Translation from the Greek

[mataeux]

If a Greek word is translated into English as "X" 37 times but as "Y" only one time, is that 'proof' of deception or just 'evidence'?

Interpretation of the verse using Y opens up a totally different meaning but still allows -barely- the sense of when using X. But using X instead of Y forcefully leads to one conclusion that goes against the preconceived ideas of the translator.

Would an unbiased translator naturally select a word and describe the sense of the word "by a usage not met with elsewhere"?

[McCulloch]

It is difficult to address this without a specific example, but here are some general principles:

1. Much of the Bible can be understood by reading a translation in your own language. But there are parts of it which may require looking into the meanings of the words in the original languages.
2. Translation from one modern language into another is not a simple matter of swapping words and adjusting grammar. Idioms, figures of speech and synonyms do complicate matters. Coming from an ancient language makes it even more difficult in that there are no current speakers of the ancient tongue.
3. Compare translations. No one translation into English is perfect. Give more value to those translations done by a wide range of scholars and less to those done by fewer, especially translations done by those with a specific theological or ideological bias.
4. Don't jump to conclusions. Unless you are an expert in ancient languages, defer to the experts. Where the experts disagree (and they do) remain open minded to multiple interpretations.

[cnorman18]

I've said for about three years now that if one is serious about understanding the Bible, but does not wish to take the time and effort to learn Koine Greek, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, one uses multiple translations.

The ideal of a perfect and perfectly accurate single translation of the Bible does not and cannot exist. Even a "literal" translation - they are available, in interlinear form with the original languages - won't clarify everything; those are very hard to understand, even to read coherently. When I was preparing sermons, I generally used a minimum of five translations - typically the KJV, NIV, NASB, the Jerusalem Bible, and the RSV, though I also regularly consulted J. B. Phillips (for the NT), the "Living Bible" (which is a paraphrase and not a true translation), the Douay, the Oxford Annotated, Dake's, the Amplified Bible, and others. I also used a number of single- and multiple-volume commentaries, study Bibles, and "Introductions" to the OT and the NT, from both liberal and conservative perspectives.

That's extreme, but I was a professional, and felt responsible to my congregations for being accurate and authoritative. One isn't obligated to go to such lengths in casual study - but on the other hand, it's always amazed me that people expect to read a set of documents that are, in some cases, more than 3,000 years old, written in obscure ancient languages, and which are the products of cultures, times and places that are wildly distant and different from our own in almost every way, and find it as easy, clear and effortless as reading a romance by Nicholas Sparks. That's a little silly, don't you think?

Spare me the comments about how God should have made it easy to read His Word. The FIRST principle of genuine Bible study is that these documents were written by humans, whether "Divinely Inspired" or not. The writers had to use the brains they had in those places and times, just as they had to use the alphabets and literary forms that they had at hand. It takes some effort to do the books justice if one wants to actually understand the writers' intent and what they had to say.

If one is just looking for "proof texts," of course, any version will do. Just find the one that says what you want it to say - but don't pretend you're actually trying to learn anything.

[mataeux]

Strong's G1344 at ROMANS 6:7

I don't think "Justified" allows the sense of 'being loosed from dominion of' or "freed".

Why use "freed" when the Lexicon clearly supports "justified" or "absolved" or "acquitted" or "declared guiltless"?

When I see "Justified 37" and "Freed 1" it makes me investigate further. Then reading in the lexicon "... by a usage not met with elsewhere ..." leads me to think "freed" is incorrect and the result of bias or deception.

I appreciate your replies. If this becomes a debate, state your case concisely and let the observer decide.

For it is God's way to reveal things to those becoming as a child.

[bjs]

Strong's G1344 at ROMANS 6:7

I don't think "Justified" allows the sense of 'being loosed from dominion of' or "freed".

Why use "freed" when the Lexicon clearly supports "justified" or "absolved" or "acquitted" or "declared guiltless"?

When I see "Justified 37" and "Freed 1" it makes me investigate further. Then reading in the lexicon "... by a usage not met with elsewhere ..." leads me to think "freed" is incorrect and the result of bias or deception.

I appreciate your replies. If this becomes a debate, state your case concisely and let the observer decide.

For it is God's way to reveal things to those becoming as a child.

I am far from a Greek scholar, but I understand that “freed� is at least a possible translation in this verse.

If only one translation put in the word “freed� while most others used a word like “justified" or "acquitted� or something else then it might be possible that there was some deception or bias involved.

However, as it stands every translation I have seen – from King James to NIV to NRS and several others – all use the word “freed.� Because it has been translated this way by so many experts spanning such a long time period it is not reasonably to say that deception or bias was involved. Such a claim would require saying that the translators of King James Bible in the early 1600’s and the translators NIV in the mid 1960’s were all in on the deception.

You might be able to argue that there is a better translation than “freed� in this case, but even that would require arguing against the vast majority of Greek experts in the world today.

Also if we say “anyone who has died has been freed from sin� or we say, “anyone who has died has been acquitted from sin,� what difference does it make? I recognize that there is a technical difference, but the essential essence of the sentence seems pretty much the same.

[EduChris]

Strong's G1344 at ROMANS 6:7

I don't think "Justified" allows the sense of 'being loosed from dominion of' or "freed".

Why use "freed" when the Lexicon clearly supports "justified" or "absolved" or "acquitted" or "declared guiltless"?

When I see "Justified 37" and "Freed 1" it makes me investigate further. Then reading in the lexicon "... by a usage not met with elsewhere ..." leads me to think "freed" is incorrect and the result of bias or deception...

There is no "bias" or "deception" here; the problem is that you are not using the most comprehensive Greek lexicon, BDAG, which gives "make free" as a valid meaning for the Greek verb dikaiow.

The immediate context in the preceding verse talks about our being slaves to sin, and so this next verse is talking about the opposite of being held in slavery--in other words, being made free from the power of sin.

The Revised English Bible gives a particularly nice translation of the verse: "...death cancels the claims of sin."

[EduChris]

...When I was preparing sermons, I generally used a minimum of five translations...

...KJV...
...NIV...
...NASB...

...I also regularly consulted...

...J. B. Phillips...
...the "Living Bible"...
...Dake's...
...the Amplified Bible...

...I was a professional, and felt responsible to my congregations for being accurate and authoritative....

No seminary trained "professional" would routinely resort to these translations--especially not one who was part of a "liberal" Methodist tradition, as you have elsewhere claimed. What did your "radical professors" at "Perkins School of Theology" tell you about these translations?

There is a huge disconnect between your claims and the actual content of your posts. Very interesting...

[cnorman18]

...When I was preparing sermons, I generally used a minimum of five translations...

...KJV...
...NIV...
...NASB...

...I also regularly consulted...

...J. B. Phillips...
...the "Living Bible"...
...Dake's...
...the Amplified Bible...

...I was a professional, and felt responsible to my congregations for being accurate and authoritative....

No seminary trained "professional" would routinely resort to these translations--especially not one who was part of a "liberal" Methodist tradition, as you have elsewhere claimed. What did your "radical professors" at "Perkins School of Theology" tell you about these translations?

There is a huge disconnect between your claims and the actual content of your posts. Very interesting...

I'm sure it is. Factor in that that was almost forty years ago. I was rather more conservative then, and of course my small, elderly, rural congregations were even more conservative than I. I would not have disturbed their faith and peace by rubbing their noses in Bultmann; that wasn't my job. I DID inform them about some issues of historical and Biblical scholarship, but I wasn't about to rock their worlds with my own more liberal ideas, even then. If I had preached the things I believe today, even setting my conversion to Judaism aside, I would probably have found myself riding a rail out of town with tar in my ears.

If you want to impugn my integrity and call me a liar, please just do so, straight out. Thanks.

[EduChris]

...If you want to impugn my integrity and call me a liar, please just do so, straight out.

Okay, as long as you've given this invitation, and based on the posts of yours that I've read, the chances that you ever received a seminary education (even 40 years ago) is exceedingly small.

You claim to use Bible translations that no (non-fundamentalist) seminarian would bother with.

You completely reversed the very basic Christian claim that works cannot "save" anyone or gain them eternal fellowship with God.

You claim to have come from a liberal Christian background but you stereotype Christians as though they were all some sort of American fundamentalists.

You appear to be unacquainted with rudimentary principles of hermeneutics; several times I have seen you resort to egregious claims that this or that text "can be interpretted in no other way" than whatever way you happen to interpret it. When I initially challenged on this, instead of recognizing your mistake, you became defensive--or shall I say, you deflected, you went on the offensive and suggested that my knowledge of Judaism was inadequate.

There's probably more that could be said, but this is enough to convince me that you are either the world's worst student (which I don't believe) or you forgot everything you ever learned in seminary (which I doubt) or else you have fraudulently claimed to have studied in seminary.

But I'll try to keep an open mind. Maybe someday you'll post something that will cause me to change my opinion. But until then, if I get put on probation for responding to your invitation in this way, so be it.

[cnorman18]

...If you want to impugn my integrity and call me a liar, please just do so, straight out.

Okay, as long as you've given this invitation, and based on the posts of yours that I've read, the chances that you ever received a seminary education (even 40 years ago) is exceedingly small.

You claim to use Bible translations that no (non-fundamentalist) seminarian would bother with.

Specifically which ones and why? I found that looking at different perspectives can be very useful. For instance, I found that Dake's annotated Bible was full of repulsive defenses of racial segregation based on distortions of Scripture, but the cross-references, lists, and commentary on other parts were sometimes very valuable indeed and available nowhere else. NASB was widely known as the most literal translation, and even the most radical profs sometimes referred to it for its sheer accuracy, in spite of its frequent clumsiness. I don't think I've mentioned a translation that could be called warped or biased for polemic purposes, either way; the Living Bible is a paraphrase, not a translation, and I consulted that because many of my congregants read it to the exclusion of any other version.

You completely reversed the very basic Christian claim that works cannot "save" anyone or gain them eternal fellowship with God.

That was my belief and perspective at the time, but not today. I'm JEWISH now. (Duh.)

You claim to have come from a liberal Christian background but you stereotype Christians as though they were all some sort of American fundamentalists.

That's a load of horse hockey. I have HUNDREDS of posts here complaining about all Christians being stereotyped as fundamentalists, and expressing my own respect and reverence for non-dogmatic varieties of Christianity; even my own personal conviction that Jesus was probably sent as a "Messiah" for the Gentiles. I DO oppose fundamentalism, and I have no intention of apologizing for that; I think it's a betrayal of the Christian faith and of our God-given human capacity for rational thought; but I certainly don't think that's all there is to Christianity. I have even known individuals with fundamentalist beliefs for whom I have great respect and reward - the ones who don't denigrate and demean other perspectives.

You've made assumptions about my beliefs and views before without bothering to check out what they actually are - and it's not like they're all that hard to find. This one makes me laugh; anyone who's been on this forum more than a few months knows better, and I don't feel I have to work all that hard to defend myself against a canard that most people here know is totally and absolutely false.

You appear to be unacquainted with rudimentary principles of hermeneutics; several times I have seen you resort to egregious claims that this or that text "can be interpretted in no other way" than whatever way you happen to interpret it. When I initially challenged on this, instead of recognizing your mistake, you became defensive--or shall I say, you deflected, you went on the offensive and suggested that my knowledge of Judaism was inadequate.

Specifics?

I'll be happy to debate any passage you like, but the Jewish perspective is different from the Christian one, and if you don't acknowledge that BOTH are valid for their respective faith communities, we have nothing to talk about. The fact that I don't allow Christians to distort or falsify the meaning of the Book that my people wrote in order to dictate what Jews ought to believe to satisfy Christians doesn't make me an incompetent scholar.

There's probably more that could be said, but this is enough to convince me that you are either the world's worst student (which I don't believe) or you forgot everything you ever learned in seminary (which I doubt) or else you have fraudulently claimed to have studied in seminary.

How about (1) my perspectives have change after FORTY YEARS, (2) I no longer approach either Scripture or religious doctrines from a Christian direction, and (3) you have no warrant whatever to call me a liar for no other reason than that you disagree with my views.

But I'll try to keep an open mind.

You do that. So far, I'm not impressed with your efforts.

Maybe someday you'll post something that will cause me to change my opinion. But until then, if I get put on probation for responding to your invitation in this way, so be it.

I'm not reporting you. I don't think you bear me any ill will; just that you're quick to jump to conclusions about the beliefs and integrity of people who don't happen to agree with you, and perhaps a trace or so of arrogance. Who died and left YOU in charge of the Theology Police?

But just to ease your troubled mind, feel free to call the Perkins administration and ask about one Charles Norman who attended the school beginning in the fall of 1973. That number is 1-888-843-6564; press 2, and then 4, to reach the Registrar's office. I have already spoken to them, and they will confirm my attendance.

I await your apology.