Okay, it's not too bad. I mean, it's actually pretty small in the overall sweep of things. But I was still disappointed to learn about it.
Here's what's up: I'm currently working on a project that involves the life of Christ, and I was writing part of it today regarding the year in which he was born. Now, we have multiple sources from the early Church that indicate he was born in 3/2 B.C. on the present calendar.
We know that because different individuals in the early Church identified the year using the dating systems that were employed at the time, such as what Olympiad he was born in, what year of the City of Rome, and what year of the reign of Augustus Caesar.
To help people relate these dating systems to their own experience, I thought I'd talk about the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ that is announced or sung toward the beginning of Midnight Mass on Christmas. That way people would be able to say to themselves, "Oh, yeah. I have heard of this stuff before," and they'd have the sense of discovering what all that means as I explain the dating systems.
So I looked up the text of the Christmas Proclamation, and (here comes the bad part) it turns out that the translation used here in the U.S. is lame. I mean, really lame. It's an example of contemporary liturgical translation at its worst.
So let's look at the current U.S. translation (warning: pdf!) in comparison to a more traditional translation.
First, the U.S. translation with the parts that are wrong in red:
Today, the twenty–fifth day of December,
unknown ages from the time when God [text omitted by translators] created the heavens and the earth
and then formed man and woman in his own image.
Several thousand years after the flood,
when God made the rainbow shine forth
as a sign of the covenant.
Twenty–one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;
thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel
out of Egypt.
Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges;
one thousand [text omitted by translators] years from the anointing of David as king;
in the sixty–fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel.
In the one hundred and ninety–fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty–second year from the foundation
of the city of Rome.
The forty–second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
[entire line omitted by translators!]
Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary.
[another line omitted by translators!]
Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
And here's the traditional translation, with the parts that the above translation botched in blue:
The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world
from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
If you compare the red parts to the blue parts, it's clear what the translators did.
First and foremost, they wiped out all the specific time expressions in the first part of the proclamation, thus destroying it's character as a concatenation of different ways of expressing the same year.
Not only do they fuzz out the clarity from these numbers ("untold ages," "several thousand years," referring only to centuries rather than years), they also change numbers (they've got the Exodus in the 13th century B.C. rather than the 15th century B.C.) and add stuff that isn't there in the original, and significant stuff, too:
- "and then formed man and woman in his own image,"
- "when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant,"
- "and Sarah,"
- "Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges"
Why these things got included is anybody's guess, though note we've worked women into an otherwise male narrative three times (Ruth even gets top billing, though her story comes after the book of Judges in canonical order, and she ordinarily isn't paired with them). They've also included a rainbow, which has not entirely the same significance today that it did in the past.
It's not hard to see a gender/sexual agenda shaping the translation here.
Then the translators go an omit stuff like the reference to the sixth age of the world (what's up with that?) and the mention of the Son being made flesh (the last is probably because the word "flesh" is repeated in the very next line).
I understand part of the motive to change the text of the Christmas Proclamation.
The text itself is part of the Roman Martyrology and is based on the Chronology of Eusebius of Caesarea (a.k.a. "the father of Church history"–he lived back in the 300s and attended the first ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325).
The dates he gives for the earlier events in the Chronology are probably not right, and in any event we wouldn't claim today to be able to establish these dates with the exact precision that he did. In one case–the date of the Exodus–modern biblical scholars have generally dated it a couple centuries after the traditional date.
So rather than confuse people with a bunch of dates that we aren't that confident of, or that are likely not right, I can understand the motive to revise the text.
And if the Vatican chose to make those changes to the Latin original in the Roman Martyrology, I would not have a problem with it.
My problem is with the translators deciding to make the changes on their own–as well as introducing other changes.
So thank God we're going to be getting a new, more faithful translation this Advent.
But here comes the badgood news, folks . . .
The new translation is of the Roman Missal, not the Roman Martyrology. Since the Christmas Proclamation comes from the Martyrology, it probably hasn't been retranslated at this point and so come Midnight Mass at Christmas, smack in the middle of the glorious new translation, will be this execrable object.
Probably.
I'm still working to verify that.
UPDATE: I have been able to confirm that there is a new translation of the Christmas Proclamation that will be available for use this Christmas. Yahoo!
What do you think?

