A Study Of Torah Or The Five Books Of Moses Translated By Peter Feng From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

This thesis presents a critical study of the limitations on the version Torah or the FiveBooks of Moses translated by Peter Feng from the perspective of skopos theory. Translating theBible has always been a major event. Many translators have a lofty idea: to preach, to savesouls, to give religious reforms and so on. However, the version, Torah or the Five Books ofMoses translated by Peter Feng from the literary view, is a special one. In the field of theBible translations, Peter Feng’s version is representative and influential. But Peter Feng is nota Christian and has not received theological educational system, and there is no spiritual lifeand awareness with him, thus his understanding for the Bible is limited. Limitations andproblems exist in his version. Therefore, researches on these limitations and problems will notonly supplement and update our knowledge of the Bible translation but also help the betterunderstanding for the Bible.The author selects skopos theory to explore the version Torah or the Five Books of Mosestranslated by Peter Feng. Skopos theory, as the core theory of the German functionaltranslation school, takes the purpose of translation as top rule, that is, the translation strategiesthat a translator chooses should be determined by the purpose of translation. Therefore,skopos theory provides a new perspective for translation criticism and the theory foundationfor the present thesis.The whole thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One,“Introduction”, provides thebackground of this study, and raises the questions as follows: what is his purpose and does heachieve his purpose? It also points out that the thesis is original in approaching Peter Feng’sversion from the perspective of skopos theory and in developing the research and understanding of the Bible. In the end, the chapter briefly outlines the organization of thisthesis.Chapter Two,“Literature review” reviews Peter Feng’s thoughts for translating the Bibleand his contribution to and influence on the Bible translation．The version, Torah or the FiveBooks of Moses translated by him has extensively informed the Bible scholars and broughthuge impact on the Bible translation. The chapter also gives a literature review of researchesconcerning skopos theory.Chapter Three provides the theoretical foundation of this thesis. First of all, this chapterintroduces the background of the skopos theory and illustrates the core rules of skopos theory,namely, the “skopos rule”, the “coherence rule”, and the “fidelity rule”. After that, this chapterdiscusses the feasibility of applying skopostheorie to the study of Peter Feng’s version Torahor the Five Books of Moses.Chapter Four firstly analyzes the literature in Peter Feng’s version because every kind oftranslation has its own merits and demerits. Then it focuses on inaccuracies in Peter Feng’sversion: to attain his aims and improve the literary translation in his version, sometimes it isnot faithful to the original text. Based on the fidelity role of the skopos theory, we point outthat translating the Bible is a serious event, no matter what way the translator uses, thetranslator must be faithful to the content and culture of the original text. Secondly, it also tellsthat there are many translation and annotations in Peter Feng’s version which is helpful forunderstanding the Bible, but we find that Peter Feng cites the Septuagint when translating butneglects the transcripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. As a matter of fact, he has depreciated thevalue of the collation of the version. We point out that we should take the culture intoconsideration when translating the Bible and try to make people believe that it is true. Thenbased on the coherence role of the skopos theory, we point out that sometimes it is notcoherent in the version. Lastly it attempts to tell the main purposes of Peter Feng: he attempts to re-translate the version from Hebrew to Pentateuch, and provide a convenient researchtranslation which is based on the modern academic achievement, and break the diaphragmbetween the Chinese "Bible" and modern Chinese literature. We finally draw a conclusion thatif we have a thorough research into the historical background of the Pentateuch, there will bemany limitations on the translation and annotations of Peter Feng’s version. Therefore, it isnecessary to have a further study.And finally, Chapter Five is “Conclusion”. In this chapter, the thesis is summed up and itshows that it is necessary to clarify the understanding of the version translated by Peter Fengand reevaluate the version.