TRADUTTORE TRADITORE

1. Introduction

Traduttore traditore (pronounced tradutTORE tradiTORE): "translator: traitor" is a venerable Italian adage for poor interlingual translations. We need to remember that the Word of God is that word as presented in the original language of the Bible (the original language of the New Testament is Greek). What we experience are translations of the Word of God (excepting those among us who are conversant with Biblical Greek).

If the translation is adequate, we gain an adequate understanding of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. If the translation is mediocre, poor, or outright wrong, our understanding of what the Holy Spirit is saying to us is weakened, and occasionally distorted. An apt metaphor would involve looking at the highway through a clean windshield while driving compared with looking at that highway through a cluttered (or even marred) windshield.

English-speaking Catholics have had to put up with poor translations of the New Testament during several decades following Vatican II, along with poor translations of the Sacred Liturgy by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

Examples are presented in the sections which follow.

2. Crucifixion Darkness as Described in the New American Bible

In the Gospel according to St Luke, we read in Chapter 23:

44 It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon

45 because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle (emphasis mine).

The original Greek states (word-for-word):

45...and was darkened the sun and was split the veil of the temple in the middle.

Nowhere in the original Greek of St Luke is mention made of an eclipse. The translator has added the words "due to an eclipse of the sun", on his own, and without any justification whatsoever.

What conceivable justification is there for the translator not only to translate incorrectly, but to actually add words not present in the original text? I suggest the following consideration.

Modernism had been described as the denial of the supernatural. Not allowing that the original meaning of the Greek leave the impression that a miracle has occurred, the translator has inserted a so-called "naturalistic" explanation (i.e., no miracle).

The attempt to avoid the understanding that a miracle has occurred is profoundly ironic, in that at the time of the crucifixion, the moon was full. A full moon cannot cause an eclipse of the sun! For there in fact to be an eclipse of the sun, the moon would have to have been moved 180 degrees in its orbit to place it between the sun and the earth. This would involve a stupendous miracle--the original Greek states simply "...and was darkened the sun".

The way the translator played fast and loose with the original meaning of the Word of God in this passage is an embarrassment to the Church, especially since copyright to the New American Bible is held by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

3. The Magnificat in the New American Bible

When Mary arrived at her kinswoman Elizabeth's home, Elizabeth greeted Mary with a prophecy:

Luke 1: 39-43

Mary...entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Luke 1:46-56

Mary said:

"My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord

and my spirit exults in God my savior;

because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid.

Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed,

for the Almighty has done great things for me.

Holy is his name,

and his mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him.

He has shown the power of his arm,

he has routed the proud of heart.

He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away.

He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his mercy

– according to the promise he made to our ancestors –

of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever".

Mary responded to Elizabeth's greeting with a prophecy of her own, presented above, which is the well-known magnificat of Our Lady.

The Word of God, as it is in Sacred Scripture, is that which was written by the sacred writer in the language that that writer used. Luke wrote his Gospel in Greek. In the New American Bible, what we read in English is a translation of the Word of God:

My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

As St Luke wrote it, in the original Greek, Mary's prayer begins with:

Megalunei he psyche mou ton Kyrion.

Word for word, this is: "Magnifies the soul my the Lord". When St Jerome translated this scripture into the vernacular Latin of his time, he gave the following faithful translation:

Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

"Magnificat" means "magnifies"--whence the name by which we know this prophecy of Our Lady. The faithful rendering into English is:

My soul magnifies the Lord.

Compare this with the New American Bible Translation

My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

I am stressing this point because exegesis of this opening verse by Fathers of the Church devolve from using the word "magnifies" in its original meaning.

One of the Church Fathers, Origen, asks how we can say that any soul "magnifies the Lord". The Lord is the same, yesterday today and forever. He is infinitely perfect, incapable of change--in particular, it is not intelligible to say that He is being "made larger" in any sense whatsoever. We can perhaps understand the use of the word "magnifies" better through a metaphor. When a magnifying glass presents an enlarged image of some object, it does not make the object larger--it makes the image of the object larger.

Each of us has been created in the image of God--our souls have been given powers of intellect, will, and love which are finite echoes of that which is infinite in God. By the good use of our wills, our souls can increase the imaging of God--we become preachers of the Gospel of love by how we lead our lives. In this way, we can understand our souls as "magnifying the Lord". 

How can we appreciate this exegesis by a Father of the Church (and many others like it), if the English translation does not use the word "magnifies"?