Translation and Context

Last week (my, how time flies!), I had lunch with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. What made our time together so delightful was exactly what is written in the "About Me" section: "I like sharing ideas with people so we can come up with new ideas." Mark had several brilliant insights, a few of which I will write about now and in days to come.

We talked a bit about The Books of The Bible, a recent release from International Bible Society. One of the key features of that work is the lack of chapter and verse numbering. Mark noted that he had judged translations based on how verses stacked up to each other. You see this all the time in Christian publishing or in sermons. The author or pastor will have their (okay, his) five favorite translations on the desk. They'll page through all of them to find their favorite nuance (and I said people don't pay attention to nuance!). Whichever translation fits the agenda the best makes it in. In fact, English translations sometimes differ widely in how a verse reads. Mark's insight is that if we read that verse in context in both translations, more than likely, the giant variance will vanish. When we read Scripture and track an author's argument over a longer section, the meaning becomes much more clear. The meaning of a verse or sentence will turn on a solitary word, but a paragraph will lend much more nuance to the thought of a single sentence.