September 28, 2009
Breaking-In a New Friend
I just got a new Bible and can’t do a thing with it. The pages all stick together in clumpy sections, there are no familiar handwritten notes in the margins and it doesn’t automatically open to favorite New Testament books. Since it’s a different translation, the Scripture is sometimes beautifully foreign to my mind. While I’m entrenched with the phraseology of my old Bible and not yet comfortable with the new one I catch myself comparing the two translations. It’s sort of like when Daylight Savings time comes around. For a week or so after the time change I keep asking myself, ‘Now what time is it, really?’
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I have rather resigned to using the RSV to avoid the complexities of breaking in a new friend that you point out. The RSV is not the most faithful translation, but when I really need to know the intricacies of the original language behind its expressions, I consult other translations, and sometimes I go straight to the original language to study the meaning for myself. So the RSV’s unfaithfulness is not a problem for me.
-----But the physical tattering of my old friends could become a problem. The covers on my table top copy and my pocket copy have both deteriorated. I made the mistake of repairing the larger copy with vinyl rubber cement, and that just made another mess I will soon need to fix like I did my pocket copy. I was smart enough to fix the cover of my pocket copy with contact cement and a Priority Mail envelop. I did that almost twenty years ago, and it is lasting wonderfully. It will eventually be my deteriorating vision that will end its usefulness.
-----And that really demonstrates wherein lies the usefulness of any translation or copy. It is not with the translation or physical book itself, but with the heart’s desire to rightly handle the Word of Truth. Every translation has its flaws, and some have many more than others. But the heart that faithfully desires to know the truth as accurately as the Lord has given us means to know will pursue the truth as competently as it has patience and resources to do so. The less it has patience and resources, the more important it becomes to have an accurate translation. The less it has patience to transfer the notes, underlining, and highlighting from the old friend to the new friend, the more it may need to put up with the tatters of the old friend. Eventually the phraseology of the new friend will grow familiar to the heart as well, but that is a different issue sharing much in nature with the problem of replacing all our old friendly hymns with these new contemporary jingles.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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