by Sarah Ruden
I need, however, to reach out to those who will raise cogent objections to my more literalist word choices, among which are “the side with the blessed name” and “the better side,” euphemisms for the ill-omened left. It may be said that even if the historical basis of a word was clear to the ancients, they still would not have normally been conscious of that basis when using the word. I don’t, after all, picture myself physically standing under something when I say I understand it.
But I would argue that the ancients were far more self-conscious users of language than we are; wordplay (including play on etymologies and perceived etymologies) was far more common. Moreover, I think that estranging translation can be vitally informative. The ancients didn’t mean what we mean by “left” and “right”: for them—at least in literature—these weren’t directions to be used for getting around, but an important part of the fearsome inward map of the universe: a person might believe he was to live or die according to the side of the sky on which a bird appeared. If I merely wrote “left” and “right” in translating a monumental set of their religious documents, I would not be showing as close as possible an approximation of their thought.
Moreover, as I’ve described them above, the Gospels must have been strange, awkward documents to the Empire-wide mass of their early audience, most of whom had extensive Greco-Roman acculturation if not actual pagan backgrounds. They would not have blinked at a euphemism for “left”—but what about when it was part of two provincial young men’s request to sit on the right and left sides of a presiding, resurrected deity in heaven? Rather startling vocabulary in English is not just appropriate to give us a closer sense of the Gospels’ different world. It isn’t time alone that has made this world different, but also geography, ethnicity, language, politics, religion, and culture from the start. It is hard for me to imagine people—similar to any of the people I “know” from ancient literature and history—to whom the Gospels’ thought and atmosphere would not have been somewhat challenging.
With all this in mind, I have often turned to a word’s basic imagery as a defense against anachronism, obfuscation, and lethargy, which drain communications of their primordial electricity. Naturally it is hard—especially in such stark and peculiar texts as the Gospels—to know where a particular word, used a particular way, is in the course of its evolution; imagery never stops changing over time, it branches out, goes abstract, branches in its abstraction. But often I have felt compelled to make a bold choice.
Skip Notes
* In Genesis 6:1–5, a passage likely influenced by foreign mythology, “the sons of God” are male creatures who mate with “the daughters of men” to produce heroic warriors before Noah’s flood. But the verses apparently never disrupted Jewish monotheism.
A Discursive Glossary of Unfamiliar Word Choices in English
Adultery: I have sought a term to represent the horror that adultery (most of the time defined by the old gender double standard) provoked in the ancient world. Seducing another man’s wife was a grave threat to his whole dependent family, as well as a terrible humiliation for him. “Cheat” isn’t adequate, but it’s better than “commit adultery.” “Violate marriage” is my usual choice.
Amen: Meaning “truly,” this Hebrew-derived word in the Gospels does not conclude prayers, as in modern practice, but functions as Jesus’ own formulaic assurance of truth, separate from citations of alētheia, truth according to the Greek term. I have italicized and transliterated to amēn to emphasize the difference.
Angel: This English word comes from the ordinary Greek word for “messenger” or “announcer,” aggelos (pronounced “angelos,” with a hard g), which is used throughout Greek scripture, including in the Septuagint, for heavenly functionaries who mediate God’s will to mortals. I write “messenger” in all cases for this important word, to avoid confusion, even when these beings behave like guards or soldiers.
Apostle: The Greek text has apostolos, meaning an official agent or messenger. The word, sometimes used in the Septuagint for a messenger from God, was adopted in the Gospels and Epistles to describe a human agent of the Jesus movement. “Envoy” is my choice, as it seems broadest.
Appear: A single Greek verb means both “to be evident” and “to shine.” This makes sense when I think of the English “glaringly obvious”; and the thematic suitability to the Gospels is almost self-explanatory: light is both a sign of divine glory and a requirement for seeing anything. Slightly more complex translations than usual can cover these concepts where appropriate.
Beelzebub: See Devil.
Beget: In the important genealogy of Jesus at the beginning of Matthew, I forgo the old “beget” in favor of the verb “father.” The word imitated in Greek from the Hebrew Bible (through the Greek Septuagint as intermediary) means “cause to be born,” which is more or less the sense: the exercise of male authority in creating a child.
Beginning: This is a tricky term when it is archē, which can indicate “firstness” in the sense of authority and governing leadership. At the opening of John’s Gospel, for instance, the stately word “inauguration” (echoing similar connotations of a Hebrew word in Genesis 1) seems warranted.
Believe, Belief (see also Faith): The modern words as used in the popular media can be rather shallow, and have some connotations of magic. They also suggest mere belief in the existence of divinity, which had very little to do with the ancient experience of religion. There are passages in which a mere affirmation of divine reality seems to be sought, but elsewhere the word “trust” usually seems more appropriate.
Birth, give/Be Born: The relevant Greek verbs are complex, and one of them is ambiguous. Gennaō concentrates on the biology of birth. Tiktō shares with agriculture the idea of production and is concerned with obtaining heirs and prolonging a family, clan, nation, or whole chosen people. But ginomai means “be,” “become,” and “come into being,” including “be born,” an ambiguity sometimes wittily exploited.
Blessed: The English adjective “blessed” represents one Greek adjective, eulogētos (literally “well spoken of”), acceptably well (that is, no better option has appeared) but another, makarios (basically, “lucky,” “favored,” or “happy”), relatively poorly; contextualized choices, usually “happy,” have to serve there.
Bow down: Proskuneō is not a modern European bow from the waist but an ancient Near East–style grovel, with full prostration or huddling at or grasping the feet of the object of supplication. Likely a word for “kiss,” as part of the verb, comes from kissing feet or the ground, proskuneō is often translated as “worship,” but that does not always seem vivid enough. Translations can properly concentrate on the suppliant’s physical position.
Brother: This grammatically masculine word—especially in the plural—makes no necessary gender distinction. If it was important to class a sibling’s—or a metaphorical sibling’s—gender as female, a Greek Bible author used the feminine form of the word. But I avoid “siblings,” because it sounds clinical, and “brothers and sisters” because women in Judea did not normally have public voices or any overt public presence.
Carpenter: There is no reason to construe Joseph’s profession so specifically. Tektōn means simply “skilled workman”; I choose “builder” merely because of the likelihood that Jesus’ family were among local artisans employed in rebuilding the new city of Sepphoris, close to Nazareth.
Cause to Sin: See Stumbling Block.
Charity: Older English translations may use this word where the Greek indicates either “love” or “mercy gift” (pious Jews’ relief of the very poor). The connotations of “charity” in modern English tend to be either pejorative or institutional, so I don’t think the word serves well in a Gospels translation.
Child: My translation tries to distinguish among different Greek words for children when they are narratively or thematically important. A pa
is (variantly masculine or feminine) can be either a boy or a girl, but the word can also refer to a slave, apparently even an adult one. Paidion is the neuter diminutive of pais and means a child too young for its gender to be of immediate importance. Paidarion is a slangy diminutive, used in Greek comedy, which I render as “kid.” A third neuter word for child, teknon (“offspring”—but I don’t use this word where it sounds weird), is visibly related to a word for giving birth productively; this word often refers to the Jews, the children of Israel and sharers of the inherited covenant.
Christ: This is from the Greek word christos—which itself translates the Hebrew word that yields our “Messiah”—and means not so much “anointed” as “smeared”: the motion of rubbing on the precious holy oil of kingship is what jumps out of the original languages and texts. But “smeared” or “rubbed” are not dignified enough for the context, so “anointed” is my choice throughout.
Church: The term is used far more frequently in the Epistles than in the Gospels, but in either case the modern word is wildly inappropriate for the small groups of Jesus’ followers that met mainly in private homes starting a few years after his death. I write “assembly,” which is already widely accepted among biblical scholars.
Command (see also Obey): A number of Greek expressions have widely different tones and implications—from “instruct” to “warn” to “give a [military] order.” I have tried to represent both the contextual and lexicographical nuances.
Confess: The Greek verb is homologeō—literally, “I say something of the same kind”; the community of meanings covers interpersonal, forensic, and spiritual spheres and includes agreement, admission, assertion, praise, thanks, and promise. I try to cover this whole range appropriately, but sometimes the context is skimpy.
Covenant: This is from a Greek word (diathēkē) commonly used in the Septuagint for the formal bond between God and the Jewish people, but the common English translation of the word is problematic. “Covenant” suggests an equal accord between God and humankind, but diathēkē’s primary meaning was the legal disposition of an inheritance. (See Galatians 3:15–19 for this explicit analogy.) I hope my “dispensation” addresses this distinction.
Creation (see also World): Ktisis is, basically, authoritative founding and building, as of a colony. Through this word choice, the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible obviously responded to the building imagery in Genesis 1, where God sets a barrier between an upper and lower body of water in the universe and erects a vault in the sky. I indicate that God “founded and built” the world.
Cross, Crucify, Crucifixion: The cross was the perpendicular joining of two execution stakes, and the English word euphemistically emphasizes the geometry: a cross could also be an abstract cross drawn on paper. The Greeks used their word for “stake,” and this carried the imagery of what was done with it, as our “stake” carries images of burning and impaling. “Hang on the stakes” for “crucify” is my habitual usage.
Crowd: Every lexicon acknowledges that ochlos can be a “mob” as well as any other large gathering for any purpose. On the other hand, plēthos, which in Classical contexts is also friendly to the construction “mob,” can in the Septuagint mean the entire Jewish people, properly assembled. I try to make the correct distinctions, but often the context doesn’t provide enough details to guide me.
Curse (see also Swear): Standard Bibles render this way the verb kakologeō, which means literally “speak bad” and tends to be about ordinary interpersonal interactions, where something like the English “bad-mouth” or “insult” is more suitable. In the Greek scriptures, an actual curse refers to “offering up” or “praying over,” which suggest the pagan human sacrifices that monotheistic moralism had always opposed.
Demon: The daimones or personal gods of Greek folklore were a collaborative part of their hosts’ personality. Daimonion (the diminutive, which is far more common in the New Testament) is a word I usually translate in the traditional way as “demon,” but merely for lack of a better word. In traditional Jewish thought the daimones were part of the creation and natural history, not part of a realm of evil at war with God’s realm of goodness. Daimonia in the Gospels function like hunting animals that could turn into parasites, like a predatory pneuma or “spirit” (q.v.).
Devil: Our word comes ultimately from the Greek diabolos, which literally denotes “throwing in all directions.” I translate diabolos conservatively as “slanderer,” in line with the Greek lexicon. Diabolos can be an ancient translation for the Hebrew Bible’s Satan, who is named from the word for “opponent.” As a closely adapted name in the Gospels, this is satanas. A more obscure name, Beelzebub or Beelzebul (Be’elzeboul, as transliterated from the Greek in my translation), also occurs; that he is known as “Lord of the Flies” may be due to a denigrating Hebrew pun on the name of a certain baal, a Canaanite deity. Beelzebub is cited in the Gospels as if he were the same, or functionally the same, as Satan.
Disciple: This specialized term denoting a religious follower in modern English arose from the Latin discipulus, translating the Greek mathētēs: both mean “student” or “learner.” Granted, those terms had a loftier ring in antiquity, when education was a rarer privilege; but there appears to be no way to convey that loftier ring without also implying that the young men who followed Jesus around were in a wholly different category from people under anyone else’s tutelage.
Divorce: The Greek verbs literally denote “throwing away,” “letting go,” or “setting at a distance,” usually (though not exclusively) when a man does it. Retention of the original harsh images seems useful because of a man’s capacity to get rid of his dependent partner by means of a declaration in a single short document—a situation modern ideas of “divorce” do not cover.
Eternity: See Time.
Evangelize (see also Gospel): In translation of scripture, I would never use this word; the apparatus of “televangelism” alone has imposed all sorts of distracting and inappropriate images on it. The Greek word means “bring/spread good news,” so I follow that meaning.
Evil: The word commonly translated this way, ponēros, was not always used for destructive violence and implacable guile, but often for mere worthlessness, fecklessness, and nuisance; these may be the usual senses of the word for human beings, though contextual clues are not abundant. The real problem, however, is in the case of the devil (see above under that heading), who is also the “E/evil O/one” of standard English Bibles. I find “evil” too vague for a being who is interesting to these authors mainly for what he does, not for his nature, and I would sum these behaviors up as acts of malice; thus, for me, he is the “malicious one.” The whole assortment of parasitic spirits (see “spirit” below), however, seem to be understood in terms more of the trouble they cause than of their motivations.
Faith (see also Believe/Belief): This central concept is translated too narrowly in the Gospels. Imagine daring to bank at an institution called “Federal Faith.” “Trust” is usually the more appropriate translation of the noun pistis and of the verb derived from it, pisteuō, as these were powerful civic, economic, and social signifiers; they were not predominantly religious terms—not that religion could be called a separate realm in ancient societies. Our “trust” is a word that works especially well for the parent-child relationship, essential to the narrative and principles of the Gospels. A parent taking a child to the dentist and promising a reward afterward says “You have to trust me,” not “You have to believe in me” or “You have to have faith in me”; the latter two are more like a child’s special pleading. Occasionally, as for example when Jesus is insisting on the acceptance of specific statements as facts, “belief” may work better. Also, “faithfulness” has a special force in the Gospels as part of the metaphor of the Jewish covenant as marriage.
Flesh (see also Lust): We tend to associate this English word with sex, but th
e Greek original, sarx, functions quite differently in the Gospels. Death, not the body’s natural desires, is the great disadvantage of mere physicality. The Jews of the Second Temple had inherited no puritanical kind of notion that the body in itself was evil, the enemy of a disembodied “soul.” “Mere physical being” seems a good translation for a start.
Forgive: This preponderantly religious term is inadequate to render the Greek verb afiēmi, “throw away” or “let go” or “leave behind.” (A synonym is apoluō, “let loose”). This verb is used both specifically for the remission of monetary debts and generally as in Mark 11:25, the command to let go “anything you have against anyone” while praying. The “letting go” is of control—whether material, emotional, intellectual, or moral—over other persons, in favor of trust in God’s justice and providence. I find “pardon” and “absolve” often to be handy terms here, because their meanings are similar between the Bible and familiar modern legal contexts. Another way to say “forgive” is charizomai, “to be gracious” or “to do a favor”: this naturally tends to be about the treatment of the weak by the strong, and it can be used of God’s forgiveness as an example for mortals to follow.
Fornication: This word’s source is the Latin for “brothel.” The Greek word used in the Gospels, porneia, originally meant only “prostitution.” Porneia was a particularly ugly word in connection to late-antique Judaism, which probably did not countenance any kind of commercial or extramarital sex. “Whoring” is not an outrageous translation, and it is backed up by the Hebrew verb commonly translated as “play the whore” and used for women’s unchaste behavior in the text of the Torah law.
Fruit: It has been a long time since this English word ceased to mean the noun “produce” or “harvest” in any general sense. The Greek word, karpos, can mean the edible fruit of a tree or ripe grain, but it is cognate with one verb for “harvest” and is often used in the context of harvesting work, so the broader meaning predominates.