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Idioms in the Bible Let
me warn you now, there are idioms in the Bible.
Some translators use their literal meanings; others simply ignore
them or create their own meanings.
Below is an
example of an idiom that is found in King James Version of Matthew
6:22-23a (the idiom is underlined):
Modern
readers have enough trouble with all those "thines" and "thys,"
much less the idioms. However,
as you will learn later, the King James translators incorrectly
translated the ancient symbols and thus we can't see the actual idioms
in the verses above. Below
is the corrected text: The light of the
body is the eye: if therefore you have a good eye, your
whole body shall be full of light. But if you have an evil eye,
your whole body shall be full of darkness. The
Source is Jesus and his culture
was that of Second Temple Israel.
In Israel during the life of Jesus the two idioms were very
common. Amazingly, they are
still used today by Hebrew speakers.
A person with a "good eye" is a person
that is generous. The
opposite idiom is a person with an "evil eye," a
stingy person. Now
let's replace the idioms with the correct bundles of associations so we
can more accurately understand the words of Jesus: The light of the
body is the eye: if therefore you are a generous person,
your whole body shall be full of light. But if you are a stingy
person your whole body shall be full of darkness. There are other idioms in the Bible and they usually create significant problems for many translators. Euphemisms Euphemisms
are very much like idioms and they also create the same kind of
problems. A euphemism is
defined as the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression
for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.
I am sure that you have heard this euphemism many times -- Please
excuse me; I am going to go powder my nose. Biblical
translators frequently use euphemisms instead of translating the names
certain parts of the body or descriptions of bodily functions.
There are also a number of euphemisms in the Jewish world that
are used instead of the word "God."
In modern Orthodox Jewish writings you will find the euphemism G-d
or HaShem (the Name).
They believe that speaking or writing the word "God"
could result in "profaning the name," thereby causing them to
break a divine commandment. So
they substitute euphemisms such as The Name, The
Place, The One, The Holy One, or
even Heaven. This
will help us clear up a long debated issue over two terms -
"kingdom of God" and "kingdom of Heaven."
Since Heaven is a euphemism for the word
"God," the two terms can mean exactly the same thing. This may
also help us learn more about the authors.
The one using the euphemism Heaven is likely to be
Jewish, while the other author is probably not. |
