for the books by Jozef Rulof
The various languages in which the books by Jozef Rulof and the explanation by the publisher are available on the websites of the publisher.
Which languages
All the books which came to earth via Jozef Rulof were written in Dutch.
For an up-to-date overview of the books published in other languages, you can visit our websites:
Starting point of translations
However, the message of the books is intended for everyone on earth who is searching for the deeper connection of all Life.
Initiating, translating and arranging the translations, and supervising and publishing the translations are therefore basic tasks of the Society Spiritual Science Foundation “The Age of Christ”.
A fundamental starting point in this regard is remaining faithful to the original mediumistically received text.
In the translation world, this is not a matter of course.
Professional translators are usually given the assignment to make a translated text fluent to read.
This means that they have to transform sentences which are not fluent in the source language, the language from which they are translating, into a fluenter form in the target language, the language that they are translating into.
They are required to simplify difficult sentence structures of the writer in the target language, to remove (unintentional) repetitions, to make monotonous parts more interesting by using synonyms, and to do everything which is necessary in order to produce a text which can be read fluently.
Translators who work for the society receive a different assignment.
This assignment is to remain as close as possible to the source text.
Remaining as close as possible means to the extent possible in the target language, which of course requires other sentence structures and expressions than those used in the source language.
Translating is always finding a balance between translating as faithfully as possible and respecting the individuality of the target language.
However, for the translation of these books, the emphasis is on the faithfulness.
As a result, the translated text is perhaps not always as fluent as in the source language.
For that matter, the text in the source language is not always fluent either.
Yet what the reader of the translated text receives in return is the assurance that what he or she is reading is as faithful a reproduction as possible of the original mediumistically received text in Dutch.
After translation, there are still various steps required before a translated book can be published.
One of these steps is text comparison.
Each translated sentence is compared to the original sentence in Dutch, in order to check whether the translator has understood and translated all the words and their meanings properly.
This text comparison is carried out by a different person than the translator.
Working on a translation with various people is necessary in order to obtain the best possible result.
After all, translating is the work of man and therefore susceptible to errors.
In addition, everyone has their strong and weaker points, and those weaker points are compensated for and counterbalanced by the deployment of other people.
The ideal translator is a native speaker of the target language.
This means that the translator translates into is his or her native language.
Furthermore, it is important that the translator lives in a country where the target language is spoken.
This keeps his or her knowledge and command of the living language up-to-date.
Thanks to the Internet, we can communicate quickly online and work together on a worldwide basis from the home office in the Netherlands.
