While doing some reading for another thread, I stumbled across this article from Christianity Today, Called Knowing What the Bible Really Means http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/april/knowing-what-bible-really-means.html
The article is by a translator, and offers his perspective on the nature of language how that impacts the translation of the Bible.
I recommend to check out the whole article for its context, and it's an interesting read anyway. But what I really want to do, is to submit this except for the critical pleasure of my fellow truth-seekers (I did do a few searches on cfs to see if this has been discussed before, and nothing came up. Maybe it's a new one?)
Your thoughts?
The article is by a translator, and offers his perspective on the nature of language how that impacts the translation of the Bible.
I recommend to check out the whole article for its context, and it's an interesting read anyway. But what I really want to do, is to submit this except for the critical pleasure of my fellow truth-seekers (I did do a few searches on cfs to see if this has been discussed before, and nothing came up. Maybe it's a new one?)
Take this example from a number of Chinese Bible translations. We know that God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is confined to he, she, and it. Modern Chinese, however, offers another possibility. In modern Chinese, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is he, 她 is she, and 它/牠 is it). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
I believe that translations of Scripture are not secondary fill-ins but an integral part of the ongoing and primary expression of God's message in written form.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande coined a new "godly" pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that God has no gender aside from being God. This translation discovery was an aha moment for Chinese believers. But knowing this benefits us as well—even if we don't understand Chinese—because it expands our comprehension of God's divine character.
I believe that translations of Scripture are not secondary fill-ins but an integral part of the ongoing and primary expression of God's message in written form.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande coined a new "godly" pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that God has no gender aside from being God. This translation discovery was an aha moment for Chinese believers. But knowing this benefits us as well—even if we don't understand Chinese—because it expands our comprehension of God's divine character.
Your thoughts?