Christ is everywhere. God, help us see!
2 Corinthians 5:17a is fun to translate because it is very, very Greek. It uses both grammar and vocabulary that are characteristic and even elegant in Greek, but awkward in English.
Obviously, some work needs to be done. NRSVUE does that work and ends up with: So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation...
Simple, not very creative, but it gets the job done. Would that all translations were at least this competent.
Read MoreAn early Christian leader, whose name might have been Timothy, had questions, and some of his questions must have been about bishops, because this is part of the answer he received:
“Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. ” — 1 Timothy 3:2-3
If you’re like me, this inspires the further question: Wait, did churches really need to be told not to elect a bunch of drunk inhospitable quarrelsome bishops? This seems kind of obvious, really. I mean, it’s not like the Council of Nicea had even happened yet.
If you’re like a certain number of translators, though, you might think of a different follow-up question: How can we translate this verse to make sure it only applies to men?
Read MoreSo, what do we know about Phoebe? First, we know that she was really great. Second, we know that she was a deacon.
What does this mean?
In English, diakonos is usually translated with words like servant, helper, minister, and, yes, deacon. Which of these words should be used to refer to Phoebe? We know that she was trustworthy, that she did something for the church in Cenchreae, and that she was really helpful. What word best expresses that?
Read MoreThis one is a little complicated, because we are looking at the translation of two different words.
…or are we??? (Spoiler: We are not.)
Read MoreShocking news! Gentiles have received the Holy Spirit!
The apostles and some other people heard this amazing news. Which other people were those?
Once again, the real issue here is that plenty of translators persist in pretending that “brothers” actually includes sisters.
Read MoreTo understand this verse, we need to talk about numbers, and vocabulary, and also poetry. You have been warned.
Who is being told about God’s name, and in whose midst is God being praised? I bet you can already tell what the problem is going to be.
Read MoreJacob, aka Israel, is famous for having sons. Like, really famous. So famous that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a song about it, although he also wrote a whole musical about cats, so Jacob probably shouldn’t let it go to his head.
The most famous of Jacob’s famous sons is Joseph, and this is how he is introduced: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children…” Genesis 37:3a, NRSVUE.
Just how dysfunctional was this family, anyway?
Read MoreYou can usually count on Paul to give you some nice, complicated grammar to argue about, but this one is not even a little bit ambiguous.
The word we are translating here is “uioi”, which, in Koine Greek, can refer to children in general, or specifically to male children (sons).
Read MoreIf you have made it this far (or if you have come to this post and have no intention of reading all the rest of that), though, you might enjoy the following game.
This is, in effect, a list of things to watch out for while watching the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, but we’re calling it Bingo, because that’s traditional. And it’s annotated, because hi, have we met?
Read MoreIf you know what the rules are for, you can often work out the details as they arise. At the very least, if you understand the basic principles, the specific applications won’t come as a complete surprise.
Read MoreHave you ever, say, to take a random example, watched a livestream of the plenary sessions of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, and thought: Why are they doing things like this? Who made this stuff up?!? These rules make no sense! How can anyone remember all this?
These are all very reasonable thoughts to have.
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Colored with colored pencils, in shades of red, because of course.
Back when I did introduced The Chart with the series about 1 John 4:20, Erin surprised me with verse art.
Now we are sharing it with everyone, because we can. You, too, can color in your very own version of Erin’s very own verse art using my very own translation of this verse!
This coloring page is free for personal and (non-profit) congregational use, as long as you give us credit.
It only took a slight dive into church history, some added awareness of how traditions that aren’t as (theoretically) egalitarian as ours talk about women, and a little lived experience, and I discovered I’d accidentally signed up for the female-coded roster of the church.
Why do I describe deacons as the “female-coded roster of the church?” Let me count the ways.
Read MoreAh, Junia. Her name appears in the Bible exactly once, in this verse. The name, however, is a perfectly normal name for a woman in that time and place. Lots of women were named “Junia”. So, why is this difficult, exactly?
Read More“They aren’t worth anything, are they?” my sister asked. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think so. I thought I’d better check.
Sherbet and Shaggy were the first two ponies I prepared, because Sherbet is purple and Shaggy is cute.
“Good news,” I reported back. “None of the ones we had are all that valuable.”
We were talking about our childhood My Little Pony collection. The time had come to pass them on to my young niece, and so I was cleaning off the grime of years, detangling their hair, and looking up their names on the Internet.
Read MoreActs 2:15 is hilarious to start with, because what just happened? Oh, right, a bunch of people came pouring out of this house and they were all talking at once, and yet absolutely everyone could understand them perfectly. If that happened, I would not be thinking “these people must be drunk”.
Read MoreInspired by my experience with Kenzie, I set out to explore how other translations approached this challenge.
Spoiler: I was not impressed.
Read More“What do we learn about God from this verse?” we asked the class. It was our standard question.
There was a long pause, which was normal. Maybe the question would go away if no one answered? Alas, it did not. It never did. And so finally, hesitantly, one student held up her hand.
“I think maybe Satan is God’s brother,” Kenzie answered.
Read MoreThe thing that I call “verse art” started in the family of ideas from a book called Praying in Color (which is really cool, you should check it out). What I love most about Praying in Color is that it breaks open the idea of prayer as formal, written, or “just right.” Drawing, doodling, and coloring aren’t prayer because you add words, they are prayer all by themselves. I love words. I never (previously) knew I needed to be free of them to pray.
Read MoreIn the 21st century, a lot of people are going to assume that if you are talking about “his brother”, you are talking about the male sibling of a male person.
So, in order to translate this one very short phrase acceptably into modern English, it is necessary to compromise.
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