THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATING

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSLATING

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profit­able."

2 Tim. 3:16  A.V. renders "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable."

A.S.V. renders "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable." The A.V. makes the direct assertion that all Scripture is inspired of God, while A.S.V. seems to suggest that if a Scripture is inspired of God, it is also profitable, thus intimating that some Scripture may not be inspired. And some run with that ball down the court. Thus God's word is at their discretion concerning profitability.

One reason for this is the fact that these men did not know that pasa grajh qeopneustoV kai wjelimoV had technical meaning as used in the Bible.

             The Greek grammatical construction seems fairly simple - "pasa graphe theopneusto  kai ophelimas." What we have here are two adjectives joined by the conjunc­tions "inspired and profitable." And these adjectives both either belong to the subject or to the predicate. But the revisers violently sunder them and turn the conjunction into an "also."

Dr. S. P. Tregelles (1813-1875) has declared that there is not a solitary instance in any classic author, or in the New Testament, where two adjectives as "inspired and profitable," connected by a conjunctions kai as these are, and either both belonging to the subject or both belonging to the predicate, are violently sundered, and the conjunction manipulated into a senseless "also."

The same great scholar said of the attempts in his day to set aside the com­mon rendering of this verse, "In the year 1839 I called it much misspent labor and false criticism, and so advisedly I call it still."

Bishops Moverly and Wordsworth and Trench; as members of the revision committee expressly disclaimed any responsibility for revised rendering.

 Dean Burgon called it "the most astonishing, as well as calamitous literary blunder of the age." Burgon was the most learned critic of the.English Revised Version and the American Standard Version.

Dr. Scrivener, the great critic, said: "It is a blunder such as makes itself hopelessly condemned."

It is claimed that the A.S.V. New Testament contains at least eight instances of similar Greek construction, yet this is the only text where the revisers adopted such a rendering, cf. Heb. 4:12 for an instance.

"For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." ASV

Lawyers call the above procedure "confession and avoidance."

But even if we should adopt the A.S.V., the text does not mean what the critics would like. Warfield explains it as follows: "Every Scripture, seeing it is God-breathed, is also profitable." But the average reader does not get this impression.