Open Access“Who says it is a translation?” Issues of community ownership and global responsibility
Author(s) -
Freddy Boswell
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
hermeneus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.12
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2530-609X
pISSN - 1139-7489
DOI - 10.24197/her.22.2020.591-608
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , obligation , publication , task (project management) , public relations , political science , quality (philosophy) , collective responsibility , work (physics) , law , sociology , management , social science , engineering , economics , epistemology , mechanical engineering , philosophy
We are living during the era of the greatest acceleration of Bible translation (BT) in history. It seems legitimate to raise the question within the BT community of practice: is there an obligation to recognize all translations as legitimate translations? While we are usually confident that if a translation is sponsored by a local community or denomination and published by a recognized BT agency, then we know that the BT program went through appropriate drafting and quality control protocols. But what about other situations, such as that of a single translator or a small group of individuals who work alone and without sponsorship? They intend to publish on their own and at the time when they say it is suitable. Or perhaps a mission agency declares unilaterally that a translation they sponsored is acceptable for a language community. In light of unprecedented acceleration, “Who says it’s a translation?” is a relevant question for BT practice and process. We must find a shared understanding about how to discern a proper balance between community ownership of the task and global responsibility in reporting overall progress and the size of the remaining task.