[PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION. Published version in The Bible Translator 71(3): 281-302.] [p. 281 begins] Intrusive Voices: Translating Unexpected Changes of Speaker in the Bible Abstract When a change of speaker in a Scripture text is not explicitly introduced by a speech orienter, Bible readers may feel the text is “intrusive.” This article proposes a taxonomy for categorizing such intrusive voices in various passages of Scripture. The intrusion may be external (due to scribal activity) or internal (as written by the original author). Internal intrusions can be further classified as citations or unmarked conversational turns. Textual signals that a change of speaker has occurred in the original texts include a change in deictic reference (primarily pronominal) and change in semantic content. The article lists orthographic and linguistic devices that translators have used in existing Scripture translations to clarify that a change of speaker has occurred, and also examines several passages where it is not fully clear whether an intrusive voice is present or not. Keywords change of speaker, speech orienters, quotative frames, punctuation, citations, intertextuality, conversational turns, scribal intrusion 1. Introduction In many languages, a change of speaker in a text is explicitly introduced by a speech orienter (Dooley and Levinsohn 2000, 50), sometimes called a quotative frame (e.g., Miller 2003; Finley 2019). 1 It is therefore often a [p. 282 begins] challenge for Bible translators and readers when they encounter “intrusive” speech (see, e.g., Culpepper 1983, 17, for this term) in Scripture by a speaker who has not been clearly introduced onto the scene. 2 When such intrusive voices occur in the text, readers may become disoriented as they stop, reread the text, and wonder whether the speaker has changed or not, and whose the new voice might be. Alternatively, readers may miss the change of speaker completely and think that the same person continues speaking, which leads to a potential misunderstanding of the text, and may have unwanted exegetical and theological consequences. An example from Jer 31.23-26 illustrates what I mean by an intrusive voice: 23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel . . . 25 I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish. 26 Thereupon I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me. (NRSV, emphasis mine throughout this article) 1 A version of this article was presented at the BT 2019 conference held at the Dallas International University campus in October 2019. I am grateful to Alexey Somov and Joshua Jensen for their comments on drafts of this article, to my audience at the BT presentation for their questions and comments, which helped me refine my thoughts on the issues involved, and to the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. 2 My usage of “intrusive” is not intended to carry any negative overtones; it merely reflects the fact that the presence of a new voice/speaker in the text in such cases is unexpected and potentially disorienting to the reader (i.e., cognitively intrusive from the reader’s perspective).