WWJS

If Jesus had been born in the mid 1970s (as our four children were), born into a family where both parents were native speakers of some standard dialect of English, let's say the dialect spoken by anchors of the CNN London bureau, and was going about preaching ...

What Would Jesus Say?

Would he speak the English of his parents? Or would he have burrowed himself into the book stacks at Oxford or Cambridge and imitated some older dialect of English, perhaps one considered "classical" by some today, and speak in that dialect?

Would he stand near a crowd holding signs about globalization and forgiving debt to poor nations, several blocks from a gathering of the G8 leaders (at that distance because of security rules) and tell them

Think not that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade).

or would he say it this way

Don't think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I haven't come to bring peace, but an RPG.

Would he speak in the language of the crowd, or would he use technical terms which many would not understand?

Or would he even speak to such a crowd, or would he only speak in churches, using dignified church syntax and vocabulary, such as

Behold, I speak to you today in a parable. I speak not in the words of man, but in the words of my Father who is in heaven? He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

What, if any, relevance is there to the question WWJS to how Bibles should be translated into English today?

Categories: language usage, language change, Bible translation