Words Hard to Translate

The Arabic of the Koran is itself "bad Arabic", as those who know state originated from Aramaic itself!

 

Luke 18:13, NASB1995
But the tax collector [publican], standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

Here the Greek word is "hilastheti" (a Verb, Aorist Passive Imperative) and has the meaning of "having become a propitiatory shelter."

Efforts found among the English translations are: be merciful, be favorable, be gracious, be compassionate, have pity, turn your wrath from me, reconcile me, and be propitious. (The vast majority read "be merciful, have mercy and the like.)

Only "turn your wrath from me" captures the idea of God acting upon Himself (passive verb) rather than acting upon the publican.

But what about the Aorist tense, shouldn't it read "having turned your wrath from me." From verse 14 we see that the publican both was justified and exalted.

So just what is the publican asking? Was he asking for forgiveness or praising God for forgiveness?

 

Since it is an imperative, he was asking God for forgiveness. This usage is called the imperative of entreaty, or sometimes the imperative of request or of polite command.

 

Then there is ἀνάθημα. Several smaller lexicons simply say, “a votive gift” or “a votive offering.” This is the meaning in Luke 21:5 ("gifts"), but the single gloss is insufficient for the translator. The word is obviously polysemous (having more than one meaning). This is one word that absolutely must be interpreted by context.

In 1 Cor. 16:22 of the KJV, it is inexplicably transliterated along with another word: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha."

Acts 23:14 uses both the verb and noun for putting one's self under an oath: "And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul."
Other verses also use it for being cursed.

One question to ask is, how far does the curse extend? Some dynamic/functional equivalent translations use the word eternal (NET Bible, NIV, etc.). The translator must consider whether that is valid or not. It is not in the original text of the verses in which it is used.

Other places where the word occurs:

Ro 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: or, separated}
1Co 12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
Ga 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Ga 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

 

I don't plan to get much into honorifics in this thread, but think of the vocative singular of γυνη (gune), "woman," which is γυναι (gunai). Note where it is used:

Now, in English it can be a kind of macho way to address someone, as in "Woman, come here." That is actually rude in most cases. So, one scholar, Bill Mounce, maintains that the vocative γύναι cannot be correctly translated into English.[1] His view should be revised to say that translating this usage politely is difficult in many languages.

There are nine instances of this usage: Matt. 15:28, Luke 13:12, Luke 22:57, John 2:4, John 4:21, John 19:26, John 20:13, John 20:15, 1 Cor. 7:16. The fact that John, the “apostle of love,” uses it five times should tell us that it is not offensive in Greek. I even think of it as an honorific usage in Greek, though Greek has few enough of those. Many Asian languages have many honorific forms, especially Japanese, and even English has a few, too. ("Please...", "Won't you....?" mother and father, etc.)

What are some ways to handle this?

First of all, ascertain whether simply addressing someone with “woman” is rude in the target language. Listen carefully to the native speakers. If it is considered to be rude, look for the alternative polite word.

If there are still not alternatives, consider a phrase like “kind lady.” In Japanese we used an honorific addition to simply "woman," thus: 女の方 (onna no kata).


[1] Bill Mounce, “An Untranslatable Word: γύναι,” “Monday with Bill Mounce,” from April 15, 2013, at
//www.billmounce.com/monday-with-mounce/untranslatable-word-%CE%B3%CF%8D%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B9. Accessed on 1/4/21.

 

is this like when Jesus addressed Mary in the context of her asking him to do a miracle at the wedding and change water into wine? "Woman"

 

Returning to this difficult (at least for me) word to translate:
Luke 18:13, NASB1995
But the tax collector [publican], standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

Thanks to the spot on and very enlightening help from JOJ, I now understand that an imperative from a subordinate directed to a superior indicates (at least in this context) a request or entreaty, so the tax collector is requesting that God take an action that benefits the tax collector.

But another problem with "be merciful" is that in the vast majority of cases, another Greek word family is translated as mercy and merciful. (G1653,1655, 1656). So the two other families (G3628-29 and G2433,36) also translated as merciful, should be translated according to a non-redundant choice.

G3629 should be translated as compassionate, and G2433 as "propitious." The result is my difficulty in understanding Luke 18:13 is resolved, with "God be propitious to me, the sinner!"

 

Yes.

 

Is 悪い used to describe children disobeying their parents? I wonder if the notion of childlike disobedience is a helpful way to understand sin as disobedience against our Heavenly Father? I suppose it doesn't quite grasp the consequential separation from him though and the need for Christ's sacrifice.

Agreed - I didn't find any English translations which include the element of strange language, but "islanders" is a stretch too far I think.

 

I suspect the Mizo words here were invented for the purpose, and am curious that there are other similar words still in current usage which would equally mean "messenger". I think there was a desire to distinguish them from errand-boys.

Human messenger: tirhkoh (sent-called)

Heavenly messenger (angel): vantirhkoh (sent-called of heaven). This is also used for angels in the OT. Outside Scripture, many people these days just use a phonetic rendering of "angel".

I wonder if the Latin American notion of dead babies is an issue arising from the Catholic culture itself? It is not hard to imagine families sentimentally referring to their deceased children as angels, but perhaps the usage became so widespread that the original sense was diminished. Who else has heard “little cherubs” to refer to cute children? Maybe the OT cherubim could be equally misleading to readers only familiar with such phrases and artistic renditions.

 

No sense of eternal is expressed in the Mizo:

Luke 21:5 thilpek - offerings
1 Cor 12:3, 16:22, Rom 9:3, Ga 1:8-9: anchhe dawngin - accursed
Acts 23:14: chhia kan cham - we have taken an oath. The word for oath has negative (curse) connotations; the word "eat" in this verse is also translated somewhat poetically as "taste" - the same word is used in Matthew 16:28.

 

It's unfortunate that the Mizo word for "woman" has derogatory roots (bad concubine). No one really takes offence but it's a much-discussed etymological problem. Still, it is not used to directly address a woman - except in the Bible! The only exception is the 1 Cor 7 verse where "Oh wife" (not woman) is used in a way that softens the blow. I wonder if the addition of "Oh" could also have helped in the gospels.

There are plenty of honorifics in Mizo. You would address most women as "ka pi" (my lady / madam) unless they are younger than you or directly related to you in some other way. I would have thought "ka pi" would work fine in these verses, but perhaps it was not chosen because Scripture doesn't tell us the age difference between Jesus and the women concerned. Are there verses where he addresses a "man", for comparison?

As for the English, I feel like we used to have better honorifics in the past, but our modern culture has all but abandoned them. Good woman, good lady, madam, my lady would all raise eyebrows if used in modern translations, but I don't think they would have done a few centuries ago.

 

Yes, it is used for disobedient children, but also for adults, so I think it does operate like you said. One way for an adult to apologize (in somewhat of a casual way) is to say, 悪かった。(Warukatta.) Also when read with the on-yomi, it is aku, or "evil."

Thus, it is a tough one to translate. :Coffee

 

Sounds like the MIzo translators got it right. Interesting about the phonetic "angel." Maybe we can blame the Internet for that. ;)

That would be interesting to research--if only I knew Spanish! Catholicism in Latin America can be quite syncretistic, so it could have come from a tribal language.

Good point about "cherub." It has become a loan word in English.

 

Japanese also has ways of speaking of an immoral woman. Easy to get into trouble in that language! I once used a particle with no real meaning, only for emphasis. I had seen two little boys use it in a commercial. But no, it was not a good word to use.

I thought I remembered one, and here it is. But it was by Paul, not Jesus: Rom. 9:20--"Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" Not necessarily honoring the hearer, though.

Maybe we can blame that on American democracy. The honorifics in English can probably be all traced back to Great Britain and its monarchy. Japanese, with its abundant honorifics, is a monarchy. But "we Americans" believe everyone is equal, so no one deserves special treatment. The Japanese like to say, "Our society is vertical, but you Americans have a horizontal society."

My parents did demand honorifics, though: Sir, Ma'am, and the like. I once tried to learn German, and answered "Ja" to my Dad, who thought I was saying "Yeah," and promptly rebuked me.

 

Another tough word is baptism. The noun is baptisma (βάπτισμα), and the verb is baptizo (βαπτίζω). As all good Baptists know, the normal, literal meaning is immersion/immerse. However, it was transliterated into English in the early English versions. (No need to go into all that history.) William Carey was known for translating it into the 46 languages he worked in as "immersion/immerse."

Would you follow suit, translating with a word for immersion, or would you fudge it and transliterate? The first strategy has the advantage of being correct :Cool, but the second has the advantage of appealing to a wide range of denominations.

In China, the earliest translations ran into this problems. Presbyterian Robert Morrison (1782-1834) used the character xi (洗), meaning “wash.” This practice has been followed to the present day in the Chinese Union Version (洗) and the Japanese Shinkyoudo Version (洗礼), as well as in other versions. He claimed that his translation was the first Chinese Bible. However, that was disputed.

The other first Chinese Bible was translated by Joshua Marshman (1768-1837), an English Baptist missionary to India who got a burden for China. He worked with Carey, so his translation used used the Chinese words zhan (蘸) and cui (淬), both meaning “to dip,” as well as both these characters in a compound, zhancui (蘸淬).

It must be noted that these men had an incredibly difficult task to do, since Chinese were forbidden on pain of death to teach their language to Gweilo (foreign devils). Their translations did not last, being faulty in various ways, but they got the ball rolling.

In Japan, the first complete Japanese NT was done by Nathan Brown, a former colleague of Carey, and he used a word for "immerse." For our part, in our Japanese NT we eschewed the typical 洗礼 (senrei), or "washing ceremony," and went with the Baptist word, 浸礼 (shinrei), or "immersion ceremony." I did this after asking the denizens of this very forum years ago what we should do. They unanimously advised "immersion" as I recall. Then my son said he would never speak to me again if I didn't use "immerse." Well, not really, but he did stand for "immerse."

 

So would not be Jesus being rude to Mary, but more like " you know its not yet my time?"

 

Too bad that the Kjv did not choose to translate this as immersion, but would gone against their infant baptism!

 

Correct.

 

Thanks for this. The Mizo is simply "Oh human". I tried but couldn't find other suitable examples.

True, but even in England the terms are no longer used except in the service and sales industries. I was comfortable using Sir and Madam as a teenager in my first part-time jobs. When I first came here as a short-term volunteer, my Mizo roommate was horrified when a senior member of the mission agency visited and I addressed him by his first name! We Brits quietly envy your Southern US "ma'ams" as a kind of old-school politeness we have lost, but I think even there the connotations are no longer suitable for use in the Bible translations!