I'm continuing to translate Matthew's gospel back into English (see my previous posting on what a backtranslation is). I came to Matthew 6 where at the beginning where Jesus in the middle of the sermon on the mount makes reference to the hypocrites in the synagogues. Gumawana does not have a word for hypocrite. At first we translated it as topola 'one-who-lies' or 'liar'. But as I was rereading it, I found that it just didn't sound right. Was Jesus saying they were liars? Lie is more of a verbal idea, but in Matthew 6 Jesus is referring to people who act one way to impress but the heart is not right.

So as always, I had to go back and rethink how we had translated this word every time it occurred in Matthew (as well as Luke and John!). Some believe that the word hypocrite does not have a Greek background which is where our English word comes from. Rather, it is believed to have a Hebrew background. The word in the Old Testament seems to refer to a godless person. It is suggested that 'lawless', 'corrupt' or 'unrighteousness person' are better translations of the word. There is a mismatch between the outward appearance and what is in the heart.

So Gumawana topola 'liar' will not work. Instead we can say todedevina polapola 'one-who-is-good false' which will mean something like 'a false good person.' The idea that hopefully comes across is that this would refer to a person who acts as a good person towards others but inside he is not; he is godless.

So the editing continues. I keep learning new things everytime I work on the translation. It's amazing how when you look at things through another language it requires you to think outside the box.

Have you ever noticed in your Bibles, especially the more literal translations, the word "Behold"? Have you ever wondered what that word is doing there? It sounds so foreign to English, so much so we could say it is biblical English, that is, it's only found in the Bible and not in every day speech. But the Greek word that translates it, idou (ee-do), is important. The problem is that the word has either been translated literally into our English Bibles or not translated at all. Both options are not really translation. What we need to do is look at the function of the word.

To do that I need you to recall a story written many years ago entitled "The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever." Did you ever read that story? In it a family who had never been to church finally come. The kids are motivated to come because they believe food is to be had. there These kids are absolutely wild. They end up in the Church's Christmas pageant and one of them plays Mary. None of these kids had ever heard the Christmas story before so they were quite enthralled with it the first time they did. They asked a lot of questions as it was being told to them. The story comes to the point of an angel speaking to Joseph and he says "Behold the virgin shall be with child." The girl who was to play Mary doesn't understand what this means so she asks what "behold" is. After listening to the answer she says something like, "You mean shazam.". Remember that from the comic books you read as a kid? When something surprising or unusual happened in the story there would be a "shazam". Gomer Pyle used to say it at something surprising too. My point is that shazam functions very much like "behold" in Greek. Whenever something surprising happens or an important character comes onto the scene, "behold" is used to mark this. The other place it is used is in quotes. The speaker is saying to the listener "listen up to what I'm about to say; it is important."

Unfortunately, those translations which make no effort to translate the word lose some of the umph in the translation. Those that translate it literally leave the reader puzzled as the girl above was. I don't think I have ever seen any English translation that tried to capture the function of the word.

Other ways to translate it that might be more meaningful would be "pay attention to what I'm going to say" when someone is speaking. What about the other places it occurs like "behold an angel of the Lord appeared"? How might we render that in better English so as to convey the function of "behold"? Look in your Bible for other examples and post your comments.

Right now I'm working on the back-translation of the gospel of Matthew. Some people may not know what a back-translation is so let me explain. When we finish a draft of a book like Matthew. I will go through edit it, put in section headings and references. When that is done I test it out with people in the village to see if it is clear, accurate, and sounds like the way they speak. When that is finished then I translate the book from Gumawana back into English making it as literal as possible. This copy will be given to a translation consultant who will check the book against the Greek. He will look for things I have omitted, things I have inserted which may be a problem, places where he thinks a native speaker might get the wrong meaning or no meaning at all when it is read. This is our quality control.
Now you know what a back-translation is. The other name we use is VE for vernacular to English translation.