Towards greater emotional accuracy in Psalms translation: a focus on the process of internalization (original) (raw)

2023, Global Forum on Arts and Christian Faith

The translation of psalms is receiving significant interest across the world today, in communities that have a New Testament and in others that have no Scripture but would like translations of the Book of Psalms in their languages. There is also an increasing focus on orality in the translation of biblical texts, as well as a growing understanding of the value of performance in both exegetical understanding of a text and in communicating the message of the text. These three driving forces are integral to an approach currently being researched (by the Psalms that Sing group), which is described in this paper. We have noted three areas which are important if translators are to be able to express the message of a poem: first, they need to enter into its emotional content. Second, they need to be able to hold its content as a whole (for a poem must be understood as a unit). And third, they need to engage creatively, using all the senses to explore the full rhetoric of the poet. This requires an application of the dynamics of performance (for the first), memory theory (for the second), and how to stimulate creativity (for the third). The paper includes both research (applying insights from other disciplines to Bible translation) and practical examples. The research question is simply this: How can we translate psalms in a more culturally-sensitive way, including the poetic features of the Receptor Language and the community’s musical/performance modes? The methodology comes out of twenty weeks of workshop in three different language groups in three countries in Africa. By sharing proven ideas, it offers an innovative, creative, and stimulating way to approach psalms translation.

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