Full Text for Lutheran Worship 2- Volume 84 - Dynamic Equivalents and Luther's German Mass (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN WORSHIP 2 84.LW2 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> David: You mentioned the phrase dynamic equivalents. How does Luther's German mass demonstrate the use of dynamic equivalents? >> DR. JAMES BRAUER: That's a good question, and dynamic equivalent is a good tool, especially in doing this cultural fit that I've talked about. Remember, we talked about the Latin Mass versus the German mass. And our Point No. 8 under Lutheran Principles was that Luther showed us the way. So what did he do when he wanted the congregation to sing what had belonged to the choir or was just a prose text like the Sanctus? He wrote it as a hymn that the congregation could sing. So he took what didn't have a poetic design with rhyme and a standard set of syllables in a line with a melody that could be repeated. He actually created a new form, a paraphrase of it, a new kind of culturalized version of that was meant to carry the same meeting as the previous text. Now, we could think of some of the things like the Kyrie being only a three part line, very slim, simple idea, or we could add petitions to it. That's not quite what I have in mind, but it's more like this moving from a psalm text in the Old Testament which, to us, looks like prose with poetic imagery and moving it into a hymn stanza so we can repeat a melody, a design, and do different texts to it. That's a shift. I can call that a dynamic equivalent for getting across the meaning I had in your original version. You can call it paraphrase if you want. Now, what is real dynamic equivalent? Well, it kind of depends on how well you do with your translating. It's dynamic if it has the power of your original. If it doesn't have that power, we wouldn't call it dynamic. If it says what the origin says and does with the original did, we can call it an equivalent. If it doesn't say the same thing, it's not equivalent. In fact, it would be undynamic or maybe even fake. It does not have the power of the original. It's kind of like a placebo. People read into it what they want, even though it has no power to do anything. It does not do with the original does. It might even be considered a counterfeit or forgery. So this is kind of a dangerous work, this kind of translating. Now, for the translator, let's use an image, a story that I heard from missionaries who work in New Guinea. They were trying to translate Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Now, that's biblical text. And when they looked at the language in New Guinea, and there were many, they didn't have sheep. So how are you going to translate lamb when there is no small sheep word. You could introduce a new word and teach what it meant. That was one option. Or if there were to make a dynamic equivalent move, thinking what kind of animals might they keep in the way that sheep would be important in the ancient world, at Jesus' time. Would you say pig? Now, we would hear that option today in a world and we say, wrong, wrong, wrong. But maybe, that was a possible dynamic equivalent for those missionaries at that point. So these are tricky. Now, let's do a few samples of what might be dynamic equivalence, and here, we are going to use Luther. In Lutheran Worship on page 180, we have the text of the Gloria Excelsis, or a translation of it, which reads in part, glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, Almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Now, Luther paraphrased that and turned it into a hymn form. And again, in the translation, we get this. This is number 210. All glory be to God alone for evermore the highest one. He is our sinful righteous friend. His Grace in peace to us extend. May humankind see his good will. May hearts with deep thanksgiving fill. We praise you God, your name we bless and worship you in humbled us. From day to day we glorify our everlasting God on high. So you can see a certain faithfulness and the thought sequence. But it comes out as a somewhat different expression, and I can't say that it's particularly exciting. I think probably the German carries a lot more than we can get in the translators work. But that's the idea of a dynamic equivalent. It's a different form that's equal to what their original form was. Now some places in the liturgy, this is especially tricky. And if you don't get the equivalent, you get a totally different message. Here is what the form of church prayers by Calvin has as the distribution goes on. It says in his version, as he administers the bread to them he says, the undoubted faith which you have in the death of Christ lead you to eternal life. So in that, it was faith in the death of Christ that is going on when you receive. So you�re kind of thinking of God being there and what Jesus did while you're receiving the elements of communion. In our way of doing it, we have a totally different message as we distribute the bread. Take, eat, this is the true body of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. This is a totally different kind of message being given in this moment because we're talking about eating, not some act of faith. We're talking about the body of Jesus, not that he died years ago. Given unto death for your sins. It's for me. There's a for you quality in our words. So let me read ours first and then Kelvin's again. Take eat, this is the true body of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ given in to death for your sins. Whereas Calvin�s ministers would say the undoubted faith which you have in the death of Christ lead you into eternal life. Quite different. Likewise, if we compare the words around the distribution of the wine, Calvin's ministers would say, the faith which you have in the spilt blood of Jesus lead you into eternal life. And we say take, drink, this is the true blood of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ shed for the forgiveness your sins. So when it came to that point in the mass, Calvin made what he thought of as a dynamic equivalent. And Luther put in German what would be a dynamic equivalent for the right distribution, and they really carry entirely different messages. One is orally receiving Christ, the other one is doing anything but that. So dynamic equivalent production is difficult work. And it's often wise to be in consultation with others to make sure that it has the power it needs for the task it is to do.