The other day I was driving down the road with my two oldest boys. Suddenly, the four year old got all excited and pointed, “Look a Christmas goat.” He was pointing at a lawn ornament of a deer with antlers.
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I get a chuckle out of his attempts at mastering the English language. A few weeks earlier he had told me that he wanted Mommy to make “grease juice.” I said, “You mean gravy?” “Yes, gravy, “ he replied.
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Those of us who have been talking for more than three years take some of these things for granted, but why do we call it gravy instead of grease juice? Part of the reason- words take on meaning based on common usage.
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Even within the English language words mean different things based on where you live. For example if you live in the United States, to table a discussion usually means to set aside the matter and not discuss it. If, however, you live in England, to table a matter means to bring it to the floor for consideration.
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Though not as confusing as the table example, in our own country, different words are used in different regions to mean the same thing. For example: see saw vs. teeter totter, firefly vs. lightning bug, soda vs. pop. To add to the confusion, pop, can mean a soda, a loud sound, hitting someone, a father, a grandfather, or an older man. Let us also not forget that a table can also be a flat elevated surface.
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Understanding the English language within the context of its speaker/writer, audience, as well as its point in history, is very important to interpreting it accurately. For example, I had to do some contextual interpretation to figure out what “Christmas goat” and “grease juice” meant.
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Those who translate languages face some of those same challenges. Most Christians do not understand Hebrew or Greek, so they are left to study a translation of the original languages of the Bible. But what about those who do understand another language? A Greek scholar who accepts the challenge of translating should not just understand basic Greek, but should also have the ability to research how a particular word was used in Greek literature during the time the Bible was written.
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For example, many alive today, remember when the word “gay” meant something different than it does now. The King James Version is still my favorite Bible translation, but we must recognize that it was translated over 400 years ago. Since that time, many words have changed meaning. That does not mean that it was a bad translation, but how many people realize that “meet” means “right” or “worthy?”
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I recently came across the word “prevent” in my study. Today in English, that word means to stop, but in the 15th century, it meant meet or come before. Because word usage has changed, the meaning has thus changed and in order to properly understand the passage it needs to be reinterpreted. To further complicate matters, the King James is a translation from England, not the United States. For example corn, in England means grain in the USA.
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I love the King James Version, but we need to resist those who are opposed to interpreting it into language that is accurate today. The examples I gave are of places where the translation was accurate 400 years ago in England, but is not accurate for the way we use English here in Iowa today. That is why many use a translation like the New King James, New American Standard or others.
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2 comments:
One of my favorite examples to point out the difficulty with some parts of the KJV is Phil. 4:6. If you have a simple KJV with no updates or bracketed notes it says, "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer....."
"Be careful for nothing"??? You mean be reckless like run with scissors? Of course any English translation done in the last 150 years has correctly rendered the thought, "be anxious for nothing, or, do not worry excessively,"
Funny this is your topic in this blog. Did you sit in on my class last Sunday? We looked at this issue.
Brandon, you mentioned brackets. For those who really like the old KJV, let me recommend the new Schofield Study Bible. It is basically the same as the old KJV except it has updated some of the words that have changed meaning and put them in brackets so you can see where they have been changed. I personally like the NKJV because it is updated but still similar to the old KJV and the old KJV is what I have used for years and it is hard to get used to something different. You bring up a very valid point in your example though. I want to use an accurate translation, but it would be a mistake to assume that the KJV is as accurate to how we use language now as it was to how language was used back then.
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