Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Original Meaning Version

It ticks me off that I repeatedly find myself using the ESV in Logos (I've successfully refused to buy a hard copy thus far) when I want to scan the original very quickly as transparently as possible. It's still slower for me to scan Greek quickly than English. I'd love it if there were an Original Meaning Version (OMV) that had no intention of being relevant or communicating the message to today but whose sole purpose was to translate the original meaning in all its--it wasn't written to you-ness. There is a place for that, despite its secondary importance for Christians.

Really fun (but less helpful for looking into the original) would be a dynamic equivalence original meaning translation whose purpose was to communicate in free flowing language all the original connotations.

So here's the Old Living Translation (OLT) of 1 Timothy 2:12-15:

"I do not allow a wife to teach or dominate a husband because following the authority inherent in birth order, Adam was the firstborn God created and Eve like a younger sibling. And Eve demonstrated in the Garden that women are more easily deceived than men, and she brought all women into a state of sinfulness at that time. Yet the stain of Eve's sin is removed when a woman becomes a wife and gives birth to children, conditional upon her remaining in right relationship to her husband and maintaining honor in the family through her faithfulness, her love of her husband, her purity in relation to God, and her continued demonstration of self-control."

4 comments:

Bob MacDonald said...

My reaction to that quote is a sort of 'bully for Paul' or whoever wrote it. What really bothers me is the new law that has been created out of such words. Such a contradictory person has to be read with care. What it shows is that God can redeem even the worst of us. But we are not supposed to be lemmings.

So what is the 'meaning'? Is it in the words or in the reactions - my rejection of this as a good idea, or the mindless assumption of men that women are subordinate.

Marc said...

The literal approach really helped me come to terms with Rom 3:20. We are told it means "No one is justified by works of the law" but what it apparently says is "through works of the law [is] not justified all flesh" which I take to mean "Not all people are justified by works of the law".

This makes perfect sense. It affirms that the Israelites were justified by adhering to Torah and the Gentiles by adhering to the moral law written on their hearts. Rational and Biblical.

Anonymous said...

Since you are a top shelf scholar, why don't you compose the "Authorized Schenck Version." It would bring you fame, wealth & academic prestige, plus the satisfaction that believers all over the world are using a real translation far superior to any that have been done before:o)

Ken Schenck said...

I'm sure it would sell like wildfire, just like my other books :-)