Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Lost in translation


This past Monday, I attended my small group bible study. We went through 2 John. My friend Karol brought this bible that belongs to her son. According to the preface, it is directly translated from Aramaic to English. Here's something I found interesting. The following is from the King James Version, 2 John 1:
1The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth;...

When we looked up the same passage in the Aramaic bible, the words "elect lady" were replaced with "mother church". While the NIV and KJV commentaries suggest that the verse might be talking about the church, the Aramaic version seems to state this quite clearly. I'm not going to comment on the accuracy of this particular translation because I honestly don't know enough about the book or its author to make any intelligent argument one way or another. Like I said...I just found it interesting.

If you read this blog on a regular basis (thank you), you know that the past few posts have primarily been about books written by Christian authors and my thoughts about said books. This is not one of those posts. I returned Sunday from vacation, started a new painting gig on Monday, and have been breathing paint fumes for the past 3 days. I am looking at my suitcase that remains unpacked and on the floor, thinking about "Birthday Palooza", which begins tomorrow, and lamenting the fact that I ran out of my ritalin prescription two days ago. BTW - Birthday Palooza is an annual event that begins with my son's birthday (7/31), dad's (8/1), sister's (8/2), daughter's (8/2) and, typically just an afterthought 3 days later, my birthday (8/5). Deep thought and careful consideration of blog content just ain't happening right now.

Instead, I just wanted to share a few of my favorite pics from http://engrish.com/. If you've never visited, I would highly recommend it! Enjoy!


4 comments:

JML said...

Ass. Manager!!!!! I was wondering if you had disappeared.... Hope it was fun!!

Campman62 said...

KR,

~You kno u r responsible for at least 3 episodes of [Campman62-Spits-Coffee-On-Computer-Monitor, Again!].

"Hell Kitty" wuz my fav...

*You still ><>R>O>C>K<>< 4 JC 2 w/ great SCL posts.

Thanks for u'r strong faith & encouragement & being 0 2 Funnee...

Keep being 'creative'& keep being 'real', Sista.

campman62.wordpress.com

inthelight-campman62.blogspot.com

Campman62 said...

Kat,
Silly me...finally wized-up & just "rolled you" on TRANSFORM ME? [campman62.wordpress.com]

Anonymous said...

This translation's strong suit would probably be the Gospels.

Though they were not penned in Aramaic (except for a few transliterated phrases, i.e. Matthew 27:46) the events described in them took place "in Aramaic" and thus the translation might bring out the idioms better.

2 John however is a different story. Like the Gospels, this epistle was penned in Greek, and to individuals who most likely did not speak Aramaic.

So the intricacies of this translation (as they pertain to 2 John) are on a level field with other translations (English, Spanish, Russian etc).

Haven't been to engrish.com, but judging by those pics, it looks like a hoot.