Entry | Religion

Introduction

Religious translation has almost always been addressed by individual studies of a historical (Santoyo 2004) or philological (Alvar 2010) nature, and yet until a few years ago there were no theoretical approaches to it. The definition of the concept of "monastic translation" (Bueno 2007), which is inspired by polysystemic approaches, has been essential to address the translation of religion in a broader way and to study it from a multidisciplinary perspective. Translation in religious contexts is of interest to different sciences such as linguistics (in its different branches: sociolinguistics, lexicography, lexicology), theology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, history of religions, comparative literature, archaeology and many others involved in both synchronic and diachronic research. Approaching it from the perspective of translation studies gives it a broader dimension, with direct consequences on the history, theory and didactics of translation. It needs to be approached with new procedures and with the help of experts not only in modern languages, but also in classical, ancient, and indigenous languages. Historical and cultural knowledge are good allies for this research. Among the surprises it holds are the wide range of text typologies and the discovery of types of translation, based on the power of images or oral transmission, that have not been sufficiently discussed until now. Many of the findings referred to in these studies directly concern the figure of the translator and the different types of reception. Ultimately, this is an approach capable of opening new horizons in the history and theory of translation. This paper analyses the origins of religious translation, its textual typology, the problematics of the sacred scriptures or sacred books, and translation as a source of interreligious and intrareligious conflict.

In this entry, the reader will also find multiple perspectives for further analysis and research.

The origin of religious translation

Religious translation was probably one of the first to be carried out, considering the traces of history. In the cradle of civilisation, located between Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt, there are traces that confirm the fact that among the first written texts were those of a religious nature, as reflected by the collections of the Babylonian libraries, such as that of Ashurbanipal, which contained the writings of the priests that ensured the relationship between the monarch and the divine world to preserve the survival of the kingdom. The Holy Scriptures of the different religions are also among the first texts of each language. In Ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh Ptolemy Philadelphus (308-246 BC.), predecessor of Ptolemy V, described in his deeds on the Rosetta Stone (the first written record of the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs), that he commissioned the translation of the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) into Greek to 72 wise men from Judea (6 from each tribe) so that the Jews of Alexandria, who had forgotten Hebrew, could understand them. He later commissioned other translations of the Old Testament to complete the version known as the Septuagint, the Septuagint Version, or the Alexandrian Version.


Buddha	The Quran, translated into Spanish [Source]

The desire for preservation, which is common to all religions, was the reason why the translation of the Holy Scriptures into other languages was decided upon very early on (almost all of them at the same time). The desire to make each faith understandable in other dialects, languages, and cultures played a part in this, together with factors such as the inevitable lingual evolution experienced over time, meaning that people in the same territory were unable to understand or read the original text. However the experience was certainly different in each religion, depending on the social circumstances, the timing and the nature of the text. Thus, for example, the Bible (Latin for "books"), consisting of the Old and New Testament, is the sacred text of the Christian (monotheistic) religion, which was written by prophets, scholars, and evangelists. The Tanakh and Talmud (from the Hebrew תַּלְמוּד talmūd, "instruction", "teaching"), are major civil and religious codes of Judaism (monotheistic religion), which were written by Hebrew scholars from Babylon and Israel to praise Yahweh. As for the Qur'an, Alcoran, Quran or Koran (from the Arabic القرآن, al-qurʕān, "the recitation"), which is the Word of God (Allah) revealed to Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel, it is considered to be the "eternal and uncreated" word of God in the Muslim religion, which means that it cannot be translated and its transmission must be made without changes to the original language, in classical Arabic. The Tipitaka or Tripitaka (from Pali ti "three" and pitaka पिटक or pita पिट, "baskets" or bamboo or wooden boxes where sacred texts were kept), also called the Pali Canon, is the sacred scripture of the Theravada (polytheistic) Buddhist religion, written by various priests with the collaboration of the Buddha himself. The Vedas (Sanskrit word, from the Indo-European word, meaning "to see"), consisting of the Rig Veda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda, are the sacred texts of a Hindu (polytheistic) religion, written by religious scholars and poets, who received the revelation orally delivered by their divinity. The Dàodé Jing or Tao Te Ching (Chinese: 道德經 "teaching of the way") is the sacred book of Taoism (polytheistic religion), which was inspired by the ideas of Lao-Tze or Laozi (6th century BC. Chinese philosopher and contemporary of Confucius), who was supposedly also its author, and who is considered to be a Taoist deity.

There were many languages that achieved recognition or whose written systems emerged from religious texts, such as Spanish, whose written form was born in the glosses of the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla and Santo Domingo de Silos, or classical Arabic, which originated in the verses of the Quran. The translators who were confronted with these texts were also among the first to be recognised in history, as in the Middle East (Aquila, Simmacchus, Theodotion, Tatian the Syrian or Origen of Alexandria), Europe (the Dalmatian St. Jerome or the Hispanics Avitus, Martin of Braga and Paschasius of Dumium) and also in Asia (Zhi Qian the Indo-Scythian or the Buddhist monk Xuanzang).

The translation of these texts never went unnoticed and was also in the spotlight as it had to be accommodated to other languages and cultures. As regards the Bible, the translation made by St. Jerome into Vulgar Latin (from which its name, Vulgate, would come) marked a turning point in the history of translation because the author's interpretation "towards the sense" (nec verbum e verbo sed sensu exprimere de sensu), was a source of conflict and brought him serious consequences, including the censorship of part of it for a thousand years. The problems of Bible translation during and after Humanism were no less serious. The Quranic exegetes were vigilant to ensure the correct interpretation of the words of Allah, and there were also many problems caused by the authors of the commentaries; the same was true for other religions. We can say that whenever a new interpretation of the Holy Scriptures was given, the foundations of orthodoxy were put in jeopardy. The supervision of translation involved institutions such as the Inquisition or supervisory commissions and councils of different religions (Islamic, Judaic, etc.)

Towards a classification of religious translation

The translator, the text and the target reader are essential elements of religious transmission. The figure of the translator of religious texts must be approached from different standpoints or perspectives. A categorisation of the religious translator must consider such diverse factors as: the author's identity, his or her level of adherence to beliefs, his or her relationship with the text and with the recipient (taking into consideration here the conditions of reception), which would also justify to a large extent the objectives and function of his or her translation. In terms of his or her faith commitment, the translator can be considered a believer, a follower of another religion, an apostate, an agnostic, an atheist, etc.; these are essential characteristics that would influence the outcome of the text. The role played by the text in relation to the recipient can be: educational, apostolic, missionary, etc. The identity of the addressee, which of course influences the reception of the work, can follow the same pattern as that of the translator. As for the conditions of reception, the social situation in which the translation is presented and the reaction of the recipient will have a major influence: favourable, unfavourable, or indifferent, depending on the feeling of acceptance or rejection of the ideas (the greater the climate of cultural affinity, the greater the translator's prospects of success).


St. Marcella and St. Jerome discuss the translation of the Bible [Source]	Luther's Bible [Source]

The translator's response to the text is particularly interesting, whatever his status and denomination (monk, friar, priest, imam, brahmin, etc.). Because of the coherence of his own life with his task, everything makes sense in the transmission. This perfect symbiosis of texts and translators within the religious framework has given rise to a concept, that of "monastic translation" (Bueno 2007) or "religious translation" in a broader sense, where religiosity is the vector that gives cohesion to the translated text and allows us to understand the interest of the work, the implications of the translator's personality (monk, friar, diocesan priest, etc.), the space in which the work is carried out (monastery, convent or even outside the walls in the case of the mission), the function, the modus operandi, the objectives or the personality of the target), the space in which the work is carried out (monastery, convent or even outside the walls in the case of the mission), the function, the modus operandi, the objectives or the personality of the target readers of the text.

The typology of the religious text is also highly variable depending on whether it is scriptural, theological, liturgical, dogmatic, etc.; although it is impossible to rule out that a scientific, literary, philosophical, etc. text does not also have a religious pattern. The religious, in their missionary commitment, have also done a lot of lexicography and lexicology in grammatical works, dictionaries, and vocabularies, so that these works must also be taken into account as types of translation. Finally, the religious spirit is to be found in all types of communication or expression, oral or written.

The transmission of sacred texts, with rare exceptions, has been, and still is today to a large extent, the occupation of the clergy, even if this is not their sole occupation. The task of translating or interpreting the Holy Scriptures is undoubtedly arduous, requiring years of effort as well as help. In the case of the Bible, there were apparently "seventy" translators, as noted early on, of the first Hebrew version, and the teams that followed down through the ages, such as those that are commonly formed today, are undoubtedly similar in number. However, we tend to name only the head of the group, such as St. Jerome, Luther, Cardinal Cisneros, etc., but behind St. Jerome we must mention others such as Rufinus of Aquileia and even a group of women who influenced the outcome: Paula, Eustochium and Marcella (Bueno 2015). Luther worked in the Wartburg with other theologians such as Philip Melanchthon, Matthäus Aurogallus, Johannes Bugenhagen, Caspar Creuziger, Justus Jonas and Georg Rörer. Alonso de Alcalá, Pablo Coronel, Alfonso de Zamora, Demetrio Ducas and Hernán Núñez de Toledo worked on the polyglot Bible of Cardinal Cisneros. The translator's helping hand, which tends to be ignored, must be considered in a fair measure behind the great projects of these authors. In the case of translation in the monasteries, community life has its influence on the work of copyists and translators, as it also intervenes directly and indirectly in the work on many occasions.

The translation of the sacred scripture or holy book

The translation of religious texts is an important means of expansion and knowledge of religious ideas, in any of its forms: translation itself, in parallel texts (polyglot edition), exegesis, comments, etc. The drive to translation arises, as mentioned above, from the need to make it understandable, due to the passage of time or a change of mentality, as it is intended for the indoctrination of those who do not understand the original language, both in cases where the religion allows translation and in others where this is not the case, as happens with Muslims who do not understand Arabic, which is something very common. For example, in Al-Andalus, this led the mufti of Castile, Ice de Gebir or Gidelli -of whom we will speak later- to establish that Hispanic Muslims could express themselves in Spanish in religious and Quranic matters (Epalza 2008: 103).

Translation is also important as a means of knowledge, and not only for co-religionists, but also for adversaries, who use it as a means of discernment of the other, if not of conflict; it has been used, for example, between Christians, Jews, and Muslims since the Middle Ages. It is also used as a form of approximation between religions, in the so-called interreligious dialogue.

In addition to being a means of learning about the author, the text and the recipient, sacred texts highlight a linguistic problem. Translation has had, at least in those religions that allow it, consequences in the target language itself. By looking at what the translation of the Holy Scriptures has meant over the centuries, we soon realise that it has served to reconstruct religious identity, to strengthen the religious and even political system, and to consolidate the target language.

The main problem of the translation of the Holy Scriptures was already highlighted by authors such as St. Jerome, when he warned in his famous letter 49 To Pammachium (Vega 1994: 88) that in these texts even the order of the words was a mystery. For him the difficulty lied in revealing the meaning of a language that had already been lost. Adapting the divine message to different languages and cultures is not an easy task to overcome. These texts, which were written in a distant era for a specific audience in specific cultural and social conditions, are not easy to extrapolate to other times. Nida and Taber, translation theorists and linguists of the American Bible Society, having noticed this problem of biblical translation, argued that the essential aim was to reproduce the intention of the original text, advocating the search for dynamic and formal equivalence (Nida 1969). There has perhaps not been enough emphasis on this approach, given that history shows that for centuries religious translators have for the most part chosen to translate literally, although paraphrasing according to their level of understanding of the original text and the translator's own knowledge of the language, out of fear of distancing themselves from the original ideas, and thus trying to avoid confrontation with orthodoxy.

Translation as a source of interreligious conflict

The Middle Ages was a prolific period for the dissemination of religious ideas and thus for translation. Europe was perhaps influenced by the invasions and migrations after the fall of the Roman Empire, and also by the emergence of universities (12th century) under the auspices of the Church, as well as by the role of the new monastic theologians. The Iberian Peninsula was one of the most interesting places to follow the links between the three monotheistic religions. In a country where Christians, Jews and Mohammedans lived side by side for seven centuries, clearly this relationship gave way to disagreements and a desire to mark distances, but also to collaboration, above all through translation.

The dissemination of science and theology in Al-Andalus followed three linguistic routes: translation into Latin, transmission from Arabic, mainly through Jewish scholars, and translation into Hebrew. The Toledo School of Translators tested its conflict-creating purpose, but it also brought out a great spirit of collaboration by serving as a bridge between East and West, between Arabic and Latin. It was precisely in the light of this approach that outstanding translators of religious origin, nationals or foreigners living in Spain, emerged in different parts of the peninsula. They translated from Arabic into Latin in a first stage, under the guidance of Raymond de Sauvetât (until the early years of the 13th century), and in a second stage, from 1252 under the sponsorship of Alfonso X, when they devoted themselves to translation into the Romance languages and to the revision of previous translations. This collaborative translation proceeded as follows: a Mozarab (a Christian whose mother tongue was Arabic) or a Jew (who knew Arabic) read the Arabic works and interpreted them in Romance, while a Christian (often a cleric), who was fluent in Latin, translated into Latin what he heard in Romance.

For the Church, and for the royal family, Islam was clearly a target to be defeated, making it right to approach its religious texts in order to counter its influence. The Jews, who served as a bridge to the Arabic language, were active in the transfer of their religious texts, with figures such as Avendeut (John of Seville), together with Moses Sephardi and Rabbi Bar Hiyya, three Hispano-Hebrews who collected Arabic theology and science and then passed them on to Europe. Dominicans and Franciscans also devoted themselves to it, and European clerics such as Robert of Ketton (Robert of Chester or Robert of Retines), originally from Ketton (England), archdeacon of Pamplona and later canon of Tudela, shared with Herman of Carinthia, also known as Hermann the Dalmatian, Hermannus Dalmata or Secundus, the great project of translating the Quran into Latin, commissioned by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny.


The Quran [Source]	The Crusades [Source]

During the confrontations with the Jews in the 14th and 15th centuries, outstanding translators such as the Franciscan Saint Vincent Ferrer and Pedro de Luna (the future Pope Benedict XIII), who, as a cardinal, had a disagreement in Pamplona with the rabbi Shem-Tob ibn Shaprut and later, in 1413-1414, led the famous "disputation of Tortosa" between Jews and Christians. During his pontificate, he collected numerous treatises “contra iudaeos" in his library, although it is doubtful whether he wrote any of these treatises himself.

Among the military orders (half clerics, half warriors), which became famous especially at the time of the Crusades, there were translators and interpreters, in most cases prisoners of Mozarabic, Hebrew or Muslim origin, in order to preserve their profession and to provide a means of communication with the enemy.

As for Islam, Al-Mamun (783-833) brought translation of Western texts closer to Islam and after a time when translating his works was forbidden, translating his Qur'anic sources was also welcomed and even supported (Isa Ibn Jabir, spent four months translating the Qur'an in the chapel of John of Segovia in Aiton, Savoy, between 1455-1456), but did not translate his scientific collections. A fatwa by the Sevillian Ibn Abdun in the early 12th century makes this clear, when he ruled that "scientific books should not be sold to Jews or Christians, except those dealing with their law, because they then translate the scientific books and attribute them to their people and to their bishops" (Lévi-Provençal and García-Gómez, 1948:173). This shows how common this purchase was and that it was a matter of moral and religious concern.

Muslim translations in the peninsula followed a very different pattern to those done by Christians. While the latter were motivated by cultural curiosity and religious polemic, Hispanic Muslims were generally Muslims in their internal context, whether they were Mudéjars (before their official conversion to Christianity in the early 16th century) or Moriscos or "new Moorish Christians" (until the final expulsion of the Moriscos at the beginning of the 17th century).

Regarding the Jewish religion, two translators were the leaders of Hebrew orthodoxy, pouring out numerous theological works for the European Jewish community: Judah ben Tibbon (1120, Granada - 1190, Marseille), considered the Father of translators for his important work in translation; and Joseph Qimhi (1105-1170), both of whom escaped to Provence following the Almohad persecution, also founding a family school. These early Jewish translators did not know Arabic, the language of prestige in Al-Andalus, but the later ones did, and they mastered and used it (although they continued to write their treatises using the Jewish script). Such was the case of Maimonides (1135-1204), the most important of them all, who started the disputes between the traditionalist rabbis and the rationalists, and who left behind some interesting reflections on the best method of translation, a few centuries ahead of the method that Luther introduced in humanism.

Given the intense atmosphere of exchange and affirmation, there were also cases of defection between the different religions, and the bellicose of the converts will go down in history. Among the translators who converted to another religion was Alfonso of Valladolid, whose Jewish name was Abner (Abbner or Amer de Burgos), also known as Alfonso de Burgos (1270-1346), who was born in Burgos and died in Valladolid. He was a doctor, first a rabbi and later a Christian clergyman, and after his conversion he acted as a fierce anti-Jewish polemicist. His Hebrew texts, of which in many cases only the Spanish version remains, were translated by himself. Another Jewish convert to Christianity was Peter Alphonso of Huesca. Then there also was a Muslim that converted to Christianity, Joan Andreu (or Juan Andrés), alfaqui of Xàtiva (Valencia), who professed as a Christian priest and worked on translations with the bishop of Huesca (Epalza 2008:93). Among the cases of Christian translators who converted to Judaism, Symmachus and Aquila are specially noteworthy, the latter a contemporary of St. Jerome. There were also comings and goings, such as that of David al-Mukkamas, considered the first Jewish philosopher (9th century) in Al-Andalus who, after writing works of anti-Christian apologetics, converted to Christianity, and then returned to Judaism.

However, there were also peacemakers, such as Ramon Llull (1232-1316), a Franciscan educated in three cultures: Latin, Muslim and Byzantine, who undertook interreligious dialogue, and who founded a centre in Mallorca dedicated to the study of languages and cultures for missionary activity and five centres for the study of Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldean and Greek languages:

E enaixi (Y así) com havem un Dèu, un creador, un senyor, haguéssem una fe, una lig, una secta, e una manera de amar e honrar Déu, e fossem amadors e ayudadors los uns dels altres, e enfré nos no fos nulla diferencia ni contrarietat de fe ni de costumes”.

(Libro del gentil y de los tres sabios, 4. Cit. en Alonso del Val 2013: 432)

Llull self-translated into Catalan his original works in Arabic: the works of Logic, the Book of Contemplation and the Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men.

Juan de Segovia also stood out for his translation work and his thoughts on the necessary dialogue between Jews and Christians, defending moderate positions of coexistence between different confessions, including Muslims. With the help of the Mohammedan Içe de Jebir or Gidelli (Epalza 2008: 101), Segovia completed an interlinear, trilingual translation of the Qur'an (Santiago-Otero 1996: 67) in Arabic, Spanish, and Latin, which was published by the University of Salamanca and was lost (perhaps in a fire).

Polyglot Scriptures provide the possibility of contrast, as well as a sense of universality. Among the most famous is the Complutensian Polyglot Bible commissioned by Cardinal Cisneros.


The Complutensian Polyglot Bible [Source]	Confucius [Source]

In the era of geographical discoveries and the contact of European missionaries in America, Africa, the Holy Land and the Far East, especially by Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits, the prevailing pattern was that of syncretism and miscegenation. The contact of a monotheistic religion with other polytheistic religions, also based on ancestral rites and myths, generally without written form, was not easy in practice: the way of imposing the law proved to be ineffective for many due to the confusion caused by the new representations made in languages that were also unknown, so some missionaries resorted to imaginative formulas to explain the derivation of the new ideas from the local ones.

With much effort and cultural rapprochement, the Catholic religion was imposed in America from the 16th century onwards, but it was not easy to extrapolate the faith to the Far East: conflicts between the colonial powers (between Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, above all) and clashes between Jesuits and Dominicans weakened the Westerners and were exploited by the Eastern hierarchies to bring order to their territory, putting a stop to European expansion plans and cutting off any attempt at settlement by means of violent reactions such as expulsions or death penalties.

The Asian response was greatly influenced by the strength of Eastern culture and the wisdom of people with an ancient religious system, this time with Holy Scriptures. The Dominican missionaries, who undertook extensive lexicographical and grammatical work to learn and use the Chinese language, facilitated the translation of the first Chinese works into a Western language (Spanish), the Analects of Confucius and the moral work that marked many generations of the Asian empire, 明心宝鉴 Ming Xin Bao Jian ("Pure Heart and Rich Mirror"), by Juan Cobo, which another Dominican, Fernández de Navarrete, had already made known in his work Historical, Ethical, Political and Religious Treatises of the Monarchy of China.

The disagreements in the attitude towards traditional Chinese rites (especially the Confucian and ancestor cults and the ways of translating Christian sacred terms into Chinese) caused distance and confrontation between the Jesuit, Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, who were divided into two groups: the one led by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who adopted the strategy of cultural adaptation, and the one led by the Dominicans and Franciscans, who were against it. This was the famous "Chinese Rites controversy" (Yan 2019).

So far, we have outlined some considerations on the role of translation in the transfer of interreligious texts, but how has the influence of translation been felt within the religions themselves?

Translation as a source of intrareligious conflict

Religious translation has often brought orthodoxy into the spotlight, both from an interreligious and intrareligious point of view. In the Christian sphere, the problem of St. Jerome's translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate, is well known, as it proposed a translation from the sense which was highly criticised by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Among the problems generated by the new version was the one mentioned by a friend of the author, Saint Augustine, who complained that with such interpretations the differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of the East no longer made sense. The emergence of the romance languages, and the comparison of the classical sacred texts through translation, created confusion and chaos in Catholic orthodoxy, which reacted violently to the new translations. However, the impact of Luther's translation of the Bible into German was particularly important: the interpretative disagreements from Latin into German went beyond a simple linguistic conflict, for they caused the greatest schism known in the Christian religion, that of the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The so-called "wars of religion", which for decades pushed Europe into destruction and alienation, were fuelled by another, more subtle war, the "war of translation", in which many translators were burned at the stake for their interpretations of sacred or theological texts.

It is ironic that the Council of Trent (1546-1548), which marked the Counter-Reformation, led to the renewal of a translation, the Vulgate, which did not attain full recognition until a thousand years later.

The distancing from orthodoxy, through translation, of the interpretation or the use of languages, has occurred at all times and has created havoc, influencing the relations of the religious among themselves and of the latter with the authorities (of the nation, of the metropolis or local ones) or with tribunals such as the Inquisition. This matter played an important role in the evangelisation of America and Asia by Catholic Christian missionaries, although the Protestant Church, Islam and Judaism also had a presence in these territories, while simultaneously entering into conflict with native American religions and Santería (Santeros).

In the Islamic religion, we have already said that the Holy Word is only recognised in its value in classical Arabic, so it did not accept translation in any way; in the case of having to do so - to enable its knowledge in other languages - it could only be didactic or instrumental to help understand the text, and it would not be considered an authentic Quran, but only an interpretation of it. The interpretation of the Quran has given rise to the emergence of various branches: Shia, Sunni, Sufi, etc. and sects derived from them. History also reports situations such as the one cited by Díez de Revenga (1989: 26) of the mystic Abu Mohamed Ibn Sabin from Murcia, who studied language and literature in Al-Andalus and moved to Ceuta, where he also achieved great fame throughout Islam. He became a Sufi, and taught and preached throughout the Maghreb, eventually forming a sect of Sufis called Sabinis. He eventually settled in Mecca and was held in high esteem and wrote numerous works. According to Gaspar Remiro (1980: 309), his works include a treatise on the vocation, chastity, and poverty of the servants of God, and an apologetic book that he sent to the Christian doctors in response to their arguments against the sect of the Mohammedans, contained in the Sicilian Questions, in which we can see his learnedness and the depth of his knowledge of the different philosophical systems. Intrareligious conflict - as well as interreligious conflict - often hides a political conflict. The question of nationalism has often been behind the problem of translation. This dimension has been the subject of studies that allow us to point out nationalist or political translation among the many types of religious translation (Bueno 2012).

By way of conclusion

Interreligious dialogue, which is basically the logical consequence of intercultural dialogue, has been a hot topic since the Middle Ages: Alfonso X founded a department of Arabic at the University of Salamanca; Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne ordered the creation of a department of Oriental languages at the universities of Rome, Oxford, Bologna and Salamanca, under the influence of Raimundo Llull. In the 21st century, the frequently voiced debate continues to occupy the minds of many intellectuals (including translation theorists) and even the hierarchies of the different religious denominations, but it remains unresolved. As Flecha (2002: 42) points out: "The multicultural pluralism that can be observed in our society is already seen by many as a challenge to the Western values that were considered unquestionable until now. Diversity is no longer perceived as a simple qualitative increase in plurality, but as the announcement of a more than potential conflict'. As predicted also by Josep Cobo (1995: 29), "diversity is increasingly and clearly becoming a "belligerent diversity'". We believe that religious translation, in its mission to spread (not propagandise) knowledge, can greatly contribute to bringing cultures and religions closer together while respecting the original ideas and the essential message.

For a more extensive follow-up of studies on religious translation, and especially of religious orders, the catalogues and publications contained in the web portal La traducción monacal en el mundo hispánico (Monastic translation in the Hispanic world), a resource published in 15 languages that is useful for researchers and anyone wishing to expand on the subject, can be found.

Research potential

The potential for research into religious translation is very high, given the range of the types of translation involved in this work. The following is an extensive list of research topics (not exhaustive), with many links to works already underway, many of which can be consulted on the web portal La traducción monacal en el mundo hispánico (Monastic translation in the Hispanic world). The reader should be careful to go very slowly through each term expressed in each line, as each one contains a different link to written, audio or visual resources.

HISTORY AND RELIGIOUS TRANSLATION

History of translation in different religions

Archaeology and religious translation

Religious translation in different periods (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern Age, Contemporary Age), continents (Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Oceania), countries and regions.