[B-Greek] KATA SARKA

Philip Silouan Thompson himself at philthompson.net
Thu Mar 17 14:48:56 EST 2005


Kerry S. Yankowy wrote:
> KATA SARKA
> ESV: "according to worldly standards"
> NIV: "by human standards"

I have a related question. When translating a Greek (or other) text that is
vague, or pregnant with possible interpretations, do most of you prefer to
resolve that vagueness (as the ESV and NIV translators have attempted to do
above) or to preserve it in the resulting text, resulting in a translation
that's justly described as unclear or awkward?

A pastoral setting, where the goal is to move from what a text says to what
one should therefore do, is obviously different from a scholarly setting
where the question is simply what the author meant, but both contexts
require some judgment on the part of a translator.

I'm inclined to see the NIV's "by human standards" (or "sinful nature" for
SARX) as imposing a doctrinal filter on St Paul's text, where I'd rather see
a translation faithfully reproduce the elliptical or unclear text he
actually wrote; we have pastors and commentaries precisely for the task of
opening up difficult sayings, so I don't like to see a translation turned
into a doctrinal soapbox. Of course, when the translator resolves an unclear
passage in harmony with my own dogma I'm less critical :-/

I'm curious how folks here approach translating unclear passages and why. If
this takes us off-topic, I'd still be interested in hearing from anyone so
inclned, at himself AT philthompson DOT net.

Thanks,

Philip Silouan Thompson
Walla Walla, Washington USA
http://philthompson.net












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