Slips in Translation

All this does not imply that the translation from Hebrew was smooth and easy. As is the case with translations of texts from one language to another, equivalence became an issue. Even today there are debates about the way certain words have been translated. For instance, Alpert points out how St. Jerome, the first of the translators of the Bible, translated the Hebrew word ‘almah’ as virgin: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). Translators today realize that the word only means a young woman who can become a mother. It is obvious from this that the connotation of the verse changes completely if the word is translated as virgin. Mistranslated as it may be, St. Jerome’s translation has, over the centuries, attained a sort of finality.

Another controversy has been around the name of God that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. The name of God in the Pentateuch is conveyed through the Tetragrammaton or four letters Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh. This was not pronounced as it was written (it was actually pronounced as Adonai), and it passed into the Septuagint as Kyrios, to Latin as Dominus and to English as Lord. Much later when the Hebrew vocal text came into circulation, nobody knew the actual pronunciation and it was mistakenly assumed to be pronounced as Yahovah and written as Jehovah. Thus the name of God came to be finalized as Jehovah in the Old Testament. Alpert argues that this is a misunderstanding of the basic text, a muddling that occurred due to incorrect translation somewhere down the line (272).

Besides this, there are difficulties encountered in translation of names. In the original Hebrew, each name has a meaning which is lost in translation to English or other languages. Take the case of the name Jacob. He was named Ya’aqov from the Hebrew aqeb meaning heel, as he was born holding the heel of his twin brother Esau. Ya’aqov becomes Jacob in translation, thereby ridding the name of all reference to the heel which in Hebrew connotes somebody who overtakes another insidiously. The name then gains added significance when considered in the context of Jacob’s story and how he deceived his father into giving him the blessings that should have gone to Esau the firstborn.