Miles wrote:bjs wrote:All the other translations seem to say the same thing. What is the difference between doing “a good thing to me� or doing “a good work towards Me� or doing “a good work on me.� As far as I can tell all those sentences mean the same thing. What is the difference in meaning?
Please read my response to cnorman18. (DRP stands for the David Robert Palmer Translation)
cnorman18 wrote:In all of the translations of the OP, the meaning is clearly "She did a good thing which was of benefit to me." There are indeed innumerable ways to impart that information in English, forget about other languages. So what?
But "which was of benefit
to me" is NOT the same in all the versions. "
To me" indicates the something was done
to the self
Simply consider the four forms I chose to illustrate the variety of versions.
- 1. to me
2. for me
3. with me
4. towards Me
If the beautiful thing she did was the act of coming, then
1."She came
to me" indicates I was someplace and she approached within close proximity.
2."She came
for me" indicates I was someplace and she approached me to bring me somewhere. Or, it might mean she filled in for me at some function, as in "She came to the rehearsal in my place."
3."She came
with me" indicates the two of us went somewhere together,
4."She came
towards me" indicates I was someplace and she merely approached in my direction---she need not ever have made it to me.
So when you ask "There are indeed innumerable ways to impart that information in English, forget about other languages.
So what?, the "so what" is that if one picks up a "
to me" version of the Bible they are hardly getting the same message as one using a "
with me" version. So while context is obviously important, so are the words used to convey the meaning within the context. This is why
- 1. She has done a good deed to me.
2. She has done a good service for me.
3. She has performed a good work with me.
4. She has done a good work towards Me
fail to convey the same message.
Again, you are changing the context to an unrelated situation where the difference in words DOES make a difference in translation. In Mark 14, it doesn't. In that passage, Jesus is talking about a woman anointing him with scented ointment, and in that context, "with me," "for me," "to me," and so on all mean exactly the same thing.
We are not talking about either "eating," or "coming," or any other word you'd care to substitute for the actual words in the passage. You are complaining about differences in translation that have not occurred (that is, with the words you cite), when in the actual passage at hand, there are, in fact, none. If you can find a passage where different (mainstream) translations actually differ as to the
essential meaning of a passage, we can discuss that. There are a few, which scholars are aware of, and generally come from doubt about the meaning of the words in the original; none are particularly significant in either a historical or a theological context.
Falsifying a translation of any Biblical passage at all would be a fool's errand, anyway. The original Hebrew and Greek texts are available in any large bookstore, and any translation which varied widely from the ones available now would be front-page news in that academic field and controversial in the extreme. Other than some idiosyncratic translations by individuals who may or not be qualified (as opposed to mainstream translations, which are generally composed, reviewed, and finalized by committees or boards of experts), there simply are none.
Those who complain about the difficulties and problems with the translation of the Bible, and on those grounds discount it entirely, are very much like those fundamentalists who complain about the problems and difficulties with evolution and on those grounds dismiss it just as entirely. On examination, neither know very much about the actual academic field they presume to criticize.
The idea that correct translation of the original texts is important, and should be carried out in as objective and unbiased a manner as possible, has actually occurred to Biblical scholars. The issues have been identified and largely resolved for more than a century. As in any academic field, ideologues with an agenda other than doing the actual research are not appreciated.
Another bit of silliness is the often-heard objection that "The Bible has passed through so many translations, it's like a game of 'Telephone.' How do we know that what we're reading now is anything close to the original?" That betrays an ignorance at least as deep as the fundamentalist claim that "evolution is only a
theory," that is, an understanding of the field so wildly wrong that it effectively becomes nonsense. The NIV wasn't a revision of the RSV, which in turn was a revision of the KJV, and so on; that's ridiculous. ALL of those translations, including the KJV, were produced by returning to the oldest manuscripts available at the time. No Bible scholar worth his diplomas ever took another scholar's word for a translation; it's the job of a translator to do it himself. That's pretty basic.
Bear in mind that everyone who writes about the Bible isn't a Bible scholar any more than everyone who writes about evolution is a scientist.
