Never underestimate the difficulty of Biblical translation. Or the opportunity for translators to manipulate a text consciously or unconsciously as a result.
There are no more than 10,000 worlds in ancient Hebrew. For a comparison, there are 200,000 words in ancient Greek. To express specific concepts, long word strings have to be created, and context becomes supremely important. Additionally, few Hebrew words translate directly to English. They are all concept-heavy, meaning different things in different contexts but also holding a trace of those other meanings even as the context changes. To get a feel for the difficulties, I STRONGLY recommend taking some of your favorite Old Testament passages and looking them up here: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Hebrew_Index.htm
It will change the way you look at it all. And similar problems exist with the Greek New Testament. So how is your average laymen to deal with this fact? First of all, get a good study Bible, preferably the Oxford Annotated, and read the notes. Beware of translations and paraphrases that remove ambiguity from the text. The ambiguity is not incidental. A more ambiguous translation is often a better one. Keep multiple translations of the Bible, and compare them. Most non-paraphrasing translations are good. I think it is hard to argue against the NEW JERUSALEM translation as the best.
But even the best translations show the mark of theological bias. Take Romans 3:22 and related texts. Many translators think that the "faith in Jesus Christ" is a theologically filtered translation. The Greek texts clearly read "the faith OF Jesus Christ". But because genitive constructions can be interpreted different ways, the standard Augustinian and Lutheran interpretation gets written into the text. But put in actual context, the second formulation is superior. While most texts nowadays asterisk this passage and notate the other translation, almost none put it in the text proper, because the theological consequences of that little change are huge, people. There is something similar with Revelation 13:8.
The good news is that examples like this are few and far between. Most textual problems are with the disambiguation of passages, which is easily overcome by keeping multiple translations around and having access to a good study Bible. So it takes some work, folks. We all want it to be simple and straightforward and a lot of ministers have made a lot of money selling as such. But to believe that is to ignore the very Bible staring you in the face. Again, check out that link. It'll blow your mind.
I was raised in one of the most dedicated dis-ambiguationist sects in Christianity: The Roman Catholic Church. Frankly none of the ambiguity was ever hinted at. If there were any questionable passages it was pointed out that the Church created/assembled the Bible and not the other way around. That is the fall back was not to live in the ambiguity but to cling to the rectitude of church doctrine.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I think they did not mention any of this so as to not throw us new Christians off track. They were looking for us to get through high school without getting pregnant or leaving the church. Ironically those whom I attended with are either like me no longer Roman Catholic or vehemently Roman Catholic. Little if any middle-ground.
Which is a long way to say that I think you are absolutely correct about the criticality of embracing the ambiguity. To borrow from The Princess Bride: Life is ambiguous, anyone who says different is selling something.
I admit, it has taken a very long time (nearly 30 years) to get to a place where I can be in the ambiguity and begin to learn what God wants of me. Imagine had I had the opportunity to engage with this when I was in my teens?
So I thank you for bringing this up and exposing our kids to it. It is an important matter and I encourage you to keep pointing it out.
Thanks Josh.
Thank you Kevin, for your support and friendship. And for all God does through you.
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