Finnish translations

The history of the Finnish Bible begins in Medieval times: some parts of the Bible, especially the ones used in liturgy, such as the Lord’s Prayer, were translated into Finnish quite early in history.⁴ Mikael Agricola, who is called the father of the Finnish written language, translated the New Testament into Finnish. It was published in 1548.⁵ The first whole Bible was published in 1642, after Agricola’s death. This translation has been a highly influential one. The next completely new Bible version was the 1933/38 Bible.⁶

Two of the three Finnish translations that are studied here were published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland, for the needs of the church. This means that the translation committee made the translation, but the church council made the final decisions on what the final version of the text would be. This means that this final version of the text may not be what the committee wanted to state. In some cases, the church council wanted to return to the traditional translation, which did not follow the principles of the theory of dynamic equivalence. The third translation, UTN, on the other hand, was meant to be a parallel translation. That is why the translators were able to follow the dynamic principle more faithfully.⁷

The 1933/38 Bible

My rationale for choosing this translation in my research is three-fold. Firstly, it is a formally equivalent version. Secondly, it is still widely used in several denominations in Finland. Thirdly, it provides a contrast for the more dynamic and functional translations made in Finnish later in the 20^th century.

The 1933/38 Bible has a long history, for the translation committee was founded already in 1886. Due to the long history, members of the committee changed, because some of them passed away and were replaced with new ones. One interesting tidbit is

4 Huhtala 2007, 48.

5 Huhtala 2007, 49‒50.

6 Huhtala 2007, 51, 56.

7 Other translations used in this research were made in different situations, since there are several Bible versions available both in English and in German that are used at the same time.

that not all of the members of the committee were native Finnish speakers.⁸ According to Puukko, there were three committees as a whole; the first one was founded in 1861, the second one in 1886, and the last one in 1913, when the test translation of the NT was published and accepted as a temporary translation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland.⁹

There was a need for a new Bible translation, since the previous translation was based on the first Bible translation made in Finnish, in 1642. Other versions made after that were merely revisions of the old one.¹⁰ The first test version was published in 1906, and it contained the gospels. The translators had removed some archaic expressions from the Bible and replaced them with modern ones. This caused criticism towards the translation. It was stated by two authors who were checking the Finnish language of the translation, Juhani Aho and Otto Manninen, that religious language should be separated from normal Finnish language.¹¹ Due to the criticism, the NT that was published in 1913 was a traditional translation, and the modern words in the test version were changed back to old ones. This meant that the language of the final translation was still built upon the past centuries. After the publication of the OT in 1933, the committee revised the translation of the NT as well, and it was ready in 1938.¹²

Uusi testamentti nykysuomeksi¹³ (UTN)

The reason why I chose this translation for my research is that this is a thoroughly dynamic version. Translation studies were developing greatly in the 1960s when Nida developed the theory of dynamic equivalence. This caused great enthusiasm in Bible translation work: several dynamic versions were made around the world, such as the Good News Translation (GNT) in the USA. One of these new versions was UTN, New Testament in Popular Finnish, which was published in 1972 by the Finnish Bible Society. It was translated by three theologians: Heikki Räisänen, Raimo Huikuri, and Esko Rintala. Later on, in 1973, Jussi Aro translated the Psalms into Popular Finnish by using the same principle of dynamic equivalence.¹⁴ The Finnish Bible Society and Suomen Kirkon Sisälähetysseura were behind the translation. The process started in 1968, when the committee was founded.¹⁵

According to Rintala, this enthusiasm in Bible translation had reached Finland as well, and Nida visited Finland in order to train Finnish Bible translators. The agreement was made during that training that new Bible translation work in Finnish should begin. Earlier versions made in Finnish had used word concordance, which

8 Puukko 1946, 283, 303–304; Kela, 2007, 41.

9 Puukko 1946, 281, 284, 311–313, 320, 364.

10 Puukko 1933, 6-8; Huhtala 2007, 53‒56.

11 Puukko 1933, 49; Puukko 1946, 401, 409–410; Huhtala 2007, 55. According to the authors mentioned above, the aim of the translators should be the “Bible Finnish”.

12 Kela 2007, 38‒41; Huhtala 2007, 53‒56.

13 New Testament in Popular Finnish.

14 Rintala 1972, 161‒163; Kela 2007, 41.

15 Suomen Pipliaseura.

means that a particular concept always has the same equivalent, but the new version was to be dynamic and the committee gave up word concordance.¹⁶

The aim of the translation of UTN was to be a version for an average person, who may not be familiar with literature or religious language. This had an influence on the language of the translation: firstly, the language is natural Finnish, and secondly, the translators avoided theological concepts that are known to experts but whose meaning can be difficult to understand for a reader who is not used to reading the Bible. Räisänen gives three examples of theological concepts, namely dikaiosu/nh, sa/rc and e)n Xristw~|, that are not translated literally, for they are not used in normal Finnish language. He also points out that the UTN translation is not meant for scholarly use, and the translators had given up word concordance. That has led to a variety of translational equivalents of these words and expressions in the UTN text.¹⁷

Räisänen has given examples of translational equivalents of the theological concepts mentioned above in the UTN. In Gal. 2:16, sa/rc has been translated as ‘no one’, in Gal.

2:20 as ‘living a life on the Earth’, in Gal. 3:3 as ‘with your own strength’, in 4:23 as ‘in a natural way’, and in Gal. 5:19 as ‘deeds caused by evil tendencies‘.¹⁸ ‘Righteousness’

or the verb ‘to make righteous’ has been translated as ‘to accept into a relationship’, or

‘to be good enough for God’.¹⁹ In some cases there is no direct translational equivalent to dikaiosu/nh in the UTN text, for example in Rom. 1:17. The translational equivalent of ‘In Christ’ varies. It has been translated as ‘in union with Christ’ (Rom. 8:1), ‘as a sister’ (Rom. 16:2), ‘in the service of Christ’ (Rom. 16:3), ‘to be a Christian’ (Rom. 16:7), and ‘my brother in faith’ (Rom. 16:8). It is a complicated question, though, whether these mediate the message the original author intended to convey.²⁰

The translation was meant to be a parallel version, so translators were able to follow the principles of dynamic equivalence more consistently than if it was supposed to replace the translation mainly used in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland.

The message of the original text is repeated as clearly as possible in this translation.

It uses contemporary Finnish language, and when Greek sentence structure clearly deviates from the Finnish, it is possible to re-structure the text of a pericope so that it fits the demands of Finnish language.²¹

According to Rintala, the accuracy of the translation was not previously seen as communicating the message accurately, which is the main point in dynamic translation, but it was seen as accurate when small units of the text were comparable to the original text. These small units were not seen as part of communication. The dynamic translation is considered accurate when a reader understands the text in a similar way, as far as possible, to that in which an original reader understood the original text.²²

16 Rintala 1972, 161‒163.

17 Rintala 1972, 162; Räisänen 1972, 176–177. Räisänen 1972, 176.

18 Räisänen 1972, 176. Gal. 2:16: kukaan ihminen, Gal. 2:20: elän maanpäällistä elämää, Gal. 3:3: omin voiminko, Gal. 4:23: luonnollisella tavalla. Gal. 5:19: pahojen taipumusten aikaan saamat teot.

19 Räisänen 1972, 176. Hyväksyä yhteyteensä, kelvata Jumalalle.

20 Räisänen 1972, 176. Room. 8:1: yhteydessä, Room. 16:2: sisarena, Room. 16:3: palveluksessa, Room. 16:7: olla kristitty, Room. 16:8: uskonveljeni.

21 Rintala 1972, 162.

22 Rintala 1972, 162‒164.

The 1992 Bible

My reasons for choosing this translation for this research are two-fold. Firstly, it is a dynamic version. Secondly, it is also used widely in Finland. The translation committee was founded in 1973, after the dynamic NT was published. The language of the 1933/38 version was old fashioned, and there was a need for a new translation.²³ The translation work was ecumenical, as the committee also had representatives from the Orthodox Church and the Free Church Council of Finland (SVKN). The Catholic Church had a representative in a feedback group.²⁴ This committee was the first one in which all the members were native Finnish speakers.²⁵ As mentioned above, even though the committee was the one that made the translation, the church council made suggestions for changes to the text, and gave its final approval to the text. That is why the text of the translation does not necessarily represent the views of the committee, since the final decisions were made by the council.

The aim of the translation was defined by the committee in 1975. It should be precise in that it will communicate as a whole the same information and emotional content as the original text.²⁶ This meant that the equivalence between the larger entities was more important than the equivalence between words.²⁷ The committee also received feedback from the United Bible Societies (UBS). The then leader of UBS Europe, Paul Ellingworth, commented on the memo of the committee. According to him, words such as ‘law’, ‘covenant’, ‘atonement’, and ‘righteousness’ are not terms like in natural science, and that is why they should be translated according to their context, and there is no need for word concordance.²⁸

The main difference to the earlier translation published in 1933/38, apart from the different theoretical background, is that the language is more up-to-date Finnish.²⁹ When considering the topic of this research, it is interesting that, according to Jukka Palola, the committee had a contradictory policy on how to translate ‘righteousness’.

The traditional translational equivalent of ‘righteousness’ is vanhurskaus, but this is rarely mentioned outside religious language, and so it may not be clear to a reader.

In some cases, the committee has used another translational equivalent, such as

‘innocent’. The committee, however, wanted to use the traditional word in contexts where the topic relates to salvation. Another problem with the word vanhurskaus is that it does not have any etymological connection to ‘rightness’ in modern Finnish, like translational equivalents in several Indo-European languages do, and so it does not give any clues in itself to a reader of its meaning.³⁰

According to Räisänen, the word ‘righteousness’ is a polysemic word. The translation committee gave up word concordance in the OT translation, which has had a positive impact on the Finnish language of the version. The committee made

23 Kela 2007, 41.

24 Toivanen 1989. 11.

25 Kela 2007, 41.

26 Toivanen 1989, 26.

27 Toivanen 1989, 23.

28 Kela 2007, 46.

29 Toivanen 1989, 13, 17, 18‒19.

30 Palola 2011, 11–12; Palola 2012, 565.

a decision to use the traditional translational equivalent in theologically important verses of the NT, such as Rom. 5:1. This has led to different interpretations in the OT and NT. The translation that has been made according to the dynamic equivalence theory helps to understand a particular text in question, as a whole, but it makes it more difficult to relate that text to other biblical texts, partly due to the abandoning of word concordance.³¹

The committee also had more information than the committee for the previous version. The finding of the Qumran texts brought new light to biblical studies. There had also been some new discoveries in archaeology that had given more detailed information on the historical background of biblical texts.³² The 1992 Bible was made when there were plenty of translations made in Europe and elsewhere. It has a strong status in Finland, but it is not considered as “the one and only translation”, as previous versions were.³³

While the Bible was being translated, there was plenty of discussion on the topic. Several articles were written, explaining the process of translating the Bible.³⁴ Nikolainen has pointed out that the differences between the old and the new translations were due to the development of the language and exegetical knowledge.

The OT translation was based on the Masoretic text and the NT on the Nestle-Aland 26^th edition. The aim was to get closer to the original intent of the original author.³⁵ This translation was made for the younger generation, the new readers of the Bible, and not so much for the older generation who already knew their Bible. The aim of the translation is to be understandable to the average reader. The committee wanted to preserve some old words and sayings in the text, but the language on the whole follows the structures of the Finnish language.³⁶ The committee also requested and received feedback from the audience, and this was useful in the translation work.

Nikolainen also responded to the criticism towards the new translation by stating that the biblical text can be interpreted and translated well, in several ways.³⁷

There are several other versions made in Finnish, but these three give a good picture of Finnish Bible translations. The fact that Finland is mainly a Lutheran country can be seen in that the most used versions in Finland are those that are officially published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church, for the needs of the church. The 1992 Bible is an ecumenical one; other denominations had representatives on the committee or they had an opportunity to comment on the translation.

31 Räisänen 1986, 187–188. The translation of the Pauline letters was not yet finished when Räisänen’s article was published in 1986, so he was not able to evaluate fully how this decision made by the committee to translate the word ‘righteousness’ actually works in the translation.

32 Toivanen 1989, 12.

33 Kela 2007, 47.

34 Nikolainen 1986a, 9. These articles were collected in the book Kohti uutta kirkkoraamattua.

35 Nikolainen 1986a, 10.

36 Nikolainen 1986a, 12.

37 Nikolainen 1986a, 13.