Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 19 Oct 2006 10:45:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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3931 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
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I didn’t realise you actually went back to the original text at times.
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Just to clear up any misunderstandings, I don’t read the actual original ancient
Greek text of the New Testament, nor the ancient Hebrew of the Old Testament
(though my girlfriend does read Hebrew and sometimes offers me her own
translations).
Generally what I do is compare many different English translations, including
ones that try to capture the original intent of the authors by paraphrasing, and
others that take a much more literal word-for-word approach (even when this
renders English that is difficult to read or even impenetrable).
I also read whatever translation notes I can find, which often provide other
possible meanings, or at least explain why a certain rendering in English has
been chosen. I pay particular attention to instances where different
translations have glaringly different English renderings, and do my best to get
to the bottom of why that is so. Sometimes it’s because of an ambiguous term or
phrase in the original text (there are even instances where letters or words are
simply missing from the oldest manuscripts we have), and sometimes it’s because
there is significant disagreemnet between our oldest and most reliable
manuscripts (whole words, phrases, or even whole passages found in some, but not
others) and translators have to pick one or another ancient manuscript to
follow.
In occasional cases like Luke 12:51, after looking into the matter, I get the
distinct sense that the traditional English interpretation has been purposefully
toned down. Given a choice between translating Jesus as saying he’s come to
bring division into the world or hostility, I think there is a natural bias
if you are a Christian who loves his own family, to try to lessen the harshness
of Jesus’s words even if it is not the best translation of the Greek in context.
I would defer in this matter to someone better qualified to analyse the original
Greek if I could find someone I could trust to be a non-interested party.
-Brendan
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
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| --snip-- (...) It is also possible that the English word "division" in that context has changed. If you look at "divisional" it usually implies an active (and possibly hostile) act of division so it is not unreasonable to assume that the word it is (...) (18 years ago, 19-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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