James (Jim) Davis Jan 10, 2018:

@Therese Hi Therese, the question was to Fiona, who has a beautiful Scottish accent. I am protestant and my wife is RC. The syllabus for the course with perhaps a little of the bibliography would be very helpful.

Therese Marshall (asker) Jan 10, 2018:

@James (Jim) Davies No, dear. I am from Sheffield! From a mixed Catholic-Protestant family ;)
These were degrees taken at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome

James (Jim) Davis Jan 9, 2018:

What I will stress though is that context is key, Couldn't agee more. That is why I googled the whole phrase, and found nothing and then split it in two. What I found was that "dire dio" seems to be used, as I said, "to be pretty similar to "spreading the gospel" or preaching, but from a distinctly theological viewpoint. That leaves "le arti". Obviously "the art of" singular would sound much better, but without a more detailed description of the course, it could be totally inaccurate or right on the nail. My feeling is that this is a Roman Catholic oriented course. Catholic and protestant theology and teachings are pretty different on many issues. Recently a devout RC friend told me she had never heard of the second commandment in Genesis, and still refused to believe it when I printed out a quote from the Vatican website. Many years ago an intelligent educated man from southern Italy queried whether protestants were Christians. So an accurate translation could well sound really weird to protestant ears. You're not from Glasgow are you? :-)

Fiona Grace Peterson Jan 9, 2018:

@James Just giving my professional opinion - I did not provide an answer as you can see. What I will stress though is that context is key, as ever, and "the arts of pronouncing God's name", while it may be a faithful (no pun intended) rendering of the original, is hardly an appropriate translation for a university course name. Quite aside from the fact that "pronouncing" brings to mind various phonetic connotations.

James (Jim) Davis Jan 9, 2018:

Hi Fiona Having googled it and read the various contexts, "dire dio" seems to be pretty similar to "spreading the gospel" or preaching, but from a distinctly theological viewpoint. "pronouncing" would seem about right to me. Can't see any word play with "dire addio".

Fiona Grace Peterson Jan 9, 2018:

Play on words It sounds like a play on words for "dire addio"... although I know that doesn't help you much! My advice would be to find out what the course consists of and give a more down to earth rendering. "An introduction to theology"... or whatever... you get the picture.

Therese Marshall (asker) Jan 9, 2018:

@James (Jim) Davies Thank you James!

James (Jim) Davis Jan 9, 2018:

I would say the "word God" As in John in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

Angela Guisci Jan 9, 2018:

of pronouncing God... the name of God...