Quotes about Translation

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

As we practice implementing this incredible power tool He's placed in our hands, He divinely positions us - even a little life like ours - in His grand purpose for the ages. Through the connective tissue of prayer, He cracks open the door that makes us at least a small part of how these massive plans of His are translated into the lives of people we know. Including ours.

The Hebrew original does not say, 'Do not kill.' It says, 'Do not murder.' Both Hebrew and English have two words for taking a life — one is 'kill' (harag, in Hebrew) and the other is 'murder' (ratzach in Hebrew).

This verse uses the Hebrew word milacha to refer to work instead of the more common word avoda. Milacha is not truly translatable; it is best understood as creative work—work that produces something.

Unfortunately, most English-language Bibles, going back to the King James translation, have translated this verse as "Thou shalt not kill." This has led to many people using this commandment to defend pacifism and to oppose capital punishment for murder.

When God speaks, when the Word speaks, energy is translated into matter. What is atomic fission? It is matter translated back into energy—poof! it disappears. Creation began with energy. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God.

If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, The author of this book is mistaken; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.

Ransack the language as he might, words failed him. He wanted another landscape, and another tongue.

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.-The Word of God exists in something else.

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidences that the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in something else.

The pleasure of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.

The NIV reinforces this view by translating the last phrase to read "the kingdom of God is within you." But Jesus is saying, "The kingdom is in your midst," pointing to an internal and external reality.