From: David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Dec 29 1997 - 11:23:29 EST
Rolf Furuli quoted and wrote:
>
>>>In any Bible translation the
>>>theology of the translators will and must play an important role, and ther=
>e
>>>are passages where neither lexicon, grammar or syntax is decisive and wher=
>e
>>>theology must be the primary basis for the translation.
>SNIP
>>So, my third question is "Is Rolf right?" Are there really times when
>>"neither
>>lexicon, grammar or syntax is decisive and where theology must be the
>>primary basis for the translation"? And if so, what are the reasons for
>>that, given, as I said earlier, that for a native Koine speaker lexicon,
>>grammar and syntax would have sufficed to understand a theological
>>statement the same as any other statement. Which brings me back to my
>>first question: "Can we understand the New Testament as a normal piece of
>>Koine Greek writing?" Or, is it inherently different in form and content
>>from other Koine writings of the same period?
>A good example of bias in Bible translation is the rendition "hell"
>("l`infer" or "Holle") for Greek "GEHENNA". It is contrary to linguistic
>theory to translate a geographic name with a completely different word.
>True, the stocks of phonemes of different languages are different, so we
>get Jesus in English and Gesu in Italian, but the identity is the same.
>The word "hell", however, has a huge connotational load from Dante and
>onward, a load which is lacking in GEHENNA. It is also interesting that the
>Hebrew equivalent GEI HINNOM generally is translated by "the valley of
>Hinnom".
Well, let's see.... How about translating GEENNA "the ever-burning
trash heap," which is what GEI HINNOM was in Jesus' day.
Regards,
David Moore
David L. Moore
Miami, Florida, USA
Southeastern Spanish District of the A/G Dept. of Education
E-mail: dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com
Home Page: http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore
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