Transliteration
Transliteration is the process of transferring a word from the alphabet of one language to another. This may seem strange at first, but that is just because the western writing system is so widespread and uniform across the world today.
Reality is that various different writing systems exist have always existed. Therefore, the process of converting something from one writing system to another writing system is not unknown in history.
Furthermore, it also needs to be understood that a writing system exists independent of a language. A language is simply the system of how sounds are associated with specific meanings, while a writing system is a specific symbol associated with a specific sound. It is therefore possible to write different languages with the same writing symbol (I think this we are used to, since currently different languages would share the same writing system, for example English and German would use the same writing system. There is however exceptions where German uses additional symbols referred to as "umlaut" which English does not.
Hence, considering an abstract example by comparing some writing systems that are very different, say Chinese or Arabic writing systems. It is theoretically possible to write in English but using the Chinese or Arabic writing symbols and vice versa.
Thus, when converting Chinese or Arabic texts that is written not only in their writing systems, but also in their language to English, essentially two conversions take place, namely:
- Translation, which is the conversion of the meaning
- Transliteration, which is the conversion of the writing system
In the context of ancient texts such as those that make up the Bible, challenges from both the above exist. In fact, my current interpretation is that it is quite complex actually, since first of all there were many more different writing systems in place not only over the centuries, but also concurrently at the same time. On top of that, all the text was compiled written by hand, which brings about spelling variations, mistakes, etc. Right now we all type on the same Windows machines with probably shared spell check dictionaries. They did not. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I think our ancient forefathers were much more civilized than what we are today, but they were not pressed into conformity as we are. In that context, we spend much more focus on the form and presentation of a text, rather than the content thereof. For them it was the other way round.
Hence, all modern versions of the ancient text are in fact transliterations, since not only was the meaning translated to our modern languages, but also is the text written according to the modern writing systems with modern symbols.
An example of a normal "straight forward transliteration" would be the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew texts, which are known as the "Aramaic Targums". These translations use the old Hebrew writing system with the Hebrew letters and all, but use a different language system, namely Aramaic instead of Hebrew.