Read the letter of 1 Timothy. Imagine that it’s your first time to ever hear it. It’s an amazing thought that books of the Bible that we take for granted don’t even exist in hundreds of languages in the world.
This week Mozambicans representing seven languages, as well as two Naro translators from Botswana have been translating, studying and revising the book of 1 Timothy.
- Nyungwe
- Kimwani
- Koti
- Lomwe
- Lolo
- Takwane
- Meetto
- Naro
Image: Nyungwe translators produce an adaptation of 1 Timothy.
Here’s a typical problem that comes up when we’re translating. Paul mentions two things that those who want to be teachers of the law don’t know:
They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Timothy 1:7, NIV)
What is the difference between “what they are talking about” and “what they so confidently affirm”?
Or how about 1 Timothy 1:14:
The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
In what way are faith and love “in” Christ Jesus? Does this mean Paul has faith in Christ Jesus and loves him? Or does it mean that Christ Jesus’ faith and love were poured out on Paul along with the grace?
I’ll mention one more puzzle. Greek emphasizes things by putting them first in a sentence. Bantu languages like those spoken in Mozambique emphasize things by putting them last in a sentence. So if translators follow the word order of Greek (or Portuguese or English…) they will very often put the emphasis on the wrong part of a sentence.
Here’s a rough draft of 1 Timothy 1:14 in Nyungwe:
Mbuya wathu adandikomera mtima kwene-kwene
acindipasambo cikhulupiriro na lufoi mwa Krixto Jezu.“Our Lord was very kind-hearted to me
giving me also trust and love from Christ Jesus.”
Is that what it says in your Bible?
Beautiful – Salvation is not of the brain but is definitely in the body – i.e. incarnate. Being like a vessel into whom is poured love and faith is much closer to the reality of salvation than screwing yourself up to believe something you know you don’t believe. (I have to admit, though there are many passage from the pastorals in my head – I am loth to give them the same ‘authority’ as the undisputed Pauline corpus. But then I have great difficulty with the authority of words per se. My experience has taught me that words point but God forms – and when God forms, the point becomes much clearer.)
I’ll mention one more puzzle. Greek emphasizes things by putting them first in a sentence. Bantu languages like those spoken in Mozambique emphasize things by putting them last in a sentence. So if translators follow the word order of Greek (or Portuguese or English…) they will very often put the emphasis on the wrong part of a sentence.
Thanks, Lingamish, for sharing the photos, the faces, the laptops, the languages list, and the puzzler. You and your family and the Mozambicans so facile in so many different languages and cultures do tease us with more than we can ever know.
So do you ever make side-by-side versions of the scriptures (i.e., “parallel” texts)? I have fun trying to cipher your rough draft without a lick of Nyungwe, from your back translation into English, compared with the first English I Tim 1:14 you provide. Then, I look at your Greek (Portuguese, English) rule, and the Greek order (emphasis):
ὑπερεπλεόνασεν δὲ ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν μετὰ πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ
Would it read like a helpful mirror to put Greek one page and Nyungwe facing? Are you all so like Jesus too? Mediating between the different brains of humans, demonstrating (as I can only emphasize in English) an overflow of favor of that master of ours with belief and love in the chosen Joshua. — Obrigado
They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Timothy 1:7, NIV)
Isn’t this an example of Semitic-style parallelism in Greek? Where the second part repeats but “adds to” to the first… so “They are talking about things they do not know about, [even] the things they are most confident in affirming [are unknown to them].
Maybe as a non-Greek-geek I have missed the point.
I agree with you. But what should we do in a translation? Pastors will be checking to make sure that all the stuff in the Portugese translation is “findable” in the national language translation.
I don’t know either language
but would not something like:
They want to be teachers of God’s law,
but they do not understand the things they are talking about,
not even the things about which they are most confident.
map fairly closely to the Greek, and therefore I assume to the Portuguese yet “work”.
[...] mentioned recently the difficulty in translating 1 Timothy 1:14. It seems that the Afrikaans translation has a nice solution: Ons Here het my oorlaai mer sy genade [...]