The Presbyterian Church of Pakistan (PCP) has produced a statement denouncing the attempt by SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) or Wycliffe Bible Translators to produce a translation removing the words “Father” and “Son.” As Rev. Dr. Altaf Khan, Acting Moderator of the PCP, wrote,
Attn: Christian Leaders and Believers Worldwide
I, Rev. Dr. Altaf Khan, the Acting Moderator of Presbyterian Church of Pakistan [PCP] would like to bring into your attention the recent translation issues brought by Summer Institute of Linguistics [SIL] or Wycliffe Bible Translators.
The controversy arose when the idea of contextualization was first floated by SIL. In the name of contextualization, SIL intended to remove Father or Son from the future translated versions citing that some local Muslims can only see sexual connotations to these terms. PCP in its General Assembly held in November 2011 [around 200 Church leaders participated], executive meeting [around 30 Church leaders] and multiple gatherings in different cities where Christian leaders from all denominations participated, has publicly condemned such justifications for the sake of convenient translation.
In this regard, PCP board of directors unanimously passed the following
submissions:
1) The Precedent of Centuries old Biblical Translation established by our forefathers,
missionaries, biblical institutions cannot and must not be overturned, amended, or omitted by SIL or any other foreign translating institution.
2) That before making any changes to the current Bible translation, SIL must take into confidence all the major Christian denominations and Church leaders.
3) The doctrine of Trinity is and remains one of the rudimentary tenets uniformly adopted by the First Council of Nicaea [Ecumenical Council 325 A.D.]. And that such well settled doctrine of our faith cannot be omitted by any Translating institution.
4) That any interpretative measures which substantially and adversely affect our fundamental dogmas must be prohibited at all costs.
5) That certain creeds, cannons, and beliefs which are rationally related to our faith cannot be jeopardized for the sake of any particular target audience.
6) That any such autonomous and arbitrary act by SIL would bring irreparable injury to our faith, community, and Church worldwide.
7) That PCP will severe its nexus with SIL or any other translating institution as a matter of principle and continue to denounce such actions at all levels.
Furthermore, in light of scripture, every Christian believer is to pay special heed to the admonition in the Bible “And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.” [Revelation 22:19]
As I have said many times before here, the root cause of such mis-translations is the erroneous translational philosophy of Dynamic-Equivalence/ Functional-Equivalence. If you embrace the D-E philosophy and methodology, since all translation is interpretation, therefore the translators gets to decide what they think is the meaning of the word/phrase/sentence. When there is conceived some form of abstract “meaning” that is not bound to the words themselves, then the translator is cut free from the idea of fidelity to the text. Instead of fidelity to the text, the fidelity is to the “meaning” of the text whatever that is conceived to be.
In this case, the translators of Wycliffe have evidently thought that the normal words “Father” and “Son” have a sexual connotation, and therefore it is not suitable. Since the idea is to translate the “essence” or “meaning” of the term “Father” and “Son,” therefore any word which they perceive to communicate that meaning will do the job, even if they in fact do not communicate that meaning.
Absent fidelity to the text, fidelity to “meaning” means that the translators gets to interpret the text and translate the perceived meaning. D-E translations therefore are highly subjective interpretations of the biblical text, where the imagination can literally run wild as happened in “translations” such as the Voice. D-E advocating conservatives who object to the translation choices as not translating the meaning are merely pitting their interpretation against the interpretation of the translators, and why should one be held out as closer to the truth over the other? After all, the translators I would think genuinely think that their translation choice IS the one which best express the meaning of the word/phrase/sentence that they are translating! Absent connection to the text, no objective ground can be appealed to.
Let us look at the poisoned fruit of D-E philosophy and methodology, and reject it.
Daniel Chew is studying for the ministry at Westminster Seminary California. He holds to the Reformed Creeds and Confessions, most notably the Westminster Standards, and as a subsidiary the Three Forms of Unity. He blogs at Daniel’s Place (where this article first appeared), CREDO 500, and
. The article is used with his permission.
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