Translation is a fascinating process. I can remember thinking it would be a relatively simple straightforward process but that was before I actually did it. When translating you are always running across interesting challenges as you try to get the meaning from one language to another. Here is one challenge we ran into a while ago. We were translating Exodus 4:6 where it says \u201cFurthermore the Lord said to him, \u2018Now put your hand in your bosom.\u2019 And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow.\u201d<\/p>\n
We tried to come up with a way to illustrate whiteness in a culture that is not familiar with snow. My translation helpers and I brainstormed some possibilities of things that might communicate profound whiteness. Some of the suggestions I made were clouds, cotton, and really clean salt. The translation helpers didn\u2019t bite. Their suggestion was \u201cit was really white, like pus is white.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hmmm. Somehow \u201cpus\u201d didn\u2019t fit with my idea of what the figure of speech needed to convey. Then I realized I had to explain to my helpers that this figure needed to do more than just communicate whiteness, it would be used again in the future in different contexts and had to cover a wide range of meaning. It couldn\u2019t just convey color, it had to also convey cleanness and purity. This is because another important instance of the use of this figure of speech is in Isaiah 1:18 where it says \u201c\u2019Come now, and let us reason together,\u2019 Says the Lord, \u2018Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool\u2019.\u201d Somehow I didn\u2019t think we could translate this \u201cYour sins will be washed as white as pus\u201d and communicate what God was trying to say in that passage.<\/p>\n
In the end we landed (tentatively) on a type of really white clay or chalk that they occasionally use to whitewash the walls of their houses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Translation is a fascinating process. I can remember thinking it would be a relatively simple straightforward process but that was before I actually did it. When translating you are always running across interesting challenges as you try to get the meaning from one language to another. Here is one challenge we ran into a while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}