metaphor – God Didn't Say That

What did God Really Create in the Beginning?

What did God really create in the beginning? The usual answer is as obvious as it is wrong.

JoelMHoffman October 9, 2013 13

Is God a boy god or a girl god in the Bible?

If God is like a nurse, does that mean that God is female? What got me thinking about things like this is that John Piper’s “desiring God” blog just ran a post called “Our Mother Who Art In Heaven?” The basic point is to affirm that God is a “masculine God” in spite of 26…
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JoelMHoffman July 6, 2012 10

Sometimes the right word is the wrong word to use when translating the Bible

I imagine translating from some language into English, and the original text has to do with a bunch of people sitting around a room admiring a fancy new door. The obvious translation of what happens next is, “the host showed his guests the door.” The problem, though, is that “show the door” in English means…
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JoelMHoffman February 20, 2012 15

How to Love the Lord Your God – Part 3, “Heart and Soul”

In two previous postings (here and here) I show how “Love the Lord your God with all your heart [and] all your soul” — from Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 — actually refers to two specific aspects of being human: the intangible (levav in Hebrew or kardia in Greek) and…
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JoelMHoffman January 18, 2012 16

How to Love the Lord Your God – Part 2, “Soul”

A while ago I explained why I don’t think “heart” is an accurate translation in “Love the Lord your God with all your heart [and] all your soul,” from Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5. The reason was that the original referred to both emotion and intellect, while “heart” in English…
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JoelMHoffman January 11, 2012 37

How to Love the Lord Your God – Part 1, “Heart”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart [and] all your soul…” According to Jesus in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27, this is the most important commandment. Jesus’ Greek is a quotation of Deuteronomy 6:5, and that Hebrew passage is so central to Jews that it’s part of what is inscribed on…
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JoelMHoffman November 28, 2011 44

The Lord isn’t the Shepherd You Think (or: Don’t Mess with the Shepherds)

“The Lord is my shepherd.” This line from Psalm 23 is among the most famous images from the Bible. But as I describe in And God Said, for most people the English words hide the ancient imagery. Shepherds To get started, here’s a question: which actor would you cast as a typical shepherd? When I…
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JoelMHoffman October 21, 2011 32

Thinking About Translation In Just One Language

It’s often pointed out that actually knowing more than one language is helpful for intuiting how translation works. But I think many of the same intuitions can come from thinking about just one language. Here are two examples from English: 1. Jim West recently wrote that “Bob Cargill has penned” something. What role does “pen”…
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JoelMHoffman November 15, 2009 0

On Metaphorical Dissonance

George Lakoff (in More than Cool Reason) points out that metaphors are conceptual, not merely linguistic. Then he has an example of how metaphors might differ, and what the consequences would be. I think it’s helpful to keep these issues firmly in mind as we translate across cultures. Here’s what Lakoff has to say: 1.…
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JoelMHoffman October 29, 2009 1

Amos’s Clean White Teeth

Amos 4:6 is back, first in a comment and then in a post at Aberration Blog. The Hebrew text reads: v’gam ani natati lachem nikyon shinayim b’chol areichem v’choser lechem b’chol m’komoteichem v’lo shavtm aday n’um adonai. That is, ” ‘I [Adonai] have given [or will give] you a purity/cleanness of teeth in all your…
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JoelMHoffman October 26, 2009 7

Tag: metaphor