Knox on Translation: Hebraisms in English Translation

"We are sensible of these Hebraisms, and most of us would like to see the last of them. But there are hundred and hundreds of other Hebraisms which we do not notice, because we have allowed ourselves to grow accustomed to them.  We should have thought it odd if we had read in The Times, 'General Montgomery's right hand has smitten Rommel in the hinder parts'; but if we get that sort of thing in the Bible we take it, unlike Rommel, sitting down. 'Mr. Churchill then opened his mouth and spoke' is that English? No, it is Hebrew idiom clothed in English words." -On Englishing the Bible (p.4-5)

Knox on Translation

"I don't say that it is easy to bring out the general sense of a Biblical passage. Sometimes, for example, in the Prophets, you have to give up, and admit that these passages may have been intelligible to the people they were written for, but certainly aren't to us. But in St.Paul's epistles, for example, or in the Book of Job, it is quite clear that there is a thread of argument running all through, though it is very far indeed from lying on the surface. To present your material so that this thread of argument becomes apparent is no easy matter; but you have got to do it if the Bible is to be read as a book, and not merely studied as a lesson." -Trials of a Translator

Knox on Translation

© O. Swain

"I don't say that it is easy to bring out the general sense of a Biblical passage.  Sometimes, for example, in the Prophets, you have to give up, and admit that these passages may been intelligible to the people they were written for, but certainly not to us.  But in St. Paul's epistles, for example, or in the Book of Job, it is quite clear that there is a thread of argument running all through, though it is very far indeed from lying on the surface.  To present your material so that this thread of argument becomes apparent is no easy matter; but you have got to do it, if the Bible is to be read as a book, and not merely studied as a lesson."  -On Englishing the Bible 45

Knox on Translation

"You cannot do justice to antiquity without taking refuge in rather old-fashioned English. A Biblical phrase like 'O King, live for ever!' has got to be changed; nobody ever talked like that in English. But you must not change it into 'I hope that your Majesty's life may be spared indefinitely.' You must get back to the language of a period when palace etiquette was more formal, 'Long life to the King's majesty!' - something like that." -On Englishing the Bible

Knox on Translation

"The work of translating the Bible, really translating it, is being taken in hand in our day for the first time since Coverdale.  Moffatt and Goodspeed began it, with their fearless challenge of the Authorized Version; their work has been followed up by a text issued with official sanction in the United States.  Quite recently, the proposal for a new rendering has been gaining ground among non-Catholics in our own country.  Meanwhile, the Catholic hierarchy in the States has entrusted a large body of Biblical scholars with a similar commission.  They began with caution; their New Testament was merely a revision, with certain verbal alterations , of the Douay.  The Old Testament, to judge by the single volume of it which has so far appeared, is on a far more ambitious scale.  They seem resolved, if I may put it in that way, to out-Knox Knox in baldness of narrative and modernity of diction.  The germ is spreading, and there will be more translations yet.  Indeed, it is doubtful whether we shall ever again allow ourselves to fall under the spell of a single, uniform text, consecrated by its antiquity." -Ronald Knox (Mells, 1949)

Knox on Translation

“Much more serious was the problem, what to do about ‘thou’ and ‘you’. I confess I would have liked to go the whole hog and dispense with the use of ‘thou’ and ‘thee’ even where the Almighty is being addressed. They do these things in France, but I felt sure you could not get it past the British public.” -On Englishing the Bible

Knox on Translation

“For centuries people have laughed at the old Douay version, because in Galatians v.4 it gave the rendering, ‘You are evacuated from Christ’. In 1940, what metaphor could be more familiar, or more significant?”
 -On Englishing the Bible (28)

Knox on Translation: Sinners and Overseers

Sin was the word used by the Jews to mean any breach of the law, culpable or not; and they were apt to describe their Gentile neighbors as "sinners," meaning no more than that they were Gentiles. "The Son of Man shall be handed over to sinners" means, almost certainly, "The Son of Man shall be handed over to Gentile folk, the Romans." When our Lord ate "with publicans and sinners," were they people of notoriously evil life? Or were they merely Gentiles? "Tend the church of God, in which the holy Spirit has made you bishops" - should it be "bishops"? Or should it be just "overseers"? Constantly this comes up: Am I making the language of the New Testament too vague? Or am I making it too stereotyped? Am I reading too much into it, or too little?
-Trials of a Translator

Weekly Knox: New Testament Issues

The New Testament writings come down to us from a time when the vocabulary of the Christian faith was in the making. Words like grace, faith, salvation and so on, have, for us, exact theological meaning. Then they were used with less precision; they were not yet technical terms. Consequently, the translator is always having to ask himself, "Should this word in this particular passage be interpreted strictly, in its defined theological sense? Or is it still being used in a loose, popular way?" 

We translate "Hail, thou that are full of grace," and in the next chapter "Jesus grew in favor with God and man"; but the word grace is the same as the word favor in the original. We translate "My faithful witness, Antipas," but ought we, perhaps, to translate "My faithful martyr"? By the time the Apocalypse was written, it may be that the term had already an official connotation. 

Sin was the word used by the Jews to mean any breach of the law, culpable or not; and they were apt to describe their Gentile neighbors as "sinners," meaning no more than that they were Gentiles. "The Son of Man shall be handed over to sinners" means, almost certainly, "The Son of Man shall be handed over to Gentile folk, the Romans." When our Lord ate "with publicans and sinners," were they people of notoriously evil life? Or were they merely Gentiles? "Tend the church of God, in which the holy Spirit has made you bishops" - should it be "bishops"? Or should it be just "overseers"? Constantly this comes up: Am I making the language of the New Testament too vague? Or am I making it too stereotyped? Am I reading too much into it, or too little? 

All this the translator must take into account if he is going to do justice to an individual phrase or sentence. But his duty does not end there; he must follow the thought of his original, and make it intelligible to the reader, bringing out the emphatic word or words in each sentence, indicating its logical connection with what goes before and after. He must make the whole paragraph hang together and convey a message. That duty was apt to be overlooked by the older translators, if only for this reason - that the Bible was printed in verses; and, by a trick of our natures, if a page of print is broken up for the eye, we do not expect it to convey any coherent impression to the mind. Any verse in the Bible was a "text," you preached from it, you quoted it in theological arguments; you did not look to see what the setting of it was, or how it fitted in. We are so used to this piece--meal way of approaching the Bible that hundreds of priests, well enough grounded in Latin, read the epistle for Christmas Eve without noticing that there is no main verb in it. -Trials of a Translator

Knox on Translation

H

Haven't done one of these in a while, but I was re-reading On Englishing the Bible and came across this interesting quote.  It caused me to reflect on whether or not things are better or worse, in regards to Catholics reading the Bible, than in Knox's day.  All of this is of great importance, particularly as we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dei Verbum this year.

"And yet, is the Douay, as it has come down to us through Challoner, really so familiar to us, so universally beloved?  I understand that for several years, during and after the war, it was impossible, in England or Scotland, for a Catholic to buy a copy of the New Testament.  Would any other Christian denomination in the world have sat down under that?  In my experience, the laity's attitude towards the Bible is one of blank indifference, varied now and again by one of puzzled hostility.  The clergy, no doubt, search the Scriptures more eagerly.  And yet, when I used to go round preaching a good deal, and would ask the P.P. for a Bible to verify my text from, there was generally an ominous pause of twenty minutes or so before he returned, banging the leaves of the sacred volume and visibly blowing on the top.  The new wine of the gospel, you felt, was kept in strangely cobwebby bottles (On Englishing the Bible 11)."

This short quote is another reason why Msgr. Knox is the (un)official patron saint of this blog.  His insights into the Church, and ability to point out the obvious, is only matched by his wit.  We could use a few more Knox-like people in the Church today.  On Englishing the Bible is available through Baronius Press, but only if you purchase the Knox Bible.  It is not sold separately.  However, I have two brand new copies to give away.  So, if interested, just put your name in the comment section of this post by the end of the day on Sunday and you will be entered to win a copy of it.  This is open to everyone, no matter where you live.  And if you don't have the Knox Bible, go get one!

Knox on Translation: Douay version of Hebrews 13:4

"The Authorized Version, in Hebrews Xiii. 4, gives you 'marriage is honorable in all'; it was an attack, Martin held, on celibacy, and it was bad scholarship.  And, sure enough, the Revised Version and all modern Protestant editions give you 'Let marriage be held in honor' or words to that effect.  Not so Gregory; he would not interpret, for fear of giving the Protestants license to interpret.  His sentence runs, 'Marriage honorable in all and the bed undefiled', without any pretense of a main verb; grammar be hanged!"  - "Challoner and the Douay Version" in On Englishing the Bible 29

Biblical Knox

Over the weekend I was thinking about the available resources one is able to attain surrounding Msgr. Knox and his translation. Not only do we have the newly re-published Knox Bible from Baronius, but also a number of other books which can all be used in tandem with it.  I am not sure there is any other Catholic, at least in the English speaking world, that can match Knox.  

Consider this, with On Englishing the Bible we have a small collection of essays from Msgr. Knox which reveals his translation philosophy as well as examines particular translation issues that Knox had to deal with during his years of translating.  This collection is both frank in its assessment of his translating the Bible, but also quite witty and humorous.  I am not sure anything like this exists with the other major translations.  Would it not be amazing to have something similar from some of the other Catholic translations and their translators?  (The closest we have would probably be from Dom Henry Wansbrough and his essays on the New Jerusalem Bible.) 

Next, although out of print, is Knox's three volume A New Testament Commentary series which was published by in the 1950's.  Though utilizing his own translation of the New Testament, Knox constantly brings forth textual alternatives referring not only to the Latin, but also the Greek.  In many cases, he explains why he rendered a particular passage in that way he did, which again adds another level of clarity and is just simply fascinating.  The textual commentary found in these volumes helps to supplement the notes that are found in the Knox Bible itself.  Also, he provides some very insightful commentary, both theological and exegetical, on the New Testament passages themselves.  It becomes quite clear that although Knox was not a professional Biblical scholar, he was well versed in all the scholarly issues of the day and was able to aptly make his own contributions to the field.  This would be a great set for Baronius to bring back in print.  It can be found at some of the online used bookstores with only a little bit of effort and trust me it is well worth it. 

Finally, Ignatius Press still has in print Pastoral and Occasional Sermons by Knox.  As our friends at the Ronald Knox Society of North America point out: "Pastoral and Occasional Sermons is the largest collection of Ronald Knox's sermons and was republished in 2002 by Ignatius Press in a beautiful hardcover edition. It covers a wide variety of sermons on Christian themes as well as the feasts of the Church year, sermons for special occasions and panegyrics. In his introduction to the original edition Father Caraman, S.J. comments, "Only after I had read the sermons in this volume a second time, with the purpose of giving the references to Scriptural and other quotations, did I realize that this collection formed perhaps the most impressive body of pastoral teaching of our time. In scope and brilliance it appeared an achievement comparable only with Newman's Oxford sermons; yet more valuable because the idiom and message belonged to our own generation."  The Ignatius edition comes with an extremely useful scriptural index, thus allowing the reader to glean more insights from Knox on particular passages.  These pastoral sermons, which are deeply scriptural, provide an amazing compliment to his commentary series.

So all together, Ronald Knox has provided us a solid Biblical translation, relying on the Latin but with constant reference to the Greek and Hebrew (as indicated in his notes), a collection of essays that reveal his way of translating, a three volume commentary which examines the textual and theological issues of the text, and a collection of pastoral sermons about the scriptures.  If you think about it, this is pretty remarkable.  I am not sure that there is anything (or anyone) who can match this, particular for those of us who are English-speaking Catholics.  Thank you Ronnie!

St. Peter Continued Knocking by Ronald Knox

This sermon was preached at St Mary’s Church, Derby, on Passion Sunday, 3 April 1927 and appears in ‘University Sermons of Ronald Knox’.  I read this last week and really like it, so I have decided to share it with you.  

The story of St Peter’s escape from prison at the time when his life was threatened by King Herod is told in the Acts of the Apostles with remarkable fullness of detail. How he passed through the first and second wards of the prison and then came to the iron gate that leads to the city; how he went up one street before he lost sight of his Angel Deliverer, then stood there considering his position and decided that it would be best to go to the house of John Mark. How he knocked there in the gateway. How a servant girl came to open the grille, and even what her name was. How the people inside the house were occupied at the moment in praying for their imprisoned brother. How they refused to believe that it could really be Peter himself, and how he stood at the door still knocking while they still argued inside. All told with a personal touch, yet St Luke could not know Jerusalem very well, and information must have been usually second-hand, therefore how is it that in this one chapter St Luke has dealt so faithfully with this subject? My impression is that St Luke got his narrative here from an eye-witness. In the last verse of chapter eleven, just before this narrative, you will see that the Christians at Antioch were warned by prophecy of a famine which was soon to affect Jerusalem. They determined to send alms to the Church there, and they did so by the hands of St Barnabas and St Paul.

St Paul was little known in Jerusalem in those days, and he would keep close to the side of St Barnabas. St Barnabas would be almost sure to stay with his nephew – at the house of John Mark. It would be at this house they stayed. It would be at this house that they heard one morning the terrible news: “Herod has arrested the Prince of the Apostles – Peter in all likelihood is to go the same way as James”.

Only fifteen years since the Ascension – so much work still to do. The Church still so weak and so scattered, and now it is to lose its head. They fall to prayer in the house of John Mark, and night finds them still praying – John Mark and his mother, Mary, her brother or brother-in-law, the Levite Barnabas; with him the great, clever convert, who was persecuting the Church little more than a dozen years ago, and a great company of others, among them the servant girl, Rhoda – the rather self-important, not very efficient presbytery maid. A knock at the door breaks in upon the murmur of their intercession. What is it? Fresh persecution? Never mind, Rhoda knows her duty – she will answer the front door. As she opens it, she hears a whisper and recognizes the voice – once before he had been recognized by a maid who opened the door – with unfortunate results. Nothing of the Protestant about Rhoda – she knows the Pope’s voice; so full of the news, she does not stop to reflect whether it be undignified or cold for her guest to be kept waiting, but she rushes in to the family prayers with the announcement that Peter himself is asking admittance. Do they hasten to let him in? Why no, they have only Rhoda’s word for it, and that girl would say anything. They try to soothe her, “Hush, you are excited – you had better go to bed. These long prayers have been too much for you, and you have begun to imagine things. Go to bed – you will be all right in the morning.” Rhoda stands her ground. She is not one to imagine things. She ought to know Peter’s voice when she hears it. Then they consider a fresh tack – perhaps the girl has seen something after all. One has heard strange stories before now of men about to die being seen by their friends at a distance, sometimes miles away. Is this some such apparition? Has Peter been murdered – another martyr? They say to her “It is his angel”, and all the time the real Peter stands there knocking, almost fifteen years to the day since he stood knocking at the door of Pilate’s Praetorium. Then somebody – St Barnabas, I think, for he was a practical and hospitable man – suggests it might be worth while going to the door to see if anyone is there – and there stands St Peter with his finger on his lip.

I hope you will not think me fanciful if I say that this group of Christians praying in the house of John Mark reminds me of a certain school in the Church of England – a certain group of men, not a large one, who are not any longer content to assail the papacy with hard names or to ignore it as if it did not exist – a group which has a friendly attitude and yet refuses to shake off the fetters of its Protestantism. “Believe in the Pope? Of course we believe in the Pope” and they will tell you – “When England was Catholic in the Middle Ages our fathers owed allegiance to Rome and they were right to do so. We too would have suffered in the days of the Martyrs if need be for the privileges of the papacy. Just at present, owing to this unfortunate misunderstanding about Anglican Orders, we are not quite on such close terms with the Vatican as we should like to be, but we would be friends with the Pope if he would let us, and we shall one day achieve reunion with the Vatican and be one once more.”

They cannot say “We have a Pope” but “We had a Pope in the Middle Ages, we would have had a Pope at the time of the Reformation; we would have a Pope now, if only the Pope would take us on our own terms. We shall have a Pope some day.” They pray for a Pope, like the faithful souls gathered in John Mark’s house, but they pray for an imaginary Pope, a historical memory or an ideal fiction. They know that a Pope is necessary to their system. They see their own Church torn with rivalries and dissension. They know that such rivalries and dissensions must be in a Church which replaces the principle of authority by the principle of compromise. They see it riddled with heresies and they know there is no safeguard against the occurrence of such heresies unless the gift of infallibility is centered in one man. They feel themselves to be at best an imperial institution – the Church of Lambeth, or at best the Church of Wembley. They know no power can unite living churches all over the world except the power which has no nationality. They know no voice can be heard over the tumult except one that speaks from another world. Many souls gathered in prayer, but no Pope, and therefore no Church – and all the time Peter stands knocking at the door – a real Pope, a figure in flesh and blood, a prince in being, and by these would-be Catholics of another faith, with all their devotion to an imaginary Pope, the real Pope is cold-shouldered and ignored.

Sometimes one of their number listens to the knocking at the door, listens and is attracted. “How strange that he whom we have longed for so greatly should be waiting at our doors all the time.” No time must be lost clearly in telling the others. “Look, Peter stands at the gate” – and that message is the signal for contradictions – “A fancy, a mere fancy, you are letting your imagination run away with you – it is an attack of nerves – take it easy for a bit – you will find you think differently in a month or two.” Or, if the questioner is not content with these explanations, “What you see is not the real Pope, but a ghost of the Pope – he who reigns at the Vatican is no true prince of Christendom but a phantom of a historical institution, an anachronism, a pathetic survival of the power of the papacy – dead, dying, or, at any rate, just going to die.”
God forgive all those who thoughtlessly embarrass the soul already trying to obey the voice of conscience. If the papacy be dead, then the Catholic Church is dead, and if the Catholic Church be dead, Christ has failed. Close down the churches. Shut up the Bible. Let us have no grinning death mask of Anglo-Catholicism to mock at our despair.

But Peter is still there. All the fury of Herod has spent itself in vain. Peter’s prison on Easter even, like his Master’s tomb on Easter morning, stands empty. We have a Pope.

But now I may be speaking this evening to some non-Catholics who are not interested in any of these High Church vagaries. I may be speaking to people who do not call themselves Catholic. They are plain Church of England people, or plain, old-fashioned Nonconformists. They do not believe in the Pope. They do not want a Pope. They do not see what is the use of the Pope. They have been brought up to think of him as an unscrupulous foreign tyrant, whose claim to exercise authority over men’s consciences is an insult to freeborn Englishmen. They think of him as a tiresome inspector who goes round interfering with other people’s business. They do not see why they should take an interest in a Roman Italian Bishop. If you feel like that, you must not expect me to talk you round in five minutes; but for five minutes I should like to put another point of view before you: to say what we mean by the papacy and the value we set on it; our attitude to the person and to the office of the Pope. You think of the Catholic Church as one of these vast business concerns, with depots all over the world, controlled from a single centre. You think all Catholics are ordered about by their priests, and of the priests as so many tools, following in blind obedience daily a policy dictated, presumably on the telephone, by their bishops; of the bishops as so many foremen, obeying a policy dictated to them from day to day, by wireless, I suppose, from the Pope. You say: “That explains the success of the Catholic Church – it is a business affair, carried on in the most efficient and most unscrupulous way possible, and the head of it, the centre of it all, is one man at the Vatican”. You say it is incredible the way he has succeeded in imposing his will over three (or three hundred?) millions of mankind. The Church of Rome to you is a vast machine, working with all the smoothness of a machine, and one single man controls the lever, and that is your idea, or something like your idea.

I wish I had the time and I wish I had the language to explain to you how gloriously wrong is that impression of the Catholic Church. Every Catholic knows that his Church is a splendidly happy-go-lucky
affair – often haphazard, with sometimes internal quarrels – and that it would not hold together for ten years if there were not supernatural life and unity in this Divine Church.

Let me put to you instead the true idea of the feeling which Catholics have towards the Pope, and our attitude towards his authority, which and where that authority has to be exercised. Did it never occur to you that we call the Pope the Holy Father because we think of him as our father? That the unity of the Church is not the unity of a machine but the unity of a great family? That our obedience to the Holy Father in that very limited range of affairs in which he demands our obedience is not that of a workman towards the foreman who will sack him if he doesn’t work, but it is that of children towards their father – each eager to outdo the others in showing affection; each eager to outstrip the others in anticipating his slightest wish? That we obey him in effect not because we fear him as the doorkeeper of heaven, but because we love him as the shepherd of Christians, of Christ’s flock?

Did it never occur to you that the Pope, on his side, as he looks out over the turmoil and distress of this troubled world, looks at it not with the eyes of a crafty schemer, but with the eyes of a father, longing for the salvation of souls; heartbroken sometimes at the waywardness of his children, overjoyed sometimes when they come back to him, as children will to their father and ask him to make it up? Do you not see that he thinks of you and of all those Christians who renounced his authority as the father in the parable thought of his prodigal son, longing for the Protestant nations of the world to come back from their wandering and to find rest and content in their true home? He knocks at your door, people of England, not like a tyrant demanding submission, but like a father appealing for a welcome, and for the recognition which his unfilial sons refuse.

“Peter stood at the door without and continued knocking” as he knocked long ago in the shade of the porch, while the souls within busied themselves, shutting their ears to the noise, till at last they rose to let him in. So he knocks still, while souls that profess to hold him in all reverence shut their ears and invent comfortable theories; because they cannot or will not come out to seek him in the darkness and the storm. He knocks patiently, for the fisherman has learnt patience. He knocks gently, for his shepherd heart knows that bullying will do no good. But don’t mistake his errand. He has keys on his shoulder. It is the doorkeeper who knocks.


For this and other info on Ronald Knox, stop by the Ronald Knox Society website.

Knox New Testament Commentaries (and Compact Edition)

Over the past month or so I have been acquiring used copies of Msgr. Ronald Knox's three volume A New Testament Commentary series.  They were published by Sheed & Ward in the 1950's and are full of great info.  In this series, volume one deals with the four Gospels, while volume two covers the Acts of the Apostle to 2 Thessalonians, and volume three concludes with 1 Timothy to the Apocalypse.     

The preface (and dust jacket) inform us that these volumes are "meant to be read in conjunction with the Knox New Testament, and wherever a quotation does not tally, it must be taken for a literal rendering either of the Latin or the Greek.  'The notes,' writes Monsignor Knox in his preface, 'are not meant to be exhaustive; they illustrate only those passages whose meaning is disputed, and those which the ordinary reader is apt to find obscure or unexpected.  Even within these limits, little space is left for the commentator to deploy his arguments; and the reader must resign himself to the need for close attention, and constant cross-references.'"  


As stated by the author of The Ronald Knox Society website: "These volumes contain Knox's explanations for various choices in wording, alternate interpretations of phrases, and the sometimes hidden meaning of entire passages. They are of tremendous use and interest to the scholar."  These comments are absolutely true.  This commentary is part textual commentary, part exposition of the text.  The commentary on the text, itself, is not a line by line commentary, but rather Knox comments on these various issues pericope by pericope.  What is most helpful, and something which I wish Knox or the publisher would have included in the Knox Bible, are the book introductions.  They are quite insightful, varying in length from 3-5 paragraphs each.  Of course, the lack of an Old Testament commentary series, which Knox never undertook, might have made including just the New Testament intros look a bit uneven.   Perhaps they would have been helpful in an Knox New Testament volume.


Which leads me to this little discovery.  One of the things I really enjoy about ordering older, used books is the surprise of actually getting the original dust jacket with it.  This happened when I got volume two of the commentary series. And to my surprise, when I turned to the back of the dust jacket, behold I found advertising for other Knox-related products from Sheed & Ward.  I have always known that there were New Testament editions out there, but this seems to indicate that Sheed & Ward published a pocket Knox New Testament in four different editions: Paperback, Leatherette, Cloth, and Leather.  And take a look at those prices!  I am also intrigued by the New Testament gift edition that is listed on the top with its inclusion of various art reproductions.  So, I would really like to get a hold of the New Testament pocket edition in leather.  I did a very quick internet search, but was unsuccessful.  I don't think Baronius is going to be publishing a compact Knox anytime soon, so this edition really intrigues me.  Anyone have an idea about how to acquire a copy?  I will surely offer more than the $6.00 listed!  :)

Msgr. Ronald Knox Audio

I recently discovered a website where you can buy old time radio programs.  The site is called, not surprisingly, Old Time Radio Catalog.  Among their many programs I noticed they had a Ronald Knox Collection which included: Ronald Knox on the Birth of Our Lord, Ronald Knox on the Conversion of Newman, Recollections of Chesterton, and, my favorite, Ronald Knox on Translating the Bible.  The last one is available in printed form from Baronius Press, where it is included in the collection of essays that accompany the Knox Bible.  All four programs are relatively short, totaling about an hour and a half.  The disc is in MP3 format which is nice. There is a sample on the page from Knox for you to listen to as well.    

I really enjoy having these recordings.  It gives a special added delight when reading a particular author having actually heard their real voice.  I do that often when I am reading works by contemporary authors like NT Wright or Peter Kreeft.  The same joy I had of hearing Msgr. Knox's voice was rivaled only when I heard the distinctive voice of C.S. Lewis.  So, I highly recommend this collection.  It is only $5.00 with a few bucks additional for shipping.  They sell other Catholic and Protestant recordings as well.      

Knox Conference Talk on Translation

Via The Tablet.  Thanks reader John for alerting me to this talk given by Fr. Ashley Beck back in May.  This is only an excerpt from the talk, the full version is not yet available as far as I know.

"Evelyn Waugh remarks somewhere that in the face of ecclesiastical authority Knox became something of a schoolboy again in the presence of a prefect. This is seen also in relation to his translation of the Bible. While he had been fluent in Greek since childhood, he taught himself Hebrew when he began the work; while he is adamant that the work makes no claims for excellence in biblical scholarship, he was enough of a scholar to want to be aware of nuances in translation - not simply in rendering Jerome's Latin into English, but in understanding Jerome's own work of translation from the original languages - and of textual variants. Consequently the introductions and footnotes in the Knox Bible are important and carefully crafted, like everything else he wrote, and so is the commentary he wrote on the New Testament in 1955. At the same time in the long process of having his text approved by ‘experts' he seems largely to have accepted the suggestions made by others. It is interesting that in some of the works about the Bible which he published after his translation had appeared, he did so alongside a biblical scholar, a Vincentian priest from New Zealand, the confusingly named Fr Ronald Cox - whose pontifical degrees (STL, LSS) are displayed on the frontispieces, as if to give the books academic respectability.

Both in relation to theology in general and biblical studies there are perhaps two overall reasons for his reticence. The first is that by and large Knox wrote for laypeople rather than clergy[i], and in Catholic England during his lifetime theology was almost exclusively a clerical discipline. Laypeople who engaged in theological writing of a ‘professional' or academic kind in this period were viewed with a certain amount of reserve: devotional writing for and by laypeople was very different, and prolific[ii]. Not only that, but Knox's shyness and social background, and the work he did as a Catholic priest, meant that he had comparatively few friends and associates among Catholic priests, far less theologians[iii]. The social and intellectual world which he inhabited was not the same. Evelyn Waugh suggests that one can detect this distance in the painful correspondence Knox had with some bishops over his translation of the Bible and his proposed revision of the Manual of Church Prayers in the war years.

Secondly, both for theology in general and for biblical studies the years of Knox's prime, from the twenties to the early fifties, were arguably in England rather an arid period characterised by caution and fear. In his early writings as an Anglican Knox had mercilessly mocked and poured scorn on the Anglican counterparts of the ‘modernists' and as a Catholic would have little sympathy for the likes of Tyrell and Von Hügel: but the fallout from St Pius X's campaign against them did not sustain an atmosphere conducive to speculative or original theological study. The great turning-point in Catholic biblical studies, the publication of Pius XII's encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1943 came after Knox's great work on the Bible had got well underway."

Knox on Translation

"Words are not coins, dead things whose value can be mathematically computed. You cannot quote an exact English equivalent for a French word, as you might quote an exact English equivalent for a French coin. Words are living things, full of shades of meaning, full of associations; and, what is more, they are apt to change their significance from one generation to the next. The translator who understands his job feels, constantly, like Alice in Wonderland trying to play croquet with flamingoes for mallets and hedgehogs for balls; words are forever eluding his grasp. Think of the delicate differences there are between the shades of meaning in a group of words like “mercy, pity, clemency, pardon,” or a group of words like “fear, terror, awe, reverence, respect,” or a group of words like “glory, honour, fame, praise, credit.” How is it to be expected, on the law of averages, that any such group of words in English has an exactly corresponding group of words in Latin, and another in Greek, so that you can say, for example, doxa always means gloria in Latin, always means “glory” in English? Tsedeq or dikaiosune can mean, when used of a man, innocence, or honesty, or uprightness, or charitableness, or dutifulness, or (very commonly) the fact of being in God’s good books. Used of God, it can mean the justice which punishes the sinner, or, quite as often, the faithfulness which protects the good; it can mean, also, the approval with which God looks upon those who are in his good books. Only a meaningless token-word, like righteousness, can pretend to cover all these meanings. To use such a token-word is to abrogate your duty as a translator. Your duty as a translator is to think up the right expression, though it may have to be a paraphrase, which will give the reader the exact shade of meaning here and here and here." -On Englishing the Bible 7

"On Englishing the Bible" Giveaway

The fine people at Baronius Press have provided me three brand new copies of On Englishing the Bible by Msgr. Ronald Knox to give away to my loyal readers.  As you know, this collection of essays by Msgr. Knox is not available for sale, but instead comes bundled with the newly published Baronius Press Knox Bible.    In this 64 page paperback edition, Msgr. Knox "describes his account of the ordeal, which manages to be both illuminating and full of his wit. Anyone wishing to know more about Knox's translation – and the problems involved in rendering the sacred Scriptures into the vernacular – will be fascinated to hear from the translator himself how he tackled this mammoth project."  All of my quotes from the "Knox on Translation" series of posts comes from this delightful little book.  It seems good to have a contest like this, since February 17th was the 125th anniversary of Msgr. Knox's birthday.


Contest Rules:
1) If you have a blog, please advertise this contest on your site. (If you don't, you can still enter the contest.)

2) This contest is only for people who are in the North America. (Overseas shipping costs remain too high for me right now. Sorry.)

3) To enter, you must select a favorite single verse from the Knox Bible and explain, in only one or two sentences, why you are drawn to that rendering by Msgr. Knox.  Your entries are to be submitted in the comment section of this post.

4) The contest ends on Sunday, April 28th @ 11:59 PM EST. I'll announce the winners on Monday morning.  At that time, the winners must contact me, via email, with their address within one week to receive their prize.

5) One entry per person. If you post anonymously, you must leave a name at the end of your comment entry

Thank you, again, to Baronius Press for making these three copies available to me.

Knox on Translation

"If you translate, say the Summa of St. Thomas, you expect to be cross-examined by people who understand philosophy and by people who understand Latin; no one else.  If you translate the Bible, you are liable to be cross-examined by anybody, because everybody thinks he already knows what the Bible means." -from On Englishing the Bible

Knox on Translation

"For every common word in every living language has, not one meaning, but a quantity of shades of meaning. If you set out to give salus the meaning of “salvation” all through the New Testament, you find yourself up against St. Paul inviting the ship’s company during the storm to take a little food for the sake of their salvation. It is a capital heresy among translators, the idea that you must always render so-and-so in Latin by such-and-such in English. We sometimes get the idea that this must be a holy principle; is it not, after all, we are asked, the way in which the Vulgate proceeds in translating the Greek of the New Testament? If anybody harbours that delusion, he is recommended to consult Plummer’s edition of II Corinthians; he will find there an appendix giving about 250 Greek words in the epistles, each of which the Vulgate renders in two or more ways. The word euclokein, he points out, is rendered in no less than ten different ways in the epistles alone. He appears to be scandalized by this procedure, which shows that he knew very little about translation. It is true, I think, that the Vulgate very often picks on the wrong rendering, the word with the wrong shade of meaning for that particular context. Over that, Plummer is welcome to have a grievance. But let him not demand that eudokein should be translated “be well pleased” wherever it occurs, simply for the sake of uniformity."
--Knox On Englishing the Bible