Lost In Artscroll's Translation

ArtScroll translations make study and prayer difficult for three reasons. First, ArtScroll uses big words needlessly. Second, it uses Hebrew words in English translations. Finally, it ineffectively distinguishes between translating words either literally or figuratively.

Much of the Torah is written in short words. This style is reflected in the following Soncino translation: "And He said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' And Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac, his son; and he cleaved the wood for the burnt-offering and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him" (Gen. 22:2-3).

Translator Matthew Ward describes "an artistic sleight of hand that would make the complexities of a man's life appear simple." Such legerdemain exists in the simplicity of the Torah narrative. Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th-century Danish philosopher and theologian, writes, "It is supposed to be difficult to understand [philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a trifle. To go beyond Hegel is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest simplest thing of all." Though Kierkegaard is ironic, his point is valid. Abraham's trial is great, but the Torah relates this story with simplicity.

ArtScroll translations, alternatively, use big words unnecessarily. Take Genesis 1:16. Soncino: "And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night ; and the stars." ArtScroll: "And God made the two great luminaries, the greater luminary to dominate the day and the lesser luminary to dominate the night; and the stars." The choices of "dominate" for "rule," and "luminary" not "light" needlessly clutter the sentence.

Take also the words oti shikaltem (Gen. 42:36). ArtScroll renders this, "I am the one whom you have bereaved," while Soncino writes, "Me have ye bereaved." Despite the archaic "ye," Soncino's translation is shorter and more faithful to the Hebrew. There is a Talmudic concept that words and letters in the Torah are not used without cause. A translation should reflect that principle. Here the Torah uses two words. English is less concise, so Soncino needs four words, but ArtScroll garrulously uses eight.

Whenever the Tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew, ArtScroll writes "Hashem" in the English translation. ArtScroll presumably wants to appeal to secular Jews in addition to the Orthodox. However, most secular Jews are not familiar with "Hashem," so when they see that word, they become confused, and their prayers are compromised. Most other translators conventionally use "God" for the Tetragrammaton, and "Lord" for Elokim - this style of translation is clearer for the English reader.

Robert Alter, a secular Bible scholar, writes that he considered rendering the Tetragrammaton in transliteration, as if reading the letters 'yud kay vav kay' as a word. He chooses to translate it as "God" instead of "giv[ing] the English version a certain academic-archeological coloration that I preferred to avoid." One of Alter's objectives, in his admittedly secular translation, is to create a readily readable English Bible; he chooses to avoid a transliteration, which would not be idiomatic English.

When Abraham thinks he will never have children, he cries "Hashem Elokim mah titen li v'anochi holech ariri" (Gen. 15:2). Soncino renders this, "O Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go hence childless," which is clearer than ArtScroll's "My Lord, Hashem/Elokim [ArtScroll actually uses an "h" for that "k"]: What can You give me seeing that I go childless." ArtScroll's stated purpose of translating the Torah is "to present the ancient wine of Sinai in the vessel of today's vernacular." Hashem/Elokim is not understandable to the common English-speaking reader - it is not vernacular.

ArtScroll needlessly translates words figuratively. It translates the words "b'yad yosef" (Gen. 39:6) as "Joseph's custody." Soncino and Rabbi S. R. Hirsch translate these words literally: "Joseph's hand." And there is no reason not to. Alter writes, "[M]ost modern translators substitute one or another of these abstract terms [such as power, control, responsibility, or trust], introducing supposed clarity where things were perfectly clear to begin with," and calls this "the heresy of explanation." Alter also quotes Gerald Hammond, author of The Making of the English Bible, that translations often "eschew anything which smacks of imagery or metaphor - based on a curious assumption, I guess, that modern English is an image-free language."

There are, however, times when adherence to definition obscures meaning. ArtScroll translates the words "yirdefuni" and "l'orech yamim" (Psalm 23:6) as "pursue me" and "for long days." This translation is accurate. But compare the tone of the Jewish Publication Society (1917) to that of ArtScroll. JPS: "Surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life; / And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." ArtScroll: "May only goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of Hashem for long days." JPS sings; ArtScroll stumbles.

ArtScroll's translation of this verse alters the understanding of the text. The phrase "follow me" captures David's spirit of pleasantness; "pursue me" makes goodness and kindness sound like ineludible bandits. Furthermore, ArtScroll's "for long days" implies that David will spend his mortal life with God, while "for ever" suggests that after his death, he will spend the rest of eternity with the Creator. Rabbi Hirsch explains David's meaning: "Once the days of my wanderings on earth shall be at an end, 'dying' to me will be nothing more than a 'return' home, a return to the House of the Lord forever."

Knowing when to be literal and when to take liberties is a requirement that makes translation a difficult art. The French poet Francois Villon's poem The Ballad of the Dead Ladies contains one of the most famous lines in poetry: Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? The literal - but not poetic - translation is, "But where are the snows of old?" There are two poetic translations of this line. One is, "But where are the snows of yester-year?" The other, "But whither have gone the snows of yore?" The second translator took more liberties than the first, though the first is also slightly interpretive. However, both translators demonstrated their mastery of the English language. I do not balk merely at ArtScroll's use of one method of translation over the other, but at its uneasiness with the language.

In 1966 Robert Lowell, former Poet Laureate of the United States (1947-1948), wrote Imitations, a book of European poetry which was adapted - not translated - to English. In the introduction to that volume, he writes, "[T]he usual reliable translator gets the literal meaning but misses the tone, and[...] in poetry tone is of course everything. I have been reckless with literal meaning, and labored hard to get the tone."

I have listed several technical objections with ArtScroll's translation. But many readers simply complain that ArtScroll does not "read well," or that it does not "sound right," without being able to identify a specific problem. This problem can be called one of style; I would call it the je ne sais quoi that exists in any art. Lowell calls it the tone. The Torah is poetic, and deserves a proper translation. The translator of the Bible cannot be reckless like Lowell, but he should labor hard to get that tone.

Alec Goldstein is a Yeshiva College senior (May '06) majoring in French.