Lost In Translation: John 10:10-11

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Easter Special because He Has Risen
and you all should read all of this.
Only $15 for 1 year paid subscription.
Good only until April/28/2024

The key word in John 10:10 is translated correctly as "thief. The word means a crook of any sort, but I suspect he used it for its more metaphorical meaning of a "fraud" and a "faker." We know that he was called a fraud by his critics at the time. In this verse, the two meanings of the word come together so he can start a story that is seemingly unrelated to him.  

John 10:10

I include two versions here because the NIV is missing a key element.

KJV: The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
NIV: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Most English translations, including both of these, leave out two key words in the middle of the first sentence: the conjunction "except" and the adverb "in order to." These join the two parts of this sentence. The first clause describes what happens or what doesn’t happen. The second clause describes the motivation of the thief-fraud, "except in order" to "steal and to kill, and to destroy." The thief doesn’t show up without that motivation.

We can tell that this "steal and to kill, and to destroy" is a motivation, that is, the basis of a decision, because the missing “except” that precedes it is two Greek words meaning “if not.” This “not” describes a want not an action. So what the thief does not do is make a decision to come when there is no opportunity to commit a crime.

This is clearer in a more literal translation:

Listeners Heard: The thief does not show up if not wanting to cheat and to slay and to destroy. I myself show up in order that they might have a life and have an extraordinary one.

Notice this first sentence consists of two negative statements: one of what he doesn’t do, “show up” and the other what the one not showing up doesn’t want to do. Why does Jesus say this in such a convoluted manner? Because he wanted to make it feel negative and bad. He could have said it in Greek as simply as the NIV translation if he’d wanted to, but he chose not to. By “simplifying” his translation here, translators are simply ignoring his purpose.

The “myself” in my version translated the personal pronoun Jesus uses to emphasize “I.” The "in order that" is used here to describes Jesus's motivation. So, Jesus is like the thief in that he has motivations.

The word translated as "life" is both narrower and broader than our word. It means "a living" in the sense of a job that pays enough to live, a ”livelihood,” but it also means an "existence" in the sense of our being in the world. Jesus's listeners may have heard this in the more practical sense of "a more abundant livelihood" rather than the sense of a more complete existence, but Jesus could have meant it in both ways.  This is NOT the word translated as “life” in the next verse.

John 10:11

While this next verse might not be Jesus’s most popular, it is certainly his most illustrated one. Pictures of Jesus walking with a lamb, which is actually from the parable of the lost sheep, are used to illustrate it.

NIV: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

This verse is clever wordplay with two of its meanings as near opposites. These different meanings come from the last sentence, which uses three words, "lay down," "life," and "for," with multiple meanings that work here.

The noun translated as "life" is not the “life” used in the previous verse. This word is most often translated as "soul" in the Bible, but its primary meaning, as Jesus uses it, is the conscious "self." See this article for detail about this word. However, this doesn’t change the meaning much.