John 1:14

Matt Wilson

One of the things all Bible-believing Christians have to deal with sooner or later is the whole subject of translation and interpretation. The Bible has been translated into hundreds of languages and there are dozens of English versions all with varying approach and emphasis. So what's best? A super-accurate translation? A deliberately accessible edition? Or is it just horses for courses?

Take the good old King James version for instance - in print since 1611. It was largely produced to trump the 1526 English New Testament that was in general circulation after being painstaking translated by William Tyndale in such a way that 'the boy that driveth the plough' would be able to comprehend it. King James had other ideas about religion - and social cohesion. His team of translators worked hard to ensure that their work gathered unto itself a majestic aloof-ness from the dirt of daily life.

Now then, there's more to delve into here. As you ought to know, the New Testament is written in Greek. But there's more than one version of Greek. The Greek spoken 2000 years ago is not the Greek spoken today. It's similar, but different. The Greek written 2000 years ago is not the Greek written today, it's different again, in various ways. The key difference we need to pay attention to is not the difference between then and now but the difference between spoken and written Greek 2000 years ago. The Greeks loved literature and philosophy, and they reflected their esteem for it in the highly polished form of writing they used to record and communicate their ideas on paper. And here's the twist, for countless centuries the New Testament text was understood by means of translation using the language of classical (attic) Greek - that was the written form of Greek filling the shelves of the libraries of the Roman world and the societies that followed after the great Empire's collapse.

But there was a big problem for the translators. Of the 5000 words used in the New Testament, about 500 couldn't be found anywhere in classical written Greek. What were these strange words? Well of course, they must be special 'holy' words, the language of angels, the special communications of the Spirit. Or so 'inspired' translators speculated. After all, how could the Word Of God be penned in anything other than the finest of vocabularies?

Time passed and eventually Archaeology came into vogue and intrepid diggers set off on globe-trotting endeavours bringing to light all manner of artifacts that shed new light on the ancient world of the Bible. One such discovery was made in 1897 by a couple of Brits underneath a rubbish dump on the outskirts of an unassuming village called Oxyrhynchus, 160 miles upstream along the Nile from Cairo. They brought up, preserved and intact, 27 papyrus documents that would revolutionize Bible translation. 27 pieces of utterly ancient Greek text - but far from classical library Greek. Closer inspection would reveal this to be the greatest ever find of common street Greek (koine) from the time of Jesus. And guess what. Those 500 missing words in the New Testament. Koine. Common street Greek. Far from being the language of angels or special holy words God had entrusted his sacred revelation to the language of the marketplace and the fields, not the language of the temples and the academies.

So perhaps there's good reason to engage with the likes of contemporary translators like Eugene Peterson - he and others are keeping up the legacy of William Tyndale, J.B. Phillips in ensuring that scripture is always available in the language of the 'plough-boy'. And, more importantly, keeping in step with the same Spirit who worked in and through the true and living Word who 'became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood.' (John 1:14 The Message)