Translation with an Agenda: Difference between revisions
→Real Life Examples in The Bible: NWT kyrios->Jehovah is intended to reverse an editorial choice in the Septuagint. Grouped Septuagint examples together.
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* [[The Franco Regime]] had a board of censors to make sure Spaniards weren't exposed to foreign filth and dangerous political ideas. This extended to movie dubbing, and some efforts of the censors are still legendary in Spain, the most egregious one being turning the protagonists of the adulterous affair in ''[[Mogambo]]'' to an innocent-looking brother and sister, making their visually hinted relationship [[Incest Is Relative|incestuous]] instead in a spectacular backfire. Another straightforwardly political one was omitting Rick's past as a fighter for the Spanish Republic in ''[[Casablanca]]''.
=== Real Life Examples in [[The Bible]] ===
Some translations of the Bible are considered by some people to have an agenda. This not only makes this trope [[Older Than Print]], it also earns the Bible a section of its own!
*
** Some Jewish people accused Christians of doing this to the Old Testament, translating lines from the original Hebrew to make them sound like prophecies applicable to Jesus. Of particular note is the line "A young woman shall conceive and bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14) where "young woman" was translated as "virgin". (To be fair, the Hebrew word could have either meaning, but Jews contend that the "virgin" translation is out of context).
** The New World Translation, produced by
* [[Conservapedia]], where they try re-translating the King James Bible from English to English. They feel there's too much Liberal bias in the translation made in the 1600s.
* The line translated in the King James Version as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". An equally valid translation would be "poisoner".
** There was no real distinction between the use of malign magic and poison in the culture at the time. Both made people fall dead with no visible reason. In any case, "witch" in the context means "a person who uses magic/poison to harm others", rather than "person who uses magic, period".
** The difference between "poisoner" and "witch" is that women were more likely to be accused (and executed) for witchcraft than men. Poisoner is a far more gender neutral word today, and in the 1600s it would more commonly be applied to men, as far more men had any knowledge on how to use poisons. With the change of a word, the translator changes the focus of suspicion from primarily men to women.
* Speaking of English translations of the Bible, the [[wikipedia:Geneva Bible|Geneva Bible]] was infamously biased in favor of the type of Calvinism embraced by the vast majority of Puritans. This fact, plus the fact that the [[wikipedia:
* A New Testament example is the common practice of translating the Greek word "doulos" as "servant" when it meant "slave". The New Testament has a lot of casual and uncritical references to slaves, but slavery is nowadays considered abhorrent. At the time it was fairly matter-of-fact, though to be fair one of Christianity's main selling points was its insistence that slaves were as equal as anyone else in the eyes of God, and (in the context of their status, anyway) should be treated as such.
* The Temperance Bible [[Frothy Mugs of Water|altered every instance of Jesus drinking wine to drinking grape juice]].
▲* The New World Translation, produced by the Jehovah's Witnesses, changes most instances of ''Kyrios'' ("Lord") in the New Testament to "Jehovah".
* The ending salutation in Romans 16 references Junia, a female deacon or church leader. Nearly all English Bibles (minus the more scholarly ones, like NRSV) render this name as "Junias" in an attempt to make it masculine and disguise the fact that many early church leaders were women.
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