22 INTRODUCTIONAnonymous teams in the Bible industry invented a compromise English,
without written or spoken precedent, but the greater readership either held
to the Authorized Version or ceased reading the Bible altogether. Early in the
twentieth century, the reigning poet and critic T. S. Eliot denounced Gilbert
Murray's wooden versions of the Greek classics, but there was no similar
regal figure to demand new, vibrant versions of sacred scripture.
Finally, late in the twentieth century came a change in climate and pub-
lishing ventures. There appeared the lovely translations of Richmond Latti-
more's New Testament and Robert Alter's Genesis and 1 and 2 Samuel. Their
example—of great erudition, of fresh fidelity to the complexity, range, and
beauty of the word—has proved that Bible translation need not be a weak
mirror of a vital past. There is every reason to expect a turn to the larger task
of doing the whole Bible in a version, or versions, worthy of the past and our
time. "Seamus Heaney's 'Beowolf' rises from the dead," wrote Richard Eder in
his review of Heaney's new translation the Old English epic. Eder concluded
(perhaps prophetically), "Translation is not mainly the work of preserving the
hearth—a necessary task performed by scholarship—but of letting a fire burn
in it."^1 Much scholarly translation of religious scripture sees the English ver-
sion fundamentally as a crib or gloss for reading the source text. These tools
are laudable for reading and understanding a foreign page. Facing-page edi-
tions are attractive, and the interlinear pony serves as a dictionary for a quick
return to the source tongue. Word-for-word versions are a good initial step
to converting a foreign page, but verbal misery enters when the student or
scholar thinks that the English pony captures the poetry of Horace. An ex-
treme example of literalism is that of Aquila, a second-century proselyte Jew
from Pontos, who spent his life retranslating the Hebrew Bible into Greek to
replace the Septuagint. He reproduced every word and idiom from the He-
brew and followed Hebrew syntax whenever possible. Of course it was au-
thoritative, sacred, and unreadable. When today the "you" in sacred texts is
translated as "you (sing.)" and "you (plur.)," Aquila from Pontos has returned,
and he is not singing.
In rendering ancient languages into English, each age has its own speech
and demand for a natural reading experience. Most important, if the original
is worth transferring to English, it must be rich in sound and sense and sover-
eign in art. If scripture or myth, it has survived because of its breath and its style.
- New York Times, February 22, 2000, p. B8.