Translations and Transmutations

For those of you that are avid students of the Word of God, I thought I'd take a minute today and warn you that many Bible translations out there in the market place do a lot more than just 'translate' the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament into English. They acutally ADD WORDS, SUBTRACT WORDS, and CHANGE WORDS when it suits them. I call this transmuting, not translating.

Now, don't get me wrong. All of the modern translations do an excellent job of getting across the general message of the Bible, and so I'm not saying they aren't useful for devotional reading.

What I am saying, however, is that those who like to do deeper study of Bible passages should be aware that many modern Bible versions have places where the translators decided to change the substance or form of the Hebrew or Greek text by changing, adding or subtracting words. They may have done this to clear up what they think is the meaning, but in doing so they have transmuted the text rather than translate it.

I'll start with a simple example, using the New King James Translation (which does an excellent job of accurately reflecting the Greek text in most cases) for comparison:

"Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly" (1Th 5:14- NKJV)

This seems pretty clear, doesn't it? Now look at what one modern translation put:

"And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle" (1 Th 5:14- NIV)

Do you see the transmutation that has occured in this scripture? The word 'unruly' now reads 'idle', which is someone's interpretation of what the writer was saying. But the Greek word for 'idle' is not in the Greek New Testament. The Greek text has the word for 'unruly'.

Now I'll show you an even more glaring example of how 'bad' it can get. Let's look at Galatians 2:19, where the apostle Paul talks of becoming dead to the law, or Torah, of God.

For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. (Gal 2:19- NKJV)

Look what one modern translation did to this verse:

For it was through letting the Torah [law] speak for itself that I died to its traditional legalistic misinterpretation, so that I might live in direct relationship with God.- (Gal. 2:19- CJB)

The original Greek phrase 'died to the law' has been changed to 'died to its traditional legalistic misinterpretation'! Where did all those extra words come from? Not from the Greek text of the scripture, I assure you. This is not a translation of the Greek text, but a blatant transmutation of the text in order to get the reader to interpret the text a certain way.

Now I'm not picking on any particular translation. I'm just giving serious Bible students out there a heads up that all translations are not created equal, and that some have taken the liberty to do a lot more than just translate the Hebrew and Greek text into modern English.

Nuff said.

Yours in Him,
Pastor B.

νόμος (no-mos)