Featured Words Hard to Translate

In a Buddhist country or other places with a belief in reincarnation, the translator must be careful not to use the religious word. Other than that we had no trouble with "born again" in Japanese.

 

The Japanese 成人の日 is not quite the same concept as the Greek υἱοθεσία. The Japanese "Coming of Age Day" does not bestow any rights on the young person, but is only a day to congratulate them on turning twenty that year. On the other hand, the word we used in our Japanese NT does indicate the bestowing of the right of being an heir. Please see Post #94.

 

You're lecturing me on Japanese language and customs? What are your qualifications for that? Or is that your Gnostic thingy again? I was a missionary there 33 years, you know. Just sayin'.

 

The term for "only begotten" has been controversial. It is the Greek word monogenes (μονογενής), as is well known. Modern English translations render with "only" or "unique" or something similar. If I had to, I would go with "unique"; I feel "only" is too weak. Jesus is uniquely the "only begotten" because He is the only Son of God who was physically born. We are sons of God also, but our birth as children of God is spiritual, not physical.

There was quite the furor when the RSV came out in 1952 with simply "only" for monogenes. That was the first version to be translated by liberals, and the immediate charge was that "only son" was a liberal rendering. However, in recent years some scholars have claimed that "only" is okay, based on the NT usage, and that the etymology of the word is not mono=only and genes=begotten. I won't try to set forth all the arguments here, but I'll just say we went traditional in our Japanese NT.

 

Oh, wow, I got a good laugh out of that one. You do have a way with words. Thanks for the humor.

 

On the Greek word translated "adoption" in the KJV, huiothesia (υἱοθεσἰα):

"The term is used only for placing in sonship towards God and occurs only in Paul (including Eph.). The choice of the word shows already that the sonship is not regarded as a natural one but as a sonship conferred by God's act" (Theological Dictionary of the NT, vol. VIII, p. 399, by Gerhard Kittel & Gerhard Friedrich, trans. by Bromiley).

"adoption (of children),. lit. a legal t.t. [technical term--JoJ]; in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense" (BAGD; A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT..., p. 833).

Many other sources could be given. Thus, our choice in Japanese, 養子, is therefore a very close match.

 

Sorry about this, folks, I just couldn't resist a little bit of baiting. Mea culpa.

 

Depends on the target language.

 

I don't want BDAG. It is a little PC, from what I've been told.