Vocabulary

My Greek Verse of the Day is a screencast vlog that I will be doing weekly at first. I will take a well-known Bible verse, read it, translate it, and then phrase it. Finally, I will include some comments about its meaning or significance. In John 3:16 I will be talking about the meaning of οὕτως, and that it can’t mean “so much” as in the traditional translations. I will also talk about the πᾶς and the fact that it is indefinite. The promises of John 3:16 are available to each and every person (πᾶς) in the entire world (κόσμος) who does in fact believe. There is no inherent limitation in the “all” (“whosoever,” KJV); the limitation is in the modifying clause.

1 Corinthians 15:11 gives us a great example why it is important to know a word’s semantic range, and also my oft-repeated mantra that there is no random translations in any major Bible translation. There always is a reason, even though at times you have to look pretty hard to find it.

γάρ is a tricky word. The more formal equivalent translations tend to just use “for” and let you figure out what it means. The problem is that “for” has a much smaller range of meaning than γάρ, and “for” often does not fit the biblical context. In the case of Romans 12:3, I think translating γάρ as “for” misleads the reader.

How do you translate θλῖψις? If you translate it as “tribulation,” does that bring in foreign ideas in some contexts? This is a tricky one. I wasn't planning on blogging while on vacation in Switzerland, but my brother-in-law asked a good question.

Translators have to be comfortable with compromise. Rarely can you hit the nail on the head, and generally you either over- or under-translate. What do you call all the people in your church? Beloved? I think not.

Is 1 Corinthians 13 really a parenthetical “love chapter”? Or is it powerful, rhetorical language reflecting Paul's frustration with the Corinthian church? And how do we translate the figure of speech when Paul says that in the bookkeeping of love, past wrongs are not recorded?

As an example of persistence in prayer, Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow pestering the unjust judge until he vindicates her. His ultimate motivation is that he feared she would wear him out, or was it that he feared she would physically attack him as the NIV suggests?

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.

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. 

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).