Prince of Persia

(originally posted at wycliffe.ca on 2015-11-05)

I was checking Daniel for a translation team working in a minority language spoken in Asia. I had the chance to work with this team in person earlier this year, and I was impressed by how capable they are. They're a joy to work with.

Beginning in Daniel 10, Daniel has a vision of a man who says he came to Daniel to explain what's going to happen to Daniel's people in the future. It's normal to think of this person as an angel, even though Daniel doesn't use that word. That's fine; as I understand it, the original audience of Daniel would have had the idea that this person is a supernatural being, not quite the way our culture popularly thinks of angels, but probably about the same as what the New Testament authors would have thought.

He says to Daniel in 10:12-13 (NET), "from the very first day you applied your mind to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your words. However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia was opposing me for twenty-one days. But Michael, one of the leading princes, came to help me".

This "prince" language works for the English-speaking church. We've been taught to see right through it. We read this and think of the "prince of the kingdom of Persia" as some kind of angel, but a bad one, because he opposed the good one. And we've been taught to think of Michael as an angel as well, a good one.

What about for a culture that has no such background, and little access to teaching that could explain this to them? Is it ok to put these ideas into a translation?

That's what this translation I was checking did. Their version of 10:13 says, "that demon who rules Persia prevented me for twenty-one days ... afterwards, among the rulers of the heavenly army, one of them named Michael came to help me."

Is it ok for them to translate the "prince of Persia" as a "demon who rules Persia"? Is it ok for them to translate "the leading princes" as "the rulers of the heavenly army"? The original doesn't say it that clearly (it says "prince" in both places), but that's how we understand this passage. And the goal of translation is to translate meaning, not words. You can't translate words, though you can fool yourself into thinking that's what you're doing. That's a topic for another post.

I'm pretty sure the original author of the book of Daniel meant the audience to understand that these princes are spirit beings, angels and demons. So I'm pretty sure the right meaning is being conveyed by this translation.

I'm not alone in coming to this conclusion. The main national language translation in the country where the team works leans in this direction, calling the prince of Persia a "demon prince", though it just refers to Michael as "one of the great princes". Another major translation in that national language calls both princes (the demon and the archangel) "governing angel(s)". For one example from English, the New Living Translation says "for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me".

A translation consultant can't push back too hard against a questionable translation if there's precedent among standard translations. In this case, after thinking through the issues, I felt comfortable with the team's decision anyway, and it was nice to see other major translations that did the same thing.