I have only read the Gospels in translation. Am I missing something?
Geoff wrote:Even still you can get some "nuggets" from reading the Greek that would be missed in almost any English translation.
edonnelly wrote:Well, of course [face=SPIonic]lo/goj[/face] translates as "word," but it was also the name of deity worshiped by some gnostic groups at the time. Some of them believed that the [face=SPIonic]lo/goj[/face] was a higher deity than the God who created the world, and, in fact, that God was created by this [face=SPIonic]lo/goj[/face]. So, in that context, it may have been that John was really addressing these groups, saying, "no, this God is the [face=SPIonic]lo/goj[/face], there is only this God..." I guess you can get this stuff from the footnotes, but I don't think it's the same.
ThomasGR wrote:By just reading the original texts one gets not wiser. I would say, on the contrary.
edonnelly wrote:If the translator misses a subtlety or doesn't include it in the footnotes, then that subtlety is gone forever for the future readers of the translation. To have all of these subtleties available to you would require a "perfect," not just a good translation, which, of course, is impossible.
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