My daughters sometimes think it’s cute, and sometimes they
think it’s irritational. Other times, they are simply confusicated, and thrown for a loop by
my tendency to invent words. But, then I
have to remind them that new words are added to the dictionary every year. My words are just baby words waiting to grow
up and become mature enough to be published in Webster’s big black book. In fact, if you take that big black book and
flip through the hundreds of pages that detail and define the thousands upon
thousands of words in the English language, you will in fact be simply seeing
all of the other words that someone else “made up.” All of them.
Every word we use was made up by someone. So, if my strange word leaves you
confusicated…well, just get over it and wait for my word to grow up.
Language is a funny thing.
Always changing. Sixty years ago,
if you said a man was “gay,” it just meant that he was light-hearted and happy. Now, if you use the word, you’re likely
referring to his sexual orientation. When
I was a teenager in the 1970’s, we used to say the word “bad” all of the time,
but we weren’t describing the negative qualities of any given thing or
situation. Nope. We were telling you how awesome it was! So, bad meant good…at least in those twisted
years. It was the language of my
culture.
If I told you that I put some drinks in the fridge (not refrigerator) to chill,
you would know that by “chill” I meant to cool, get cold, remove the heat. But when a few minutes later I tell you
that the Colts are far better than your Patriots and you get all frustrated and
angry, and I tell you to “chill out,” you don’t even imagine that I’m telling
you to go put yourself in the fridge.
Why? Because you understand that
in our culture the word “chill” can have more than one meaning, and I’m telling
you to calm down and relax, not jump in the icebox.
So, the fact is that language is in a constant state of
flux. Always shifting. Always changing. Affected by culture.
Imagine that you were suddenly time-warped back to England
in 1611. No problem, right? Assuming you speak English, you should be
good to go. Really? You really think so? I mean, there were a lot of “ith’s” and “eth’s”
used in those days. The word “your” was “thy.” “You” was “thee.” I betcha
thee’d have a harder time understanding thy King’s English than thee might
think.
And, translating languages can get even trickier. Have you ever watched one of those really old
Godzilla movies? I mean one of the ones
that were filmed in Japan? Or, maybe one
of the Chinese Bruce Lee flicks? Those
old movies where the original actors were speaking Japanese or Chinese, but
they did English voice-overs for those us who are linguistically-challenged? Isn’t is funny how sometimes the faces on the
screen look like they spoke a dozen words, but we only heard four or five in
English? Or, maybe it was the
opposite? There would be faces that
seemed to only say one or two words, but a dozen English ones were used in
their place. I used to think that was
really weird. After all, if they simply
translated it word for word, the number of words spoken should be the
same. Right?
Wrong.
Words and phrases and their cultural meanings don’t always
translate directly. Sometimes you have
to elaborate to get the full meaning to come through. Sometimes, the full meaning is simply lost in
translation. There just is no easy way
to get the full meaning to come through.
So, now let’s combine the two issues: The shifting meaning of language over time,
and the problem of translating one culture-ridden language into our own
culture-ridden language. Let’s go back
about 2000 years. (Remember, that the
1611 example, which is the year that the King James Bible was published was
only about 400 years ago, and technically the same language.) So, let’s make it tougher. Let’s go back 2000 years and convert the
ancient Greek used in the Mediterranean region by a people completely imbedded in
the Greco-Roman culture of the first century into modern English for the use of
those of us completely imbedded in the American culture of the 21st
century. I wonder how hard it might be
to completely understand the full depth of meaning in every turn of phrase?
Of course, I’m talking about the New Testament of the Bible.
First of all, the vast majority of us cannot read ancient
Greek, so we have to rely on translators.
Other human beings who are also imbedded in modern culture, but who are
educated and able to understand and cross-communicate the ancient meanings of
texts into our modern lingo. And
secondly, we have to sort of trust them to properly interpret the old Greek,
and then further trust them to accurately communicate it to us. And, then finally, we have to work to
understand what they were trying to communicate.
Are you confusicated yet?
Am I being irritational?
And, sometimes things are lost in translation. Oh, I don’t mean the basics of the Gospel
message. Those come through quite
clearly. Jesus was the Son of God. He did die on the Cross. He did rise from the dead. We are saved by grace through faith. We do need to repent…be baptized…and live our
lives in reflection of our Lord. But,
still there are deeper things…and subtle things…and cultural things that are
lost to us. Lost unless. Unless we dig deeper. Unless we go behind our favorite English
translation and look at the history…the ancient culture…and the conceptual
meanings of the original words.
The tools are there for us.
Lexicons. Dictionaries of Bible
words. Commentaries. Studies by a multitude of scholars.
Cross check. Research.
DIG! The world of meaning hidden
in the ancient language is amazing.
And, I say all of this not as a Greek scholar. I am not.
I’m just like you. All of that
old language stuff is Greek to me. But,
I sometimes get a bug to dig into something, and I use the tools. I read the articles. And, I find interesting and inspiring stuff.
For example, a whole new meaning of the interaction of Peter
with Jesus in John 21 opens up when you know the words used by Jesus in the
passage where Jesus asks Peter: “Do you love me?” It used to bother me that it took three times
with the same question before Peter was suddenly hurt. But, then I learned that it wasn’t the same
question the third time. In English it
is. In English, it is still “Do you love
me?” But, in the Greek, that third
question was different…more personal…more emotional, and it hurt Peter. However, we completely lose that key nuance in
English.
It is still there, though.
If you are willing to dig for it.
And, there are others. Many
others.
Why, you might ask, are you being so confusicating and
irritational with this whole article? Well,
I am doing this because we all have a tendency.
A tendency to either forget or ignore the fact that the Bible was not
originally written in English, and it was also not specifically written to those of us in the United States of America.
I do it. You do
it.
We start looking at a subject or an issue, and then we dig
into our favorite English translation in order to make our argument. And, that is all well and good. However, before we get too stiff-necked on
our particular position, we had better dig a bit deeper. We need to consider the shifting of language. The differences in culture. The context of the passage. Who wrote it?
Who was it written to? Where was
it written? What were the circumstances
surrounding the people who wrote it or it was written to? All of these factors are important in the
proper understanding of any passage.
That was Bible Study 101 back during my days in Bible
College.
So, if you are content with the basics of the message of the
cross, you can keep to your favorite English translation. However, if you are going to get all worked
up on an issue, please do your homework.
Or, if you are intrigued by deeper understandings of your favorite
passages, break open the books. Study
more deeply. And, open up a whole new
wondrous world of understanding.
The view from a
mountain ridge
