"Becoming" and "Happening"

The concept of “becoming” describes how conditions or things are changing rather than staying the same. This Greek word is often mistranslated in the Bible, appearing as other common verbs such as “to be,” “to be done,” and even “to be fulfilled.”

”To become” is from the Greek word, ginomai (γίγνομαι), which means to enter into a new state. When applied to events, it means "to happen," "to occur," or "take place." In Greek, especially as used by Jesus, “becoming” is the opposite of "being," that is, existence in a stable state. It is also the opposite of “to do” when referring to things, because it has a passive sense, “to be made,” while “to do” means “to make” actively.

Translators, starting with the KJV, don’t like this concept of change. They don’t like it when the forces that cause the change aren’t clear. They especially don’t like things transforming by their nature or events happening by themselves. They erase the idea of becoming, replacing it with being or doing. This problem is occasionally fixed in more modern translations, but not frequently.

A Common Verb

The Greek verb, ginomai, is frequently used by Jesus. He uses it in about a hundred and seventeen verses. It is the ninth most common verb in his words. However, we would never know this from Biblical translation. In translation,, this verb is more commonly translated in the KJV as “to be” (255 times). It is also translated frequently as “be done” sixty-three times. It is only translated as “become” forty-three times. From this sampling of the NT, it is fair to assume that the verb is also mistranslated most of the time in Jesus’s words. Correctly translating this word affects a great deal of what we think Jesus said.

This is not to say that the Bible is always wrongly translated when it comes to this word. When used to describe events, ginomai means “to happen.” This often gets translated in the Bible as “come to pass” (82 times). Even though the language is stilted, “come to pass” has a similar meaning.

Being Done

One form of this verb, the passive third-person imperative, it usually translated as “be done.” This captures the passive sense of the verb, but it confuses ginomai with, poieo, the verb usually translated as “to do.” Let us look at a couple of examples. We can begin with the Lord’s Prayer, in Matthew 6:10.

NIV: …your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Listeners Heard: …It must be made to happen, this will of yours, as in sky also on earth.

Translators want this verse to be a promise from us to do the will of the Divine, but Jesus said that this is made to happen through the will of the Divine. Divine will is brought into being, not by itself, but assumable by the Divine, not us.

We also see a more standard form of a third-person command when Jesus speaks to the Centurion with the sick child in Matthew 8:13:

NIV: Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.
Listeners Heard: Depart. When you trust, it must be made to happen for you.

Jesus often attributes healing to their people’s trust rather than his own power. The translators want it to appear more as something Jesus is doing, not something that is being made to happen by trust, which is how Jesus phrased it. This is, again, a passive, third-person command. It, however, follows the frequent formula of translating a third-person command, a verb form we don’t have in English, adding a preceding “let it” before the verb. This turns a third-person command into a second-person command. I prefer adding a preceding “it must” to preserve the third-person aspect of the verb.

We see this form again after Jesus asks two blind men if they think he can cure them. When they say, yes, Jesus answers in Matthew 9:29:

NIV: According to your faith let it be done to you.
Listeners Heard: Corresponding with that trust of yours, it must be made to happen for you.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t deny his power, but that he directs their attention to another cause.

“Becoming” Rather Than “Being”

When Jesus uses the middle voice, describing something that happens or comes into being by itself, translators prefer using the verb “to be.” Of course, ignoring the middle voice is a problem throughout Jesus’s words as we explained in the previous article. They want Jesus to sound like he is predicting the future rather than describing a change that takes place. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, after Jesus tells his audience to love, or more accurately, “care for” their enemies, he gives the reason in Matthew 5:45:

NIV: that you may be children of your Father in heaven…
Listeners Heard: So that you might become by yourselves children of the Father of yours, the one in skies.

The sense of becoming is what is important here, what we make of ourselves, not what we may be in the future.

Another example of this is found in Mark 10:43 when Jesus lectures James and John about the hierarchy in his realm. This is interesting because there are two “to be” verbs in the sentence along with the “to become” verb. This is also an example of where the new translations fix the KJV because the concept of “become” works so much more clearly here.

KJV: But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
NIV: Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,
Listeners Heard: Not in this way, however, is it among you, but who, if he wants to become by himself great among you, he will be a servant of yours.

Notice that the NIV fixes the “become” but ignores the middle voice. They consistently deny people their agency it what happens to them, even though this is a major theme of Jesus.

Many verses referencing the idea of “becoming” offer difficult concepts. They often use words that Jesus uses infrequently. Ignoring the idea of “becoming” simplifies them, but it doesn’t get us much closer to understanding what Jesus was really saying. An example that illustrates why we should be interested in the idea of “becoming: is Matthew 11:26:

KJV: Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.
NIV: Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
Listeners Heard: Yes, this Father. Because, in this way, contentment comes into being by itself before you.

Here, the idea of “becoming” is erased so thoroughly, that it is difficult to see the connections between the English and the Greek source. The noun I translated as “contentment” is also erased in translation, replaced in the KJV with the adjective “good” and the verb “pleased.” The noun is uncommon so it is hard to translated, but it is a noun, not an adjective or verb. The idea of contentment “coming into being by itself” before the Divine is a difficult concept, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t translate Jesus’s words as accurately as we can so that our minds can work on it.

Conclusions

There are many ways in which the idea of “becoming” is important in Jesus’s teaching. I see Jesus’s basic philosophy as transformative starting with his echoing the call of John the Dunker, “Change your minds!,” which is mistranslated as “Repent.” Translators want Jesus to be all about faith and promises of reward based upon faith, but Jesus focuses more on the transformative power of trust.