as androgenous and therefore chaste.  "God’s original plan was sexual unity in one body, not two.  The Genesis creation stories can support the notion that sexual intercourse is designed to reunite male and female into one body, but they can also suggest that God’s blessing was first placed on an undifferentiated body that didn’t have sex at all."  She bases this interpretation on the gnostic gospel of Philip and a third century Jewish rabbi.  Further, she believes that the resurrection ("spiritual") body which Paul envisions is also androgenous.  Turns out that genders are a result of the fall (not the type of interpretation that you come to expect from a feminist scholar).  Not only does this exegesis stretch the text beyond its breaking point.  To then base a justification of homosexuality on such an interpretation is clearly question begging.

Listening is a Virtue

We might call good listening a skill, but it is better described as a virtue, for it rests less on intellectual ability and more on an attitude of openness that is not just willing but eager to let the others have their say--in their language and from their perspective.  Otherwise they are reduced to the status of a self-justifying mirror in which we see ourselves as right because they are wrong and we are different from them.

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Loc. 2132-35 Kindle Ed.)

Interpretation as Performance

In exploring this mode of truth, we have seen Gadamer turn to the work in two overlapping modes, the classic text and the work of art.  In doing so he first distinguishes the performance arts, such as drama and music, from the nonperformance arts, such as literature; then he breaks down this distinction by suggesting that reading is a kind of performing.  The difference is that in the case of the (obviously) performing arts the primary interpreter, the actor who plays Hamlet or the pianist who plays the Hammerklavier Sonata, presents an interpretation to the audience, while in the case of the (apparently) nonperforming art the readers (note the plural) of a novel, short story, or poem present an interpretation of teh work to themselves. (1503-8)

All performance is interpretation and all interpretation is performance. (1514-15)

Gadamer repeatedly stresses that classic texts speak to us, address us, make claims on us about what is right and good and true.  In this respect they are more like persons with whom we engage in conversation than objects we subject to some methodical observation.  So we have one more model of interpretation. It is like 1) performing a play or sonata; 2) translating from one language into another; 3) applying the law to a particular, concrete situation; 4) applying a scriptural text to the life of believers; and now 5) carrying on a conversation.  The goal in every case is understanding. (1741-45)

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Kindle Ed.)

Multiple Perspectives

Should those of us interested in interpreting the Bible assimilate its texts to a series of equations? Doesn't the Bible point us in a different direction by telling us that we need four different interpretations of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as well as epistles interpreting the Christ event by a variety of authors?

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Loc. 768-70 Kindle Ed.)

Romantic Hermeneutics

1. Deregionalization - Schleiermacher set out to develop a general hermeneutics that would apply to culturally significant texts regardless of their subject matter.  He sought to identify the general features of interpretation that were common to rather than distinctive of the various disciplines.

2. The Hermeneutical Circle - The notion that the parts always have to be interpreted in terms of the whole--and vice versa.

3. Psychologism - It begins with the assumption that language is primarily to be understood as the outer expression of the inner psychic life.  This hermeneutics is often labeled "romantic" because it shares this expressivism with the wider cultural traditions call romanticism.  The goal of interpretation, then, is to reverse the process of writing, to work back from the outer expression to the inner experience, to reconstruct, re-create, refeel, reexperience, relive that inner experience.

4. Objectivism - Dilthey is especially insistent that interpretation be "scientific" so that its findings may be "objective" and rise to the level of "universal validity."  The prestige and power of the natural sciences seem to suggest that rational respectability requires that the disciplines that relate to distinctly human meaning (Geisteswissenschaften, humanities, human sciences) must aspire to a comparable objectivity, especially against the possibility of some sort of historical relativism.

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Kindle Ed.)

Chastened Epistemology

We need not think that hermeneutical despair ("anything goes") and hermeneutical arrogance (we have "the" interpretation) are the only alternatives.  We can acknowledge that we see and interpret "in a glass, darkly" or "in a mirror, dimly" and that we know "only in part" (1 Cor. 13:12), while ever seeking to understand and interpret better by combining the tools of scholarship with the virtues of humbly listening to the interpretations of others and above all to the Holy Spirit.

Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Loc. 174-178 Kindle Ed.)