TRANSLATING THE GOSPEL

HARTMUT WIENS

Canadian Bible Society

Toronto

Contents

- Introduction to John 3:16

- Preface

- Issue 1 - Translation in Context

- Issue 2 - Translation or Transliteration

- Issue 3 - Translation and Interpretation

- Issue 4 - Translation Across Cultures

- Issue 5 - Primary and Secondary Senses

- Issue 6 - Collocational Clashes

- Issue 7 - Metaphorical Language

- Issue 8 - Logical Connections

- Issue 9 - Lexical Equivalence

- Issue 10 - Key Terms

- Issue 11 - Grammatical Issues

- Issue 12 - Pronominal Reference

- Issue 13 - Rhetorical Figures

- Issue 14 - Limitations to Translation

Translating the Gospel Copyright © 2013 by Canadian Bible Society.

This book was produced using PressBooks.com.

Introduction to John 3:16

The famous theologian, Karl Barth, was once asked what he thought was the most profound truth of the Christian faith. Thoughtfully he responded, Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

This truth is succinctly expressed in John’s Gospel, chapter 3 verse 16. This verse has often been called the Gospel in a nutshell. In a series of articles reflecting on this verse word by word, I will use this great affirmation of God’s love to illustrate some of the challenges Bible translators face as we seek to restate God’s Good News in every language spoken on earth.

The first fact that a person used to reading the Bible in English must face is that this verse was originally written in Greek. To fully understand and appreciate all of the nuances of the text we must look at what John actually wrote.

Here is the text in Greek with an English gloss in brackets after each word:

Οὕτως [THUS] γὰρ [FOR] ἠγάπησεν [LOVED] ὁ [-] θεὸς [GOD] τὸν [THE] κόσμον [WORLD] ὥστε [THAT] τὸν [THE] υἱὸν [SON] τὸν [THE] μονογενῆ [UNIQUE=ONE] ἔδωκεν [HE=GAVE] ἵνα [THAT] πᾶς [ALL] ὁ [-] πιστεύων [BELIEVING] εἰς [IN] αὐτὸν [HIM] μὴ [NOT] ἀπόληται [MAY=PERISH] ἀλλ [BUT] ἔχῃ [HAVE] ζωὴν [LIFE] αἰώνιον [ETERNAL].

Since this series of articles is written for the benefit of English readers, we will follow the order of words as it is found in a more familiar form of the text taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3.16 NRSV)

Preface

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

As long as I can remember it was my ambition to be a missionary, to participate in spreading Good News. My wife Ginny grew up with a similar ambition. So together, we set off for the Philippines, to live with the Kalinga people. They were known as “headhunters” in the anthropological literature. We learned to know them as kind, generous, hospitable people. One night they even threw a party and adopted us into their tribe, giving us a whole new set of family relationships. One of our new “sisters” took her responsibilities so seriously that whenever I was not home, she would stay up at night to ensure the safety of my family, although she had 9 children of her own to care for. Ultimately one of our new “brothers” and our best Kalinga friend actually sacrificed his life to protect our translation team from cruel bandits who were terrorizing the village. No wonder the priest who helped us get settled in our assignment told us that he had learned more from the Kalinga people than he would ever be able to give them. For our part, we gained a whole new understanding of what Jesus meant when he said, “the greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them (John 15.13).”

God himself is a friend like that, because in Jesus he paid the ultimate price to give us life – life in all it fullness – life without end. That is the Good News we have to share. The message is stated most succinctly in John 3.16, a verse from the Bible that many of us have learned by heart.

In the 14 chapters of this booklet, I profile some of the challenges that translators face as we seek to restate this Good News from God in other languages. Words that seem so simple and straight forward, as we read them in our familiar language, can suddenly take on an unexpected complexity as we struggle to make them plain to people who speak entirely different languages.

I hope that as you read this booklet you will gain a new appreciation for the profound beauty of the Good News we have to share with the world and also a deeper understanding of the ministry of Bible translation. As partners with you in this task, we hope that you will be inspired to join with us to ensure that more and more people can access this wonderful message in words that can penetrate and change their hearts.

Issue 1 - Translation in Context

The first word in our English version is “for.” In the Greek this is actually the second word. It is a small word, but it brings with it a number of issues that the translator must consider. This little word is used to signal that John 3.16 was not written in isolation. It is part of a larger text. In fact the chapter and verse numbers found in our Bibles were not in the original text. This is an important point, not only for the translator, but also for the reader or student of the Bible. Every verse of the Bible should be read and studied in its wider context rather than as a verse in isolation from the larger text. We violate the integrity of the text when we read, study or translate a verse of scripture in isolation. Yet how often have you been to a Bible study where participants are each assigned to read one verse? Such a process results in a serious loss of continuity, especially when different versions are being used. Reading Bible verses in isolation should be avoided, both when studying and when translating the Bible.

The Greek word gar (γὰρ) may be translated by a number of different English words, depending on the context in which it is used. It is found eight times from John 3.16 to 4.8 and in those eight occurrences the translators of the NRSV have used 6 different ways of representing it. In 3.16 it is “for,” in 3.17 “indeed,” in 3.19 “because,” in 3.24 “of course,” in 3.34 it is left untranslated in its first occurrence, and in 4.8 it is represented by parentheses around the whole verse, to set it off as parenthetical. In linguistics, we call this little word a discourse particle. It has no specific meaning alone, but in conjunction with other words it helps to connect what is being said in the overall context. English versions frequently do not translate this particle by any single word, but rather let its meaning come out in the way that sentences are put together in the overall flow of the text.

In this particular context, the word translated “for” signals that verse 16 amplifies the statement made in the previous paragraph. There we read that, “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Verse 16 elaborates this statement by telling us how and why God offers us this life. Translators must choose the most effective means at their disposal in the particular language for which they are translating to signal the connection between verse 16 and the preceding context. Even within the same language there may be a variety of ways of accomplishing this. I encourage readers to look at different English versions to see how they have done this, especially some of the newer, meaning based versions such as the Contemporary English Version or the Good News Translation. Also, if you know another language, see how translators have accomplished the discourse connection in that language.

In the next section we look at one of the biggest challenges a Bible translator faces – how to translate the word for “God.”

Issue 2 - Translation or Transliteration

One of the most important challenges a Bible translator faces is the translation of the expression for God.  In fact, in the Expository Dictionary of Bible Words, Lawrence O. Richards says: “Multiple volumes have been written to explore this short word.”

The Bible assumes that God exists.  It opens with the words, “In the beginning God….”  But to the Hebrew people, in whose language the book of Genesis was written, the names and titles used for God were extremely significant. They communicated a lot about the people’s understanding of who God is.  In view of the multiple volumes that have been produced on this short word — God, it is obvious that one brief article is inadequate to really do justice to the topic.  Consequently, I will limit myself to a discussion of the Greek expression theos (θεὸς) found in this verse.

In cultures where the Christian tradition is already well entrenched, there is often not much of a decision left because an acceptable way of referring to God has already been established.  However, in those languages where Christian teaching is new and the Scriptures are being translated for the first time, the decision about how to translate the Greek θεὸς in this verse can be quite far-reaching.  I recently heard a speaker from one of our First Nations express the pain his people have suffered as a consequence of the decision made by early Christian missionaries to reject the common term for the Creator in their language in favour of a borrowed word.  As a result God has always seemed like a foreign God to them.

Our two official languages in Canada help illustrate the two basic approaches that translators have tended to follow.  The French language uses Dieu for God.  This is essentially a borrowed adaptation of the Latin Deus.  French is one of the Romance languages with roots going back to Latin and most Romance languages follow this pattern of borrowing or transliteration.  In the Latin Vulgate, the word Deus, is consistently used to translate the Greek θεὸς. On the surface the two words even appear to be derived from the same source but linguistically they are not related.

Martin Luther, John Wycliffe and others who translated the Scriptures into the Germanic languages such as German and English, followed another common approach.  Following the precedent set by Ulfilas in his Gothic translation of the New Testament they used the native English and German words, God and Gott. These were the terms commonly used among pre-Christian Germanic tribes to refer to the supreme or ultimate reality.

Translators, who choose this solution of using a common native term for God, frequently face the reality that the indigenous term may have meanings associated with it that are at odds with the biblical understanding of who God is. The awareness of this has generated sharp criticism from some Christians toward Bible translators who have chosen to use the common word for God in languages of people who are feared as enemies. On the positive side, this solution has the advantage that the term is already familiar and allows people to learn about the God they encounter in the Bible as one who is already known to them by another name. The apostle Paul modeled this strategy in communicating the Gospel in Athens: “That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you” (Acts 17.23 GNB).

When translators choose the solution of transliterating or borrowing a word for God from another language, they must face the possibility that the God of the Bible may seem foreign to the people for whom the translation is being prepared.  At the same time, this option is more likely to avoid the tendency of inadvertently introducing an understanding of God that is not supported in Scripture.

No matter which route a translator follows to translate theos (θεὸς) the term will not really be totally adequate to convey all the aspects of God as revealed in the Bible.  Ultimately the meaning of the term chosen will need to be filled out by a study of what the Scriptures reveal about this supreme being – the creator of the universe.

No revelation of God is more complete than Jesus Christ – God made real to us in human form.  That is why the writer of the Gospel according to John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (KJV, NRSV, NIV, ESV).  In Jesus, God became one of us and demonstrated in the most dramatic way possible how much God cares about each one of us.  That is the great Good News which John 3.16 expresses so succinctly.  That is why it is such good news and why we go to so much effort and expense to ensure that all people have the opportunity to discover it in the language they understand best.

Issue 3 - Translation and Interpretation

“So” – such a tiny word!  Surely it can’t present much of a challenge to the Bible translator!

The length of a word really has nothing to do with the degree of difficulty a translator is likely to face in accurately representing its meaning in another language.  Also, the fact that this word is tiny in English obscures the fact that Houtōs (Οὕτως) in Greek is a word of normal length and just as complex in meaning as most.  The structure of the English language, which tucks this tiny word between the powerful words “God” and “loved,” also tends to downplay its significance.  In the Greek Houtōs (Οὕτως) comes first in the sentence.  It establishes the context for what follows.

A paraphrase representing one meaning of this word might read something like, “God loved the world so much that ….”  Many modern versions have done just that.  We tend to understand “so” as an adverb used to express the degree to which God loved the world.  Many Greek scholars, however, interpret the word Houtōs (Οὕτως) as an adverb of manner and most interlinear Greek texts render it as “thus.”  Another way of paraphrasing it is, “This is how God loved the world ….”

Often the intended meaning is so rich that it is impossible to capture it fully in any one version.  In this case, John may well have intended to express both the degree to which God loved the world as well as the manner in which that love was expressed.  The challenge for the translator is to capture both thoughts in a way that is clear and natural.

I believe Dr. Eugene H. Peterson’s “The Message” comes about as close as possible to expressing in English what John intended.  He accurately captures the complexity of the little word “so” when he says, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.  And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” (John 3.16 The Message)

The Bible is like a precious multi-faceted diamond.  The different versions are like the different surfaces that a skilled jeweler cuts into the gem to bring out the light.  Reading the Bible in different versions helps to expose the brilliance of its eternal message.

Issue 4 - Translation Across Cultures

“Love” is the heart of the Gospel message. Greek and Hebrew have many different words for “love.” The Greek verb ēgapēsen (ἠγάπησεν) used here is just one of several. By contrast most languages, including English, are impoverished in their “love language.” So we face huge challenges when searching for suitable ways to represent what the Bible says about love.

The love of a mother for her child is quite different from the love expressed by a man for his wife.  Yet in English we use the same word – “love.”  The Greek language has two very distinct words to express these different kinds of love.  The Greek-English Lexicon, edited by world renowned translation scholar Dr. Eugene A. Nida, lists 25 entries under the topic of “love,” based on at least seven different Greek root words.

The Gospel message is about the love God has for us. Conveying this is complicated in cultures where the concept of a god who loves people is not familiar.  Animistic cultures are more concerned about the many “gods” who might harm them. In Kalinga, a language spoken in the Philippines, the word used for love really means “to want or desire.”  It may also carry sexual connotations.  In one African language the only word available for love means “to please.”  This would imply that the world pleased God so much that….  In such circumstances, we struggle to find ways to minimize the likelihood that people will misunderstand the Gospel message.

With complex and loaded words like love, it is almost always impossible to discover the precise equivalent in another language.  English has only one word for a range of concepts requiring a number of different Greek words, so it cannot possibly express the meaning as powerfully as the original.  We translators do our best to express the intended message clearly and precisely.  People benefit from access to the Bible in many versions as well as the opportunity to learn more through teaching and study in the community of faith.  Each one helps to illuminate the rich meaning of the original.

Issue 5 - Primary and Secondary Senses

“The world” – this phrase is challenging for Bible translators because the Greek word kosmon (κόσµον) is used with at least five different shades of meanings in the New Testament.  Depending on the context, it may mean “the universe,” “the earth,” “the inhabitants of the earth,” “the way people live in the world,” or “everyone and everything that is alienated from God.”  John 1.10 illustrates three of these meanings in one verse.

When translating words used in a variety of ways, we must distinguish between primary and secondary senses.  For example, the English word “run” has the primary meaning of “motion with quick steps on alternate feet.”  It also has literally dozens of secondary senses.  When used with “nose,” “motor” or “stocking,” it has three very different meanings – none of which would be translated by the word for “run” in French, Spanish or most other languages.  It is the secondary senses of words that create the most challenges for translators, because they are rarely transferable from one language to another.

In Scripture, words are commonly used in such a way that the whole stands for one of its parts.  For example Luke uses “Moses” to stand for the writings attributed to Moses in the Bible (Luke 16.29), and in Acts 2.4 “tongues” represent the languages spoken with the tongue. The technical name for this rhetorical device is “metonymy.”

The Greek word kosmon (κόσµον) as used in John 3.16 is a clear example of metonymy.  Here “the universe” stands for the people who live in it.  God’s love is focused on those who inhabit the world. The book of Genesis represents the Creator as expressing pleasure with all of creation (“it was good”), but not love.  The agape love in John’s Gospel focuses on people, the only beings capable of responding to God in faith.

Translators who fail to consider the secondary sense of the Greek word kosmon (κόσµον) used here may end up with a rendering that represents God’s love as focused on the earth, a lifeless lump of clay, rather than on the people with whom he identified supremely in the incarnation.  The Contemporary English Version ensures that the intended meaning of the original is conveyed clearly with the rendering, “God loved the people of this world so much that….”  Although “the people” are not stated in the literal Greek text of the original, they are clearly the intended objects of God’s great love.  Newer translations of the Bible such as the Contemporary English Version can help the reader to understand more clearly what the original authors wanted to communicate.

Issue 6 - Collocational Clashes

Here we concentrate on the sixth element in this fabulous message, “he gave.” The verb “to give” in its primary sense, has to do with transferring possession or ownership and normally implies material objects. In contexts such as the abhorrent institution of slavery, people can also be objects of possession and transference. In English, “his only Son” as the direct object of “he gave” is not incomprehensible. However, in many other languages it would constitute a serious collocational clash – two elements that do not naturally go together.

The unusual nature of this collocation highlights and draws attention to the statement. To readers steeped in Bible knowledge, it helps to evoke images of Jesus’ birth and his death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Readers familiar with Old Testament Jewish history are reminded of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Most contemporary readers may need an explanation such as those offered in study Bibles.

In other languages, the clash between “he gave” and “his only Son” may be even more pronounced. In the Kalinga language of the Philippines, there is no context for readers to understand the concept of giving one’s son. In this case it was decided to borrow the verb “sent” from the following verse which, while not retaining the rich imagery of the original, is necessary to help readers who have very little biblical background.

Perfect translation is not possible, and even very good translation requires difficult choices. Sometimes the choice is between two or more possible renderings, each of which provide only an imperfect representation of the originally intended meaning. At other times the choice may be between a rendering that is not quite accurate and one that would convey no meaning at all. As Bible translators we value the prayers of God’s people so that the choices we make will help people understand the message in a way that will draw them to Jesus – God’s communication wrapped in humanity (John 1.14).

Issue 7 - Metaphorical Language

Now we come to the words “his only Son.” Webster’s primary definition of son is “a male offspring especially of human beings.” In John 3.16, the pronoun his links this phrase back to God making it clear that the reference is not to a human being but to God. The notion of God having offspring is extremely difficult to grasp. To the Islamic mind it is sacrilegious since it appears to bring God down to the level of humans. Christians interpret this as an anthropomorphism (using human images to explain something about God). Obviously the word son is being used to communicate something different than is conveyed by its primary sense in our language.

There is a rich tradition in Hebrew and Greek literature both inside and outside the Bible with respect to the usage of this word. This background helped the original readers understand the reference to Jesus as the Son of God in a metaphorical rather than a literal sense. It signals a relationship of intimacy and respect similar to the ideal relationship between a human father and son. It also reinforces the traditional Christian understanding about the special circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus. There is no implication of a sexual union between God and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Incorporating all this background in a translation is impossible!

John helps a little by adding “only.” The English language is inadequate to capture the full range of meaning communicated by the word monogenē (μονογενῆ) in Greek. For centuries this word was incorrectly translated in English versions as “only begotten.” Scholars today are virtually unanimous that this is an unfortunate adherence to the Latin Vulgate by translators of the KJV and other early English versions, rather than an accurate representation of the meaning of the Greek. All now agree that it means “only” in the sense of “unique.” John reinforces his special use of the noun “son” clarifying that the relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father was unique. In the English written text we use a capital “S” on “son” to highlight this unique use of the term.

Translating the Scriptures into the thousands of languages spoken in our world today is complex. Translating this concept of Jesus as the Son of God is especially challenging in Islamic contexts where such a concept is scandalous. Translators in every age and in every language do their best to communicate concepts that are sometimes too difficult for words. In such circumstance translators are thankful we are not alone but that we work in partnership with the Holy Spirit and with the Church. The prayers of God’s people play a crucial role in Bible translation.

Issue 8 - Logical Connections

The little Greek conjunction hina (ἵνα) is represented by the two English words “so that.”  In translation we refer to tiny words like this as “discourse particles.”  Few Bible Commentaries discuss them.  They are generally relegated to the Grammars and Lexicons where only the most serious Bible students are made aware of how complex and full of meaning they are.  However, as translators we are very much aware of the large freight of meaning that these “particles” carry. They are the glue that holds a discourse together, connecting separate units into a meaningful whole.  To translate them properly we must have a clear understanding of how they are used in Greek and then research grammatical possibilities which will make comparable connections in the language into which the translation is being done.

Since these particles function to link parts of a discourse, their precise meanings can only be discovered by examining them in context.  The Greek Lexicon produced by Arndt and Gingrich, one of the best available resources, identifies at least 4 major areas of meaning for this particle, each with its own complex variations.

In the present context it is used to introduce the purpose for which God sent his only Son.  The Judeo-Christian view assumes that God’s actions have meaning and purpose.  Other cultures may not share this view.  For example in many animistic cultures the activity in the spiritual realm may be viewed as arbitrary and capricious.

The challenge in translation is to find the word or combination of words that will most clearly establish the logical connection of purpose.  Traditional English versions attempted to capture this with one word, “that.”  Unfortunately this is somewhat ambiguous and not as natural as it could be.  Most newer versions use the phrase “so that.”  This is an improvement both in clarity and in naturalness.  Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase captures the clearest rendering of all.  “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that….”

The English speaking world is fortunate to have a large variety of versions which all contribute to the clear communication of God’s word.  As Bible translators we invite those who have such ready access to the Bible to participate in the ministry of making it available to people in languages that still do not have even one word of the Bible in their language.

Issue 9 - Lexical Equivalence

The little Greek word pas (πᾶς) is represented by the two English words “everyone who.”  The translators of the King James Version, writing in an older form of the English language, were able to use just one word, “whosoever.” The Canadian Oxford Dictionary labels this word “archaic.” More recent versions such as the New International and the Revised Standard have also tried to retain one-word equivalence, with “whoever.” Unfortunately, in contemporary usage this has become a rather flippant slang expression for the youth culture in the same domain as “whatever.” This contemporary usage of the term tends to diminish its appropriateness to convey the meaning intended by the original Greek term.

The term used in the Greek actually means “all” or “every.” In this grammatical construction it means “everyone who.” This is exactly the rendering that the New Revised Standard Version and other meaning based versions such as the Good News Translation and the Contemporary English Version have chosen. The term extends the invitation as widely as possible. Using “everyone” challenges our human tendency to be ethnocentric.

The early followers of Jesus were Jewish. They had grown up with the view that they were God’s chosen people and therefore superior to the Gentiles, who, according to them, lived outside of God’s blessing and providence. They held this view even though in the covenant God made with their ancestor Abraham he had specifically indicated his intention to cause them to “be a blessing to all nations on earth” (Genesis 22.18 CEV). This sense of superiority is a natural element in our human nature. We tend to define God in our own image and to believe that he cares about us more than he does about others. Jesus challenged these assumptions. He made it clear that he came to earth to love and rescue all people, regardless of their social, religious or ethnic origins. That’s Good News!

It is the universal implication of the Good News about Jesus which motivates his followers to go to great lengths to ensure that this message is made available to all people in the language and style of communication that speaks to them most clearly. This is why Bible agencies such as the Canadian Bible Society, along with its many partners, focus significant resources on the support of Bible translation in Canada and around the world, where people speaking over 3,000 languages still lack access to this Good News in a language they can really understand. We rely on the prayers and support of God’s people to help make this happen.

Issue 10 - Key Terms

The next word pisteuōn (πιστεύων) is translated “believes” in our English text. In translation we consider this a “key term” because of the critical role it plays in communicating the message. In the Gospel, belief is the channel through which salvation by grace comes to people (Ephesians 2.8). This core word occurs 240 times in the New Testament. The Greek root is variously translated as “believe” or “faith” depending on the version and context.

The translator’s challenges are to first understand the concept in the Greek and second, to express it in the language receiving the new translation. It’s critical to go to the source text for key terms, ensuring faithfulness to the original.

The problem with our English verb “to believe” is that for those not very familiar with the Gospel, its meaning may be limited to a dictionary level understanding of accepting something as true. That is belief at the intellectual level. In the context of the Gospel, the original term carried a deeper meaning of acceptance, not just at the head level, but also in the heart. Whenever the original Greek term is used in conjunction with the preposition “in” or “into” as it is in this verse, it carries the meaning of faith or confidence in a person to the extent of acting on that faith.

We struggle for the right word to translate key terms such as “believe.” Sometimes a language has a unique word that captures the full meaning. The common word for believe in Kalinga is “manuttuwa.” It goes back to the word for truth which is “tuttuwa.” When used as a verb this term is commonly used to mean “believe” as well as “obey.” The Kalinga understand intuitively that to believe in Jesus implies obedience as well. This does not make the road to discipleship any easier for them, but it does bring their understanding of the Gospel more directly in line with the teachings of our Lord’s brother James who maintains in his letter that faith without works is dead.

Translation is never easy. Often it seems downright impossible to simply and accurately convey some of the teachings of the Gospel in other languages. But at other times we experience the serendipity of finding concepts in a new language that convey the message about Christ with a clarity that almost transcends the original. There is always something to be learned by reading or hearing the message in a new language.

Issue 11 - Grammatical Issues

The tiny word “in” following the verb “believes” is the preposition εἰς (pronounced like “ace” or “ice”) in Greek. As with many grammatical terms, this preposition carries little intrinsic meaning of its own. Its function is grammatical rather than semantic. Its significance can vary considerably depending on how it is used in context. Strong’s Greek dictionary gives it the primary glosses to or into, but then goes on to give an entire paragraph of other glosses depending on how it is used. In combination with the verb “believes” the most natural rendering for this preposition in English is “in”.

What is really interesting in this verse is to observe how the addition of this tiny grammatical particle, with no real meaning of its own, impacts the meaning of the verse. We could leave it out and still have a perfectly meaningful sentence, but its thrust would be quite different. To say “everyone who believes him…” is very different from saying “everyone who believes in him….” The first kind of belief is merely mental assent and as James 2.19 points out, even the demons have that kind of belief in God. The addition of the small preposition “in” transforms the verb “believes” into something that involves a deep personal relationship with and trust in the person on whom the belief is focused – in this case, Jesus.

English has an abundance of prepositions compared with many other languages. For this reason teachers of English as a second or foreign language frequently encounter serious problems when they try to teach the English use of prepositions. For example, Spanish has one preposition “en” that serves as the equivalent of three prepositions in English: in, on, and at. Then there are many languages which do not use prepositions at all. Canadian Algonquian languages for example, attach directional or location markers to nouns where English uses prepositions. What English expresses through the use of prepositions, many other languages accomplish through the use of different cases which are grammatical markers attached to nouns or verbs. A language like Estonian has 14 different cases.

Because of such differences in the grammatical structures of languages, it is important for translators to explore and understand the grammars of both the source language from which they are translating and the receptor language into which the translation is being made. Lack of understanding of differences in grammatical structure is one of the most common reasons for awkward and unnatural renderings in translation.

Issue 12 - Pronominal Reference

The little pronoun “him” auton (αὐτὸν) in this verse profiles a particularly pesky issue in translation – the proper use of pronouns. Languages commonly substitute pronouns to take the place of nouns as a kind of communication shorthand. However, not all languages have the same pronouns or use them in the same way.

For example, the Kalinga people in the Philippines have 3 different forms of the first person plural pronoun. So every time the pronoun “we” or its Greek equivalent occurs in Scripture, the Bible translator must determine for the Kalinga language whether the communicator intends to include the audience or not and if so, whether the audience consists of just one person or more than one. In Matthew 8.25 Jesus is asleep during the storm and the disciples shout, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” Here the Kalinga translator must decide whether the disciples are intending to imply that Jesus will drown along with them or not. The Kalinga translator must make a choice where Greek and English do not.

English, on the other hand, requires us to make a choice about gender in our use of the third person singular pronouns “he” and “she” while many other languages, including Kalinga, have only one generic third person singular pronoun. So the English language presents a problem for translators in a verse like Matthew 16.24. The NIV quotes Jesus as saying, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Yet it is quite evident that Jesus’ invitation is given to anyone, not just to males. In the past the English pronoun “he” was understood to refer to a person of the masculine gender as well as generically to any person whether male or female. This is how the NIV intends to use it here. However in contemporary English people no longer understand the pronoun “he” as generic. So most newer versions of the Bible avoid the use of the third person singular pronoun and find a way to ensure that readers will interpret Jesus invitation as including them, regardless of their gender. The CEV has, “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.”

Another kind of ambiguity occurs with the use of pronouns when it is unclear what the antecedent is. In the statement, “Peter went to John because he owed him money” it is not clear who is meant by the pronouns “he” or “him.” Either pronoun could refer to Peter or to John. There is a similar ambiguity in the use of the pronoun “him” in John 3.16. It could refer back to the Son or to God. The Translator’s Handbook produced by the United Bible Societies to alert translators to potential pitfalls, profiles this problem as follows: “It is important to indicate clearly that everyone who believe in him refers to the Son, not to God.”

With tools such as these it is possible to achieve higher standards of quality in Bible translation today. The Canadian Bible Society is deeply involved in making tools accessible to translators world-wide through computer resources being developed under the Institute for Computer Assisted Publishing. These tools help ensure that the Bible can be translated into many more languages at higher quality – bringing them the Word in the language of the heart.

Issue 13 - Rhetorical Figures

The phrase “may not perish” is part of a bold rhetorical figure which the writer uses to highlight the ultimate destiny of the person who believes in Jesus. The figure profiles the desirability of that destiny by first emphasizing what it is not. In this issue we deal only with this first part of the figure – “may not perish.”

In the Greek, this phrase consists of the word mē (μὴ) translated as “not” followed by apolētai (ἀπόληται) which is translated in some English versions as “perish.” The primary meaning of the Greek word actually has to do with destruction and is glossed in Greek lexicons as “to destroy” or “to ruin.” In The Message, Eugene Peterson has “be destroyed.” Other recent version such as Good News, God’s Word and The Contemporary English Version try to capture the fact that what is being dealt with here is a life and death matter and translate the Greek word into English as “die.”

The variation that we find in our English versions illustrates the difficulty of translating rhetorical figures in a way that fully and accurately captures the meaning of the original. Peterson is certainly right to translate this verse in a way that shows that believing in Christ keeps us from destruction. However his rendering is so general that many readers will have difficulty knowing what type of destruction is being referred to. Older and more literal versions tend to use the English word “perish,” which is accurate, but also archaic because contemporary English does not use “perish” with the meaning “to die” anymore. By making this a life and death issue, newer versions are more easily understood, but people may take these translations too literally as referring to physical death.

Our Translators Handbook published by the United Bible Societies warns translators that this verse has frequently “been misinterpreted to imply that if people simply believed in Jesus that they would never experience physical death.” The Contemporary English Version tries to avoid this misinterpretation by saying that those who have faith in Jesus will “never really die,” implying that there is a kind of death other than physical death from which they will be spared.

Ultimately as translators we must recognize that in the case of difficult rhetorical figures such as these, our work is not enough. The work of the translators must be supplemented by the work of teachers and preachers and group study in the community of faith. The Bible Society is keenly aware of the need for partnership with the Church. The work of Bible teachers, preachers, and even parents and Bible study groups is critical for followers of Jesus to understand the Bible so they may grow and become true disciples in the Kingdom that Jesus came to bring.

Issue 14 - Limitations to Translation

One of the reasons Christians love this verse so much is its promise of life – eternal life. According to this verse we have this life through a combination of what God has done and our response. God sent his Son to save us and the anticipated response on our part is faith that results in action.

But what is this “eternal life” that we are promised?

The original Greek is zoen aionion (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). The first Greek word is the source from which we derive our English word “zoology.” It is generally translated in English as “life.” The second word is frequently translated into English as “eternal.” We get our English word “eon” from this Greek root. Unfortunately in our English translation, as in many languages, the focus in a word like “eternal” tends to be on the length of time – time without end. However in Greek and in the context of the Jewish culture in which the Gospel was written, the focus is as much on the quality of life that is promised as on the length of time. The Jewish people viewed history as consisting of two ages – aion (αἰών) in Greek. There was the present age in which God’s people were waiting for the coming Messiah. Then there was the age to come when all promises and covenants would be fulfilled. Messiah would come and God’s promised blessings would finally come in full measure.

Those of us who just read this verse in our English translations without understanding the context in which John lived and wrote, will tend to think of the next age as the time after death when the part of us that does not die goes on to live forever in heaven. However for Jesus, and for his early followers, that time had already begun with the coming of Jesus, the long awaited Messiah. Everything that Jesus did and taught was intended to demonstrate that the messianic age – the “Kingdom” had come near. So what John is telling us here is that by believing in Jesus – by believing that he is indeed God’s messiah – we are ushered into a whole new age or era with a new quality of life. This life does not just begin at our physical death and then go on forever after that. It begins here and now and goes on after our bodies die. It begins as soon as we recognize and place our trust in the Messiah – the one and only son of God whom God sent into this world because he loves us so much.

The inadequacy of translations to capture the full range of what Scripture is trying to communicate profiles the importance of sound biblical teaching to help convey the depth of meaning that cannot always be captured in translation. As Bible translators we work in partnership with the Church to bring the good news of the Gospel to people with the power to transform lives.