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.