Loading...Publishing a translation of an ancient text ain’t at all like writing a book about the text.
When the editor at Harvard Press asked me if I would be interested in doing a new edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loebs, she wasn’t offering me the opportunity then and there. She was suggesting that I write up a prospectus that she could take to the board of the Loebs, in which I described the need for a new edition and explained how I would go about making one. After I thought about it for a while, and got advice from my friends, I decided to go for it. I had never (ever!) planned doing a serious translation project for publication. I had lots of other things I wanted to write – scholarly monographs, textbooks, and so on. But I thought it made sense to do it, both personally and professionally. So I wrote up the prospectus and the editorial board agreed it was a task that needed to be done – and so they offered me a contract. This project would be unlike anything I had tried before.
The deal is that I like to write all sorts of books because doing different kinds of things makes my scholarship always alive and interesting for me. I have friends in the profession – some of my closest friends, in fact – who want to write scholarly monographs. And that’s it. They are scholars, and they want to write for scholars. And so they do. When they finish one highly erudite piece of scholarship that generates knowledge and advances scholarship, they launch into writing the next one. And then the next one.
I, on the other hand, prefer doing a variety of things. And it occurred to me at the time I was contemplating whether I wanted to do a new edition of the apostolic fathers that even publishing scholarship can involve a range of things besides simply writing one monograph after the other (even if I did get in good variety by occasionally writing textbooks and trade books as well). I could, for example, produce a new edition of a group of ancient texts! That is very, very different from writing a scholarly monograph. It requires a different set of skills, it involves a different kind of research, it entails a different approach to the material, and it engages a different set of tasks.
The short story is that to produce a bi-lingual edition of an ancient text (that is, one in which the original language – in this case, Greek with a bit of Latin – on one side of the page and an English translation on the other side), one has to perform a number of tasks, including, most obviously, the following:
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- You have to decide what the original-language text is going to be. What Greek words, sentences, and paragraphs will be in the text? What do you do when different manuscripts have different wording for various passages? How do you decide which wording to follow?
- You have to choose from the wide range of textual differences among the manuscripts not only the ones to include as the text, but also which ones to cite in the apparatus at the bottom of the page. In an edition like the Loebs, the apparatus is quite sparse, and so you have to choose only those variants that can make some kind of difference either to the meaning of the passage or to the history of its transmission (that is, the history of how it was copied by later scribes – since we don’t have the original writings for any of these authors [or indeed for any ancient authors]).
- You have to decide which principles of translation you want to follow. On a basic level, for example, do you want to give a literal word-for-word translation that might sacrifice readability in English, but that gives the reader a fair idea of what the original language text says? Or do you go for a more readable translation that is harder to line up closely with the original language side of the page? Roughly speaking: do you want a more literal or a more idiomatic translation, and how do you decide?
- Then you need to translate each text, carefully, very very carefully, one paragraph, one sentence, one phrase, one word at a time. It’s painstaking work and can be agonizing, trying to decide among a wide variety of options for rendering a text from one language into another.
- You have to write an Introduction to each of the documents (in this case, the ten or eleven apostolic fathers), in which you discuss all the matters of relevance to users of the edition: who the author was alleged to be and whether that person really did write the text, when it was written, what its overarching themes are, difficulties in its interpretation, how it was copied over the centuries by scribes, what surviving manuscripts we have, and in which ancient languages, and so on.
- Finally, you need to write an introduction to the entire collection of texts (if it’s a collection, as the apostolic fathers are).
It is a very challenging and difficult form of scholarship, not for the faint of heart or for anyone fearful of painstaking work involving endless detail. When I finished the Loebs – the Apostolic Fathers is in two volumes – I swore I would never ever do another translation, to the end of my days (or the end of time). Ever. It turns out I broke my oath (to publish an edition of the Apocryphal Gospels) As might have been expected in the midst of that next translation project, I really regretted not sticking to my guns. It was as hard as the first one and in some ways worse. I may return to that other project in a later post….
Bart,
Hope your year is starting out grand!
Occasionally I will read/hear someone advance the argument that NT Jesus did away with animal sacrifice. It is even in the intro to the book Jesus and Buddha the parallel sayings:
“Both created religions that minimized class distinctions and eliminated animal sacrifice.” J. Kornfield
Hmmm…he got the middle right but not the start or ending…1 for 3.
In Mark 1:44 (You answered my question on that a couple months ago) Jesus is clearly recommending that the healed Leper goto a Priest and do what Moses commanded in Lev 14 which includes exam, immersion, and animal offerings: 2 birds, 2 lambs, 1 one ewe lamb.
From what I understand animal sacrifice would have continued until the Temple was destroyed in 70…for all Jews including those in the budding Jesus movement.
1. Does Jesus anywhere teach/call for an end to animal sacrifice?
2. What are your overall thoughts on this?
TY!
SC
I don’t know Kornfield’s writig but the quotatoin yyou give doesn’t say that Jesus opposed sacrifice bu thtat the relgion he started did (i.e. later). But as to you questions. 1. Nope 2. I think we really have to assume that Jesus simply accepted animal sacrifice as ordained by God and completely legit.
Have you now abandoned your graphic textbook plans?
‘Fraid so. It’s been usurped by other things I’ve decided I’d prefer doing. Wish I could do everything I want to do! (Who doesn’t?)
In the case of the Apostolic Fathers, I look to see if you and Joseph Lightfoot say essentially the same content in the translation. I run with it when you agree, and none of the few passages that I examined had contradictory translations 🙂
He was a truly great scholar; I didn’t consult his translation when doing mine. So if mine was like his, I’m honored!
Thank you Dr Ehrman. This is a fascinating thread. Out of interest, did you get any positive/negative feedback on your Loeb Apostolic Fathers translations from your academic peers (or anyone else)? Stuff like, ‘I would have translated that word differently.’ That sort of thing.
There are always wrangles about this or that way of rendering something. The only one I know who really tried to take me on was one of my grad students in an academic paper he gave. 🙂 (I can’t remember even what the issue was, but it was a specific translation of a word/phrase)
Is it even possible to do all that on your own? How long will it take? Do you need to sacrifice other writings you want to do, or other projects?
Oh yeah, all things are possible. 🙂 But translation work is hard and slow. The thing is, though, that these are texts taht I”ve worked with for years with my graduate students, translating them orally with them regularly. But, yeah, there’sa lot invlved.
Dear Bart,
I hope you don’t mind me asking a list of questions about this;
1. How long did the Loebs project take you?
2. Did you opt for the literal or a more idiomatic translation?
3. Was your mastery of Greek vocabulary sufficient for this task, or did you need to expand it?
4. Which Apostolic father was the most difficult to translate?
5. During the project, do you remember having any dreams in ancient Greek?
You have the eternal gratitude of scholars for this work – I understand the work was much needed at the time.
1. I’ve been asked that a lot and I’ve never known how to answer. I started translating the Apostolic Fathers in my graduate program, did so for many years, taught them to grad students and translated with them, etc. So in a sense the project took 20 years. I probably spent about 3-4 years on them working hard, but I was doing other things at the time too (e.g., my books Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures came out the same time) (and I was chairing my department! 2. Mainly literal, since it was a Loeb. I think Loebs work best with students who need to look at the English sometimes to understand the Greek , and a very idiomatic translation makes that difficult. 3. You need a much larger vocabulary than the NT, but my view has always been that NT Greek is not a language. If you want to learn Greek you have to learn Greek. (No one would ever learn “To Kill a Mockingbird English”). 4. Diognetus, then Barnabas I’d say. Easiest: 2 Clement. 5. Nope! But when I was first learning Greek one time I did dream I was a verb conjugating myself. (Seriously)
I understand that in past ages, scholars of ancient Greek would be so competent at it, that they could have conversations in it. I seem to recall a story I once read where one biblical scholar of the late 19th C or early 20th met another, but neither of them could speak the other’s mother tongue, so they ended up conversing in Greek. Are you aware of any biblical scholars who could pull that off today?
The anecdote of your Greek dream is genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve ever read on this blog! 😀 That’s going to keep me amused for a long time to come – many thanks for the belly laugh!
Oh yes, some people can still do that. But no one I know. I do know people who can speak ancient Latin (not just Catholics); my brother can, e.g., though I doubt if he’s fluent. He’s always been ticked off that Latin is not hte language of scholarship, since it was so much easier in the 19th and earlier centuries when scholars in Germany, France, England, the U.S. wanted to commuicate with one another. Just write the letter in Latin! He still does sometimes.
Do you ever find that when you look for an English word to translate a Greek word into, you just can’t find an exact match for the Greek word? If so what do you do?
It’s really hard. Sometimes you use a short phrase that does the job better than a word. Sometimes you choose a word and add a note for a different way to render it. Sometimes you just go with what works best. I’ve been reading ancient Greek philosophy and it’s a complete nightmare sticking to the English — you have no idea what the word is/means unless you look at the Greek.
Years ago I used to participate in an international symposium in Crimea. Most of the people spoke Russian so us English speakers would have a translator who would translate our words to Russian. A friend decided to introduce his paper with a joke, which he did not rehearse with his translator. When it came to the punchline his translator didn’t get the joke and translated it too literally so that it didn’t make sense. Dead silence. Oops! Just one example I recall of the difficulty of translating from one language to another, especially with abstract concepts.
Ha! Yeah, big problem! One of my NT professors who had studied in Germany (with Karl Barth adn others!) used to tell anecdotes/jokes connected with his time there. He’s tell story in English but when he got to the punch line he’d do it in German, since that’s where it made best sense. But our German wasn’t good enough usually to get it at full speed. So we’d laugh heartily and tell that that was a good one….
For beginners interested in reading the Apostolic Fathers in English without the need for Greek/Latin originals, do you recommend the Loebs or are there other versions that would be simpler to access/use?
I have most of them scattered throughout my book After the New Testament; but there are plenty of one-volume editions in English, including the one by my friend Michael Holmes.
It says on your website ask a question on any post. I am sure you have answered this many times before but I can’t remember, did the gospel writers have access to Paul’s writings or knowledge of his work forming churches?
It’s a much debated issue. My view is no. Mark’s Gospel seems to have the closest connections with Paul, but nothing indicates the author had actually read the lsurviving letters we still have. You would think the author of Luke would have, since Paul is his hero, but again nothing indicates so and in his second volume of Acts he never mentions anything about Paul writing letters and never quotes from any of these or shows any evidence of knowing them, and in fact says things that run at odds with them wherever they overlap in content. Matthew seems to be preaching *against* a Pauline understanding of the law. But in none of these cases, or John, is there evidence the authors had read these particular letters. (And Paul certainly must have written dozens — hundreds? — of others). They may well have known about Paul and his preaching, but that wouldn’t mean they knew these particular letters.
Thank You
Professor Ehrman,
In your opinion, was the Jewish War with Rome and destruction of Jerusalem responsible for destroying earlier evidence of the historical Jesus (like other gospels, or letters of Paul)?
I doubt it, but I suppose there’s no way to know. The Gospels we know about, of course, were all written outside of Jerusalem/Israel.
Can any of the AI programs such as ChatGPT help dolng translation? I’ve asked ChatGPt to comment on a given Bible passage and it quickly produced what essentually was a sermon on the passage.
You would need to ask it. 🙂
Bart – Somewhat off topic if this post is indeed a topic. (very revealing though on the process behind scenes)
I’m really trying to get understand of the Jews up to 1st century and also a good basic understanding of the composition of the OT. I’m in the “Great Courses” in audible where I have many of your courses and books in my library, and I’m listening now to Amy-Jill Levines Course on the Old Testament (thats full of knowlege I have never had) and will be listening to Cynthia R Chapmans “World of Biblical Isreal”..
I was wondering your thoughts about the authors and writings as well as any other suggestions to really get the understanding of a Jew in the first century?
They are both top-of-the-line scholars. For ancient judaism after the Hebrew Bible you might look at the books of Shaye Cohen, From the maccabees to the Mishnah; and E. P. Sanders: Judaism: Practice and Belief.
I’m pretty sure you’re not just one person, but a team of scholars practicing under the trade name “Bart Ehrman” — with the handsome fellow in the photos and videos just an actor. There’s no other conceivable explanation.
Yup, and some of me’s are better than other of me’s.
Dr. Ehrman:
Are you familiar with the writings of Dr. Michael Heiser? What is your view on his scholarship?
I”m afraid not.
Hi Bart,
This is my first question ever for you. What does the “son of Man” actually mean. In modern Hebrew “Ben-adam” literally means “a person” and “barnasha” in Aramaic as understand it means the same thing. Does it mean something different when Jesus speaks or does he simply mean “the man” because he is referring to a specific man who he assumes the listeners recognize?
Thank you.
Ari
Ah, well, you’ve managed to ask the most complicated question in the study of the New Testament. Scholars are sharply divided. Among the leading options are that: 1) it is a circumlocution for the first person pronoun (“I”) based on it meaning “a person” (as you say), as in old elite English “One just doesn’t like that kind of thing…” or the queen “We are not amused”; 2) that it is a specific refernce to a cosmic judge of the earth based on “one like a son of man” in Daniel 7:13-14; 3) that it means both things that Jesus is referring to himself and to himself as the future cosmic judge of the earth. The phrase occurs onl on his lips in the Gospels and apart from Revelation 1 it does not appear in other writings of the NT. My ownview is that Jesus himself referred to the future cosmic judge soon to arrive from heaven, but that after his death his disciples believed he himself was that one, and so they put words on his lips using the term to refer directly to hmself.
Dr. Ehrman,
What do you think of Michael Holmes’s translation of the Apostolic Fathers? Is there any advantage to getting yours over his? Also, what do you think of his SBL edition of the Greek NT?
He and I have been very good friends for many years. And so of course mine is far better. 🙂
OK, seriously: his started out as an updated revision of the 19th century edition of Lightfoot. Eventually in later editions he took Lightfoot’s name off it. I’ve never done a comparison of it to see how much of it in the later edition still used Lightfoot as a base. My translation was done from scratch. I’ve actually never compared the two…. His SBL edition wasn’t a new critical edition. He took several previous editions and at every point of important difference decided which one he thought gave the superior reading. I’m not sure how useful that is (I’m not saying it’s not useful, I really just don’t know); I stick with the standard critical text that scholars almost always use (the Nestle-Aland 28th).