How Do You Translate an R-Rated Passage of Scripture?

WARNING: This post should probably be rated R. It includes sexually explicit material…straight from the Bible.

There. You’ve been warned.

The Passage

I know that this is the only reason you’re here. You want to read the filthy, dirty passage in the Bible that you would ground your kids for a month if you caught them reading. So here it is, straight from Ezekiel 23, in the New International Readers Version:

But Oholibah offered her body to her lovers again and again. She remembered the days when she was a young prostitute in Egypt. There she had longed for her lovers. Their private parts seemed as big as those of donkeys. And their flow of semen appeared to be as much as that of horses. So you wanted to return to the days when you were young. You longed for the time when you first became impure in Egypt. That was when you allowed your breasts to be kissed. And you permitted your young breasts to be touched.

The Background

If you can handle it, read the entire chapter of Ezekiel 23. The prophets had an amazing way of hitting people in the face in very unexpected ways. This was one of them.

The prostitute theme was a prominent one in the prophetic writings. They–and God himself through the prophets–frequently portrayed Israel as an unfaithful wife, a cheating lover and a prostitute without a conscience.

So this is not a mere gratuitous sexual narrative. It serves to humiliate Israel by comparing her to this sexually used and abused woman who is now going to be ravaged by her former lovers.

The Translation

This is the difficult part. How do you balance accuracy in translation with cultural sensitivity? Is that even a legitimate question? Here’s a better one: In what ways does a passage like this put conservative, “literal” translations to the test?

Take the ESV for example. Here’s how they translate the passage:

Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.

The ESV’s translation philosophy is “essentially literal.” That means that it “seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.” Yet the ESV struggles to translate passages like this consistently with its own philosophy. I mean, is “paramours” really the best, literal translation they could come up with?

What’s the problem here? Why the struggle? Because the ESV caters to a conservative audience. And passages like this don’t go over too well with conservative Christians. Think about it: When was the last time you heard a sermon from Ezekiel 23?

The Other Options

But it’s not just an ESV problem. The Message is a “translation” that I would expect to be very blunt, to pull no punches. Yet this is how this passage is rendered in The Message:

She went at her whoring harder than ever. She remembered when she was young, just starting out as a whore in Egypt. That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers—stallions obsessive in their lust. She longed for the sexual prowess of her youth back in Egypt, where her firm young breasts were caressed and fondled.

And here is the NIV’s take on this text:

Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.

And of course, no translation discussion would be complete without representation from my personal favorite, the HCSB:

Yet she multiplied her acts of promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth when she acted like a prostitute in the land of Egypt and lusted after their lovers, whose sexual members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. So you revisited the indecency of your youth, when the Egyptians caressed your nipples to enjoy your youthful breasts.

So what do you do? How do you translate a shocking passage like this? I don’t have an answer. I do know that this may be the time to throw your translation philosophy out the window, whatever that philosophy is. Passages like this require some special tweaks to anyone’s translation method.