The phenomenon of translating a translation (hereafter “indirect translation” or “ITr”) is an ancient one. However, ITr has been studied intensively as a discipline only in recent years and often in conjunction with Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). ITr’s relevancy to ancient Bible translations—many of which were indirect translations—would seem to be axiomatic, but the theory and methodology of ITr have yet to be teased out in this context, or with any ancient materials for that matter. Thus, this project is the first attempt to wed developments in ITr theory and methodology with Biblical Studies with the hope of illuminating the answer to a difficult question: How do we interpret unique parallels among the most ancient Greek, Aramaic, and Syriac Bible translations when we know they were all translated from a Hebrew source text (ST) very similar to the Masoretic Text (M)?1
To address this problem and to work it out within the confines of ITr, I have chosen the Syriac Book of Isaiah (S-Isa), a 2nd century translation, as my sample. For years scholars have claimed that the translator of S-Isa sporadically relied on the Old Greek of Isaiah (G-Isa) at difficult places in his Hebrew ST. But how do we know that these S-G parallels are not attestations of a Hebrew variant, or evidence of both translators’ common tactics in rendering a problematic ST, or indications of secondary revision toward G-Isa, or some other phenomenon? Without a clear methodology in place by which to identify and explicate these S-G parallels, there seems to be no shortage of assumptions that can be made about the translator’s realia or model of translation to account for them. And these assumptions have major implications.
A modern translator tasked with producing a translation of the earliest inferable archetype of the Hebrew text or a textual critic commissioned to publish a critical edition of the Hebrew text will find it difficult to do so if it is not clear where the ancient translations attest a Hebrew variant. Knowing where the Syriac translator relied on an earlier Greek translation is also important to the scholar of reception history. How did the Syriac translator consult the Greek text (G)? Did he have access to a Greek manuscript? Did he have portions of G memorized? Was he influenced indirectly by some other form of mediation (e.g., scribal training; liturgy; educational curricula; common lore)? Why would he deviate from his Hebrew ST to render G instead? What does it say about the identity of the Syriac translator if he did in fact rely on G? While these questions (and many more) are of primary interest to those working in Biblical Studies, they are also the very questions the methodology of ITr equips one to investigate rigorously. And the theory of ITr provides the conceptual and terminological clarity with which to speak about such translation phenomena.
The results of this study also benefit scholars working in Translation Studies. In recent years, translation scholars have expressed the need for Translation Studies to take an “outward turn.” If successful, such an outward-going initiative would “reinforce [Translation Studies] both as a hub interdiscipline within the academy and as the conjoined theoretical wing of a practice that spans the key human processes of becoming and being, of change and cognition.”2 As C. Zwischenberger has pointed out, there have been many inward turns within Translation Studies, requiring significant borrowing from linguistics, cultural studies, sociology, and other disciplines, but there have been almost no outward turns or meaningful exportations of theory or method to other disciplines since Translation Studies became an established discipline.3 The following study attempts to show that the theories and methodologies of Translation Studies (esp. ITr) effectively enlighten the disciplines of text-criticism, Semitic philology, and Biblical Studies. Not only can the data from ancient Bible translations inform the trends that Translation Studies scholars identify in modern examples of the same phenomenon, they also can learn more about the different reasons for and types of ITr that existed in the ancient world. As I will argue (in Chapters 2 and 3), the methodology of ITr must be tweaked if it is to be implemented successfully on ancient Bible translations, but this kind of methodological revision is of significant interest to those working in ITr. Most often, the translators of ancient Bible translations did not indicate for us where they deviated from their STs to access or consult mediating translations/languages (MT/Ls) directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally.4 There is nothing within or without the text to clue us in on the exact forms of these MT/Ls. We discover influence from MT/Ls on a specific translation by comparing the different translations at the micro-level, but only after we have compared each to its primary or ultimate ST to grasp each translator’s translation technique (or Übersetzungsweise).
To situate the difficulties involved in studying S-Isa, I provide a comprehensive literature review in Chapter 1 (“History of Scholarship on S-Isa”).5 After reviewing the limitations of past scholarship on the relation between S- and G-Isa, I lay out the theory and methodology of ITr (Chapter 2—“The Theory and Methodology of Indirect Translation”), drawing out ITr’s relevancy to Biblical Studies where appropriate and raising theoretical and methodological issues specific to S- and G-Isa that will need to be addressed in the remaining chapters. In Chapter 3 (“Framing S-Isa’s Relation to G-Isa through the Prism of ITr”) I apply the first two stages of ITr’s methodology (peritextual/textual analysis and epitextual analysis) to S-Isa, providing refined criteria by which to identify and explain unique S-G agreements and summarizing the cultural, scribal, and socioreligious milieu of the Syriac translator. Chapter 4 comprises a full inventory of S-Isa’s non-literal translation shifts from Isaiah 1, using M as my Hebrew base for comparison. The underlying premise of this chapter is that S-G agreements cannot be properly evaluated unless one has a grasp on what constitutes the Syriac translator’s translation technique. Chapter 5 examines all the S-G agreements (≠ M) that occur in Isaiah 1–5. S-G agreements that have their explanation in common translation technique are simply tagged to the inventory in Chapter 4. Those unique agreements exclusive to S-G that are not easily explained by common translation technique are then evaluated in commentary-fashion using the criteria adumbrated in Chapter 3. Then, I assess all the major S-G agreements from Isaiah 6–39 that have been noted in scholarly literature. I conclude by offering an explanatory hypothesis that accounts for the data in Chapters 4 and 5, specifying the kind of indirect relation that obtains between S- and G-Isa and using the concepts and terminology of ITr.
The Masoretic Text (M) strictly refers to the medieval continuation of an ancient Hebrew tradition, including a group of manuscripts that closely relate in their consonantal framework, vocalization, para-textual elements, accentuation, and apparatuses. When comparing M to ancient translations, one works primarily from its consonantal base, which has been frozen since the 3rd century BCE (see E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012], 24–74).
S. Bassnett and D. Johnston, “The Outward Turn in Translation Studies,” The Translator 25 (2019): 186.
C. Zwischenberger, “From Inward to Outward: The Need for Translation Studies to Become Outward-going,” The Translator 25 (2019): 256–68.
The acronym MT to designate a “mediating text” is likely to confuse biblical scholars who are acquainted with associating MT with the Masoretic Text. Since I am writing this for both biblical and translation scholars, I am bound to confuse some no matter which abbreviation I choose. For this reason, I will consistently use M throughout this volume to indicate the “Masoretic Text” and MT to designate the term “mediating text.”
A modified version of Chapter 1 was published in 2019; see Atwood, “The Peshiṭta of Isaiah in Past and Present Scholarship,” CBR 18(3) (2019): 211–45 (used with permission).