Originally posted by chinking58
Can I suggest that in the future you quote from a more modern translation? Like the New International Version? Languages (if nothing else ) do evolve, and we just don't speak KJV anymore.
Yes, languages evolve. That is one of the reasons why I think it is important not to “lose” the original languages—in this case Hebrew and Greek (and Aramaic).
The other reason is that translation often needs to be selective in trying to choose appropriate wording; this is especially true, for instance, with Hebrew, which is what I call a “depth language” wherein one word more often than not has many layers of meaning. For instance, the Hebrew word
shalom is generally just translated as “peace.” However, it also carries the meanings of wholeness and harmony. The Hebrew word
kavod is generally translated as “glory.” Now, I don’t know offhand what the original understandings of glory were, but
kavod carries with it the sense of something weighty: a weighty, substantial or palpable presence.
These may be trivial examples, but there are some examples that I think are not so trivial. The Hebrew word
ra is generally translated as “evil,” for example. This is true, I think, even still in modern English translations. However,
ra means anything tat can be labeled “bad,” “unpleasant,” etc. It is not strictly a moral term, though it could include that sense. The main moral term for the Jews was “Tsedeq:” justness or righteousness. The English word evil also originally had the broader sense of anything that was in any way distasteful or unpleasant, and was not restricted to a particularly moral sense. If someone said “That was an evil meal,” they just meant it was unpleasant.
A New Testament example is “faith.” The underlying Greek word is pistis, whose basic meaning is trust, confidence, trustworthiness (the basic verb form pisteo: “to faith&rdquo😉. It has been translated into English as “faith” (from the Latin fide) and “belief.” Belief seems originally to have had a complex of meanings: to hold dear, to love, to trust, to give permission. [John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins] However, in modern usage, “to believe” has also come to mean “to suppose or to think,” “to take as real or true.” [Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Third Edition] If someone uses the word “believe” in these senses, they may be putting a new “spin” or interpretation on the original NT concept.
My own interpretation of “faith” follows somewhat from Soren Kierkegaard’s claim that faith is a “leap,” an active decision. So I think of faith as a) a decision made, b) based on whatever evidence, c) under conditions of uncertainty; and the willingness to act on that decision. That is, to make a decision and to act confidently on it, even though the outcome is uncertain—that is what a quarterback does when he throws the long pass with seconds remaining at the end of the game.
An interesting note on eros and agape (both translated as “love” ): In the old Greek, they are actually very close. Some of the early church fathers sometimes used them almost interchangeably--although the emphasis seemed to be on agape as God's eros--e.g., God's passionate love for creation. I think agape came to include both eros and philia (kinship, familial, friendship love, like or fondness for), and I translate agape as something like “;unconditional passionate caring for.”; Late in Christianity, and I suspect more in Protestantism (but not in the Greek Orthodox tradition), agape seems to have become more like philia.
An interesting example is John 21:15-17, where Jesus asks Peter three times “;Do you love me?”; The first two times, Jesus uses agape, but Peter responds in terms of philia--as if to say “;You know that I like you as if you were my own brother.”; The third time, Jesus asks “;Do you love me?”; using philia rather than agape. And “;Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time 'Do you phileis me.’”; As if Peter knew that, once again, he failed to understand where Jesus was coming from.
For Protestants who hold to Luther’s principle of
sola scriptura, eschewing “Apostolic tradition” in interpreting the Bible, I think great care must be taken not to 1) “lose” the original languages, and 2) forget that many English words that were used to translate the original texts in 1611 (words that are still used in modern translations and in liturgy) may have evolved in four centuries to encompass meanings they didn’t have back then. Otherwise, the potential breadth of interpretation may be lost, if nothing else. This does not seem to be a problem for, say, the Greek Orthodox Churches (at least in terms of NT Greek): they have both kept the language and the hermeneutical traditions of the early church.
None of this is meant to imply that one cannot profitably read the Bible without being fluent in Hebrew and Greek. But an interlinear version, with a lexicon and a basic grammar can add a lot. I have found reading in the Orthodox tradition to be rewarding as well.
Can I interprete Scripture as I see fit ?
22 May '05 02:27
Back to Top