Barbara Thiering's interpretation of Jesus' life

The purpose of this paper is to present arguments to disprove Thiering's claim that documents like the New Testament, Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Josephus, etc. might reveal the actual historical Jesus. Her use of the pesher technique is also discussed critically. It is shown that Thiering's pesher technique is a misconception of the pesher used in the Qumran commentaries and that she overestimated the importance of pesher as a method of text interpretation. The evaluation of Thiering's attempt to equate Christianity and Essenism, as well as the so-called similarities between the Qumran community and early Christianity, will follow logically

Towards the design for a new Bible Translation in Sesotho

The purpose of this article is to suggest a means of translating the Bible and other religious texts to provide for the needs of a community consisting to a large extent of members not able to read written texts. Colonialism in Southern Africa introduced the Bible and Western text-based literacy. Bible translators have focused their efforts on preparing a clear, natural and accurate written/printed text, with the expectation that audiences will understand the message if it is in their own language. Such translations depend on the reader’s ability to understand a written text. Literacy is essentially about control of information, memory, beliefs and distribution. Users still living in an oral culture are excluded.Continuing oral traditions and indigenous forms of cultural expression were and still are beyond the control of literacy. Within these communities, the African oral story-telling tradition survived in several forms within the narrative discourse. In view of the fact that these religious communities consist predominantly of members not able to read writen texts, another vehicle for the transfer of religious thought in Bible and religious translation is suggested. A new trend in Bible translation will consider the requirements of the hearer as well as those of the reader. (The translation has to be read out aloud, heard and listened to.) This trend is reflected in the recently published Contemporary English Version (1995), Das Neue Testament (1999), The Schocken Bible, Volume 1 (1995) and the Nieuwe Bijbel Vertaling (New Dutch Version) (2004). This article’s key issue is that of a translation strategy applicable to the audiences in question. Walter J. Ong mentions nine qualities of oral culture in which he characterises orally expressed thought and expression as opposed to literate thought and expression. The implementation of the  features pertaining particularly to the Sesotho oral culture is suggested for the Bible and the religious translation process in Sesotho. These features will assist hearers to grasp the meaning when the translation is read out aloud to them in church or privately

The Shaping Of Cultural Knowledge In South African Translation

No abstract

The rhetorical forms of Henry Rider Haggard's Nada the Lily in Zulu

The rhetorical forms in Umbuso KaShaka (The Realm of Shaka), the Zulu translation of Nada the Lily, are analysed within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies. The rhetorical forms investigated are individualisation, stereotyping, validation and structuring. A range of translation strategies is employed by the translator to establish the rhetorical forms. For the rhetorical form, individualisation, the strategies re-lexification, catalysis and idiosyncracy are used. Strategies like repetition, filial address, participatory response and fixed expressions are applied to set up the rhetorical form stereotyping. Lexical and semantic transfer, functional and cultural equivalents, cultural substitution and loanshift establish validation. Structuring is dealt with on grammatical (anastrophe and anacolutha) and textual level. Structuring on textual level includes components like punctuation, paragraphing, addition and omission. It is shown that the early Zulu translations are characterised by slight shifts in rhetorical form to restore their original (authentic) form, function and significance, so that they truly reflect Zulu language and culture. On the one hand, the translator was guided by a set of translator's norms relating to this period, namely to obey certain prescribed rules in order to be regarded as a good translator, i.e. to be faithful to the source text. On the other hand, however, an attempt was made to meet the expectations of the target system. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2004, 22(1&2): 9–2

The assessment of translation accuracy of the Lexica Machine Translation System

This article focuses on the research of the English–Afrikaans language pair development team and aims to establish an assessment method and procedure that will assess the translation accuracy of the Lexica Machine Translation (MT) System in an easily repeatable, scientifically acceptable way. Lexica is a transfer system that is used to carry out morphological, syntactic, semantic and contextual analysis and can be used for the following language pairs: Afrikaans, Tswana, Swahili and Portuguese to English; and English to Xhosa, Zulu and Afrikaans. The research has shown that there are no universally accepted and reliable methods and measures, and that assessment methodology has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. To assess the accuracy of translation of the Lexica MT System, diagnostic assessment was determined as the most suitable mode of assessment, as the focus of such assessment is on the identification of limitations, errors and deficiencies, which may then be corrected or improved by the development team. A method and procedure were developed according to which marks were awarded in terms of the following two aspects: (a) preservation of meaning, (b) grammatical correctness.Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2003, 21(4): 295–30