How would you translate the Bible?

I think many people regard the Bible as something that is immutably sacrosanct, that only one version is true, always is true, and those words cannot mean anything else besides what is written on the page.

While I do admire this type of reverence some have for the Bible, I think they forget that the Bibles they buy at a bookstore had to come from somewhere. I mean, crates of Bibles don't come floating down from the sky and land on a bookstore's doorstep; they get shipped from the place they were printed, printed where the document was inserted, compiled before printed, and translated from the original languages before they were compiled.

At the source, the Bible was written in Kione Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.  Today, modern scholars translate the Bible from these original version into everything from Afrikaans to English to Russian and even Chinese.  The problem with translating the Bible from one of its original languages into English (or whichever language is native to you) is the same problem all student of languages know: some things just get lost in translation. 

For example, if you want to express (in Spanish) your passionate, ardent desire for a certain special someone in your life, you'd say "Yo te amo", literally "I love you".  At the same time, if my friend's mom tells her son "Te quiero mucho" before he leaves the house, the literal translation would be "I want you much".  The closest English equivelent of "Te quiero mucho", however, is "I love you". 

Scholastic, diplomatic, and corporate translators battle this problem all the time: trying to convey the levels and nuances of meaning from one language to another.  For example, the word "repent" typically means  "changing one's mind after experiencing a deeply grieved conscience".  Etymology.com has the following entry regarding the origin of the word:

repent (v.)
c. 1300, "to feel such regret for sins or crimes as produces amendment of life," from Old French repentir (11c.), from re-, here probably an intensive prefix (see re-), + Vulgar Latin *penitire "to regret," from Latin poenitire "make sorry," from poena (see penal). The distinction between regret (q.v.) and repent is made in many modern languages, but the differentiation is not present in older periods.

In the original Kione, however, passages in the Bible translated as "repent" use a different word: "metanoia".  According to biblos.com, meta means "behind with", while noia means "understanding, mind". So "metanoia" = "behind with the mind", or putting away the old mind, the old thoughts, understanding and perspective of the world.  This is the same concept when Jesus teaches that new wine must be put in new wineskins (Matthew 9:27); repenting doesn't mean changes from a guilty conscience, but becoming something completely new and different. 

Like I said, some things just get lost in translation, not to mention what happens when you make a translation of a translation of a translation.  Hawaii's Pidgen Bible is actually an English translation into Hawaiin pidgen, or a translation of a translation of a translation.  Imagine playing the children's game telephone, but instead of trying to repeat exactly what was said, try to say the same thing using different words.  By the third person, you'd almost be guaranteed that what was said is not exactly what was said.

Does this mean that all translations are wrong and we need to read the scriptures only in their original languages?  Not at all, because every (English) translation I've read carry the same gist of the Bible message: God cares for and adores you, and wants a relationship with you. :)

That being said, there are some people I know who pretty much exclusively read the Bible in its original languages who deeply want to desire the greater intricacies revealed in God's word.  If you have any questions as to the wording of a scripture, I'd try to find the original Greek word used and then try to find other passages that use the same word.  Eventually you can get a sense of context about how the word is used, and the many multi-faceted meanings from a particular word or phrase.

Thanks for reading!  Next week we'll continue talking about the Bible and its different translations.