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In:A (Re)turn to the Source Text
Edited by Malin Carlström and Richard Pleijel
[Benjamins Translation Library 169] 2026
► pp. 116–141

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Past, present, future

Source text temporalities and ‘the original’ as a multitemporal concept

 | Stockholm University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 20 February 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.169.04ple
Abstract
This chapter investigates how translators, beyond the tangible source texts on which they base their translations, understand and construct the concept of ‘the original.’ The chapter analyzes the discourse of two different translator teams producing biblical translations into Swedish in the 1970s onwards. Drawing on the field of conceptual history, it is argued that both translator teams constructed ‘the original’ as a multitemporal concept, infused with different temporal layers: past (the religious and textual history of the Bible), present (the context of the translators), and future (the potential place for each translation in the public space of future Sweden). Stressing the multitemporality of the concept, the chapter questions the common idea of ‘the original’ as something which belongs exclusively to a source culture of the past.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Departure points: The multitemporality of concepts and translatorial discourse
    • 2.1Koselleck and the historical semantics of concepts
    • 2.2Investigating translatorial discourse through paratextual material
  • 3.“Textual wars”: The ideology of textual variance and the problem of translation
  • 4.Biblical translation in Sweden in the 1970s onwards: Introducing the two translations
    • 4.1A governmental Bible comes into being
    • 4.2An alternative translation in the making
  • 5.Translatorial discourse and the temporalities of ‘the original’: Past, present, and future
    • 5.1Past
    • 5.2Present
    • 5.3Future
  • 6.Concluding discussion: ‘The original’ as a multitemporal concept
  • Notes
  • References
References (96)
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