Simon Cox Blog: New Emoji Bible Recalls Age-Old Translation Debate

Friday, 3 June 2016

New Emoji Bible Recalls Age-Old Translation Debate

Popular Christian symbols rank among the most confusing.

Have you heard the Good News? :)

Sites from The New York Times to Forbes are reacting to a new emoji-studded Bible translation—the latest effort to make the Holy Book appeal to young readers.

“Bible Emoji: Scripture 4 Millenials (sic)”—now available for $2.99 on Apple’s iBooks—comes from the Twitter account @BibleEmoji, which replaces select words in Bible verses with corresponding smiley faces or other small icons used in text messages and on social media.

This version follows other lighthearted 21st-century translations such as the LOLCat Bible and the Lego Brick Bible. But for all the hype over this particular digital-era adaptation, the emoji Bible actually doesn’t contain that many emojis. It’s a King James Version (KJV) with 10 to 15 percent of the text swapped for emojis; about one or two symbols appear in each verse.

(The KJV is the most-read version of the Bible by far, and despite the popularity of the NIV for new purchases of the Bible, remains the most-searched version online. It’s also in the public domain in the United States, so changes can be made without seeking permission or paying a fee.)

This distinctly 21st-century twist on the Bible brings up the age-old issue with Bible translation: Should translators stick to an “essentially literal,” word-for-word translation, or should they aim for “dynamic equivalence,” or thought-for-thought?

The emoji Bible goes with the former. A translator program substituted 80 icons that directly represent 200 different words in the text: a tree for a tree, water droplets for rain, and a smiley face emoji with a halo for God. It is also written in all lowercase and makes some “text-friendly substitutions,” ...