Taking Jesus's Words Literally

Does being a Christian mean we can change what Jesus said to conform to our beliefs?

In their essays in Translating Truth, The Case for Essentially Literal Biblical Translation, the authors, C. John Collins, Wayne Gruden, Verb Sheridan Poythress, Leland Ryken, and Bruce Winter make a number of good arguments for a “word-for-word” translation of the Bible into English.   I will not repeat their arguments and evidence here, but I will make the case that an even more extreme standard should be used for translating Jesus's words. We should go beyond a "word-for-word" essentially literal translation, to a "word-by-word" extremely literal translation.

My argument is simple. Christians claim to trust that Jesus was divine. I trust his words so I believe that he knew where he came from and where he was going. This means that he wasn't only speaking for the people of his time, but for all time and that he chose his words that carefully. He could not control how people would translate or interpret his words because that would violate human free will, but he could choose his words with divine cleverness that would, in the end, thwart those wishing to twist his words to their own purposes. The words he choose had one meaning for the people of his time, but those exact same words were chosen to reveal newer, deeper meanings over time.

Jesus word are essentially different than all other words in the Bible. Yes, everything in the Bible is the word of God, inspire by the Holy Spirit, but, except for the words of Jesus, those words are "filtered" through flawed human beings. If, as Translating Truth argues, preserving each word of all the authors in the Bible in translation is important, then preserving the exact words of Jesus is even more important. Offering a "dynamic translation" that assumes to translate "thought-by-thought" instead of "word-for-word," is near sacrilege. The translators would have to assume that they know the thoughts of the Divine to do such a translation. We have access to the literal words of the son of God, not the Divine thought, which we should be wise enough to admit is beyond our understanding.

Truth Hidden in the Words

Let me start with a simple example of how new meanings can emerge from Jesus's words using a Greek word that was the topic of a recent post. In Matthew 10:38 And he who takes not his cross, the people hearing him could not have heard the word "cross" as we hear it today. The context would not have lead them to think that he was talking about Roman execution. The word he used, the word that is translated as "cross" throughout the New Testament is stauros. It means "a stake," light a tent stake, a holding up a building, or the stake in a fence marking a boundary. The phrase words like our phrase "pulling up stakes," which means giving up one place and moving to another. The people that Jesus was speaking to could hear this no other way. 

However, we hear this phrase very differently today because Jesus dies on a "stake." Jesus took up and carried his stake to his execution. This fact, which Jesus knew and his audience did not, changes the meaning of this phrase for those hearing it after his death. Jesus meant for its meaning to change. Jesus's death gave rise to a whole generation of martyrs who literally accepted their death, in many cases by being staked up as Jesus was.

However, in later generations the phase took on a new meaning and more general meaning. The concept became generalized through the study of the Bible so that it was recognized that was all have "our crosses" to bear. The "cross" became the symbol for the universality of human suffering and death. Jesus words changed again to mean that we all must take up our suffering and follow his example in bearing our burdens bravely and nobly.

If we examine Jesus's words closely today, other new ideas emerge, but Christianity no longer does that. Christian clerics and academics focus only on reinforcing Christian doctrine. Case in point, the pastor at the church my wife and I attend spent his sermon this week trying to explain away Jesus saying in the Lord’s Prayer that the kingdom of heaven “coming” as opposed to here now. Never did he deal with what Jesus said literally, nor how he said it, or all the things it could potentially mean. Instead, his focus was totally on Christian doctrine. This was not only boring and predictable, but as an argument is was simply wrong: not conforming to the evidence of Christ’s words.

What might we discover if Christianity was open to new ideas? Because my background is computers and information science, I personally see much of Jesus's teaching foreshadows modern information theory.  This perspective was virtually impossible in early generations because they didn't have computer and communication technology on which it is based. However, at least for me, thinking about such ideas is a lot more interesting that quoting the party line, as it is.

The Exactingly Literal Word-By-Word Translation

Since I focus on the study of Jesus's words, I am conscious that I am translating the Divine words. I never presume to know the thoughts of God and refuse to put words into Jesus’s mouth, even in my work in fiction.  Am I the only person focusing on Jesus's words and seeing them as special and unique, really? We claim to follow Christ, but in the books I read about Biblical translation, I have yet to read one that focuses on the unique aspects of Jesus words.

I have come over the years to believe in a more exacting standard for translation is required for Jesus. My start is not the "essentially literal" word-for-word translation but a word-by-word translation. Translators should try to preserve the original word order as well as each word. Of course, it is this word order that reveal much of Jesus's word play and humor since Jesus often ends his statements with the key word as a punchline.

However, an exacting literal translation must go beyond word order. It must also preserve the original word forms. As much as possible it must try to preserve not only what Jesus said, but how he said it. If he used participles instead of active verbs, translation should use a participle. Translations should to avoid replacing adjectives with nouns if the English adjective can work, like the Greek adjective does, as a noun.  Most importantly, translation should preserve the singulars and plural that Jesus uses. When the word is "skies" in plural, translators should translate it that way not as the singular "heaven," a concept that had no meaning in Jesus’s time.  

Translators should also avoid adding words except when absolutely necessary to capture the meaning of what was said. This is often necessary to capture words like the subject Geek negative or the middle voice and third-person imperative of Greek verbs. Biblical translations, even those that describe themselves as "essentially literal" do this commonly in their attempt to "explain" what Jesus means. For example, they love to add "Holy" to "Spirit" when Jesus just says "spirit." For me, it is more acceptable to translate “spirit" as "breath of life" because that idea is closer to the literal meaning of pneuma, the word most commonly translated as "spirit." Sometimes Jesus is using this sense of "breath" as part of his word play so leaving it out misses the point.

Translators should try to avoid as translate the same Greek word as many different English words and the use many different Greek words as the same English word. My ideal is to translated each Greek word so consistent that when we see an English word "life" you know that the translators are translating the Greek word zoe. There are perhaps a half dozen Greek words that Biblical translators might translate into life, depending on what they want Jesus to mean, but all these words have different meanings. We have no shortage of English words to capture the differences among them. Sometime the context can change a word’s meaning in Greek that doesn’t work in English, but translating a Greek word as different English words should be the exception not the rule.

If Jesus used uncommon Greek words, translators should try to use uncommon English words. On the few occasions when he purposefully makes a rhyme, perhaps capturing that rhyme is vital to preserving the feeling for what he was saying, even if words have to be added. Making the rhyme work is a more "special" characteristic of the text that should be captured in translation.

Conclusion

Unlike most Biblical translators, my goal is to learn as much as I can from Jesus’s words, and not sell my particular view of his teaching to others. I mostly reject the idea that the clergy of any church speak for Jesus. Jesus speaks for himself. Most preachers prefer Paul because his message was much more church-oriented than Jesus's teaching was. Paul was also more serious and took himself more seriously. Jesus didn't have to take himself seriously. He knew where he came from and where he was going.