I think that the question you pose is closely tied with one that seems to baffle speakers of English. It is vaguely referenced in the quote from Mark in my signature, and it goes like this: In English, which is a language based on the premise of dualism, it is exceptionally difficult to translate certain subtleties found in the language of parables and in the Teaching language of the Middle east and the East. In those languages and usages such terms as “I,” “Self,” and “Father” have entirely non-personal and deeply metaphysical meanings which are not in the tool box of the vast majority of translators.
This is in part due to something called “dialogic process” and in part due to an ignorance of some aspects of Eastern Teachings. Unpalatable as it may seem, for me a verification of this is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia itself,as it fails to match certain definitions within it to actual usage in the philosophies it claims to explain.
As a minuscule example of what might be at hand here, I will reproduce a short exercise from a book on tools for critical thinking as applied to religious matters and other areas. It came to mind because of the capitalization and punctuation in the passage quoted by Derek. Here it is, with some comments and addenda. I will supply the appropriate “translations” on request:
*There is also the question of where is one studying the bible from? As in the thread question, understanding of the Bible has “evolved.” Does one study the Bible piously from the inside, having made a faith commitment to a particular stream of consensus, or from the outside as a phenomenon of history, literature, and interpretive thought, or both?
How many ordinary readers of the Bible, for instance, have considered such pertinent disciplines as anthropology, archeology, comparative linguistics and religion, theory of meaning, semantics, symbology, General Semantics, mythology, the natures of abstracting, witnessing, memory, collections, processes in the formation of groups and their interactions, the nature of belief itself relative to human psychology, integrational philosophy, communication theory, single and multi- level logics, etc, etc, etc?
Not many have, I wager, even taken a superficial course that includes these matters, as easy as it is to get a course book on such. Eg, here is a very simple exercise in translation. Below are four sentences in English. Can you come up with the exact meaning? The question is based on the fact that texts in Hebrew and Aramaic are written without vowels, punctuation, or capitalization and depend on context for the meanings of consonant groups. Try it:
1: THSSNXPRMNTNTHDCPHRNGFMSSG
2: THBBLFTHHBRWSWSWRTTNNTHSMNNRWTHTVWLSNDWTHTPNCTTNFNYKND
3: TSMSCLRTHTMNYRRRSFNTRPRTNCLDBMD
4: FRXMPLGDSNWHRCLDBNDRSTDBYSMNTBNSTDGDSNWR
One might soon agree with Robert Ingersoll that it could take twice as much inspiration to read such text as to write it. And then, despite crediting earlier translators with devotion and piety, and knowing in more detail some technicalities of language, are we in our century yet familiar with words, idioms, and modes of thinking of the original writers of whose work we only have copies, some of them obviously altered? For my part, I have to ask myself: Am I devoted to theological ideas based on original perception, or on linguistic events that took place well after the fresh revelation?
Again, how many know that “rope” is in fact the preferred translation now of the consonant group GML, not “camel.” Also, in the story of Elijah, is RBM “Arabs,” “ravens,” or “the inhabitants of Oreb,” a village hard near where Elijah was ensconced on the brook of Cherith? The only sensical translation is now thought to be “the inhabitants of Oreb.” And two millenia of misogyny might be attributed to the mistranslation of TZD, which actually means “side,” not “rib” and all the implications ancient and modern that go with that.
These differences are predicated on the actual speaking of Aramaic as we now know it. A critical example to some points of faith is this one: where is the comma in Luke 28:43? Is it “Verily, I say unto you, today…”? Or is it “Verily, I say unto you today, …”? The second is the nuance preferred by native speakers of Aramaic in their idiom, changing a major point of “proof” theology. The Bible, all of the versions of it, are riddled with such considerations.
That last one hinges on a comma!!! Which wasn’t there! In Fresno, California, on May 5, 1969. a barber and another man shot each other to death over the true meaning of certain passages of the Bible. The true meaning!!! Is that the kind of piety and devotion we are at the level of here? Is that what we have evolved to? What an excellent recommendation (along with Northern Ireland etc, etc.) for christianism."*
