Beating a dead metaphor

Here's an email I received from one of the readers of my Lingamish blog [Some details removed]:

Dear Friend in Christ, Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ! I have been going through the studies at your web site, and I am deeply inspired with all of the teachings and studies thereon like Bible studies, sermons, children's sermons and other teaching materials on our Web site. This is such a wonderful studies you have arranged for all the nations, in the long run of your service for the nations of the all the world. I am from [a politically/religiously repressive country] where it is difficult to have Radio and TV channel for preaching purposes. They would not allow us to do that here; the Satan has real strong hold over everything. I often say that we are living in the land of the enemy. Friend, I humbly request you to expand your outreach your program in [a language] and [another] language. [...]I would ask you to pray and share it among the brethren. I would offer my services for being translator, recorder and distribution/sales. I pray that your consideration will have His mark over your decision. May God bless you abundantly! May His perfect will be done! Grace and Peace be with you, all brethrens. Yours brother in Christ, [Name removed]

Notice anything wrong here? While you can only applaud this man's desire to translate my witty blog into the languages of his home country, I can guarantee that the result wouldn't be anything like my blog. It is entirely possible that this isn't just some devious huckster trying to flatter me and then make a buck. Maybe he did read my blog and see nothing but spiritually uplifting "Bible studies, sermons, children's sermons and other teaching materials." But the truth is he missed the point. He didn't get the joke.

And if the joke's on him, I'm afraid that the same can be said of some of us Bible bloggers who have been blogging ourselves blue in the face on 1 Corinthians 9:27. If the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath is "Do no harm" then the first rule of translation should be George Orwell's: "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." Yet most of the suggestions I'm seeing so far are barbarous. And  barbarous for the simple reason that they're mixing dead metaphors.

The word in question is this one: ὑπωπιάζω. (hupopiazo) This word has a fantastic etymology: hupo-op-piazo "hit under the eye." Unfortunately we only have two occurrences of the word in the New Testament:

For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” (Luke 18:4-5, NRSV)

So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. (1 Cor. 9:26-27, NRSV)

The reason this word gets used in such different contexts is that the word is a dead metaphor, or "semantically bleached" (I've always wanted to use that phrase on a blog). And further proof of this is that Paul collocates it with "body" which would really be strange: "I hit myself on the face my body." Finally, this is just a small word in a big mixed metaphor that rambles through chapters 9 and 10 and includes slavery, boxing, athletic training and yoga. Well, maybe not yoga. But I hear John Hobbins found some yoga in this passage so it must be there.

This is one of those cases where we as translators just have to laugh at ourselves and say, "Gee, I don't really know how to bring in the meaning of ὑπωπιάζω into my translation, but I can at least make sure I don't say anything barbarous." And that is what English translators have been doing far into the distant past when they all walked around wearing powdered wigs. KJV and all the rest simply say "discipline" and who am I to contradict such an illustrious crowd?

For another example of Paul's use of mixed metaphors, see 1 Timothy 1:18-20.

Well, this is my first ever post on BBB and I deserve a good beating for it I'm sure. But right now I'm hungry so I'm going to head over to the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Essentially Literal

This is a follow up to All things are lawful 2. I had been trying to think of how to define "essentially literal". Does it mean being faithful to the grammatical structure versus the semantic structure? In other words, does it mean to defer to word order or word count instead of word choice? Does it mean representing the morphology faithfully, ie, if Elohim is plural then the English word for God should be plural, if the spirit is neuter, use "it" instead of "he" for the Holy Spirit?

Let's look at an awkward examples. Here is 1 Cor. 14:20,

Αδελφοι, μη παιδια γινεσθε ταις φρεσιν, αλλα τη κακια νηπιαζετε, ταις δε φρεσιν τελειοι γινεσθε

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. ESV

What is this word φρην? According to the lexicon it means the diaphragm. From this it can also mean "the seat of passions, the heart, mind, understanding and reason," take your pick. In this verse, one cannot preserve morphological number, ie the plural, or semantic reference either.

But semantics, on the one hand, and morphology and syntax, on the other are often in conflict. In translation one might be able to preserve one at the expense of the other. But, preserving both. Hmm. This is difficult.

However, just recently, the ESV site provided an explanation of their term 'essentially literal' in this post which is interesting for other reasons as well.

At the same time, in accord with its “essentially literal” translation philosophy, the ESV has retained consistency and concordance in the translation of Christos (“Christ”) throughout the New Testament.

and

we have sought to use the same English word for important recurring words in the original (ESV Preface)

Let's look at the ESV and see how it abides by its intention of maintaining concordance. I thought I would choose the word εξουσια and the English word authority for example.

Here is εξουσια and its various translations into English. And then I will present those same English words with their various Greek equivalents.

I English equivalents for εξουσια in the ESV

Matt. 7:29 authority (and many other places)

Acts 8:19 power (and many other places)

1 Cor. 8:9 right

1 Cor. 11:10 symbol of authority (only this once)

Rev. 13:17 strength

II Now let's go in the other direction.

a) authority

In most places -εξουσια

1 Tim. 2:13 - αυθεντειν (a one off)

b) power

Luke 22:69 - δυναμις

Acts 8:19 - εξουσια

c) right

John 18:23 - καλως

Acts 2:33 - δεξια

Acts 4:19 - δικαιον

Acts 6:2 - αρεστον

Acts 10:35 - δικαιοσυνην

1 Cοr. 8:9 - εξουσια

1 Cor. 9:15 (no Greek found for 'right' in this verse)

d) symbol of authority

1 Cor. 11:10 - εξουσια (found only this once - strange how men have 'rights' and women have a 'symbol of authority' - and then they call this constancy and concordance!)

e) strength

Mark 5:4 - ισχυεν

Luke 1:51 - κρατος

Acts 9:22 - ενεδυναμουτο

Acts 14:22 - επιστηριζοντες

2 Cor. 1:8 - δυναμιν

Okay, this is what I think. The ESV only occasionally wanders right off course in its translation. However, if the ESV blog identifies 'essentially literal' with concordance, then it needs to reconsider. I have asked the editor about this, does he really think the ESV provides concordance, and he said "That is what we set out to do."

The problem is that when I complete a study like this I remember that the ESV translators have these notions about men and women,

God gave men, in general, a disposition that is better suited to teaching and governing in the church, a disposition that inclines more to the rational, logical analysis of doctrine and a desire to protect the doctrinal purity of the church, and God gave women, in general, a disposition that inclines more toward a relational, nurturing emphasis that places a higher value on unity and community in the church

so they won't actually consider a study like mine as having validity. The ESV translators will persist in their belief that they have produced concordance. Or maybe they simply mean that authority is not an important concept. I can handle that.