[B-Greek] Mark 3:13-19 Translation Issues

Webb webb at selftest.net
Tue Nov 15 14:02:10 EST 2005


Dear Dan,
I'd propose that you recast any English formulation in which an ordinary
reader would say to you, "I know what this means, but you wouldn't say it
that way in English." 
If your translation doesn't convey what the person said in Greek as a person
would say it in English, then you haven't really translated it into English,
but only into Greenklish or something.
Greek words do not necessarily correspond one-to-one with English words, nor
are the principles of word order and grammar particularly similar between
the two languages. Trying to compose English on the basis of an ideal that
these should correspond (when they don't) is, in my opinion, a fruitless and
even counter-productive task. This reality no doubt comes home to
translators working with languages that are much, much farther away from
ancient Greek than English is (e.g. Chinese).
I certainly believe in making the process and issues of translation as
transparent as possible (e.g. by using footnotes and putting words supplied
for sense in different formatting). But I think it's worth letting go of the
ideal of hyper-literalism.
Peace,
Webb Mealy
Sample comment:
And he ascended into (EIS) the Mountain ... 
No English speaker would use the word "ascended" to describe a person
walking up a mountain. Mountain climbing, maybe... In English you say "going
into the mountains" or "going up the mountain", or "going up on the
mountain", but never "going into the mountain". English and Greek
prepositions simply don't correspond one to one, and there is no point in
pretending that they do. 





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