Translation

There are lots of little things in this section that make translating fun. If you are in class, make an experiment. Have everyone do their own translation on this section and compare notes.

If you were raised in the church with a biblical pastor, you might have some idea what a “divided tongue” is, but possibly not. My guess is that the most natural understanding is that you have a multiple tongues (of fire), and each one is split into different parts (i.e., “cloven”), but one tongue. But then you get to the second half of the verse and you realize that this fire is going over each person present, possibly 120 people (Acts 1:15).

As you compare the translations, it can get even more confusing. The NRSV says, “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” As I said, I am not sure how people would understand “divided tongues.” And then later you have a single tongue over each person.

The problem is that you have two modifiers of “tongues” (γλῶσσαι), both “spreading out” (διαμεριζόμεναι) and “as fire” (ὡσεὶ πυρὸς). How do you say this?

To begin with, the “as if” goes with “fire,” so the NIV places the emphasis on the wrong word. “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire.” They did not “seem” to be “tongues”; they “seemed” to be “fire.” Granted, the NIV makes sense and what they saw was not really a tongue, so at least this makes sense.

I know I have been beating this drum pretty hard recently, but it is so easy. I keep coming across example that clearly illustrate the problem.

The claim is that a translation can be at least somewhat literal, and that by doing so the translator reduces the amount of interpretation (often true) and the informed reader can see the Greek structure behind the English.

Frankly, the “informed” reader should be reading Greek if he or she is able to learn anything of significance from the English structure. But more importantly, I doubt there is even one verse in the English Bible that actually, clearly, reveals the Greek structure underlying it. The languages are just too different.

I am helping my friend Martin read Greek, and we looked at 2 Thess 2 last Wednesday. In the ESV v 2 reads, “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.” What Greek lies behind “For that day will not come”?

Nothing.

The phrase “For that day will not come” was inserted to help the reader understand. It is an acceptable practice, but not one that could possibly be called “literal.” The CSB does the same thing, although it has invented another phrase for its translation method: “optimal equivalence” (not formal or functional).

The NASB is more transparent (also KJV). “Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.” The italics show the inserted words.

Note: you can watch the introduction to this blog on YouTube.

I came across a blog post the other day that said the NIV translators deliberately mistranslate. While this is not my normal blog topic, I thought I would chime in. As I was the NT Chair of the ESV for ten years and am currently on the CBT, I have quite a lot of experience in translation committees.

I can say quite honestly that I have never seen a translator "mistranslate" any verse in the Bible based on his or her beliefs. When a blogger uses words like "Deliberate Mistranslation," they are saying that translators “know” the verse means one thing, but that they choose to make it say something else. That simply is not true, at least not in my experience.

As I read on the rather lengthy post, I quickly realized that the author had confused interpretation with deliberate mistranslation. Basically, it seems that wherever the blogger held a different interpretation of a verse, that the NIV had deliberately mistranslated. Apples and oranges.

For example, the blogger said: “Ephesians 2:20–22 — The Greek says ‘you are being constructed into a habitation of God in spirit (en pneumati)’, but the NIV interprets this as ‘in the Spirit’ (i.e. the Holy Spirit) without textual warrant. [See BeDuhn, p. 151.] Throughout the epistles, the NIV shows a theological bias to translate ‘in spirit’ as “in the (Holy) Spirit” wherever possible.”

One of the difficult points in translation is how to handle πνεῦμα. Since Greek was originally all capitals, the written form of the text simply does not give us a clue as to whether the author is speaking of "spirit" or "Spirit." You have to make a choice, and in this case they are mutually exclusive choices. But that is a far cry from saying it is a deliberate mistranslation.

Sometimes we translators are accused of having an evangelical bias, of altering the translation of a passage to make the New Testament not contradict itself, or artificially conforming a New Testament citation to its Old Testament source.

It is an interesting charge, and is somewhat based on the assumption that the New Testament contradicts itself or that the New Testament authors were not able to quote their Old Testament accurately.

Mark 5:23 provides a good example of the former. This is the famous crux when it comes to inerrancy. Was Jarius’ daughter dead, or almost dead, when her father was speaking with Jesus?

The NASB translates, “My little daughter is at the point of death” (also ESV, NRSV); the NET has, “My little daughter is near death.” However, the CSB has, “My little daughter is dying” (also NIV, NLT). The Greek is ἐσχάτως ἔχει, ἐσχάτως meaning “to being at the very end, finally” (BDAG). The parallel in Luke 8:42 has the imperfect ἀπέθνῃσκεν.

The conflict is that in Matt 9:18 Jarius says, “My daughter has just died” (ἄρτι ἐτελεύτησεν). ἄρτι means “ref. to the immediate past, just (now),” and τελευτάω means “come to an end, die.”

The longer I translate, the more I realize how subtle language is, and how different people hear the same word or phrase differently.

In Galatians 2, Paul is talking about his relationship with the Jerusalem church and their agreement with his theology. His conclusion is in v 10. “All they asked was that we should continue to remember (μνημονεύωμεν) the poor, the very thing I had been eager (ἐσπούδασα) to do all along” (NIV).

μνημονεύωμεν is a present subjunctive, which the NIV makes explicit with the “continue.” The NLT has, “keep on helping the poor.” Other translations have the simple, “They asked only that we would remember the poor” (CSB, see ESV, NASB, NET, NRSV).

How do you hear “remember”? On one hand, the lexical idea of “remember” is imperfective so you don’t need the “continue” or “keep on.” However, just saying “remember” may imply to some readers that Paul had not been remembering the poor and they were asking him to start remembering the poor. In other words, while μνημονεύωμεν itself does not require a helping word to make it imperfective, perhaps the context does.

Then take ἐσπούδασα. The NIV has “the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” There is no Greek word or phrase explicitly paralleling “all along,” so where did it come from? Remember, there is always a reason, always. The NASB simply translates the words, “the very thing I also was eager to do” (also the ESV, CSB, NET, NRSV). The problem with this, at least to my ears, is that it sounds like Paul had not been eager to do this but now he was. Is that how it sounds to you?

Every once in a while you read a verse that obviously cannot mean what it says. Whether you are working with a formal or a functional equivalent translation, both are going to just translate the words and leave the exegesis up to the reader (and the commentaries). But if you are reading a natural language translation like the NLT, they will often try to help the reader. A couple examples.

John writes a short letter, and at the end says, “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink” (2 John 12, ESV, see most translations). Do you see the problem here? He has just used “paper and ink” for eleven verses. Contextually, we understand that what he means, even though it is not what he says, is that he has more to say but he wants to say it in person. So the NLT adds, “I have much more to say to you, but I don’t want to do it with paper and ink.” The TEV reads, “I have so much to tell you, but I would rather not do it with paper and ink.” The NJB has a clever way to say this as well; “There are several things I have to tell you, but I have thought it best not to trust them to paper and ink.”

In Jesus’ tirade against the religious leaders, he attacks their arrogance, specifically, their desire for titles that separate them from the regular folk (23:5-6). He says that they are not to be called “Father” (πατέρα), “for you have but one Father, and he is in heaven” (23:9). Obviously, Jesus doesn’t mean what it says. I call my dad “Dad” or “Father,” I don’t know anyone who would fault me for that. What he actually means is spelled out in the last two verses. “The greatest among you will be your servant. And whoever will exalt himself will be humbled, and whoever will humble himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:11–12).

I have been thinking a lot about some of the general issues of translation, and one of the points that keeps coming up is the issue of metaphors, and I would like your opinion.

Are metaphors inspired?

I am asking if the inspired authors chose to use a metaphor to convey meaning, are we required to use a metaphor?

There are, of course, metaphors that make no sense in a target language. We have no choice with those and must interpret the metaphor. Consider the story of the prodigal son. When the father saw his prodigal son returning, he ran and “fell on his neck” (KJV, Luke 15:20). While that is a word for word translation, it certainly is not what the text means. Even the NASB, the most formal equivalent translation in English, says that the father “embraced” him, with the footnote, “Lit fell on his neck.”

You know you have been talking too much about translation when your spouse throws your own words back in your face. Robin was reading Ps 102:12 the other day. “But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations” (NIV).

“Renown,” she laughed, “what’s a renown?” And then she quoted my common response: “That’s not English; nobody talks like that.”

Now Robin knows precisely what “renown” means. “The condition of being known or talked about by many people; fame.” But would we use a word like that? Probably not; “fame” would be the normal way of saying it.

But this brings up the interesting issue of active vs passive vocabulary.

I started this blog so I could share what I am thinking about helping new believers start their spiritual journey well, but there are just a few topics I want to cover first.

The first came from a meeting I had with Mart Green, the son of David Green who started Hobby Lobby. What an amazing family, not only for their business acument but for their extravagant generosity.

Mart was talking about a Bible traslation project the Green family foundation helped to fund, and as he was listening to Yunike (below) accept the first Bible in their language, she said this: "Thank you to all the funders. Now all the Nsenga people can go to heaven."