www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Question # 2 on the New Translation of the Liturgy

Please elaborate. What is the agenda and who holds to it in the present context?

I think you're wrong to make so general statement a statement on the matter.

Another Rome/approval item to add to the list.

Nice example of begging the question here.

I think you're wrong to make so general statement a statement on the matter.

[QUOTE]

I can't speak for the person who you were writing to in your reply, but I can give a couple examples of how the inclusive language in the New Translation does not jive with the texts of the Church:

In the Litany of Supplication before the Cherubic Hymn:

... i vsej vo Christ'i bratiji nasej.

... and for all our brethern in Christ.

in the new translation I have seen:

... and for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

bratiji is clearly brethern or some masculine word. in modern day Ukrainian brati is brothers, so 'and sisters' is added. And whether you like it or not it is not what the Slavonic traslation says.

... jako blah i celov'ikolubec.
... for he is gracious and loves mankind.

in the new translation I have seen:

for he is gracious and he loves us all.

Once again, in modern day Ukrainian cholovik is the word for 'man'. L'ubit is 3rd person for 'to love'. So clearly the Slavonic celov'ikolubec is lover of mankind and not of us all.

Another translation in question is even in the currently approved translation at the very beginning of the Litany of Thanksgiving

Prosti prijimse bozestvennych, svjatych, precistych, bezsmertnych, nebesnych, zivotvorjascich, strasnych Christovych tajin, dostojno blahodarim Hospoda.

Having received the divine, holy, most pure, immortal, heavenly, and life-creating, awesome mysteries of Christ, arise, let us worthily thank the Lord.

Prosti does not mean 'arise' and nowhere in the Slavonic is the word 'arise' in there. It was added because the Ruthenian Catholics adopted the practice of sitting during the Da ispolnatsja ...(May or lips be filled..).

I have been to Ukrainian Catholic churches where they stand during the Da ispolnatsja and have heard the phrase 'Be Attentive' which is more appropiate because the insinuation that we are supposed to be sitting (most churches in the Mother Land don't have pews)is not intimated.

I have people say to me 'it's not a big deal' and 'what's the difference'. To which I reply, 'I agree, it's not a big deal, so since it's not a big deal, let's make it the way it's supposed to be'.

Finally, does anyone else find it strange that Slavonic is being stamped out the way it is. Because if people have access to the Slavonic and Greek then they can question the translation. Without it, it makes questioning much more difficult.

Michael Cerularius

MC, I agree that errors of this sort are possible. But I don't think that it is possible to make a general, valid assertion, that such language CANNOT be accurate. And no finite list of examples of errors is responsive to that criticism. The examples you give, however, are interesting. For example, in the original Greek, was an exclusive word like "brothers" used or not. If not, is it really appropriate to use an exclusive word in the English translation - CAN it be accurate? Why are you translating a translation rather than the original?

djs,

I acquiesce that I do not have a Greek translation in front of me. The reason that I translate from Slavonic is because I have the Slavonic translaiton in front of me and because I am able to understand Slavic languages.

I would be curious as to what the Greek is for "bratiji nasej" and "celov'ikol'ubec".

I would almost guarantee that the Greek does not say "arise" much like "Prosti" is not arise. But I base this on the fact that the people would not have been sitting in pews when the Greek was written, not because I have a Greek translation in front of me.

Michael Cerularius

http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/liturgical_texts/liturgy_chrysostom_greek.asp

And if you get everything, please let me know how you did it; I lose a quarter o the characters.

It has already been stated that Liturgical commision was instructed to work from the Greek (which I think says Orhtoi for Prosti).
If you look around on the topic of Bible translations there is not shortage of discussion on adelphos and anthropos. Having limited expertise, no axe to grind, and no influence on the matter, I will just work to support what those in authority, by God's grace, produce; and just hope that the product is respectable, even if not pleasing to everyone's refined sensibilites.

A Greek translation? What it it be translated from?

"bratiji nasej" ... in Greek, the word for brothers is "adelphoi"; it turns out that the word for "brother" and "sister" are the same (except for gender, i.e., stem endings), so one could, I suppose, translate it "siblings", but since it is used as a perelel to, for example, "fathers", that would be pushing it.

"celov'ikol'ubec" ... "philanthropos" "lover of man".

"Prosti" ... "orthoi" ... same verb used for the sun's rising (from which "orthros" ["matins"] is derived.

Photius

I don't have a Greek TEXT in front of me, but I do have a translation into English of the Divine Liturgy from Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts, where the Litany of Thanksgiving begins:

The deacon: Upright. Having partaken of the divine, holy...

The Old Orthodox Prayer Book from the Erie Old Believers has the Litany of Thanksgiving begin "Prosti..." in Slavonic, and translates it as "Upright! Having received..."

So I think this is one "mistranslation" that you can safely remove from your list.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Jeff,


I can see a difference between upright and arise but maybe that's just me.

What would have the people been arising from?

So how does your explanation allow me safely remove it from my list.

Michael Cerularius

Why would the commission be instructed to work from a greek text, when the ruthenian recension normative books given in Rome are in slavonic?

Now that you brought it up.

How does the Greek translate:

Premudrost', prosti !

Wisdom! Be attentive!


is the word in the Greek that 'prosti' comes from the same or different from the one that we have discussing. If it's the same then the Slavonic is consistent but the English is not. If it is different then the Slavonic is not consistent.

Michael Cerularius

Your note said you guaranteed that "Prosti" could NOT mean "arise". I'm simply saying that you might not like the translation, but "Prosti" is a command with the sense of "Upright!". The Greek Catholics clearly did not "add" a sense of "being upright" or "rising" to the Greek and Slavonic. Do you object to both "prosti" and "vonmim" being translated as "Be attentive", and wish ALL occurences of "prosti" to be translated as "Upright!"? Or are you saying the Greeks and Old Believers are misleading, that their "upright" has false connotations?

Jeff

http://www.research.umbc.edu/~dkusic1/divine-liturgy.html

I don't know whose English translation this is; we have prosti, before the Gospel as let us stand (even though we have just been standing through the Alleluia).

The GOA has "Let us be attentive" at the Little Entrance and after communion, but "arise" before the Gospel.
http://www.goarch.org/en/Chapel/liturgical_texts/liturgy_hchc.asp

No, I questioned 'prosti' being translated to 'arise'. 'Upright' is better, it's pretty simple.

Rosumiete? (that's Ukrainian for do you understand?)

this is turning into an Abbott and Costello routine!

MC, On adelphos and anthropos you might like to read from this Orthodox source:
http://www.holy-trinity.org/liturgics/nrsv.html

Serbian or a Serbian influenced typo. Vsjem would be Serbian Slavonic (Rusins say vs'im), the Serbs have inverted the vs- in the "all" words.