Lectionary in The Christian Century: Genesis 45:1–15; Psalm 133
It echoed throughout my childhood: my mother’s exasperated voice, entreating my brother and me to stop our constant fighting before it cut years from her harried life. She was right on one of those assertions and wrong on another: my brother and I did indeed fight a lot, but he and I will gather peacefully in Hamburg, Germany, this year to celebrate her 80th birthday with her, so she was happily wrong about the life-shortening consequences of that bickering.
Having siblings can be a uniquely rich experience, but growing up with those same siblings can be hard. Very hard.
In many languages, including English and biblical Hebrew, the same word is used for biological siblings as for those who are deeply united in a cause, such as fellow Israelites serving the Lord or fellow Christian believers in the New Testament. The biblical text contains ample testimony to both the pitfalls and the thrills of forging that outward union into an inward unity.
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” The first line of Psalm 133—likely sung as people from across Israel made their way to Jerusalem for the High Holy Days—can evoke either jubilation about a unity and togetherness that is firmly in place or a pleading reminder that much needs to be done to achieve that unity.
Either way, the rewards the psalmist mentions are tremendous.
It’s like the soothing, healing, fragrant oil from above that runs down the hair, through the beard, and onto the robe of Aaron, where it pools on his chest plate containing the 12 stones that represent Israel’s tribes. (In both Spanish and Catalan Sign Language, Aaron’s name is signed by pointing to where the stones on his chest plate would be.) It’s also like the metaphoric covering of the whole land with life-giving, refreshing moisture, all the way from Mount Hermon in the far north to Jerusalem in the south.
Complete unity. Oneness, given from above.
See the rest of the lectionary with data from the Translation Insights & Perspectives tool right here.
For another perspective on the same text see Forgive and Forget?
Lectionary in The Christian Century: Matthew 16:13-20
I recently celebrated my 59th birthday during an especially debilitating flare-up of multiple sclerosis, my unwelcome companion of three decades. Though I can still take my daily beach walks with my dingo, I now use a cane to propel myself through the sand. And I find myself musing on questions that haven’t plagued me since my late adolescence: Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What do I have to offer the world with my unique set of limitations? Where do I fit in to this world?
It’s an age-old human question, honed to obsession in the 21st century: Who am I? But though it permeates our culture now, we don’t have a monopoly on the question. For proof of the importance of identity, look no further than the genealogy that launches the Gospel of Matthew, where the writer lays out a historical resume to prove Jesus’ identity. Then, as now, questions of identity and belonging are essential.
When Jesus asks his disciples the divinely existential question of who the people and then the disciples think he is, his essential question is also all about identity—Jesus’ identity, Peter’s identity, and ultimately our identity as Christians.
The disciples report that people (anthrōpoi) see Jesus (huios tou anthrōpou or “Son of man/humanity” in Jesus’ question) in the context of figures from the past, but Peter recognizes Jesus as someone who melds the past and the future into the present time: the long-awaited Messiah who was and is to come has indeed arrived. One who, Peter clarifies, is also “the Son of the living God.”
We don’t know if the writer of Matthew was familiar with the letter to the Hebrews and its thundering proclamation that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31), but he most certainly was intimately familiar with the Hebrew Bible. In the Hebrew Bible, the phrase “the living God” often carries the sense that this deity is to be feared by those who are not on his side. As Moses asks the people, “For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the fire, as we have, and lived?” (Deut. 5:26).
See the rest of this lectionary right here.
For another perspective on the same text see Losing puns in translation (Matthew 16:13-20).
Article in Christianity Today: 10 Istilah Alkitab yang Menarik dalam Bahasa Lain
The article “10 Biblical Terms I Wish Christians Had in English” that uses content from the Translation Insights & Perspectives tool was translated and published in Indonesian by Christianity Today. See here.
The Language of Faith: Bible translation throughout the centuries (article in MultiLingual magazine)
As a working translator, I knew that a “perfect” translation is neither a goal nor a possible reality. I knew that complete and linear transfer of form and meaning between two languages is not achievable, no matter how closely languages might be related. Like all translators, I knew that there is always something “lost in translation” (the favorite trope of journalists writing about anything related to translation). But I also knew that successful translation is still possible because so much can be gained in translation as well.
It’s in the balance between the two that a translation is successful. Since linear and complete transfer from one language to another is unattainable and therefore not a desirable goal, translators try to generate a text that becomes equivalent in its expressive force and meaning by transformation, by inevitably adding changed and new elements.
What if, I imagined, I could build a database to document those changed and new elements that have made their way into some, and maybe eventually all, of the 3,000+ languages into which the Bible has been translated? What if I could collect a listing of those fascinating terms, phrases, and constructs, and then go a step further to associate each with an explanation or a story or a back-translation into English so that they were actually accessible?
See the rest of this article in MultiLingual magazine right here.
How 3500 translation can enrich a text: Interview about Bible translation and the Translation Insights & Perspectives tool
Reading Plan on YouVersion: Holy Week Through the Eyes of the Languages of the World
“This devotion that is intended to accompany you from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday presents Jesus as he approaches his death and is glorified in his resurrection in a way you might not have encountered him: Through the words of languages from around the world. Find out how other cultural norms and concepts find their expression in Bible translation and how that can have a deep impact on your own appreciation and understanding of God’s love for you.”
Subscribe to the 7-day reading plan on YouVersion right here.
Essentially Translatable Podcast: Translation Insights
In this podcast Lutheran Bible Translators’ Emily Wilson and Rich Rudowske interview Translation Insights & Perspectives’ curator Jost Zetzsche about the tool.
You can listen right here or click on the image below,