Lost in Translation

I finished an excellent book today: Listening to the Language of the Bible: Hearing It Through Jesus’ Ears. Authors Lois Tverberg and Bruce Okkema explain idioms and assumptions that were current in Jesus’ time in order for us to catch the richness of Jesus’ expressions. The book ends by looking at a phrase that has always mystified me. In fact the widely differing translations of this statement of Jesus show that the translators were struggling to capture the most likely meaning of a rich phrase. Hebrew has a relatively small vocabulary, so many words do double and triple duty.

Jesus is telling people what is happening due to John the Baptist’s preaching. He says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (Matthew 11:12, RSV). I wondered how heaven could suffer, and why violent men could take it. But the NIV reads, “…the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” This makes the kingdom sound more secure, but it is still at the mercy of forceful men. I knew I was missing something.

If one were to scrutinize this text, the choice of translation would make a huge difference to his or her conclusion and application. Tverberg suggests a much better way to read it. She explains that “poretz” means “to break forth” and Jesus seems to be alluding to Micah 2:12-13 which says that “One who opens the way (haporetz) will go up before them; they will break through (poretz) the gate and go out. The king will pass before them, the Lord at their head.” The people knew that the “one who breaks open the way” was the messenger who would cause people to repent and be ready. Then the sheep would explode out to follow the Shepherd King; a messianic allusion.

This made sense to the people who knew how shepherds would gather their sheep into a cave and build a small stone wall to keep them in. In the morning when the sheep were hungry, a man would roll away some of the stones (forcefully break the wall) and the sheep would stampede out (forcefully exit) to start grazing. What a joyous picture of the breaking forth of the gospel and of the people’s eager pursuit of it!

If this much can be lost in translating from Hebrew to English, how much more might be lost in translating God’s sentiments into an earthly language. The prophets received impressions and convictions and had to stuff them down into our language whose vocabulary must appear infinitesimal compared to the language of heaven. How much gets lost even in that first translation.

I say all this to make a case for letting some troubling passages stand. In time we may find better ways to understand them. How many times do we run down dark paths by over-analyzing a partially-understood expression?