Consistent or Twisting?

For years, the front page of my website has stated: “Guiding principle is a consistent, literal (concordant) Bible translation.” Time and again, I’m reminded of the enormous value of this approach. Discordant Bible translations are by definition caught in a hermeneutical circle: the translation flows from what one thinks, and what one thinks is based on the translation. There is only one way to escape this circle: by choosing consistent translation terms. This approach proves to be a self-correcting principle.

This time I would like to illustrate that using a theologically completely non-controversial example (see also the latest contribution in the ‘doorgelicht’ section regarding Revelation 11:8). I refer to the Greek word ‘plateia’ (Str. 4116). ‘Plateia’ is derived from the Greek word for “broad” and is also related to our word “flat.” Anyway, ‘plateia’ occurs a total of nine times in the New Testament and is rendered by the Dutch NBG translation as follows:

Matthew 6:5 …in the synagogues and on the corners of the plazas…
Matthew 12:19 …no one shall be hearing His voice in the plazas.
Luke 10:10 …go out into its streets and say…
Luke 13:26 …in our streets You are taught.
Luke 14:21 Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city…
Acts 5:15 …so that they brought out the sick into the street…
Revelation 11:8 And their corpses will be on the street of the great city…
Revelation 21:21 …and the street of the city was pure gold…
Revelation 22:2 In the middle of its street…

Two times “plaza” and seven times “street.” This latter rendering (“street”) is quite confusing, since in other instances it is actually the translation of a completely different Greek word, rhume (Str. 4505), which appears four times in the NT. Here are the passages:

Matthew 6:2 …in the synagogues and in the streets…
Luke 14:21 Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city…
Acts 9:11 Arise and go to the street called Straight…
Acts 12:10 And coming out, they went along one street…

Of the four times rhume appears, it is translated three times as “street” and (note) only once as “alley.” As if that were the same… Why this one exception? Is rhume not simply “street”? Yes, it is—but then the NBG translation would have run into serious trouble in Luke 14:21. They would have had to translate: “Go out quickly into the streets and streets of the city….” However, had ‘plateia’ been translated consistently as “plaza,” they would not have had to flee into “alleys” here… In just this one Scripture, the discordant rendering is exposed for what it is.

Only by rendering words consistently can this kind of twisting be avoided. Then plateia would not only have been rendered as “plaza” in Matthew 6 and 12, but also in the other seven occurrences. And ‘rhume’ could then have been translated without exception as “street.”

I admit it: the above concerns a fairly harmless translation word, but it nonetheless illustrates very clearly how valuable (or rather: essential!) it is to translate consistently. If one does not do this, the ultimate consequence is that Scripture can, in principle, be made to say whatever one believes it says. A very popular approach among theologians. They call this dynamic equivalence, and such a fine academic term is meant to legitimize the twisting of words…

Delen: