James Maxey, Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship Nida School of Bible Translation October 6-10, 2014 Misano Adriatico, Italy James Maxey, Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship jmaxey@americanbible.org

Outline What is ‘Bible’ and ‘Translation’? Orality Studies Introduction of Biblical Performance Criticism Implications for translation

What is ‘Bible’? What is ‘Translation’? Translation Studies ‘the turns in TS’ Biblical Studies ‘biblical criticisms’

Orality’s role and influence in Antiquity “Orality, Print Culture, and Biblical Interpretation” video Material issues Literacy issues Rhetorical manuals

Literacy Rates in Antiquity Ancient Literacy: 10-15% throughout the Mediterranean world. As low as 3% literacy in ancient Palestine in the areas of Galilee – given rural peasant population. Literacy served the Elite and Powerful.

Letters and Narratives Dictation Scribes Scriptio Continua Memorization (Aristotle’s 5 points of Rhetoric)

Mark as Story

“What is Biblical Performance Criticism?” Biblical Performance Criticism seeks to understand the performance of Christian traditions in the oral cultures of the early church, aspects of which include the performer, audience, context, and text. http://biblicalperformancecriticism.org

Discrete Discipline Historical Criticism Narrative Criticism Form and Genre Criticism Reader-Response Criticism Rhetorical Criticism Textual Criticism Orality Criticism Speech Act Theory Social-Science Criticism Linguistic Criticism The Art of Translation Ideological Criticism Theater Studies Oral Interpretation Studies

“What is Biblical Performance Criticism?” Biblical Performance Criticism analyzes a biblical text through the translation, preparation, and performance of a text for group discussion of the performance event.

“What is Biblical Performance Criticism?” Such a methodology seeks to foster the appreciation of performance for the appropriation of the Bible in the modern world.

Performance Event Act of Performing Embodiment Beyond aural to visual (gestures, facial expressions, posture, proximity) Social location

Performance Event Composition in Performance Stage directions Emotional state of the performer Expected emotional state of the audience

Performance Event Performer Performer as the medium Performer coached as to how to place emphasis Appreciate the audience’s responses Elaborate sections of the message

Performance Event Audience Communally experienced Audience’s response marks the effectiveness Social location of the audience is determinative

Performance Event Material Context Physical locale affects the performance Words spoken in different contexts have different effects (Speech Act theory)

Performance Event Social-historical circumstances Social context’s critical role Presupposed backdrops of performers and their audiences Historical and Social-Science criticisms

Performance Event Rhetorical Impact Transformation is goal Performance is not limited to what it might mean, but what it does Value of emotion (Shiner: “The success of verbal art was often judged by the way it affected the emotions of the listeners.” )

Philemon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YWFNWvzK0

Performance as Method Comparison of a musicologist What is goal of performance? “reconstruction” of performance (Shiner) reconstruction of rhetorical impact (Rhoads) – “modern sensibilities”

Performance as Method Issues of Memorization: Although oral performance uses thematic memory, Rhoads and I work with verbatim memory of texts Not spontaneous/extemporaneous … but in time goes beyond verbatim to respond to crowd and context Performance without professional training

Performance as Method Issue of Languages: Language of performance is generally not the biblical language Exceptions with Philemon and 1 Cor. 15:1-11 Boomershine with Mark’s Passion narrative Phonetic impact partially accessible in biblical language: Scott and Dean’s work

Performance as Method Questions Asked due to Performance What was I to do with my hands, my posture, my facial expressions, my proximity to the audience? Could these all remain neutral throughout? And so the very performance of these Greek compositions urged me to ask more questions about the composition – its history and its rhetorical potential.

My Assumptions BPC assumes that authority resides in the community. BPC does not set itself in opposition to the historical critical method. Reconstructed text as the point of departure. BPC is a methodology of exegesis in and of itself. In BPC the performance event is central. BPC goes beyond orality. BPC inherently is multi-media.

Assumptions of BT to be revisited Issues of fidelity and translation (Soukup and Hodgson) Translation Studies offers numerous insights Re-writing Power relations Discussions of source/target

Lingering Questions What exactly is a performance? Extra-Biblical? Are the performances “the Bible”? Questions of authenticity. – similarities with “authentic local/contextual theologies”

Challenges to BPC Larry Hurtado, “Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies? ‘Orality’, ‘Performance’ and Reading Texts in Early Christianity.” New Testament Studies / Volume 60 / Issue 03 / July 2014, pp 321 - 340

Implications of Performance Criticism for Biblical Translation Rhoads: “If the Second Testament texts are scripts of live performances, are we then translating the texts or are we translating the texts-as-performances—insofar as we are able to reconstruct and re-experience them!”

Unsophisticated Understanding of Translation Literal vs. Dynamic Form Separate from Meaning Location of Meaning

Contributions from Functional and Relevance Theories Multiple Loci of Meaning Gaps of Indeterminacy Monovalence vs. Polyvalence Faithfulness to Source vs. Loyalty to Audience

A Vuté Performance

“Translation” - DBAM Translation beyond interlingual to intersemiotic Translation for performance; performance as translation Translation as prospective and creative (rather than retrospective and recuperative)

James Maxey, Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship Nida School of Bible Translation October 6-10, 2014 Misano Adriatico, Italy James Maxey, Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship jmaxey@americanbible.org