2 Corinthians

I am working on 2 Corinthians now. It is one of the most difficult books I have translated so far. People often ask me what is the most difficult book to translate. Most think that Revelation is the most difficult. But I always tell them that we found the book to be fairly easy. The reason is that there is a great deal of imagery in the book which no one knows for certain what it means. We were able to translate it literally, but meaningfully in a very short time.

Many translators begin with the gospel of Mark. This is due to Mark being the shortest gospel and not having as much Jewish imagery in it. Gospels tend to be easier to translate because they have many stories or narratives within them. Narrative tends to be easier to translate than the letters of the NT because the latter have a great deal of teaching.

We began with Mark as well but we moved to Old Testament narrative (Genesis and Exodus) because the men in the village kept wanting to translate literally word by word from a local trade language that had the NT completed. This made for awkward Gumawana. Although this slowed us down on the NT translation, I believe it was a good move. It forced the men to begin to think more about their own language and how to state things. Furthermore, it gave them a good understanding of the Law of Moses and the beginning of so many aspects of life. Having these books translated made translating Galatians much easier. They understood what Paul was talking about in that letter because they understood about the Law and its purpose.

So what makes 2 Corinthians so hard or any other book for that matter? Everything! Let me give you some examples of what I go through to get a rough draft that the men in the village can then use to work through.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3 Paul writes "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort." If you know another language, try putting that verse over into it meaningfully. Or at least think about the problems you might encounter.

Here is what I encountered. First the word "blessed" is not found in Gumawana. The Greek word can mean "praise" or "thanksgiving". So right off I have to decide if Paul is thanking God or praising him - two different words in Gumawana as in English.

Second, to say the "God of our Lord Jesus Christ" is rather problematic for Gumawana. If we say it that way, it means that he is the God of Jesus but not us. In Gumawana, if we say "his" it means it belongs to him and him alone. So the question is why does Paul state it that way? Not many helps discuss this - well actually I didn't find any that discussed this question.

Then comes "the Father of mercies." First I have to determine what the phrase means. But the idea of "the Father" is not possible without saying whose father. There is no generic word "father" in Gumawana so that every time it occurs in the New Testament we have to indicate whose father. Mercy is an easy one to do in Gumawana. They have that word and we can put it with 'his father' as an adjective which then means 'he is a merciful father.'

When we come to the phrase "God of all comfort", it becomes a bit of a problem because I have not found a good word for comfort or encourage. We have to say something more like "God closes our livers greatly." Sounds strange to English ears, but the idiom has the idea of boosting a person up. It still needs to be checked.

That is just a small part of what goes into translating. Most of 2 Corinthians is similar. Every verse has multiple problems of not only discovering the meaning Paul intended, but then the more difficult task of making sure the same meaning comes across in Gumawana.