Vic Alexander's Translation of 1 Peter 3:1, "Women be Devoted to"
By the end of September, 1975, I had accepted the fact that God was real, that Jesus was the son of God, and that the world was actually in the spiritual arrangement the Bible describes. I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and in a vision Jesus had spoken to me audibly. I'd sold my "home" (my 1959 Chevy Fleetside pickup truck camper) to the House of Praise in Hawaii for a dollar, and was living in an apartment in Anaheim, California, with Bobby Widener and Grady Williams, who was then engaged to his Valentine. Without even a hint of scholastic qualifications, I had been accepted to Melodyland School of Theology (which at that time was the seventh largest and fastest growing seminary in the United States) as a college JUNIOR. Talk about faith (theirs)!
Everything was great until I took the first three units of Greek. Lyle Story was a great Greek teacher, but I became greatly disillusioned with the translations we have of the Bible. First of all, there are dozens of Greek versions which offer dozens of alternative readings. It's pick your preference, whether you like the passage this way or that way. And when translating basic level Greek sentences from the Bible, I found that the available versions of the Bible had nearly nothing to do with what the Greek actually said. "How'd they get THAT?" I'd think to myself. Well, IT WAS WHAT THEY WANTED IT TO SAY: "I'm sure this was the ancients' way of saying what I think they must have meant, because certainly I am right," the translators must have thought.
I noted there were instructors and students who learned Greek and Hebrew well enough to read the Bible in these "original" languages. That was beyond me, so I relegated and dedicated myself to correcting my English bibles and learning from other people’s efforts at translation. God himself can teach us, right? So I bought dictionaries, commentaries, lexicons, concordances, and study bibles. I went to seminary not once, but three times. I digested, outlined, and analysed countless--well, many--religious tomes. Inspired by Ethelbert Bullinger's Companion Bible, I wrote out dozens of pages of Bible corrections. And then came the Internet. I've got a good four feet or so of printed out Christian and Jewish articles, analyses, calendars, etc., in binders on my shelves. I should also mention I discovered other Christianities, the history of Christian thought, syncretism, Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism, Christian mystics, and Christian critics. I have been digesting Neville Goddard's books and lectures for about the last ten years now. He is heavy on symbolic interpretation and psychological application in both the authors and our reading.
All this time I kept an anchor in my initial Christian spiritual experiences. I KNOW Jesus intervened in my almost demon possession. I KNOW I was baptized in the Holy Spirit with tongues. I KNOW I heard Jesus' audible-in-my-brain voice. I KNOW I watched my arm grow out without my moving it at all. These were not fantasies or illusions; they were real, concrete, empirical, I'll-die-before-I-deny experiences. They are literal history to me. Therefore I KNOW there is the tri-existent spiritual reality, and there is (sigh) the gobbledygook we have made up by misreading and misunderstanding it.
Which brings me to the Aramaic Bible. I would be the last person to suggest that the authors of the Old Testament did not speak Hebrew, or that authors of the New Testament did not know Greek. But it appears to be plain, blunt, historical fact that they all lived their lives in their native language, Aramaic. Not modern Aramaic, but the ancient Aramaic. The so-called "original" languages of Hebrew and Greek cannot not be translations of the actual Aramaic lives lived by the authors of the scriptures.
My best friend at the time, Bill Grunga, who then went to church with Herb Jahn, suggested to me Jahn's Exegeses Parallel Bible: a literal translation and transliteration of Scripture. What a work that is! Jahn has a column of his exegetical work upon the King James, and a parallel column of his final translation/transliteration, with most tenses corrected.
Unfortunately, Bill and Herb's church was a Messianic synagogue, and they were really into using Hebrew terms and transliterated proper names. Jahn also made special effort to literalize words to their original language syntax. So every law is "torah," Israel is "Yisra El," and on the seventh day God, I mean Elohim, "shabbathized." I "eucharistize" Elohim to have the book, for one thing I have never seen in another Bible: a lexicon of the transliterated ancient names. For without it his translation is almost impossible to read without learning the original language.
Of course, other Bibles have encyclopedic concordances and translations of names' meanings, but with the Exegeses Parallel Bible I realized that the names were not names as such -- to the ancient readers they were what they meant. Sure, when you read my name, Daniel, you know it is a name, and that it refers to me. When the ancients read Daniel, to them it meant Adoni (lord, one who has authority) of Eil. I.e., the Judgment of God. You do not think that when you hear my name, but the ancients didn't need translations: the names WERE what they meant. This realization didn't make reading the Exegeses Bible any easier, but I saw how badly our Bibles were letting us down.
What has all this got to do with Vic Alexander's translations? Not much, except that we should want to understand what the ancients meant by what they said. We can only get that from the most ancient Aramaic versions available translated by a native Aramaic speaker. Native quality contextual semantics are everything. Vic has been able to translate his version in an accurate, readable, idiomatic manner, with only 'Lord' remaining Maryah, 'Jesus' remaining Eashoa, and 'God' remaining Allaha. I can live with that.
I have found, as some Nervous Nellies hyperventilate, that Vic may have some mistakes in his translations. In First Peter, Alexander translates ܥܒܕ in the Shaphel form to mean that wives should devote themselves to their husbands:
1. Thus also, you women, be devoted to your husbands, so as those who do not surrender to the Manifestation, will be won over through your beautiful, effortless attitudes,
2. As they see that with devotion and politeness you attend to your duties.
The KJV accurately translates the Greek ὑποτάσσομαι to say that wives must be in subjection to their husbands. . .
1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
This came up recently in an e-mail conversation with Andrew Chapman (theriveroflife.com), who noted "ὑποτάσσομαι does not mean 'be devoted to', and neither does ܥܒܕ in the Shaphel form. If a translator changes the meaning of the original to suit his or her preferences, he or she is deceiving the reader, who has trusted them to retain the original meaning - which is the idea of translation, by definition."
Part of that conversation (with a little editing):
Andrew,
Sorry, my mistake. I was talking about your post "The meaning of κεφαλή in the New Testament." In that post you've got twenty links plus articles about what a "head" is and what "submission to one's head" is. You are nothing if not thorough. I associated this project of yours with the question about "wives, be in subjection to," vs "women be devoted to." My perspective on the matter (the semantics) was formed in my baptism in the Holy Spirit experience.
When I read 'devoted' in Alexander's version, I immediately thought of devotion a la Joshua 6:17 (17 And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. Bullinger notes that 'accursed' in KJV = 'devoted' [to destruction].) In the baptism of the Holy Spirit, having found myself accursed of God, I devoted myself, verily destroyed myself to God in my submission to Him. I made myself--recognized that I was, actually--subject to Him, as He is our head. I repented, shut up, and waited humbly for his direction. Being in subjection to a husband and devoted to a husband are all one thing: a found attitude and place. It's hard for me to imagine anyone, especially Christians, not getting it now. Every wife should be as happily devoted to her husband as I am in my subjection to my "Head," God. He said, "Remember this, and it is all right." The euphoria of His acceptance of me was my baptism in the Holy Ghost!
Dan
___________________
Although neither ὑποτάσσομαι nor ܥܒܕ mean 'devoted', but rather 'be in subjection to', I have absolutely no problem with Alexander's translation. Being in subjection to is, in my mind, the same as being devoted to (taken to the extreme, and in faith that the husband is converted). Nor do I have any trouble with his translation of awon-galee-yoon, which I will tell about next.
Everything was great until I took the first three units of Greek. Lyle Story was a great Greek teacher, but I became greatly disillusioned with the translations we have of the Bible. First of all, there are dozens of Greek versions which offer dozens of alternative readings. It's pick your preference, whether you like the passage this way or that way. And when translating basic level Greek sentences from the Bible, I found that the available versions of the Bible had nearly nothing to do with what the Greek actually said. "How'd they get THAT?" I'd think to myself. Well, IT WAS WHAT THEY WANTED IT TO SAY: "I'm sure this was the ancients' way of saying what I think they must have meant, because certainly I am right," the translators must have thought.
I noted there were instructors and students who learned Greek and Hebrew well enough to read the Bible in these "original" languages. That was beyond me, so I relegated and dedicated myself to correcting my English bibles and learning from other people’s efforts at translation. God himself can teach us, right? So I bought dictionaries, commentaries, lexicons, concordances, and study bibles. I went to seminary not once, but three times. I digested, outlined, and analysed countless--well, many--religious tomes. Inspired by Ethelbert Bullinger's Companion Bible, I wrote out dozens of pages of Bible corrections. And then came the Internet. I've got a good four feet or so of printed out Christian and Jewish articles, analyses, calendars, etc., in binders on my shelves. I should also mention I discovered other Christianities, the history of Christian thought, syncretism, Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism, Christian mystics, and Christian critics. I have been digesting Neville Goddard's books and lectures for about the last ten years now. He is heavy on symbolic interpretation and psychological application in both the authors and our reading.
All this time I kept an anchor in my initial Christian spiritual experiences. I KNOW Jesus intervened in my almost demon possession. I KNOW I was baptized in the Holy Spirit with tongues. I KNOW I heard Jesus' audible-in-my-brain voice. I KNOW I watched my arm grow out without my moving it at all. These were not fantasies or illusions; they were real, concrete, empirical, I'll-die-before-I-deny experiences. They are literal history to me. Therefore I KNOW there is the tri-existent spiritual reality, and there is (sigh) the gobbledygook we have made up by misreading and misunderstanding it.
Which brings me to the Aramaic Bible. I would be the last person to suggest that the authors of the Old Testament did not speak Hebrew, or that authors of the New Testament did not know Greek. But it appears to be plain, blunt, historical fact that they all lived their lives in their native language, Aramaic. Not modern Aramaic, but the ancient Aramaic. The so-called "original" languages of Hebrew and Greek cannot not be translations of the actual Aramaic lives lived by the authors of the scriptures.
My best friend at the time, Bill Grunga, who then went to church with Herb Jahn, suggested to me Jahn's Exegeses Parallel Bible: a literal translation and transliteration of Scripture. What a work that is! Jahn has a column of his exegetical work upon the King James, and a parallel column of his final translation/transliteration, with most tenses corrected.
Unfortunately, Bill and Herb's church was a Messianic synagogue, and they were really into using Hebrew terms and transliterated proper names. Jahn also made special effort to literalize words to their original language syntax. So every law is "torah," Israel is "Yisra El," and on the seventh day God, I mean Elohim, "shabbathized." I "eucharistize" Elohim to have the book, for one thing I have never seen in another Bible: a lexicon of the transliterated ancient names. For without it his translation is almost impossible to read without learning the original language.
Of course, other Bibles have encyclopedic concordances and translations of names' meanings, but with the Exegeses Parallel Bible I realized that the names were not names as such -- to the ancient readers they were what they meant. Sure, when you read my name, Daniel, you know it is a name, and that it refers to me. When the ancients read Daniel, to them it meant Adoni (lord, one who has authority) of Eil. I.e., the Judgment of God. You do not think that when you hear my name, but the ancients didn't need translations: the names WERE what they meant. This realization didn't make reading the Exegeses Bible any easier, but I saw how badly our Bibles were letting us down.
What has all this got to do with Vic Alexander's translations? Not much, except that we should want to understand what the ancients meant by what they said. We can only get that from the most ancient Aramaic versions available translated by a native Aramaic speaker. Native quality contextual semantics are everything. Vic has been able to translate his version in an accurate, readable, idiomatic manner, with only 'Lord' remaining Maryah, 'Jesus' remaining Eashoa, and 'God' remaining Allaha. I can live with that.
I have found, as some Nervous Nellies hyperventilate, that Vic may have some mistakes in his translations. In First Peter, Alexander translates ܥܒܕ in the Shaphel form to mean that wives should devote themselves to their husbands:
1. Thus also, you women, be devoted to your husbands, so as those who do not surrender to the Manifestation, will be won over through your beautiful, effortless attitudes,
2. As they see that with devotion and politeness you attend to your duties.
The KJV accurately translates the Greek ὑποτάσσομαι to say that wives must be in subjection to their husbands. . .
1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
This came up recently in an e-mail conversation with Andrew Chapman (theriveroflife.com), who noted "ὑποτάσσομαι does not mean 'be devoted to', and neither does ܥܒܕ in the Shaphel form. If a translator changes the meaning of the original to suit his or her preferences, he or she is deceiving the reader, who has trusted them to retain the original meaning - which is the idea of translation, by definition."
Part of that conversation (with a little editing):
Andrew,
Sorry, my mistake. I was talking about your post "The meaning of κεφαλή in the New Testament." In that post you've got twenty links plus articles about what a "head" is and what "submission to one's head" is. You are nothing if not thorough. I associated this project of yours with the question about "wives, be in subjection to," vs "women be devoted to." My perspective on the matter (the semantics) was formed in my baptism in the Holy Spirit experience.
When I read 'devoted' in Alexander's version, I immediately thought of devotion a la Joshua 6:17 (17 And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. Bullinger notes that 'accursed' in KJV = 'devoted' [to destruction].) In the baptism of the Holy Spirit, having found myself accursed of God, I devoted myself, verily destroyed myself to God in my submission to Him. I made myself--recognized that I was, actually--subject to Him, as He is our head. I repented, shut up, and waited humbly for his direction. Being in subjection to a husband and devoted to a husband are all one thing: a found attitude and place. It's hard for me to imagine anyone, especially Christians, not getting it now. Every wife should be as happily devoted to her husband as I am in my subjection to my "Head," God. He said, "Remember this, and it is all right." The euphoria of His acceptance of me was my baptism in the Holy Ghost!
Dan
___________________
Although neither ὑποτάσσομαι nor ܥܒܕ mean 'devoted', but rather 'be in subjection to', I have absolutely no problem with Alexander's translation. Being in subjection to is, in my mind, the same as being devoted to (taken to the extreme, and in faith that the husband is converted). Nor do I have any trouble with his translation of awon-galee-yoon, which I will tell about next.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
1:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home