KOTA KINABALU: Religion and politics in Malaysia should not be mixed.
Sadly, it is a known fact that some politicians in power in Malaysia today use religion for their political gain, lamented Parti Cinta Sabah (PCS) President Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Bumburing.
“To prove my point, we only have to look at the rallying cry of Umno gearing towards the coming general election. I make this comment based on the principle of freedom of religion in the country and as a Christian, I am called to respond to the suggestion by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka for them to make a Malay translation of the Holy Bible,” he said in a statement.
Bumburing stressed that the Bible can never be appropriately and correctly translated from the English into the Malay language purely on a linguistic approach because the words and sayings both in the Old and New Testament contain deep religious meaning and differing cultural and historical background of the various writers spanning a period of more than 1,500 years and it can only be understood by the adherence of the Judaism and Christianity.
Therefore, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) will never be the appropriate body to even attempt to translate the Bible, he pointed out.
“I stand to state my position that the suggestion by DBP to translate the Bible is an attempt to interfere with the Christian faith. In an unrelated case, not long ago DBP was fined by a Native Court for a wrong write-up about the burial customary practice of the Murut community in Sabah,” he said.
First of all DBP, according to Bumburing, must understand the historical development of the Bible and the circumstances of the Bible today.
“There are already two commonly and widely accepted versions of the Malay Bible in circulation in Malaysia today. One version was published by the Malaysian Bible Society and the other is published by the Lembaga Alkitab Indonesia. Therefore, the Christians have no need for a new translation. If the objective of DBP is to produce a standard Malay language Bible, they will never achieve the objective.
“Secondly, any attempt to translate the Bible must adhere to the original text of the Bible which were written in the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages, the three of which are no longer spoken today,” he said.
He explained that most of the translation or versions of the Bible in the English language, either by the Catholic Church or jointly by the Protestants Churches, are done by a collective effort of hundreds of Biblical scholars and theologians who have spent tremendous amount of time to study and understand the original language used by the Bible writers.
Therefore, a Malay version of the Bible must be an accurate translation and one that would have clarity and literary quality and proved to be suitable for public reading, teaching, preaching, memorizing and approved for liturgical use by the Christians, he said.
Translators must be united and committed in their stand on the authority and infallibility of the Bible as the word of God. Any translations must adhere to the fidelity to the thought of the inspired original writers of the Bible, he stressed, adding that any translation effort to be done which is short of these parameters would be tantamount to be an affront to the Christian faith.
The other important thing that needs to be remembered in any effort to translate the Bible is the significance of the grammatical details of the original linguistic text of the Bible which are in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages.
Word for word translation cannot be used as pattern of thought developed from language to language throughout the ages. Accurate translation of the thought of the original writers as written in their contemporary language demands constant modification of sentences, Bumburing pointed out.
“I take Matthew 5:3 as an example in which the first part in the New International Version of the Bible says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” It is translated in the Malay Bible as “Berbahagialah orang yang miskin di hadapan Allah…” This therefore demonstrate the need for sentence modification to reflect as close as possible the intention of the original writers of the Bible.
“Sometimes the original meaning of the words from the Hebrew and the Greek text cannot be determined with full certainty because the underlying cultural and historical context upon which the words were used had passed out and beyond recovery,” he said.
According to him, certain features and terminology in the original language of the Bible such as hours of the day, measurement of weight, distance and area had to be given modern equivalents.
Bumburing also pointed out that the 66 books of the Bible are also written with deep religious practices and norms of that particular times which need to be greatly understood in our present context in order to able to come up with its translation in as accurate as possible.
Therefore, the task of the translators is to express the meaning of the message in the original words in a manner that can be understood easily by the present readers of the Bible.
“A very contentious issue in translating the Bible in Malay is the use of certain Arabic words which had been incorporated in the Malay language on which certain Muslim groups maintain that these Arabic words are inappropriate to be used by non-Muslims. To top all these is the controversial use of the term Allah.
“To take this term out of the Malay translation will render the Malay Bible incomplete because normally the English term Lord is translated as Tuhan in Malay and the term God is translated as Allah. One of the most important phrases in the Old Testament found in the book of Deuteronomy chapter six verse four is the statement ‘Adonai Eloheinu’ which is translated in English as ‘The Lord is our God’ and it is only appropriate to translate it in Malay as “Tuhan itu Allah kita.”
“I believe that the Christian communities in Malaysia, by and large, are happy with the Malay Bibles that are available to them today and therefore there is no need for a new Malay version to be made.
“If the Christians feel for any need in the future, then leave it to Christians to do it. An honest and faithful works on the translation of the Bible will rule out any motive of polemics. The multi-cultural and multi-religious people of Malaysia had been leaving in peace and harmony. The Christians will only voice out their unhappiness when any effort of intrusion in their religious practice manifest,” he stressed.