Sorry I have been gone for a while. Between a wedding, holiday’s, travels, and finishing a book, life has been a little chaotic. But things are back to normal, at least for a week.

From time to time, I find myself wondering why translators wouldn’t simply translate the Greek and let the chips lie where they fall. I know we have to be careful not to miscommunicate, and there is often meaning in the nuances of the grammar, but other times I just wish we would translate what the Greek says and means.

We all know that Greek wants to start a sentence with a conjunction to indicate the specific relationship of that sentence with the preceding. We also know that punctuation and the use of paragraphs can often perform the same function, and so an initial καί is often left untranslated. But every once in a while I come across one that probably should be translated, and the Great Commandment might be one. 

As I am working on issues related to trusting the Bible, one of the topics is Bible translation. At times it seems the translations contradict each other. One translation says “brother” and the other says “brother and sister,” so which is correct? If one translation says “he” and the other translation says “they,” which is correct? Which one is right? And why are they different? These are real concerns, and they can lead you to not trust your Bible. Part of the answer is to understand the different types of translations. Today we will look at “Natural Language” translation theory.

The Pharisees wanted to know if Jesus believed divorce was legitimate for any and all reasons. The challenge is to translate the phrase, recognizing that it is a singular (each individual reason) and also general (any and all reasons).