Translating Θεοτοκος / Богородица

[R. M. Cleminson]

The objection to all the alternatives in the list is that they sound totally unnatural in English, and are, to that extent, bad translations.

Before the Reformation expressions such as "Goddes Moder" were widely current in English, but were then banished as symptomatic of what was perceived as an excessive devotion to Mary, and have remained foreign to the language of the Reformed tradition to this day, though an awareness of equivalent expressions in other Western European languages means that "Mother of God" is not unnatural in modern English, but marked as "Roman Catholic".  (Slightly ironically, the original theological resonances of Θεοτόκος are an affirmation of an orthodox christology - in opposition to Nestorianism - that Western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, shares.)

It is also relevant that Russian may designate Mary as Богоматерь or Матерь Божия, both expressions which are absolutely equivalent to Богородица without any perceived cultural or theological nuance; that on all the countless icons on which she appears she is identified as Μήτηρ Θεοῦ; and that in worship conducted in English in Orthodox churches in England Θεοτόκος is rendered as "Mother of God".

I think that one can be confident, therefore, that "Mother of God" fully conveys the semantics of Богородица - as fully, that is, as one can ever hope to convey semantics when translating between languages and cultures.  The other expressions fall far short of this, partly because they sound so awkward to the English ear, and partly because they point so markedly (and exclusively) to certain theological technicalities in a way that neither Богородица nor Θεοτόκος, as normally used in everyday language, do.

----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Daniel Rancour-Laferriere" <darancourlaferriere at COMCAST.NET>
Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Odoslané: piatok, 14. február 2014 21:57:06
Predmet: [SEELANGS] Translating Θεοτοκος / Б��городица

Dear Slavists, 


I am considering possible alternatives to "Mother of God" in translating Russian "Bogoroditsa" (which is a calque on Greek "Theotokos" according to Fasmer). Some possibilities: 


Godbearer 
Birth-giver of God 
Godbirther 
Birther of God 
The God-bearing One 


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