The New Roman Missal & the Creed

[RWJ]

In the New Roman Missal the Nicene Creed states: * ". . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father . . . "*

While this translation appropriately uses the traditional & biblical word “begotten” twice, can anyone explain to me why the word “born” used to describe our Lord’s eternal relationship to the Father? It is my understanding that “begotten” is the term to be used when speaking of a father & that “born” is used to describe what mothers do. Fathers beget; mothers give birth.

Am I missing something or simply mistaken here? Although I trust that this is not the translator’s intent, doesn’t this have the effect of feminizing God?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Nicea325]

In the New Roman Missal the Nicene Creed states: * ". . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father . . . "*

While this translation appropriately uses the traditional & biblical word “begotten” twice, can anyone explain to me why the word “born” used to describe our Lord’s eternal relationship to the Father? It is my understanding that “begotten” is the term to be used when speaking of a father & that “born” is used to describe what mothers do. Fathers beget; mothers give birth.

Am I missing something or simply mistaken here? Although I trust that this is not the translator’s intent, doesn’t this have the effect of feminizing God?

Thanks for your help.

From what I was told by one of the priest here at the parish, the whole change has to do with a poor translation with the current Missal,only in English. Actually fathers beget humans just as God the Father begets God the Son (Jesus). Makes sense?

 

[MarkThompson]

In the New Roman Missal the Nicene Creed states: * ". . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father . . . "*

While this translation appropriately uses the traditional & biblical word “begotten” twice, can anyone explain to me why the word “born” used to describe our Lord’s eternal relationship to the Father? It is my understanding that “begotten” is the term to be used when speaking of a father & that “born” is used to describe what mothers do. Fathers beget; mothers give birth.

Am I missing something or simply mistaken here? Although I trust that this is not the translator’s intent, doesn’t this have the effect of feminizing God?

Thanks for your help.

The Latin says, ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula, “from the Father [born? sprung? begotten?] before all ages.” I tend to agree with the upcoming translation that natus is best rendered “born”; with “begotten” left to genitus.

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

In the New Roman Missal the Nicene Creed states: * ". . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father . . . "*

While this translation appropriately uses the traditional & biblical word “begotten” twice, can anyone explain to me why the word “born” used to describe our Lord’s eternal relationship to the Father? It is my understanding that “begotten” is the term to be used when speaking of a father & that “born” is used to describe what mothers do. Fathers beget; mothers give birth.

Am I missing something or simply mistaken here? Although I trust that this is not the translator’s intent, doesn’t this have the effect of feminizing God?

Thanks for your help.

The only thing I know is that it is the same as the translation that is in my 1962 Missal. So it is not a new translation, but a return to the Old Translation. I therefore do not see it as a attempt to feminize the father, as it was written in latin there from the masculine word in the latin are used and this is a more presice translation.

 

[MarkThompson]

The only thing I know is that it is the same as the translation that is in my 1962 Missal. So it is not a new translation, but a return to the Old Translation. I therefore do not see it as a attempt to feminize the father, as it was written in latin there from the masculine word in the latin are used and this is a more presice translation.

It’s not actually a return to the “Old Translation” (not sure why you used capital letters), since there was never any official translation. The translations you’ll see in your Latin-English hand missals are unofficial work. The upcoming translations are fresh, though, naturally, since they are intended to be accurate and faithful to the Latin rather than a conceptual rewriting, they’ll look more like old translations which were done well.

Also, it is not really correct to say that the reason the Father is not feminized is due to the use of a masculine word; natum is masculine, yes, but that is to match the gender of Christ. The issue is whether “born from” is a concept that feminizes the bearer – and, whether or not it may be, that’s what the Latin says, and it’s a little late to go back and change that.

 

[5Loaves]

The Latin says, ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula, “from the Father [born? sprung? begotten?] before all ages.” I tend to agree with the upcoming translation that natus is best rendered “born”; with “begotten” left to genitus.

In the workshop I went to on Saturday about “The new Mass Translation of the Roman Missal… for Pastoral Musicians” Schutte explained that the ICEL translation for the current Missal used the “Dynamic Equivalence” method of translating and the new translation has used the “Formal Correspondence” method (correspondence as in this word in Latin corresponds to this word in English). Schutte is not a translator. He was only passing on what he’s learned, in order to help us understand how two translations can be so different. As an interpreter I found this interesting. As a Catholic I found it very helpful.

I’ve worked for many years as a simultaneous interpreter. In the field typically translators work from “frozen texts” i.e. language sources “frozen” in print, as is the Roman Missal, or "frozen’ on film/video.

The source language for the Roman Missal is almost entirely Latin and the target language for us in our Missal is English.

I was taught to refer to the first step in translation made in “Formal Correspondence”, as Schutte described the process that was used for this new Missal, as a translation “gloss”. That is word, word, word, word, in the exact order they appear in Latin. One can’t coherently, sensibly read or speak that word, word, word, word in English without first then adapting it to the syntax of English which is different from the syntax of Latin I assume. (Part of the translation at the first and second levels is striving to be sure you’ve found the most conceptually accurate corresponding word, which is what you are speaking to in part, in this post.) Anyone who is bi-lingual experiences this in an informal way when they code switch from one language to the other language.

… Anyway…in looking at the Missal we have had been using in these recent years as an interpreter I would say that the ICEL translators also changed the register of the text. A college professor lecturing to graduate students uses one register. A father talking with his child uses a very different register. Commercials on TV are using a different register, etc. To me the register of the Missal was shifted considerably in the translation we currently use and has been shifted again in the new translation, shifted I think to a register much more accurate and appropriate for the formal liturgical setting of the Holy Mass.

MarkThompson, it seems you are fairly comfortable doing translations from the source language of Latin to the target language of English. You might have some thoughts on what I’m saying.

(I haven’t read this article “English Translations of the Bible” so I shouldn’t refer people to it but I will because it does have some description about translation methods. I note it lists bibles as: “Formal Correspondence” translations: Douay-Rheims, KJV/NKJV, RSV/NRSV, NAB, NIV/TNIV
“Dynamic Equivalence” translations: NEB/REB, TEV/CEV, JB/NJB )

 

[MarkThompson]

MarkThompson, it seems you are fairly comfortable doing translations from the source language of Latin to the target language of English. You might have some thoughts on what I’m saying.

You give me too much much credit; I’m hardly a Latin scholar, and the “translating” I do is just for my own enjoyment and edification. I also like the sound that Latin has translated straight through to English, with ablative absolutes rendered directly – “The signal given, Caesar advanced …” And although I’m not remotely at the point where I can read Latin through without mentally translating, I’m decent enough that I can sometimes pseudo-translate with nonce-words that I can follow but don’t really make for presentable English without mental work that I try not to do unless necessary: “Vercigentorigem infestum esse existimavit Caesar” → “Vercingetorix to be hostile, Caesar existimated” --?-> “Caesar deemed Vercingetorix to be hostile.” I don’t at all feel qualified to decide how far from the original to stray when translating, so I either keep it to myself, or (as above in this thread) give very formal translations. Since I’m translating one sentence on an internet forum, I’d rather have to fess up to “That wasn’t very graceful” than “Well, but that’s not really what it says.” Real translators have to tread a finer line.

I’ve known a couple of professional translators, and there’s definitely a difference in how you would translate a novel and how you would translate a technical manual. Even then, it’s not that simple. There are a couple of major translations of Proust out there, and my understanding is that one is more faithful to the words and syntax Proust uses, and the other gives an English-speaking reader an experience more like what a French-speaker experiences reading the original.

My own view is that it’s for the Church to decide how close or far to play it to the vest in translating the Mass. Yet a great deal of the present “translation” simply isn’t a translation at all – it’s a rewriting. It neither formally nor dynamically translates the original; it drops ideas wholesale, shifts meanings, adds concepts, and so on. If the Church had wanted the Mass rewritten and reinvented, it would have said so.

As to whether the present translation changed the register of the text, I strongly suspect that you’re correct that it did, but one would have to have a far greater fluency in Latin than I do to make that judgment. Personally, I find the Vulgate to be written in a comparative childish register next to, say, Cicero, but I’m scarcely an expert and for all I know that might be entirely faithful to the sense of the Hebrew and Greek.

 

[ProVobis]

I’ve worked for many years as a simultaneous interpreter.

Tough job. My step brother is a court translator, Polish, English, and Spanish. He slips and his guy gets 5 years.

 

[ProVobis]

The source language for the Roman Missal is almost entirely Latin and the target language for us in our Missal is English.

I was taught to refer to the first step in translation made in “Formal Correspondence”, as Schutte described the process that was used for this new Missal, as a translation “gloss”. That is word, word, word, word, in the exact order they appear in Latin. One can’t coherently, sensibly read or speak that word, word, word, word in English without first then adapting it to the syntax of English which is different from the syntax of Latin I assume. (Part of the translation at the first and second levels is striving to be sure you’ve found the most conceptually accurate corresponding word, which is what you are speaking to in part, in this post.) Anyone who is bi-lingual experiences this in an informal way when they code switch from one language to the other language.

Two big problems I have with the spoken English language. (1) Too many homophones (e.g., to, two, too) and (2) Lack of second person specificity. The latter can be quite offensive if people think they’re being singled out when the speaker refers to a broader number of people. (Who exactly is you?) This wasn’t much of a problem when the "thy"s and the "thou"s were still acceptable and this perhaps explains why the Anglican Mass seems much more devout and pleasing to the ear than the English OF.

 

[5Loaves]

… Anyway…in looking at the Missal we have had been using in these recent years as an interpreter I would say that the ICEL translators also changed the register of the text. A college professor lecturing to graduate students uses one register. A father talking with his child uses a very different register. Commercials on TV are using a different register, etc. To me the register of the Missal was shifted considerably in the translation we currently use and has been shifted again in the new translation, shifted I think to a register much more accurate and appropriate for the formal liturgical setting of the Holy Mass.

What fun!.. I was just listening to this on line DVD and low and behold Fr Andrew Wadsworth, Executive Director of the ICEL Secretariat, says "it’s a return to a sacral register of language. a register of language that is not really the language we use in every day transactions, but **reflects the sacredness, the holiness of the actions and the Mysteries we celebrate." **



Time for bed, hope to hear the rest of that video ere long…