{"id":1541,"date":"2021-06-14T14:40:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T19:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/?p=1541"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:13:43","slug":"when-relative-clauses-impact-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/2021\/06\/14\/when-relative-clauses-impact-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"When relative clauses impact theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-rounded\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"503\" class=\"wp-image-1545\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-600x503.jpg\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-600x503.jpg 600w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-768x644.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-1536x1289.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-2048x1718.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-125x105.jpg 125w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-250x210.jpg 250w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-302x253.jpg 302w, https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2021\/06\/20210610_152123-2-1-1920x1611.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dog, who has a red collar, just tried to bite me!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dog who has a red collar just tried to bite me!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can you tell the difference between those sentences? In each one, how many dogs are on the scene in your mind&#8217;s eye? According to &#8220;correct&#8221; English grammar, I believe that in the first one there should only be one dog in your mind&#8217;s eye, and in the second there should be several. Is that how it worked for you? (It&#8217;s almost like magic, isn&#8217;t it?)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, those parts of the sentence that start with &#8220;who,&#8221; are called relative clauses. &#8220;Who has a red collar&#8221; = relative clause. And, as we just saw above, there are two types in English: (1) those that just describe something or someone and (2) those that help distinguish something or someone from others. Are you following so far?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the discourse analysis workshop I attended\/helped with the last few weeks, one of the things that was taught was that these relative clauses, if you aren&#8217;t careful with them, can cause a Bible translation to unknowingly be heretical! Yikes!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You see, in most of the languages around here, only the second type of relative clause exists. That means that whether you have the commas or not, whenever you have a &#8220;who,&#8221; it is used to distinguish that person or thing from others. Let me give you an example, though I&#8217;ll take out all the commas so that the English doesn&#8217;t confuse us:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>If I said, &#8220;My mom who has a red dress is pretty,&#8221; it would be the second type of relative clause, meaning that of all of my moms, the one who has a red dress is pretty. You couldn&#8217;t make it say anything else, even if you tried adding the commas or something. Wow! Now, here where polygamy is common, they&#8217;d see nothing wrong with that &#8211; your dad&#8217;s wife who has a red dress is obviously the one that you think is the prettiest of all of his wives!<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can you see how that could get heretical very fast? Imagine the following sentence:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>Joseph took his wife, who was pregnant, and went to Bethlehem.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you translated that directly into most any of the languages around here, they&#8217;d hear: Joseph has multiple wives. He took the pregnant one with him to Bethlehem. Oops! I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s what you would have meant to say!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or it gets even worse:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\r\n<li>God, who is good, made the whole world.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can you see where this is going? If you translated this with a &#8220;who&#8221; like that into most any of the languages around here, they&#8217;d automatically hear the following and you couldn&#8217;t use commas to &#8220;fix&#8221; it: There are multiple gods. But the one God who is good, He&#8217;s the one who made the whole world. Wow, that&#8217;s really bad heresy! And the scary part is that it looks good on the outside, so those who wouldn&#8217;t know to look for it wouldn&#8217;t realize that the translation was teaching heresy instead of good theology.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Can you see why training is important for Bible translation? And why it&#8217;s really helpful to have translation consultants who can know some of these kinds of things and be on the lookout for them? Take a minute to pray for translation teams and consultants around the world, that they&#8217;d be able to make their translations accurate, natural, and clear.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dog, who has a red collar, just tried to bite me! The dog who has a red collar just tried to bite me! Can you tell the difference between those sentences? In each one, how many dogs are on the scene in your mind&#8217;s eye? According to &#8220;correct&#8221; English grammar, I believe that in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}