The Catholic Biblical
Association of
America
The Rocky Road to a New Lectionary
At their meetings in Kansas City in June, the American bishops voted to approve a new Lectionary, the book of Bible readings used during the eucharistic liturgy. As of this writing, absentee ballots are still outstanding for the required two-thirds majority. The proposed lectionary makes use of the revised New Testament of the New American Bible (N.A.B.), completed in 1986, and the old N.A.B. Psalter, completed in 1950. The revised Psalter of the N.A.B., completed in 1991, which was intended to replace the old Psalter, is not included in the proposed lectionary. Even to a casual observer of the meeting, the vote could not have seemed routine. Many bishops were angry about the lectionary and the process, which led, in the words of a seasoned reporter, Jerry Filteau, to "one of the liveliest debates in recent memory." There is some history here.
In 1991 the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States approved the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (N.R.S.V.) and the revised Psalter of the New American Bible for use in the lectionary. Both employ inclusive language to denote human beings. For example, "If any man comes to me..." becomes "If anyone comes to me..." The bishops forwarded a lectionary based on the N.A.B. to Rome for what they expected to be speedy confirmation. The Congregation for Divine Worship confirmed it in 1992. Then the delay began. In 1994 the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which is headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, withdrew the confirmation. A Roman official said that inclusive language was the reason. Years of negotiation between the bishops and the Vatican finally produced the compromise lectionary presented to the bishops in Kansas City.
Billed by its proponents as "moderately inclusive," it was not inclusive by the standards in use for English Bible translation over the last two decades, including fundamentalist translations. Hence the episcopal anger. Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., former chairman of the Bishops Committee on Liturgy and a trained biblical scholar, said the lectionary has been "substantially and radically altered, rendering it no longer an inclusive-language text."
If the bishops were unhappy with the lectionary, why did a majority vote for it? The answer is that there was no real alternative. If they rejected the proposed lectionary outright, the Vatican would continue to delay approval. The bishops did the best they could under the circumstances, voting provisional approval on the condition that there be a full review of the lectionary in five years.
What went wrong? How could the bishops in 1997 acquiesce in
rejecting a translation (the N.A.B. Psalter) made in accord with
criteria they themselves accepted in 1990 by an 84% majority
(Criteria for the Evaluation of Inclusive Language Translations
of Scriptural Texts Proposed for Liturgical Use)? The reason is
familiar. A small group (mostly Americans), unhappy with
inclusive translation, circumvented the procedures by going to
friends in Rome. A process that began in the mid-1980's with
openness and collaboration (scholars and bishops working
amicably) has ended in the late 1990's with secrecy and
frustration.
Secret Vatican Norms[For text of norms, click here]
An important part of the strategy in usurping the American bishops' pastoral responsibility for the lectionary was, in my judgment, the secrecy of the norms issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Fatih for evaluating biblical texts for use in the liturgy. That secrecy has been so complete that scholars who are currently revising the Old Testament do not know the norms by which their work will be judged. Even the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which "must be consulted before the issuance of new norms on biblical matters" (Apostolic Letter of June 27, 1971, n. 13, italics mine) has not been allowed to discuss it, despite pleas from the Catholic Biblical Association of America. Fortunately, that secrecy has now ended with the publication of the Vatican norms in the National Catholic Reporter on July 4, 1997. Scholars can now the Vatican Norms. Scholars can now discuss them publicly. I wish to comment here on some of these norms, using the text from the N.C.R. (The Norms are indented; the commentary follows.)
Norm 3. The translation of scripture should faithfully reflect the Word of God in the original human languages. It must be listened to in its time-conditioned, at times even inelegant, mode of human expression without "correction" or "improvement" in service of modern sensitivities.
a) In liturgical translation or readings where the text is very uncertain or in which the meaning is very much disputed, the translation should be made with due regard to the Neo-Vulgate.
That the Bible ought to be "listened to" as a document of another time is a point well taken. The Vatican text is inadequate, however, on how to translate "the mode of human expression" into another language. The norm implies there can be a completely objective, context-free rendering of words from one language to another, and forbids "correction" or "improvement." But any experienced translator of Greek, and especially of Hebrew, knows that one must frequently recast sentences and paraphrase to arrive at comprehensible English. One cannot resolve concrete translation problems by means of principles.
Let us take a concrete translation problem--the use of man. In English man is ambiguous, meaning "human being" and "adult male human being." To render Hebrew 'adam or Greek anthropos always by man or men is inaccurate North American English. One must be flexible and translate adam and anthropos according to context. To brand this flexibility (which is well nigh universal in recent translations) a "'correction' or 'improvement' in service of modern sensitivities," is arbitrary.
Fortunately, another Roman document has addressed the theory of translation in a much more nuanced way. The Pontifical Biblical Commission (under the auspices of Cardinal Ratzinger) in The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993) sees biblical translation as part of inculturation: "The first stage of inculturation consists in translating the inspired Scriptures into another language....A translation, of course, is always more than a simple transcription of the original text. The passage from one language to another necessarily involves a change of cultural context: concepts are not identical and symbols have a different meaning, for they come up against other traditions of thought and other ways of life" (Daughters of St. Paul Edition, p. 122). [See Am., 11/27/93.]
Norm 3 has a subsection (3.a) that requires that the Neo-Vulgate be consulted when the text is disputed. The statement cannot be supported by church documents. It contradicts declarations of the Magisterium on the privileged status of the original texts of the Scriptures (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek)--the 1943 encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu (No. 21), for example, and the Second Vatican Council's "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" (No. 22). It goes beyond Pope Paul VI's letter promulgating the Neo-Vulgate, which sets forth the narrow conditions of the Neo-vulgate's authority--that is, the exceptional case when good libraries and the results of biblical scholarship are unavailable (which presumes remote areas). Lastly, it confuses a liturgical "typical edition" (the "exemplary" edition to which new editions of a liturgical text ought to conform) with the Hebrew or Greek biblical text. No such claim was made for the Neo-Vulgate in the "semi-official" article on the Neo-Vulgate by Bishop A.-L. Descamps, the Secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, published in Esprit et Vie 89 (1979) 598-603. Such carelessness does not inspire confidence in the Norms.
Norm 4/2. The grammatical gender of God, pagan deities, and angels and demons according to the original texts must not be changed insofar as this is possible in the receptor language.
Norm 4/3. In fidelity to the inspired Word of God, the traditional biblical usage for naming the persons of the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is to be retained.
Norm 4/4. Similarly, in keeping with the church's traditions, the feminine and neuter pronouns are not to be used to refer to the person of the Holy Spirit.
It is obvious that Norm 4/2 (grammatical gender must not be changed) contradicts 4/4, which mandates that the grammatical gender of the pronoun of Spirit must be changed from neuter (to pneuma) to masculine.
With regard to using masculine pronouns for the persons of the Trinity, there has never been any problem with the Father and Son, for both are by their nature personal. The Spirit is another matter, for the word (literally "wind, air in motion") is not by its nature personal. In the Old Testament, spirit is an impersonal force (except for Is. 63:10), an "it."
A comment from St. Jerome is appropriate here. St. Jerome's Commentary on Isaiah cites a passage from the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews in which Jesus says, "my mother the Holy Spirit has taken me..." St. Jerome says that no one should be scandalized by this passage, because Spirit is feminine in Hebrew, masculine in Latin, and neuter in Greek, for "in the deity there is no gender" (in divinitate enim nullus est sexus). The distinguished Oxford scholar of Syriac Christianity, Sebastian Brock, has demonstrated that in "the earliest literature up to about A.D. 400 the Holy Spirit is virtually always treated grammatically as feminine" (in After Eve, ed. Janet M. Soskice, 1990). Norm 4/4 unduly simplifies matters by stating that "in keeping with the church's tradition, the feminine and neuter pronouns are not to be used to refer to the person of the Holy Spirit."
Norm 4/6. Kinship terms that are clearly gender specific, as indicated by the context, should be respected in translation.
Kinship terms in Hebrew are quite different from such terms in English. The Hebrew terms for "fathers," "brother," and "son" can at times refer to both men and women. Hebrew a can mean "full brother," "half-brother," or "blood relation." Hebrew usage influenced the meaning of Greek adelphos, which therefore can mean "kin" as well as "brother" in the New Testament. The New Testament uses the language of adoption to make all Christians "kin," brothers and sisters. To translate Greek adelphos exclusively as "brother" in American English is erroneous. Hebrew son is similarly broad. It can also mean "member of a nation, tribe," and "member, fellow of a group, class, or guild." Hebrew (fore)fathers can in certain contexts refer to both male and female ancestors, in which case "ancestors" is the accurate translation and "fathers" would be wrong.
Norm 5. Grammatical number and person of the original texts ordinarily should be maintained.
This norm is violated by most translators. It is characteristic of Hebrew style, for example, to shift persons from second to third. Sometimes the shift can be reproduced in English, but often it cannot without confusing the English reader; in the latter instances translators must shift persons for the sake of clarity. The futility of banning any changing of grammatical number (plural to singular, singular to plural) can be shown by one example. The Septuagint (Greek) translator of the book of Proverbs normally changes the Hebrew singular (a righteous, wicked, lazy, foolish person) to the plural: righteous people, wicked people, etc. One cannot regulate translation by general principles.
Norm 6/3. Thus [for the sake of a Christological reading] the word man in English should as a rule translate adam and anthropos since there is no one synonym which effectively conveys the play between the individual, the collectivity, and the unity of the human family so important, for example, to expression of Christian doctrine and anthropology.
The Hebrew and Greek lexicons give a variety of meanings and nuances for Hebrew adam and Greek anthropos, which the norms now forbid translators to use. Note the shift in the norm away from recent documents of the Magisterium: Secret norms determine biblical translation rather than the specific Hebrew or Greek text. He is now de rigeur for the pronoun of Spirit, and man for Hebrew adam and Greek anthropos. Note also a serious contradiction in the norm: mandating English translations for non-biblical reasons contradicts Norm 3, which requires that one must listen to "the time-conditioned, at times even inelegant, mode of human expression without 'correction' or 'improvement' in service of modern sensitivities." The norms seem unaware of the contradiction.
A final comment. The norms are without precedent among modern pronouncements of the Magisterium on the Bible. All the Church documents I have examined (Divino Afflante Spiritu, 1943; In Cotidianis Precibus, 1945; Dei Verbum, 1965; Comme le prévoit, 1969; The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, 1993, and others) direct scholars to the original biblical text, which they are to translate and explain in accord with sound modern scholarship. This is not the route the norms take. It is very significant, I think, that the norms cite no church document (except for a general citation, under Norm 2, of Chapters 3 and 4 of the "Constitution on Divine Revelation"); for the norms depart from the tradition.
To sum up, the norms are a defensive measure, an ad hoc device to prevent inclusive language translations in the United States, an attempt to resolve specific translation problems from the lofty height of principles. Based on an inadequate theory of translation, they are carelessly composed, ecumenically retrograde, self-contradictory, and without precedent in recent pronouncements of the Magisterium on the Bible.
The Road to a Better Lectionary
As a scholar with experience in producing biblical texts using (I hope) mainstream inclusive language, I would like to make three suggestions for the future review of the lectionary.
1. The Vatican norms should be withdrawn. The first reason is that good and balanced inclusive language will not come from lofty principles but from precise knowledge of the history of the languages (including English) and the exercise of good translation judgment. The second reason is that the norms will not be credible in the scholarly community for the reasons given above. Questions should be resolved locally, in North America, and publicly, free of the secrecy that has damaged the process so far.
2. The difficulty of producing responsible inclusive language texts should be honestly acknowledged by all. Many inclusive language translations today are badly done, reckless rewritings by ignorant amateurs. There is great pressure on translators of the Bible today, not only from proponents of inclusive language but from other groups: those who seek renderings of the Jews in the New Testament that are accurate without fostering anti-Judaism; those who seek translations for terms relating to disabilities that do not imply a person is wholly defined by the disability, for example--"those who are blind" rather than "the blind." Here an underlying concern of the norms can be helpful: Christianity and Judaism revere the biblical text by translating it accurately and they safeguard it by commentaries and footnotes. In the future, I would hope that where the question is primarily one of language (such as the rendering of adam or of words for God), the translator will be allowed to find the equivalent in contemporary North American English. But where the question is primarily one of interpretation, let the interpretation be communicated in a commentary or note.
3. Give up "the 100% solution." Not every sentence of the Bible can be rendered inclusively and still be accurate. There are some passages that cannot be made inclusive and should be left as they are, and there are some translation strategies that should not be overused. For example, mortal as the unvarying rendering of adam and anthropos in the New Revised Standard Version overstates the mortality and fragility of human beings. In the N.R.S.V. Proverbs, child in place of Hebrew son is misleading, for the son or disciple in Proverbs is capable of making life decisions. The vast majority of sentences in the Bible, however, can be translated in a way that enable women hearers and readers readily to see themselves addressed by God's word, and they should be so translated. As the norms imply, the whole purpose of translating the Bible is that God speak to every person and be heard.
RICHARD J. CLIFFORD, S.J., has taught Old Testament at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., for over 25 years. He is a former editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, past president of the Catholic Biblical Association and a translator of the New American Bible.