Featured Words Hard to Translate

Well, if you know of another language culture near the Israelites that similarly claims a rejected son of Abraham, in this case Ishmael, of whom they are descendants, in place of his God-promised son Isaac, and had a self-proclaimed prophet arise claiming to displace Christ and Moses and proclaim this instead, then I’ll amend my statement.

There is no perhaps to it. The Muslim God-Allah controversy in translating the Bible is unique. The Arabs claim Abraham as their father, the same Abraham who is also our father because of faith in God. The real debate is over the reliability of the OT and NT, the true nature of the God who spoke with Abraham and gave him a son whom Abraham was called upon to offer to God.

One could debate the use of the Arabic word for Creator God, Allah, but the real debate, the one we would be foolish to lose sight of, is over God’s true nature and the reason for calling upon Abraham to offer his own son to God. “On the mountain of the LORD, it will be provided.”

 

The Bible provides several names to describe God, such as YHWH so the reason for "adopting" an existing name of a pagan god seems weak. I recall Paul using the "Unknown" god to introduce the God of the bible. I would think translators would use that strategy.

 

Question: Is there some way in Arabic to say, "God's Son by decree" to disallow the notion of God having a Son by means of the relation to a woman? The Quran teaches, as it is, the son of Mary by decree. The virgin birth.

It has to be understood the decreed Son did not become the Son but aways was the Son as God always was.

 

No, only what you've shared; but I believe you. It’s only the “perhaps” regarding uniqueness that I doubt.

 

Interesting to me is that even the Koran calls Jesus Holy, only "prophet" called that, is the very word of Allah, so must be eternal, and a spirit proceeding from Allah, and yet just a mere man!

 

Moslims do not think about it, but the man Jesus coming to be by Allah saying of him "be." to become the son of Mary makes Jesus to be at the very least tbe word of Allah just like the Quran is believed by them to be. Just saying.

 

This happened to be posted by the OMF Japan social media account today. Thought it might be of interest as another hard word for this thread to think about:

"I've never been put into jail or caused trouble that involves the police. How can you call me a 罪人 (tsumibito, a sinner)?"

In Japan, the word "sinner" is strongly associated with a criminal, someone who has disobeyed the law. Therefore many Japanese people are offended when the church says all are sinners and need salvation.

It's important to define what the Bible says what sin is. There's better understanding when you explain that sin is missing the mark, not living the way that our creator intended us to live, and not following God's commands. It's important to clarify that sin is not just bad deeds, but that the Bible says sin is the state of one's heart. If a Japanese person understands these things, then there's better understanding of the gospel.

 

By all means!

I am not aware of any Mizo difficulty with the concept of Son of God - Pathian Fapa (literal son of God). Can the Muslim problem be overcome by emphasising the pre-existence of Christ? As the Mizo song I quoted indicates, Jesus was in heaven before coming to earth. This eliminates any possibility that he was born of a sexual relationship. How would Muslims read John 1?

How unfortunate that Japan's sophisticated honorific system actually makes it more difficult to indicate Christ's identity in the Godhead. Would the Chinese Union Bible word be understood in Japanese? It sounds like you have been hitting upon good solutions though.

 

While the Japanese culture/language has its own peculiarities, as do all, this problem is universal. It was true when Jesus walked the earth and is true of American culture.

People tend to think of only “really bad” characters as sinners. The Sermon on the Mount brings this into sharp focus. “‘You have heard it said…. But I tell you….’”

It would be more unusual for a person not to be shocked even offended by what God actually says about us. Since we naturally do not understand how good God is, how could we understand how bad we are?

 

Hm, so in the light of the Greek it does seem odd that the NIV chose "islanders". Perhaps the English language is impoverished here, since none of the many translations used in these verses by different versions take into account the element of "strange speech". Interestingly the Mizo translation shows how much the missionaries relied heavily on the Greek to the best of their understanding. I believe "awze" may now be obsolete - my husband had no idea what it meant but I found it in the missionaries' dictionary.

Acts 28:2,4, Romans 1:14, Col 3:11 "awze mite" - people who speak a foreign language
1 Corinthians 14:11 "awze mi" (singular form of the above plural)

I well remember being called "Gaijin". Here and elsewhere I have encountered equivalent calls (normally by curious children) which have unfortunate colonial origins. The more acceptable Mizo terms these days are "hnam dang" - "other tribe", or "ram dang" - "other land", both used for any non-Mizo, tribal and non-tribal alike. I have found "ram dang" used for foreigner in the OT so it must have been considered a good match for the Hebrew, but not so much for "barbaros".

 

Interesting that Muslims say Adam and Jesus same, came by Allah saying to be, and yet the Koran states Adam fashioned out of clay/mud and Allah breathed life into Him, and that Jesus came down from Allah in Heaven as His eternal word!

 

Muslims just need to accept their Koran, as it states that Jesus came from Allah, and is his eternal word and a spirit proceeding from Allah!