Your experience translates a verb which is ambiguous, since it could be understood either negatively or positively. Negatively, it could be understood as “suffering” and therefore could refer to the persecutions that the Galatian Christians had gone through (Phillips “Has all your painful experience brought you nowhere?”; Knox “Was it to no purpose that you went through so much?”). Positively, it could refer to the spiritual experiences of the Galatians as a result of their reception of the Holy Spirit (Jerusalem Bible “Have all the favours you received been wasted?”; New American Bible “Have you had such remarkable experiences all to no purpose…?”; New English Bible “Have all your great experiences been in vain…?”).

The Galatian Christians would probably have known the specific experience referred to in Paul’s words, but unfortunately we do not. Our choice therefore is either to select one of the above renderings or to retain the ambiguity of the Greek verb, as indeed Good News Translation does. This ambiguity may be retained in some languages by translating “Did all that happened to you mean nothing at all?” In some languages this type of question may be retained since it is answered in the immediately following statement, Surely it meant something! In general, however, it is difficult to find a strictly neutral term with regard to experience, and therefore one is normally obliged to select an expression which means either “to suffer” or “to enjoy benefits.”

Surely it meant something! is literally “if it be really in vain” (Revised Standard Version). The expression once again indicates that Paul finds it hard to believe that everything the Galatians have experienced has not meant a thing to them (Phillips “I simply cannot believe it of you!”). It may be difficult, however, in some languages to speak of an experience as “meaning something.” It may be possible to speak of “words meaning something,” but an experience often belongs to quite a different semantic domain. However, one can sometimes say “Did what happened to you not cause you to think about it?” Similarly, Surely it meant something! may be rendered as “Certainly what happened to you must have made you think how important the happening was.”

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .