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Monday, July 30, 2012

Jack The Subversive Submerger

Joel Hofman has a great point:


All Bible translators have to confront the problem of words that don't convey the same meaning to a modern audience as they did to an ancient one, said linguist Joel M. Hoffman, author of "And God Said - How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning."
"For example, `John the Baptist' was really like `John the Dunker,'" Hoffman said.
John was doing something new by submerging people in water to cleanse them of their sins, but that is lost on people 2,000 years later, Hoffman said. Today, people hearing John's title might think it refers to a Baptist denomination rather than his then-strange behavior.  -link

In Michael Bird's paraphrase, he has switched John to the nickname for John, Jack.
Nice move.

I will be combining the two, and tweaking a bit,  and translating as "John the Subversive merger."

I just hope no one mistakes that for "Jack the Ripper"..

or evoke Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining"..

As Rabbi Adam would say...

OY!



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Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!