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One line of historical speculation is that the translation of sacred texts was for millennia tabooed

What is it about?

The argument, rehashing my 1996 book Translation and Taboo, that taboos on the translation of sacred texts lingered in displaced forms even well into the Christian era, when according to official doctrine all taboos on communication with and about the deity were supposedly revoked.

Why is it important?

It's an attempt to explain the odd blockages in the way we think and talk about translation today, through a series of historical (but silent, politically unconscious) mandates: 1. Don’t translate. 2. Don’t translate accessibly, “openly,” so that your target text is easily understandable by a target reader. 3. Don’t add anything to or subtract anything from the source text. 4. Don’t present translations as translations. 5. Don’t talk about translation.

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Douglas Robinson
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