Julian

This is just a little FYI/question. I grew up in Denmark and, although Jesus was still Jesus, the names of the gospel writers were latinized, as in Markus, Lucas and so on. So it seems to be somewhat selective as to what get changed and in what way. One thing I wonder about is why the names became latin rather than greek. Is that because of the Jerome's vulgate? I could see that if that was the source it would make sense. Does anyone know? I believe it might be the same in German and possibly other languages as well.

Julian

Amos

He was a good salesman. He was just hoping you would go look in the manual if it had four sparkplugs or only three.

The Evil One

Yes, it is because of the Vulgate.

Another point arising from this: should the Gospel according to Mark be the Gospel according to Marcus? Marcus is the actual Roman name (don't know the Greek version?) that was in common use at the time which has evolved in the languages of Europe to Mark/Marc/Marco etc.

"Gospel of Marcus" would be closer to the actual name of this Gospel. But the people of the time would have had an analogous reaction to the name "Marcus" that we have to the name "Mark" - whihc is not necessarily the same as the reaction we have to the name "Marcus" (which has latinate overtones).

So a Bible translator has two choices: 1) call it the Gospel according to Marcus, and get the correct Latin name; 2) translate the title to the Gospel according to Mark, in order to preserve the original attitude of the audience to the name.

Similarly, should we talk about Livy or Livius? Mark Antony or Marcus Antonius? Antonius and Cleopatra doesn't have quite the same ring to it...

As soon as one says anything such as"Yes, but Mark is the English form of Marcus", then it becomes logical to continue the thought with "And Jesus is the English form of Yeshua".

Or again, should the identified rivers in Genesis 2 be called "Hiddekel" flowing by "Asshur" and "Phrat" (Hebrew names), or "Tigris" flowing by "Assyria" and "Euphrates" (English deriving from Greek)? The former represent more accurately the actual names the Hrebrews gave these places, but the latter produce the accurate response in the English reader (ie of hearing recognisable place-names). Which sort of accuracy should a translation aim for - accuracy of sound or accuracy of response?

The Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are difficult to render into English lettering because they have a large set of consonants that are mostly alien to Indo-European languages: they are made back in the throat (uvular Q, voiced H, glottal stops, pharyngeal fricatives, etc etc.) Basically any Semitic word containing an H is going to be very difficult to render into English writing in a way that makes its pronunciation clear to the uninformed. See the problem non-Jews have pronouncing Hanukkah correctly - and that's a direct transliteration!

Rhea

On the contrary, he was a bad salesman because he lost his credibility and the sale. We were looking at the engine at the time, and I had my hand on the spark-plug wires...


The first paragraph makes some sense - preserving the attitude.

The second paragraph makes no sense (to me). We aren't choosing a god based on whether it "has a good ring to it"


...

or are we?

The Evil One

Well, I'm sure most Christians agree that it doesn't matter whether you call him Jesus, Jesu, Iesous, Yeshua or even Isa, as long as you believe in him, so it's not a matter of choosing a god; it's a matter of choosing the most suitable way to refer to that god in the context of a given language community.

The "having a good ring" is the same thing as "preserving the attitude". A form that sounds normal, sounds familiar (Jesus, Mark Antony) versus a technically more accurate form that has alien overtones (Yeshua, Marcus Antonius) when in either case it is equally obvious who is meant.

Rhea

Huh.


I guess some people like chocolate and some like vanilla.


Well, wouldn't the world be boring if we all thought the same.

Calzaer

If my name was Yeshua, and people started saying "Hey! Jesus! How's it going??" in reference to me, I wouldn't have a clue who they were talking to.

I notice America has a bad habit of changing other folks' names, though. I swear. If "Germany" calls itself "Deutschland", why the hell don't we call it "Deutschland" too?? That's what they want to be called!

I mean, it's exactly like if a bunch of people went around calling Christians "Gloobahs" for no reason. Same with Yeshua/Jesus. If the man's name was Yeshua, why the hell do we insist on calling him something else? THAT'S NOT HIS NAME!

Amos

But it was Joseph to whom the Christ-child was born and to identify this difference Jesus was the right name.

Americans are bad for that. Another example here is that Holland is a province in the Netherlands and Dutch people are from Deutschland instead of the Netherlands. Why is it called "the Netherlands" anyway instead of Netherland if there is only one "Netherland?"

Amos

Second hand car salesman and credibility?