The Translator and His Socio-cultural Context

Abstract

The last phase, the ‘Socio-cultural Context’, concerns the most foundational but least direct influences on the translator. This phase examines how the individual norms in the Translation Act and the circumstances and sources of the translation in the Translation Event function in concert to reveal the translator’s overall concept of translation and the type of equivalence he employs. The translator was satisfied with delivering a basic, comprehensible, and authoritative text of Hosea to his readers, some of whom understood Hebrew and could still access the source text. Further, the data indicate that the translator was Jewish, evidenced by a deliberate preference for a Hebrew source text over a Greek version and, at certain points, Jewish exegetical tradition that guided his work. There is no clear evidence that the translator was a Christianized Jew.