Featured Words Hard to Translate

Yes, words with baggage lead the reader to include the baggage in the message. Thus if a translation uses "tongues" when foreign languages is the meaning, an unintended message is sent, as the bogus angelic tongue might be inferred. Compare Acts 2:4 with Acts 2:6 in your English translation of choice.

Act 2:4 (NASB95)
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

The meaning of the Greek word translated "tongues" is "the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations."

Thus "foreign languages" best translates the meaning.

Act 2:6 (NASB95)
And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.

The meaning of the Greek word translated "language" is the "a language peculiar to any people."

Thus "native language" best translates the meaning.

By using these accurate word meanings, the message is presented with enhanced clarity and the bogus baggage is jettisoned.

 

How interesting! My parents arrived in the late 80's but didn't stay as long as you! We were with OMF, so they did their language training at JLC. I was born in Sapporo but most of their work was in Aomori. I attended Chefoo just a few years before it closed, and a good number of my friends from those days have remained or returned as “second generation” missionaries.

 

Here, the missionaries did appropriate the local name for the supreme God, Pathian. I agree that it can be problematic if there is too much baggage, but these days traditional views of Pathian are confined to history classes (Salty has correctly found that the population is now predominantly Christian). The Christian Pathian is immanent and personal, whereas the traditional Pathian was remote and transcendent, having little to do with human affairs.

I’ve just gone back to check one of the first hymns composed by the missionaries, which was intended to be didactic.

“Isua” was in heaven,
He came down to earth!
He became like a human,
To save me;
I can see it in the “Baibul”,
How wonderful it is!

Jesus, Bible and Jehovah (in a later verse) are given phonetically without translation. The use of Pathian soon became more prevalent, and instead of Baibul the Bible is now called “Pathian Lehkhabu Thianghlim” – God’s Holy/Sacred Book. “Lalpa/Lal” is used for LORD which also meant Chief. Its usage has been extended to other types of monarchs too.

Mizo is a Tibeto-Burmese language. I remember reading old linguistic articles (Leach et al) that identified shared words with common origins in the Sino-Tibetan languages. Pathian may be one of those words which may have some distant relationship to your Chinese examples.

 

Language = Ṭawng in Mizo. The same word is used for the verb “speak”. I have no idea whether the similarity to “tongue” is coincidental or not!

Acts 2:4 has “they spoke in different/other languages”. It is a very plain translation but doesn’t quite specify foreignness as Van suggests. Ṭawng appears twice for “spoke” and “languages”

Acts 2:6: “their speaking was heard/understood by everyone as their own language”. Own language equates well to nativeness. Again Ṭawng appears twice for “speaking” and “language”.

 

Would think that the name of God should be translated as Yahweh!

 

Hard to get into translation what is meant by that, as know Muslims and Mormons tend to see that as referring to Jesus being physically born from God!

 

A language different from our native language is a "foreign" language.

 

I see what you did there. But how about exploring this a bit more fully. Jest what metaphor is being destroyed in a language that has no word for sheep in a culture that has no sheep?

This sort of thing highlights the problem with relying strictly on translation. The Bible is not just about words but about concepts, and spiritual truths are not easily conveyed in any case.

 

That is not just a translation but a transliteration. A translation might be "Who Is" third person for "I AM." Or "the self Existent one." Or for Adoni, "the LORD."

 

Yes, my point, which you bring out, sort of, is that translation alone simply won't suffice. Transliteration is not really translation. Creating another creature is not really translation. Footnotes are not translation.

There is a whole world of understanding that mere translation simply cannot address. Exposition is very often required. Very often.

 

The Muslim Allah-God controversy is unique. Islam arose hundreds of years after Christ, thousands after Abraham, but is related to both. The real controversy is over the reliability of the OT and NT, which Islam contests yet has no basis without.

The Bible reveals the true nature of God and man, reality as it really is. What a person thinks as he reads is always a problem and it is not the fault of the translator nor within his ability to manage.

God is not like the gods man imagines or creates and surrounds himself with, but it is a chore getting the message, or getting the message across. Without the Holy Spirit it is impossible.

 

My understanding is that in that culture, goat was closest to what a lamb represented to them!

 

Think the big problem Muslims have with that term Son of God is that in their mind means God literally had sex with mary and produced jesus!

 

There are certain terms and words that should not be messed with in my mind, such as should never call God Allah, nor Jesus not Son of God!