[B-Greek] Mark 1:4

A. J. Birch AJBIRCH at terra.es
Thu Nov 3 04:40:56 EST 2005


Dear Dan,

You asked, regarding your translation of Mark 1:4 ("EGENETO IWANNHS [hO] BAPTIZWN EN THi ERHMWi KAI KHRUSSWN BAPTISMA METANOIAS EIS AFESIN hAMARTIWN"), "are there any errors in this translation?" Allow me to make a few comments:

(1) It seems to me that your general approach is too 'interlinear', in the sense that you seem to translate each word, one by one, in too 'disconnected' a way. I get the impression (it may be a wrong impression, of course) that you feel that that is somehow more literal, more accurate. But good, accurate translation is not about translating disconnected words, but about translating connected words in such a way as to translate as accurately as possible the meaning of those words as they are connected to each other. So, if you are asking whether your translation of each separate word in Mark 1:4 reflects what you would find in any good lexicon for each of those words, you may well have been accurate in giving (one of) the standard lexicon-meanings for each word. But if you are asking whether your translation is good as a translation of the meaning of Mark 1:4, taking the words together, I think that your translation is less satisfactory, because your methodology is defective (it seems to me).

(2) For example, "became" is a perfectly possible translation of "EGENETO" (depending on the context), but it's by no means the only possible translation, and I don't think it fits very well at all in Mark 1:4; I think "came" or "appeared" would be better here, which is almost certainly what you will find in any 'decent' version of the Bible.

(3) To translate "IWANNHS [hO] BAPTIZWN" as "John...the-one immersing" may be a possible literal, word-for-word translation, but I don't think it's a good translation at all, because it obscures, rather than clarifying, the real meaning, which, in my view, is John's 'official title'.

(4) The best translation of "BAPTISMA" (in Mark 1:4) may be a more debatable point, but my own view is that it's use in this particular context is 'technical', referring to the 'rite' (or whatever word we want to use) of baptism. If you want to argue that the Greek verb 'BAPTIZW' literally means 'to immerse', many people will agree with you (though by no means all), but the question is, is the best translation in any given context necessarily the one that brings out the etymology of a word? My answer would be, not necessarily.

(5) Regarding "EIS", you may feel that because "into" is the first meaning given in most lexicons, and the most common translation of the word, it's the best (or the 'safest') translation here; I, personally, disagree, and feel that "EIS" here refers to PURPOSE, and so is best rendered 'for' (or whatever).

My only purpose in making these comments is (humbly) to suggest that you reconsider your translation methodology.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew J. Birch
Palma de Mallorca, Spain


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