In light of my last post, I thought it might be helpful to move beyond theory to actual translation. How would you translate the Hebrew ish and the Greek anthropos in the following passages? Genesis 2:24 [Hebrew]: “Therefore an ish leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife.” Genesis 2;24 [LXX]: “Therefore…
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Zondervan has a chart (reproduced immediately below at right) suggesting that effectively conveying both the form and meaning of the original Biblical documents is the best way to reflect the original reading experience. I disagree, and I think that Zondervan’s approach represents a common and fundamental misunderstanding about how form works. Form and Meaning For…
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Anthony asks on the About page: I have a question about Heb 3:13. When it says “exhort yourselves,” is the Greek literally saying “you all exhort each other” or “you all exhort your own selves,” supporting Galatians 6:4? Would the expression in question be parakaleite eautous? Yes, that is the Greek, and it’s a great…
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It seems that the default explanation for an unknown grammatical feature is to assume, often wrongly, that it is “emphatic.” Here are four examples, three from Hebrew (skip to them: one, two, three) and one from Greek (skip to it here). The Examples The Infix Nun From time to time, a nun will appear between…
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Another great question from the About page: I have a question about Matthew 27:54. The centurion and the rest of the detachment set to guard Jesus body cried out and said “truly he was the Son of God!” — or is that really what they said? Since it lacks the articles in Greek, and Latin…
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Peter Kirk drew my attention to a post by Bill Heroman about I Timothy 2: If anyone wants us to be perfectly literal about 1 Tim 2:12, we should note, at least as a beginning, that Paul is primarily speaking against one-on-one mentoring, female to male. “I do not allow a woman to teach or…
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Adjectives without nouns are quirky and idiosyncratic, and understanding them is important for translation. As an example, in English we have “the Americans” (American people) but not (*)”the Swisses,” or (*)”the Frenches.” We have “the Swiss” (Swiss people) and “the French” (French people), but “the American” can only mean one person. Other languages work differently.…
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