May 19, 2020 | Kiev, Ukraine |
The Adventist Church in Ukraine recently released the first edition of a modern translation of canonical books of the Bible, translated from Hebrew and Greek by Rafail Turkonyak, Th.D., with the support of the Ukrainian Bible Society. The project began in 1992 and was completed by both church and public figures well-known in Ukraine together with Turkonyak, an expert in ancient languages, great biblical enthusiast, patriot of the Ukrainian language, and Shevchenko Prize laureate.
Each translator sought to convey not only the meaning of the original, but also the content, which is extremely difficult to do. The fact is that in this important responsibility there are two trains of thought: Literalism (not only in the general construction of the phrase, but also in the original word order); and paraphrase (translation of thoughts or the content of the biblical text).
In this new Ukranian translation, both the translator and the editors tried to adhere to the conditional middle ground, translating as literally as possible, and at the same time freely, within the limits of necessity. This means they were not to be slaves to the letter, but also they were not to lose the clarity of the original author’s thought.
The team working on this translation did not forget for a moment that this is a biblical text–an inspired Word of God–to which we have no right to add anything or take anything away. They tried not to retreat from this thesis even in the smallest details which could be interpreted in different ways.
Also, while working through the text of the translation, the editors did not forget about the reader for whom the biblical text is intended, who, in most cases, does not have access to the original. In other words, they tried to reduce the distance as much as possible between the text written thousands of years ago and the modern reader.
International translation practice allows the use of italics and parentheses to clarify the text. The editing team tried to minimize the need for italics, or in any case to prevent arbitrariness, or even creative imagination, which could be interpreted in more than one way. The reader must remember that words in italics are words which are missing in the original text.
In addition, realizing that not all readers have the opportunity to access biblical dictionaries, and do not have reference books, explanations of certain words or phrases which may be difficult to understand or simply interesting in some way, are placed at the bottom of the text with an asterisk.
Occasionally in the text the word “Lord” sometimes appears in a different font? As you know, in the Jewish original there is a certain number of names for God, including Yahweh and Adonai, which are translated in the Slavonic Bibles by the same word: “Lord.” Therefore, wherever the word “Lord” is shown in a different font, it corresponds to the Jewish Yahweh. The word “Lord” printed in regular type corresponds to the Hebrew Adonai.
In the Synodal Russian translation, which until recently had been the version used by Ukrainians, many biblical names were included not only in the cultural memory of Ukrainian Bible readers, but also used by previous Ukranian Bible translations. Therefore, the editing team decided to leave them unchanged in this translation. For example: Eve (Hebrew: Havva), Moses (Moshe), Jerusalem (Yerushalaim), Samaria (Shamron), etc. Traditionally, the names of patriarchs and prophets also remained.
- Taking into account the specifics of the biblical text and the content of the Hebrew original, the peculiarity of the biblical language was taken into account when editing, the text of which sometimes deviates from modern philological and grammatical practice, as well as the rules of the Ukrainian language. For example: The repetition of words in a sentence, as well as phrases that could be omitted or written differently;
- With a capital letter in all cases written words such as Israel, Israelite or similar. The same goes for the words Judah, Judean or similar. The word “Testament” is also marked with a capital letter, regardless of whether it concerns the covenant of God with people, or the covenant as an agreement between people. Such grammatical concessions are due to the fact that Israel, like Judea, is a people chosen by God, who, despite their deviations, played a special role in the sacred history of mankind. In addition, Israel owes his name to God’s providence, which is holy. The same applies to the word “Testament”, since it is often used when it comes to the Law of God;
- In the text we avoid quotation marks because it is difficult to determine direct speech.
Offering their work to readers, the team humbly asks you not to judge them too harshly, remembering that it is almost impossible to achieve perfection in the translation of the text, because only God is perfect in his word. The publishing department of the Ukranian Bible Society sincerely thanks all readers who, while reading previous editions of individual Bible books, sent in their comments. In part, the editing team took these responses into account, and they understand that the Ukrainian Bible Society will continue to work, as far as possible, to improve the proposed text. Further comments, advice, and suggestions in improving the text for future editions are welcome.
This article was originally published on the Euro-Asia Division’s news site
Write a comment:
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
