It’s crazy how easily things get lost in translation. Every little mistake in the translating process has a multitude of repercussions, whether they are easily seen or not.
The first thing that jumps to my head when I think of such things is the recent misinterpreting of one of my email addresses. I like using big words, silly words, if you will, and so I chose a bunch of Latin to be the email address here.
Now what typically happens here is someone takes a look at it, tries to pronounce it for about half the address, then gives up and makes up something. However, one of my siblings didn’t even bother trying to guess what the words meant. Thus, the new nickname for my email: Suspicious Scrumptious. Is this even close to the original? Not really. It shares the first letter. That’s about it.
However, this has stuck, and so whenever I’m trying to get a family member to email that address something, it’s to “Suspicious Scrumptious”.
This is just one example of the many things that get misread, misquoted, or mistyped in life. It happens so easily.
It does make me wonder how much we have lost when it comes to translating the Bible. Sure there were old Hebrew sayings we don’t have anymore, or words that are hard to translate.
But it is remarkable how many of the translation of scripture dating way back remain the same as the copies we have now. As far as ancient text goes, the Bible stands out as remaining the same.
And even though there are things that perhaps don’t translate well or at all from the ancient text to now, I don’t think this necessarily means we should become scholars of Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Is it helpful? Absolutely. Are there people who have done years of research and study on such things? Also true.
The world today is FULL of resources. We have the web at our fingertips most of the time. I’m sure there are hundreds of scholars specializing in ancient scriptures and translates. With a little bit of research, we can uncover some of the things lost in translation.
