Book review

Review of Pieter Boulogne, Marijke H. de Lang & Joseph Verheyden, eds. Retranslating the Bible and the Qur’an: Historical Approaches and Current Debates

Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2024. 388 pp.

Despite the fact that the Bible and the Qur’an have regularly been retranslated over the course of many centuries, Translation Studies (TS) scholars have largely ignored these texts as a critical lens through which to examine retranslation phenomena. This reflects the wider absence of sacred texts from retranslation studies, a lacuna that has been noted several times in the literature (e.g., Koskinen and Paloposki 2010Koskinen, Kaisa, and Outi Paloposki 2010 “Retranslation.” In Handbook of Translation Studies: Volume 1, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc Van Doorslaer, 294–298. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ; Haj Yasin 2019Haj Yasin, Ayman 2019 “The Retranslation of Non-Literary Texts: A Review Study.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation 2 (1): 120–127.) but which few scholars have sought to remedy. Even the handful of TS-based studies that have explored retranslations of the Bible (e.g., Oyali 2018Oyali, Uchenna 2018 “The Retranslation Hypothesis and Lexical Borrowings in Bible Translations into Igbo.” Lebende Sprachen 63 (1): 84–100. ) and the Qur’an (e.g., Afrouz 2020Afrouz, Mahmoud 2020 “Exploring the Retranslation Hypothesis in The Holy Qur’an’s English Translations.” Linguistic Research in The Holy Quran 9 (2): 115–126.) have often done so only from the limited perspective of Chesterman’s (2000)Chesterman, Andrew 2000 “A Causal Model for Translation Studies.” In Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies I: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, edited by Maeve Olohan, 15–28. Manchester: St Jerome. well-known retranslation hypothesis. In contrast, this collection of fourteen papers — six on Bible retranslations and eight dealing with the Qur’an — aligns with recent calls (e.g., Peeters and Van Poucke 2023Peeters, Kris, and Piet Van Poucke 2023 “Retranslation, Thirty-Odd Years after Berman.” Parallèles 35 (1): 3–25.) for retranslation research to move beyond the retranslation hypothesis rather than continue to test and refine its claims. To this end, the papers in this volume discuss Bible and Qur’an retranslations as situated phenomena, embedded in their social, cultural, institutional, and historical contexts. More specifically, they explore the motives for Bible and Qur’an retranslation, the strategies employed, and how retranslations have been received by their intended audiences. In addition to being the first sustained TS-based study of sacred text retranslations, this book therefore dovetails with recent efforts in the field of literary retranslation (e.g., Cadera and Walsh 2022Cadera, Susanne M., and Andrew Samuel Walsh eds. 2022 Retranslation and Reception: Studies in a European Context. Leiden: Brill. ; Amenta, Barrale, and Sinatra 2024Amenta, Alessandro, Natascia Barrale, and Chiara Sinatra eds. 2024 Retranslation and Sociocultural Changes. Oxford: Peter Lang.) to bring reception studies more fully into conversation with retranslation research.

Most of the papers in this volume were initially presented at an online conference on Bible and Qur’an retranslation held in March 2022, organised by the Centre for Translation Studies (CETRA) at KU Leuven (Belgium) and the United Bible Societies, although a few were commissioned afterwards. They are preceded by a short introduction, which situates the volume in relation to retranslation studies research as a whole, explains the basis on which the papers are arranged, and provides a brief synopsis of each. The book is organized into four main parts: the first two deal with ‘historical debates’ about Bible and Qur’an retranslation respectively, while the other two focus on ‘current debates’ in relation to retranslating either the Bible (Part 3) or the Qur’an (Part 4). This fourfold division along the two axes of Bible and Qur’an retranslation aims to facilitate readers’ examination of each textual tradition and enable different approaches for analyzing retranslations to be combined and contrasted.

Seen positively, the introduction’s brevity (just over five pages) allows the papers to speak for themselves and avoids weighing down the book with a mass of background information. I nevertheless felt that some contextualization of the Bible and the Qur’an would have been useful for TS scholars unfamiliar with these texts. For example, the Christian Bible is a collection of ancient manuscripts written in or translated from Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Aramaic, which emerged as an integral text over a period of centuries. One consequence of this is that the Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian Churches do not have exactly the same canon of Old Testament books, due to differences in the textual sources they each consider to be divinely inspired. Although this is mentioned by some of the papers (e.g., Alexey Somov’s discussion of Russian Orthodox translations [42]), it could have usefully formed part of the introduction. This point is significant for the issue of ‘what’ the Christian Churches retranslate in the case of the Old Testament and marks a major difference from the Qur’an. Since Islam believes the Qur’an to have been revealed in Arabic to Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel (Ğibrīl), it minimizes the significance of the Qur’an’s variant manuscripts. Indeed, Orthodox Muslims even claim that the Qur’an has always and everywhere been identical.

I also felt that a fuller explanation of the rationale underpinning the volume’s structure would have been helpful. While the editors are clearly happy with their choice — describing it, somewhat immodestly, as “a rather subtle but helpful arrangement” (16) — I was not completely convinced. For example, although the division into “historical approaches” and “current debates” is described as especially important (16), the basis on which these categories are distinguished is unclear. Indeed, the editors acknowledge that they cannot be neatly separated from one another at all, noting that some of the papers dealing with “current debates” also include historical aspects while others allotted to “historical approaches” also discuss contemporary retranslations. If the decision to assign a particular paper to one section rather than another “was made in accordance with the author’s focus” (16), the outcome is not, in my view, entirely satisfactory. For instance, some of the Bible retranslations discussed in papers assigned to “current debates” (Part 3) date back to the mid-1950s and 1970s. In contrast, while Alexey Somov’s paper on Russian Bible retranslations placed in the “historical approaches” section (Part 1) begins in the ninth century, it ends in 2021. I therefore wondered if an alternative classification would have enabled readers to compare and contrast the papers more easily. Given the book’s focus on the motives, strategies, and reception of Bible and Qur’an retranslations, such a tripartite division might have been clearer. While these aspects of retranslations are also intertwined, there are clear differences of emphasis between each paper in this respect.

In terms of the range of papers, the editors acknowledge that the book would have been enriched by including a greater diversity of sacred text retranslations from other religious traditions. But since this volume is a first step towards filling a gap in the retranslation studies literature rather than a comprehensive survey, the decision to address only retranslations of the Bible (in both the Jewish and Christian traditions) and the Qur’an seems justified. That being said, it is in my view regrettable that Bible retranslation in the Catholic Church is seriously underrepresented in this volume. Indeed, the Catholic Church is only mentioned from a few historical perspectives: mainly in relation to Latin Bible retranslations up to the early Reformation (23–40) but also, more briefly, concerning its role in producing Bible translations for Arabic-speaking Christians, especially from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (73). The flourishing of Bible retranslation in the Catholic Church since the mid-twentieth century — including several major projects to retranslate the Bible for private reading and liturgical use — is unfortunately ignored.

Turning to the papers themselves, a few examples will illustrate some of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. Beginning with a slight reservation on my part, Chesterman’s (2000)Chesterman, Andrew 2000 “A Causal Model for Translation Studies.” In Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies I: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, edited by Maeve Olohan, 15–28. Manchester: St Jerome. retranslation hypothesis is frequently mentioned, even being attributed to Berman (1990)Berman, Antoine 1990 “La retraduction comme espace de la traduction [Retranslation as a space for translation].” Palimpsestes 4: 1–7. at one point (330), despite the volume’s aim to move beyond it. Although it is understandable for papers in retranslation studies to evoke this literature for contextualization purposes, I wondered why Andy Warren-Rothlin’s discussion of Muslim-idiom translations (MITs) of the Bible includes the following point among its findings: “It seems clear that MITs in several ways contradict Chesterman’s ‘Retranslation Hypothesis’ (Chesterman 2000Chesterman, Andrew 2000 “A Causal Model for Translation Studies.” In Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies I: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, edited by Maeve Olohan, 15–28. Manchester: St Jerome., 23). MITs are in fact usually less source-text-oriented than existing translations” (240; original emphasis). Without wishing to question this assertion per se, I suggest that, given the book’s focus, it is no longer a point that really needs to be made.

On a more positive note, the book’s examples offer fresh perspectives for retranslation studies research, underscoring the pertinence of focusing on the contextual specifics of retranslation phenomena. This point can be illustrated by the book’s discussion of authority in relation to Bible and Qur’an retranslations, which emerges as one of its key themes. In Part 1, Sameh Hanna’s paper on Protestant Bible retranslations into Arabic adopts a sociological approach, drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to argue that Bible translations are cultural products struggling to acquire symbolic capital (cultural prestige) in their field. On this basis, he argues that the continued authority of the Smith-Van Dyck translation of the Arabic Bible (1865)Arabic Bible [1865] 2011 [orig. الكتاب المقدس Al-Kitab al-Muqaddas ]. Translated by Eli Smith and Alen Van Dyck. London: Trinitarian Bible Society. is the outcome of complex cultural, social, and ideological factors, which built up this version’s prestige over a period of many years. Hanna nevertheless notes that the canonization or marginalization of a given translation is not fixed and can evolve over time. Concerning any future Bible retranslation initiated by the Russian Orthodox Church, however, Somov argues in the preceding paper that it will have to respect this religious institution’s preference for traditional vocabulary and foreignization if it hopes to be considered authoritative. Whereas Hanna’s discussion of Arabic Bible retranslations shows that institutional endorsement is but one factor that may influence the outcome of their struggle for symbolic capital, Somov suggests that this is more decisive for Russian Orthodox Bible retranslations. Political authority also plays out in some sacred text retranslations. For example, Yazid Haroun’s contribution in Part 4 explains how retranslations of an English edition of the Qur’an (The Noble Qur’an) have been controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia. Retranslations of this text are used by the Saudi state to promote its own authority, thereby reinforcing its “self-conferred image as the guardian of Islam” (315). In contrast, Richard Pleijel’s paper in Part 3 shows how a New Testament retranslation organized by the Swedish government and issued in 1977 failed to challenge the authority of an earlier translation of the Lord’s Prayer, which had remained substantially unchanged since the late fifteenth century. Instead of accepting the 1977 retranslation of the Lord’s Prayer, which was promoted by the Swedish state, the general public was largely critical of it. The previous translation had long been taught in Sweden’s schools and churches, and also enjoyed cultural prestige and historical status in Swedish society. Far from overturning the previous translation’s authority, the 1977 retranslation strengthened it, with some Swedes calling the earlier version sacred and treating it as though it were a verbatim transcript of Jesus’s very words.

Turning to more mundane matters, although the book is largely free of typographical errors, it is surprising that no one noticed the incorrect attribution of the Latin Vulgate to St Augustine at one point (23) rather than to St Jerome. More generally, the syntax would have benefited from closer editing in places since some sentences (e.g., on 42) are quite hard to process. It would also have been helpful to provide an index, which would have made it easier for readers to look up proper nouns and track the use of specific terminology. The latter difficulty is compounded by the book’s inconsistent use of North American and British spelling, some instances of which concern retranslation studies-related terminology (e.g., ‘ageing’ [65, 66, 67, 69, 74] vs ‘aging’ [255, 274, 275, 312, 336]). Overall, however, this collection of papers is a welcome addition to retranslation studies, showing how sacred text retranslations can enrich the field and open up new lines of research.