Luke 23:32 tells us Jesus was led away to be killed along with two other criminals. Quite literally, that's what the text says; in the Greek, "other" is an adjective describing "criminals," a noun. That being the case, it's interesting to see the various circumlocutions employed by the allegedly literal English translations, such as "two others, who were criminals" (ESV). In this case, they unnecessarily turn a noun into a participial phrase. This verbal mangling seems motivated by an overly pious desire to avoid the implication, created by Luke, that Jesus was a criminal.
This pietism is not only misguided, it has the effect of denying the truth plainly stated in one of the best-known prophecies of our Lord's Passion: "[He] was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12)
2 comments:
I like this point. Very insightful. Did you mention that when you preached on it (given that it would be pointing out the shortcomings of the translation the hoi poloi are using, it wouldn't be your style)? I can't remember if you did or not.
Nope; I make the exegetical point, but left the translations alone. One reason is that they all are slightly different, so I'd have to explain the issue with several examples. By the time I got through the process, the sermon would have been dead in the water.
While I don't think it's particularly profitable to talk about translation issues in sermons, the fact is that English versions often really, really annoy me. Which is why I have a blog.
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