Arabic Bible Translations: An Introduction

9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,

who sits on the throne,

and to the Lamb.”

Revelation 7:9-10 NIV (emphasis added)

Christianity is an inherently multilingual religion. One day, people from every language will cry out that God is their salvation. This necessitates that the holy scriptures are by nature translatable. 

From the beginning, the bible was not an exclusively divine text. As image bearers of God, humanity has always played a role in how God’s special revelation has been made known to the world. Scripture is both “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) yet also written (2 Peter 3:16). Because it has always been a divinely inspired human text, it can be a divinely inspired translated text. 

Yet the act of translation is not as simple as it may seem. The faithful translator is always caught between two opposite desires. The first is to translate the text in a manner that preserves as much of the direct words and grammar of the original text as possible. The other is to provide a translation that communicates the ideas and emphasis of the original text.

Translations that prioritize the first are considered formally equivalent or “word-for-word” translations. While others who prioritize the latter are considered dynamically equivalent or “phrase-for-phrase” translations.[1]

Diglossic Communities

Yet this is not the only tension for Arabic bible translators. In most of the Middle East and North Africa today, there exist what linguists call “stable diglossic communities.” This means that there are two different dialects (or languages) that are co-existing within a community in a stable manner. 

There is always a prestigious dialect that is associated with power, formality, and “correctness.” The other is always the non-standard or vernacular dialect which is used in everyday, informal speech. For example, in Egypt, Modern Standard Arabic is the prestige dialect, while the vernacular is “Aameya.”  

Diglossic communities are a normal part of language change over time. For example, Greece was a diglossic community in the 1970s, with “Katharevousa” being the prestigious dialect used in government and education, while “Dimotiki” was used for everyday use. Yet, as is consistent across linguistic history, the less prestigious dialect will almost always replace the prestigious one, and the community will no longer be diglossic. “Dimotiki” replaced “Katharevousa” as the official language of Greece in 1976. [2]

Stable Diglossia

Yet in places like Egypt, the less prestigious dialect is not actively replacing the prestigious dialect; the diglossic situation is “stable.” This can only occur when a power structure maintains the linguistic status quo. In the Arab world, this power structure is often a combination of the government and the Islamic religious establishment. Modern Standard Arabic is intrinsically linked to the language of the Quran, god’s language. 

This means that translators of the bible into Arabic have to choose whether to translate the text primarily into the prestigious or non-prestigious dialect, not just how formally or dynamically equivalent the text should be. This choice is complicated by the nature of the Bible as both an authoritative and evangelistic text. 

Can the weight of Christ sitting on the judgment seat in 2 Corinthians 5:10 maintain its weighty significance in the dialect a judge would never use in his courtroom? Could the gentleness and humility of Christ in Matthew 11:29 be clearly comprehended in the language of a school textbook? This is the dilemma at the heart of Arabic bible translation.

The Translator's Dilemma

For the dynamic equivalence translator, the difficulties are not over. Phrase-for-phrase translations often add or substitute words from the original text with words that the translator has decided will clarify the meaning of the passage in a way that is understandable to the audience. 

Often, words in Arabic that are traditionally Christian are unfamiliar or difficult to understand for a Muslim. Translators must decide whether they will introduce Islamic terminology within their translation or not.

Where next?

This is the introduction to a three-part series. In part one, I will compare and contrast five different Arabic translations verse by verse. There will be a clear focus on topics that are either clear points of conflict or possible “bridge” points between Islam and Christianity. This will clarify the choices that each translation has made within the “translation dilemma.”

Part two will focus on the question of comprehension for the everyday person. Using Arabic corpus research, I will attempt to rank the same five Arabic translations based on their understandability to the everyday Egyptian.

Finally, in part three, I was inspired by the political compass (a common online political commentary tool) to create an Arabic translation compass. This “compass” will map the translations onto an x-axis representing dynamic vs formal equivalence and a y-axis representing prestigious vs vernacular dialect. This will demonstrate that the true answers to the above “translation dilemma” questions are not black and white and can be better represented along a spectrum. 

References:

[1] See the following YouTube video by Wes Huff for a more in depth explanation of this dynamic and how he categorizes English translations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaYC47iR8hc 

[2] Frangoudaki, A. (1992). Diglossia and the present language situation in Greece: A sociological approach to the interpretation of diglossia and some hypotheses on today’s linguistic reality. Language in Society, 21(3), 365–381. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500015487