No one who undertakes to translate in a language with a literary tradition is completely free to do what he likes, for the historical background always tends to dictate the extent to which receptors will accept a particular translation as "faithful," "accurate," or "effective." Moreover, at different periods in the literary history of any language community there are differences of taste in translating which must be considered if the translator is to produce something acceptable at the time.

The pressures from tradition become even greater when the translator's task is to revise a work that already exists in the language. The translator is then confronted, not only by general pressures for conformance to certain acceptable standards, but also by the immediate necessity of making the revision acceptable to those already acquainted with an earlier translation. Perhaps Scripture translating elicits the most acute form of such pressures, for the very nature of religious belief in historical revelation makes immediately suspect any attempt at radical modification. For the most part геceptors do not object strongly to syntactic alterations though strong traditionalists often prefer archaisms, which seem not only to strengthen historic associations, but also to heighten the mystery of religious expression. What most people object to most strongly are exegetical and textual alterations. Even lexical changes can be made acceptable if the meanings of the words are a distinct improvement and have already gained some currency in ecclesiastical usage, e.g. the use of love in place of charity. The average person is in no position to judge the validity of exegetical and textual changes, but, even so, he usually objects to both with equal force, since such alterations seem to be tampering with "God's Word," by which he really means "God's words."

The principal factors which enter into the receptor's objections to revision are: (1) the extent to which a translation has already been widely used, especially if large portions have been committed to memory or are extensively employed in liturgy: (2) devoted attachment to the translation or the translator (e.g. the German Lutheran church has greater difficulty in revising the Luther text than the English-speaking church has in altering the King James Version); and (3) the extent to which there are "theological tensions" within the receptor group. If, for example, there are deep-seated tensions within any receptor group, а revision is likely to be made the focal symbol of the conflict, and thus only rarely will it be judged with any objectivity.

The introduction of revisions is essentially a matter of education. A church that has used a traditional text of the Scriptures for several generations will obviously not find immediately acceptable a radically different translation, reflecting contemporary insights into text, exegesis, and lexicon. Rather, it is necessary to prepare a whole series of such revisions, with definite grades of adjustment to the theoretical goal. Thus, over a period of some twenty to fifty years the people may become better prepared to accept what is more nearly accurate and meaningful.

Since in some measure it is the textual and exegetical alterations that are most strongly resisted, it is very important that any revision provide certain compensations for these changes. If there are to be changes in actual meaning, one must also introduce some obvious improvements in general clarity; for example, by eliminating evident obscurities misleading archaisms, and stilted expressions. In the absence of such compensations, the receptors are quite unlikely to accept the exegetical improvements. This is precisely what happened with the English Revised Version (1885) and the American Standard Version (1901). Though 17th century English was purposely retained in both, neither gained wide аcceptance, for no improvements were made to compensate for the obvious alterations in the direction of greater accuracy. The truth of the matter is that when dealing with religious writings people are generally far less concerned with acсuгаcy than with traditional expression familiar through long use.

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