Non-feminist women translators of the Bible: Swedish translator Viveka Heyman as a case in point
Richard Pleijel
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Title
Non-feminist women translators of the Bible: Swedish translator Viveka Heyman as a case in point
Abstract
This paper discusses the work of Viveka Heyman (1919-2013), the first woman to translate the Hebrew Bible into Swedish. It argues that Heyman’s translation strategies were informed by a radical form of cultural relativism; as a consequence, she rejected all forms of critique of male bias and misogyny in the biblical texts, a critique that according to her was voiced from a present-day cultural context. She contended that such bias was only to be found in interpretations and translations of the biblical texts, and not in the source texts themselves. For a woman translator of the Bible, this stands out as a less common approach. The case of Viveka Heyman is thus used in this study to illustrate how women translators may translate the Bible (and other religious texts) in more ways than one, and for a number of different reasons.
Keywords
Bible translation, women translators, Viveka Heyman, cultural relativism, feminist translation studies
34(1) - 2022