Currently listening to: nothing. Have recently had to re-install Windows on my machine and now the sound device isn't working...

After a period of absence from the blogosphere (a word which I cannot write without wincing), I'm pleased to report that the sermon given by m parish priest this morning has enthused me sufficiently to write about it. Today's Gospel reading was the story from Mark about the Rich Young Man and the translation used included the famous line 'it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God'...

...except that it doesn't really. Without wishing to go into excessive detail, this is a dud translation. Not a less-than-ideal version, but an actual dud. The proper rendering is '...for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle...'. Fr Peter also mentioned that a slightly idosyncratic translation of today's opening prayer had actually inverted its meaning.

This touched on a subject which has long been a hobby-horse of mine, namely that experts in theology think that translating religious texts is their business, rather than the business of experts in languages. This unfortunate trend is seen elsewhere: in legal translation, knowledge of law takes precedence over knowledge of language, in scientific translation, knowledge of science takes precedence over knowledge of language. I could go on, but I won't.

I acknowledge my bias, but I see this as a marginalisation of knowledge of language to the extent that its importance is largely dismissed. I stand by my description of this trend as unfortunate: after all, is not every other academic discipline in some way dependent on language, so how can knowing about language be of no worth?

Still, nothing spoils my mood after a sermon which keeps my attention like that one!