Stop calling it “transliteration”

Transliteration, transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another

“In 1611, the word unicorn was translated (actually transliterated) straight into English since we have no equivalent,” says the “Dust Off the Bible” dude, who likes to try to find some nit to pick on the King James Bible. No matter that an etymological search on the word “unicorn” reveals it is in Middle English back to the 13th century. Or the fact that if they had transliterated ראם it would have come out more like reem or re’em than unicorn![i] I can transliterate a word from another language. I cannot claim to transliterate a word from another language when someone else has already transliterated that word hundreds of years ago and it has become an English word!

If I had a dime for every time I have heard someone claim the King James Bible transliterated this or that word, I would be much better off when I retire at the end of this month. When I was young, usually players dealt the “baptize” card most often. Some Baptist preacher writing a Sunday School lesson or trying to making a point in a sermon thought it was smart to tell us the King James translators transliterated the word “baptidzo” so folks wouldn’t know it means “immerse.” If so, it did not work very well! Additionally, the form of The Book of Common Prayer in vogue at the time the KJV was translated prescribed immersion.[ii] And even “immerse” was initially a transliteration from the Latin immersus. Bible-researcher.com hosts The Greatest English Classic: A Study of the King James Version of the Bible and Its Influence on Life and Literature, by Cleland Boyd McAfee. In it, McAfee (a Presbyterian) writes:

“The King James translators follow that same practice of transliteration rather than translation with another word which is full of controversial possibility. I mean the word ‘baptism.’ There was dispute then as now about the method of that ordinance in early Christian history.”

Dictionary.com shows baptize entering the English language between AD 1250-1300, from Late Latin baptīzāre, from Greek baptizein immerse, from baptein to bathe, dip.[iii] The third King James translation rule that the “Old Ecclesiastical Words” were to be kept indicates these words had long since become part of regular usage. An inspection of English Bible translations made before 1611 will support that fact. They did not transliterate the word baptize. For whatever reason, they kept the word they already had.

Our double-tongued vocabulary

According to Dictionary.com, “Over 60 percent of all English words have Greek or Latin roots. In the vocabulary of the sciences and technology, the figure rises to over 90 percent [I suspect there is true for theological terminology as well, rlv]. About 10 percent of the Latin vocabulary has found its way directly into English without an intermediary (usually French).” Historyhit.com quotes novelist and playwright Dorothy Sayers saying the English language had a “wide, flexible, and double-tongued vocabulary.” They go on to explain that she meant was “English has two tones” – often there is a word rooted in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and then a word from the Latin for the same thing.

In addition to unicorn and baptize, other words that get sucked in to the transliteration vortex include Christ and Messiah,[iv] Lucifer and Day Star,[v] and others. There may be some words actually transliterated by the translators in 1611, but I am not aware of any. One might make a case for something like Anathema Maranatha in 1 Corinthians 16:22, since they might not be thought of as English words – but even that goes back to William Tyndale in 1526.

“Turnabout is fair play” – some say – and if transliteration is bad, then we can mention that some newer English Bible translations use transliterated words. There is “Sheol” and “Hades” in the Revised Version, where older translation formerly had hell, the grave, etc. Do not misunderstand. There is room for discussion and disagreement on whether Sheol, Hades, Hell and other words are the better word choices. One can make an argument to prefer Christ over Messiah, baptize over immerse, Hell over Sheol (or vice versa), and so on. However, these should proceed on their own merits rather than from fantasies about translators transliterating words (for nefarious purposes, usually) when the words were already long since part of the English language. When we discuss the “egg” (other than for pedantic purposes), we do not describe it as a transliteration of the Old Norse word egg (though it is). When we eat a bagel we do not worry about it being a transliteration of the Yiddish word beygl or the German word böugel (though it is). Rather, we “just stop,” eat them, and understand the words are now English words.

Just stop

When wrestling over certain “transliterated” words like “Lucifer,” “baptize,” and “unicorn,” often (in my opinion) both sides end up looking silly. A little knowledge of the development of the English language and the history of English translations apprises us that there is nothing sinister, secret, or stupid going on with the translation/transliteration. The answer is quite simple.

It is best to reserve “the translators transliterated” polemic technique to words that the translators themselves actually transliterated at the time they were translating their Bible. After words transliterated in the past have been in a language hundreds or thousands of years and have gained status and meaning, we no long need to keep referring to those words as if something new is going on. If we are discussing the origin or etymology of the word, or something technical about it, fine. But, if we have grasped on to “transliteration” as a tool to lash out at translations we do not like. Just stop.

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[i] As can be seen in Young’s Literal Translation. Compare Psalm 92:10, for example.
[ii] The Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church, which I checked from 1549 to 1604, speaks of baptism as dipping. They did allow for pouring water on “weak” babies, but that was the exception and not the rule.
[iii] Some of my good Baptist friends flip on the issue when it comes to the word “church,” complaining of the KJV translators using the English word church instead of transliterating the Greek “ekklesia.”
[iv] Both of these words were brought into the English language as transliterations. Christ was a transliteration of the word most commonly used in the Greek manuscripts, Christos, χριστός. Messiah is a transliteration of a word used twice in the Greek manuscripts, Messiah, μεσσίας.
[v] Illustrating the background of our double-tongued vocabulary, some foreign language translations of Isaiah 14:12 have a Latin-based word (Spanish, Lucero; Italian, Lucifero; Romanian, Luceafăr; Albanian, Lucifer) and some will have a Germanic-based word (Danish, Morgenstjerne; German, Morgenstern; Icelandic, morgunstjarna; Swedish, morgonstjärna). It seems to me that all these mean the same thing. (Perhaps the RV 1885 translators did not think so. They changed it but, at least in the edition I accessed, did not even provide an explanatory footnote. The 1611 translation has “day star” in the margin.)