1. 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

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

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

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

5. 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.

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

7. Mark as Story

8. “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.

9. 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

10. “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.

11. “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.

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

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

14. 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

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

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

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

18. 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.” )

19. Philemon

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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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

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

27. 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

28. 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!”

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

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

31. A Vuté Performance

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

33. 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