“(…) the translator of prose is the slave of the author and the translator of poetry is his rival.”

— Andrei Makine

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Andrei Makine1

French writer 1957

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“The greatest pleasure in translating is precisely this feeling of spiritual closeness and spiritual merging with the translated author. Moreover this spiritual relation is different with every writer.”

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“English translation:
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“A translator has divided loyalties. He has a duty to his author, a duty to his reader and a duty to the text. The three are by no means identical and are often hard to reconcile.”

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“The Translator has purposefully abstained from the use of any previous translation, in order to give his own view of the meaning unbiased.”

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“There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.”

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“Luther's Qualifications. Luther had a rare combination of gifts for a Bible translator: familiarity with the original languages, perfect mastery over the vernacular, faith in the revealed word of God, enthusiasm for the gospel, unction of the Holy Spirit. A good translation must be both true and free, faithful and idiomatic, so as to read like an original work. This is the case with Luther's version. Besides, he had already acquired such fame and authority that his version at once commanded universal attention.
His knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was only moderate, but sufficient to enable him to form an independent judgment. What he lacked in scholarship was supplied by his intuitive genius and the help of Melanchthon. In the German tongue he had no rival. He created, as it were, or gave shape and form to the modern High German. He combined the official language of the government with that of the common people. He listened, as he says, to the speech of the mother at home, the children in the street, the men and women in the market, the butcher and various tradesmen in their shops, and, "looked them on the mouth," in pursuit of the most intelligible terms. His genius for poetry and music enabled him to reproduce the rhythm and melody, the parallelism and symmetry, of Hebrew poetry and prose. His crowning qualification was his intuitive insight and spiritual sympathy with the contents of the Bible.
A good translation, he says, requires "a truly devout, faithful, diligent, Christian, learned, experienced, and practiced heart."”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's competence as a Bible translator

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