Toward a Best Practice in Representing The Authors’ Explanatory Notes in Old Testament Translation

Abstract

This article will help translation teams to develop a best practice for dealing with explanatory notes that are made by the Biblical authors themselves. To my knowledge there is no standard resource for Bible translators that addresses in some detail the issue of explanatory (or: parenthetical) notes. However, every Bible translator will face numerous such notes and has to decide what to do with them. Some standard versions appear unsystematic in this and are of limited help. This article discusses what options a translator has in dealing with such notes. Special attention is given to explanatory notes that need explanation themselves for the modern reader. In order to explore translation problems and solutions regarding explanatory notes, I collected examples – partly when I encountered them incidentally, partly by reading through several Biblical books and looking for them. I discuss the options for translation on the basis of three types of examples. An annotated translation of Deuteronomy 3:8–17 shows how explanatory notes can be represented. I argue that each translation project should make two conscious choices: (1) whether or not to mark explanatory notes, and (2) if yes, in what way; this is largely a question of how punctuation and footnotes are used. The principles should be applied consistently. This is to achieve three goals: (1) doing justice to the Biblical text with its own history and different levels, (2) being systematic and transparent in the method of translation, and (3) having efficient ways of working within the translation team. A model guideline and a list of explanatory notes complete the article.