by Michael Hampson, a published author devoting his early-retirement from parish ministry to producing practical resources for busy clergy and lay-led congregations, beginning with the weekly lectionary resource ssra.uk
There is a fundamental problem with the art and science of translation.
Every word in the original text contains nuances that we cannot capture in a single word in our own language. And every word available in our own language introduces nuances that are not there in the original.
In the end, the only accurate rendering of the original text – is the original text.
The specific example that prompts this piece is the word kynarioi in the Gospel reading four weeks ago, on 20 August – because, let’s be absolutely clear, Jesus did not call a woman ‘a dog’.
But the problem is more general. It’s not just the wince that most of us suffered that day, or the misogynistic Twitter-storm that I endured that weekend for daring to produce a lectionary resource that managed to translate that day’s text perfectly well, without using the d-word.
The question for a translation is not whether it is accurate or inaccurate, because compared to the original, it is always inaccurate. The question is whether it fulfils its specific intended purpose as a translation.
We are very fortunate – in English – to have access to so many translations. And equally fortunate to have ready access to the original texts.
And for each translation in turn: the question is whether the translation fulfils its specific intended purpose as a translation. Is it for academic study, or for clergy-led parish study, or for individual study by lay people at home? Is it for line-by-line analysis, or for reading in long chapters like a novel? Is it for the first-time reader, or for someone already familiar with the text? Is it for someone reading alone, or for reading aloud in public? Is it for reading aloud in short verses, or in long chapters? Is the reader a professional actor, in front of a huge audience, or a member of an ordinary local congregation, on an ordinary Sunday morning?
You have to be kind to all our modern translations, for having a go at fulfilling at least one of these hugely diverse purposes.
As its name indicates, the resource I’ve produced, Sunday Scriptures for Reading Aloud, is designed to be read aloud, by members of ordinary local congregations, in ordinary local churches, on ordinary Sunday mornings. It is laid out on the page to be easy on the eye. It aims to be easy on the tongue, and easy on the ear. The three readings for the day are set out, ready to go, on one page. It offers clear, poetic, timeless, dignified translations with uncontroversial inclusive language. Less than a year after launch, dozens of churches have the print edition on the lectern, hundreds more access the live online edition every week, and the number of users continues to rise steadily month by month.
As to the fundamental question faced by all translations, of how to render each word or phrase of biblical Hebrew or Greek into English, SSRA determines that, on balance, it would rather risk missing an occasional nuance from the original, than risk introducing into the English text a significant nuance that isn’t there in the original.
And that is why there is no place in the English rendering of Matthew 15.21-28 for the d-word: because the d-word has a misogynistic nuance in English that is not there in the original Greek.
Imagine this scene enacted between Jesus and a male challenger, instead of a female challenger. The d-word immediately loses nine-tenths of its harshness. And that proves the point. It still sounds harsh, and perhaps it is; some even speculate that the challenger’s riposte, in this encounter, is significant in the incarnate Jesus’s realisation that the work of the Messiah is for all humankind, not only the people of Israel. Others speculate that there is no harshness, just playfulness; that this is a riddle, a game, from the start. But what we know for certain is that the exchange takes place two thousand years ago, dozens of cultures away, probably in Aramaic, and we have it only in Greek. Kynarioi may mean something vaguely like ‘puppies’ (it is a plural diminutive); it absolutely does not have the atomic-blast nuance of the d-word. Jesus absolutely does not call a woman a dog, and any translation that still uses that word is – well, frankly, for virtually all purposes, and certainly for reading aloud in church, just wrong. It introduces a commonplace, widely-understood nuance – a meaning – that is simply not there in the original Greek. That is a serious error in translation, with terrible consequences. We should not tolerate it. We should not tolerate it when it comes around again on 16 August 2026.
For the purposes of SSRA, I reluctantly decided that the word kynarioi is untranslatable – but the sentence in which the word appears is not. The sentence is perfectly translatable. In verse 26, the small mammal (kynarion) wants feeding. In verse 27, it crawls under the table to eat crumbs. Both sentences can be translated perfectly adequately without having to compare the woman to a dog, or indeed to any specific mammal at all. Having to eat waste, and having to crawl under the table to collect it, is humiliation enough. The rest is nuance and commentary, and indeed speculation; and that is for the pulpit, and not necessarily for every time the text is read. As it says in the blurb, “a preacher may wish to refer to a more literal study translation (or indeed the original Hebrew or Greek) when making a word-by-word or line-by-line analysis of the text.”
Jesus said, ‘It is not right to take food away from the children.’
She said, ‘Yes, Lord, but surely there will be crumbs that fall from the table.’
It is enough.
There is only one other passage in the entire three-year cycle that is as problematic as this one. And it is only eight weeks away. On 12 November, the Gospel uses the v-word, and it is unacceptable for all the same reasons as the d-word. By using the v-word, the standard translations of Matthew 25.1-13 take ten women with dignity and agency, and reduce them to objectified ridicule.
For SSRA, I have kept the context of a wedding, because it’s upbeat, and it’s the context that Jesus chose, even though we have absolutely no idea, from any source, why ten young women would be waiting up all night, specifically for the groom, before, during, or after, any part of a wedding celebration. But I have translated this opening image of being up all night before the wedding feast as a single concept, rather than letter-by-letter or word-by-word (though the single word ‘people’ might reasonably describe who they are in 2026, given the principles set out above).
Jesus then gives these ten people agency. They are determining their own futures, when they decide how much charge to put in their lamps; or, in the meaning of the parable, how much effort to put in to being prepared for whatever may lie ahead, including for the coming of the Kingdom.
But instead of recognising their dignity and their agency, we have objectified them, sniggering at them with the v-word, and making it worse with the f-word.
The final puzzle was the gender of the group, and I know there are valid arguments both ways, but on balance – with the gender wars ready to hijack every conversation – I decided not to risk a late hijack on this one, having just rescued it from that very war zone. So I chose gender-neutral language, so the focus can be on the oil in those lamps.
My first challenge to every preacher on the day is to get through the sermon without making any reference at all to any part of the traditional title of this parable – because if you do, you just reinforce, yet again, centuries of misogyny, and that is all that anyone will remember. And don’t preach about the art and science of translation either, or about misogyny (there are other days for that); preach about oil in lamps, and the coming kingdom; it is Remembrance Sunday, after all. You might even, you might just, find space to say, that in the original Greek text, those preparing for the wedding feast through the night are actually all women; and by analogy, those preparing for the coming of the kingdom, in this parable, are women; Jesus is taking the opportunity, in telling this parable, to highlight the fact that women have agency, just like men, in the work of the kingdom.
Misogyny continues to objectify women by dividing them into the two passive categories of d-word and v-word.
It is no coincidence that the traditional translations of these two gospel readings do precisely that as well. The traditional translations take women who, in the original Greek texts, have dignity and agency, and objectify them, for humiliation and ridicule, into each of these two passive categories in turn.
Translations that continue to use these two English words, with their heavy misogynistic nuances not present in the original Greek, are unfit for purpose – especially where that purpose includes public reading in church.
I guess over the last month I’ve been genuinely surprised to find – after thirty years of just getting on with ordinary parish ministry – that the debates of thirty years ago are still so fiercely contested, in Synod and online. Perhaps The Times clergy survey, three weeks ago, was evidence that in the vast majority of ordinary parishes – thank goodness – they’re not.
