Covert Religious Censorship: Renderings of Divine Familial Imagery in Translations of the New Testament within Islamic Contexts

One of the central metaphors in the New Testament involves the familial imagery of God as “father” and Jesus as God’s “son.” The epithet of “son of God” for Jesus is understood by Christians to be metaphorical, rather than literal, and evokes a complex network of theological concepts. However, for Muslims, these epithets for God are extremely problematic-according to the Qur’ān, God “begetteth not nor was he begotten.” This article compares the renderings of divine familial terms in two Arabic translations representing indigenizing and foreignizing approaches to translation within Islamic contexts and explores the implications of each translation in promoting different kinds of covert religious selfcensorship.