Milestone Day

I love days like today (written Dec 30^th). Although the morning routine is the same - read in bed before getting up, eat a quick breakfast, say goodbye to the family and walk across the dust field to the translation office – yet there is a noticeable spring in my step. Why? Because today was a milestone day. After plugging away on team checking the book of Revelation for 4 weeks now, all that remained for this morning was the final seven verses, on two of which I had no exegetical questions to ask. And believe me, finishing Revelation would feel good, better than I would have initially expected. You see, Revelation is supposed to be a relatively easy book to translate. Its author, John, writes in the easiest Greek of all the NT authors and although the concepts and images may be quite troublesome for pastors and teachers to interpret, their concrete, visual nature is actually quite straightforward in translation. At least that is what I've been telling people for years – unfortunately, I've since eaten those words. While we certainly did enjoy the break from Paul's difficult, run-on sentences, Peter's complicated, abstract thoughts, and the deep theology of John's Gospel, we instead encountered more than a few problems in trying to describe things that simply are not present in Gmz life experience.

 

At times, we felt very much like John who was given the impossible task of describing visions of heaven using only earth-bound conventions of human language. It is for this reason that the word “like” occurs in the English translation of Revelation 66 times, and the word “as” another 44 times. A voice like a trumpet, someone like a son of man, hair white like wool, as white as snow, eyes like blazing fire, feet like bronze, voice like the roar of rushing waters….all that in the span of just a few verses of chapter 1! Thus 110 uses of comparative words used by John as he struggles to relate totally foreign images to that which is within the realm of his experience and that of his readers. So also, as with John, we found ourselves struggling for words, even at times when we felt we had grasped that which John was striving toward, we lacked the language to adequately capture the thought. And so, thankful for having 5 years of translation under our belts, we continued our tried-and-true method of talking through hypothetical scenarios, “following paths worn by long-eared cottontails” and “chasing non-domesticated water-fowl”, all toying with language to see if we might stumble onto  a new expression.

 

And that we did, at times… And so, with the challenges of Revelation fresh in my mind, I invite you into the translation office in the next series of blogs entitled “Beyond Words”.