By Eric Martin
Christianity is a global religion, celebrated in nearly every country and in every language on Earth, with a history going back some 2000 years: and though we are all familiar with the verses and chapters of the Bible in English, it is easy to forget that the original writings of the Sacred Scriptures were recorded in ancient languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and ancient Greek.
Gone are the days of mandatory Greek and Latin for university students and others claiming to be educated, with the Trivium and Quadrivium consigned to the textbooks, alongside the languages in which they were written.
Most of our English translations of the Bible are reliable interpretations of the original Hebrew or Greek, worked on by large teams of qualified translators.
However, in any translation, not everything that was communicated in the original language can be precisely conveyed in another, and as a result: a translation is rarely a perfect version of the original.
On Monday 16 September, theologian and lecturer at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, Dr Peter Christofides, unpacked the meaning of the Greek translation of key phrases in the New Testament to a fascinated audience at the Centre for Faith Enrichment (CFE).
Facilitated by CFE Director, Dr Marco Ceccarelli, the lesson was part of the Faith Formation and Leadership Program – a staff development program aimed at offering Directors and Staff in the Archdiocese a better understanding of the richness of the Catholic tradition.
“Sometimes as we read the Bible it can taste like dry Weet-bix and we go, how can I digest this? I want to try to open it up for you so that it becomes food for your soul – let’s rediscover this New Testament, just as our body’s need food, so do our spirits need nourishment.
Dr Christofides highlighted that the Bilbical texts were written thousands of years ago, not only in a different language but within the confines of a different political, cultural and social reality that has great similarities to our own. Nevertheless, they contain nuances of meaning that may impact our ability to understand what we are reading.
“In the Greek, you can pick up the difference (between words) and it will make absolute sense. What is love? There are four different kinds of love that are used in the New Testament, but when translated into English, the word love is used interchangeably.”
For example, in verse 15 of John 21, where Jesus speaks to Simon Peter and asks him, “Do you love me?”; the word used by Jesus the first time he asks this is ‘agape’ or ‘the highest form of love, charity’ and ‘the love of God for man and of man for God.’
“And Peter, (what a hero) he says, ‘Yes Lord, I love you.’ The English says love but the Greek word there is this one, phileo or ‘the love of friendship,’” Dr Christofides explained.
“In English we read the words love, love, love, love – but it doesn’t actually give us the depth of what is being said. The challenge here is when Jesus says to him, ‘do you even love me as a friend?’
“And that would have broken Peter.”
Similarly, differences in translation have rendered our modern versions of the Bible in a different light, focussing on a particular aspect of the translation process in order to generate different, yet authentically faithful copies of the original text.
“Some of them are more literal and go as close as possible to the original and translate it into English; some of them lose the understanding of it – for instance the King James version; but that’s want you want when you’re studying,” Dr Christofides said.
“You also have what you call paraphrases, with different understandings, for example the Message. For me this is the closest paraphrase, but if I was going to do a Greek lesson for you, then I wouldn’t prepare from the paraphrase… it makes sense when I read it for modern language but I wouldn’t actually be able to explain the Greek to you.”
“There is no best one, it just depends on your purpose in reading it.”