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On translating the instructions for building the mishkan (Exodus 25-31, 35-40), and why you won’t see me translate that as “tabernacle." A 
(1/18)
(1/18)
For a couple of months, I’ve been translating endless building instructions. Blue, purple, and red yarns, gold-plating, woven garments, embroidered curtains, you name it. I’ve had one major issue: how do I translate mishkan? (2/18)
Traditionally, this is translated as “tabernacle.” But this word is the epitome of bible-ese. Where have you ever seen “tabernacle” used outside of a reference to the mishkan, a Mormon choir, or perhaps as part of a church’s name? (3/18)
As a translator, I tend to eschew bible-ese as much as possible, not for the sake of making the text sound more modern, but rather to push myself to convey the imagery and ideas of the text more clearly, more accurately. (4/18)
Yesterday in my graduate seminar on translation, we talked about Schleiermacher’s argument that translators have two choices: to move the reader toward the author, or to move the author toward the reader. (5/18)
Put differently, do I want to domesticate the text, or do I want to allow it to remain foreign? And if it’s the latter, how do I let it remain foreign while still enabling a modern English-speaking audience access to it? (6/18)
Enter my dilemma about mishkan. “Tabernacle” is rather foreign to modern English. So is the concept it represents. But how many people can read the word “tabernacle” and immediately know what it is—beyond a temple-like structure? (7/18)
Tabernacle is a terrible translation of mishkan for that reason. It does very little to convey to the reader what this structure actually is, what it’s for. (8/18)
Quick Hebrew lesson for the non-specialists out there: verb sh-k-n means to live or to dwell; the “m” on the front turns the root into a very particular type of noun which often designates “the place of” something. (9/18)
So in Hebrew, z-b-kh is to slaughter and m-z-b-kh is altar (the place of slaughtering). If sh-k-n is to dwell, then m-sh-k-n (mishkan) is, literally, “the place of dwelling,” that is, what I am calling the “dwelling-place.” (10/18)
By translating mishkan as dwelling-place, a picture begins to emerge of a structure that is meant to be inhabited. And that’s exactly what the mishkan is! It is a home for the Israelite god Yahweh. (11/18)
This isn’t metaphorical; it’s literal! This structure is build so that Yahweh has a place on earth to live. It has furniture, utensils, lights, even an air freshener (okay, okay—it’s incense). (12/18)
Translating mishkan as “dwelling-place” makes the imagery and the function of this structure more accessible to the English-language reader. (13/18)
At the same time, it preserves the foreignness of the story, the foreignness of the idea that God has a body and requires a physical place to dwell with that body. (14/18)
I don’t want to bring the author to the reader in my translation; I want to bring the reader to the author. (15/18)
My translation is what Venuti calls “a foreignizing practice.” I want readers of my translation of this story to see the cultural and theological differences, to experience this familiar biblical text in a fundamentally new way. (16/18)
So, you will never see the word “tabernacle” in my translation of the biblical priestly narrative. (17/18)
Instead, you’ll be introduced to Yahweh’s dwelling-place along with all of its embroidered curtains, gold-plated furniture, copper utensils, acacia-wood pillars, and leather coverings. (18/18)
