English is a sponge. It soaks up words from
other languages. Even those of us who are not native speakers can
enjoy New Englanders trying to pronounce simple words like tortilla
or taco. You don’t need to be highly educated to pick up the
additions.
I would like to see more Bible translations
making use of the original languages. A new translation, the Legacy
Standard Bible (LSB), has started down that path. They have taken
the Hebrew name for God, YHWH, and translated it Yahweh instead of
“LORD” which was the previous standard.
There are
other words that get confusing when we try to translate them. One
that I run into is the English word “perfect”. It is used in the
KJV and NASB New Testaments. At the same time I run into people who
want to deny that such a concept should be considered. The problem
is that they take the modern idea of perfect as being without flaw.
That is not what the Greek is trying to convey. The Greek
word,“telios” means to achieve the goal set for you. The best
illustration I can come up with is to talk about a perfect baby. It
wets, cries and throws up on you. It is still perfect if it is
mine.
Or I would like to see agape instead of love. The
concept of love has been so polluted by our modern culture that it is
almost meaningless. Go with the Greek and make people think about
what it means.
I am sure there are many other examples.
Of course if you are a King James Only person you are quite content
with words that now mean the opposite of what they meant in 1611.
For you I say, “God bless you and help you know truth.”
homo unius libri
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.