In keeping with your translation philosophy to "Translate, not Interpret or Change", I would like to challenge you about the use of "wife" in any place. Your article on Matthew 5 "lust" is actually a perfect example of the interpretive nature of the translation of this word. You have challenged the traditional interpretation of the word in verse 28 and have presented an alternative. Yet it is just that, an interpretation, and should be relegated to footnote if presented at all.
The semantic range of the Greek word perfectly overlaps that of the English, covering every adult female human. As you know, the word "wife" simply does not exist in Scripture and represents a subset of that semantic range.
I recognize that there are plenty of words such as ποιέω/poieo "do/make" which cannot be translated into a single English word. In these cases interpretation is unavoidable. But everywhere "wife" is used instead of "woman", the context speaks for itself.
(This argument applies to many other words such as διάκονος/diakonos "servant/deacon" with the preference for "servant" in all cases; see Rom 16:1 vs 1 Tim 3:8)
"It is not as if they were deprived of some important words, or that our language is superior to theirs. For thousands of years they could have invented those words if they wanted to, but they didn't. So, that is the way it is. We ought not to add words to the scriptures, but rather, we ought to work with what the scriptures actually say. " - Garth Wiebe
Sorry it took me so long to respond to this; I've been busy and wasn't checking the forum as often as I should.
So you said:
The semantic range of the Greek word perfectly overlaps that of the English, covering every adult female human. As you know, the word "wife" simply does not exist in Scripture and represents a subset of that semantic range.
I wholly disagree with that.
One of the most interesting and fascinating things for me is the cultural assumptions embedded in language. In both Hebrew and Greek, there were a few "classes" of women, such as: virgins (unmarried and assumed to have not had sex), widowed, divorced, prostitutes, and "wife/woman". The cultural assumption was that every "adult female" would be married and thus a wife. Thus, they didn't have a different word for "woman" than for "wife" because it was assumed that every "adult female" was also a wife, and every wife was also an "adult female".
(The same is true of man/husband. And BTW, they didn't even have a conception of the word "adult"; that's a recent concept invented by John Locke, but I digress.)
English is more precise than Greek for some terms, and with our greater precision in (some) technical terms creates a dilemma for a translator. While the Greeks see γυνή/gune and assume that such a woman is married unless stated not to be, we don't have that assumption.
Thus, it would be more semantically accurate to always translate γυνή/gune as "wife" instead of "woman". However, that creates problems when women are spoken of in a general sense, like in the first half of 1 Cor 11. It just wouldn't make much sense.
However, because we don't have the cultural assumption of "woman = wife", translating passages like Col 1:18 as you suggest would read like this: "Women, submit yourselves to your men" In English, that doesn't make a lot of sense because we don't share the Greek (and Hebrew) cultural assumption of "woman = wife". You could read this as a native English speaker and think it applies to cohabitation. The same problem is created in many other passages as well.
Thus, that's why I translated it wife or woman depending on the context.
You're right that it applies to other words as well, including ἀνήρ/anér, which is "male/male/husband." I assume you would prefer to strike "husband" as well?
To Matthew 5, again, I would argue that the primary meaning of γυνή/gune is actually "wife", and the meaning of "woman" is a secondary meaning if you take language and cultural assumptions into account. (And looking back at the article now, I see that I didn't make the above clear; I really should make an edit to fix that.)
I may have use the wrong word to describe what I am trying to say, perhaps "semantic range" is not correct. You acknowledge my intended point, that gune can mean "woman" in the general sense yet you appeal to the cultural assumption that all women were wives. Yet this cultural implication is extra-Biblical and not supported by the text of Scripture (see how Romans 7:2 needs to clarify the marital status of the woman). Do you believe in the sufficiency of scripture, or do you believe that it is required to have an intimate understanding of cultural implications? While you claim that the assumption would be that a woman was married, you also acknowledge that the word is used more generally. So we can't rely on that assumption and must instead rely on textual context, which brings me right back to my original contention; "the context speaks for itself".
To your point about 1 Cor 11, what right have you, the translator, to tell me, the reader, that 1 Cor 11 applies to all women? If you are correct that gune is better translated to "wife" then how can you be sure that 1 Cor 11 doesn't only apply to married women? I seem to recall that there have been, in history, debates about this very question.
Likewise how are you sure that Col 3:18-19 does not speak in a more general sense? Literally it would say; "the women, be submitting to the men as is proper in [the] Lord. The men, be loving the women and do not be embittered toward them." It is only through context that we would be able to see that this is talking to members of a household (fathers/children, slaves/masters).
You say you "translated it wife or woman depending on the context" but why must you assume that the readers and the local assemblies are not competent enough to see the same context you see?
So, the question you are faced as an uninspired translator of inspired words: do you affirm the verbal, grammatical, plenary inspiration of the Bible? Or do the words of God need some additional "specificity" or "precision"? If the ancients did not need a different word to distinguish between a married and unmarried woman, allowing the context to dictate, why do we think we are better than them? Once again, I appeal to your "Translate, Not Interpret Or Change" and "Translator Bias" sections in your translation theory page.
I was somewhat arbitrary in which word I chose to argue this point on. I don't have a specific axe to grind about woman/wife. I find that scripture tends to be clearer and simpler when we leave it as "woman". I feel the same about many other words that are translated into multiple English words from one Greek word. So yes, I would wish to see you do the same for man/husband, servant/deacon, immerse/baptize, assembly/church, change-of-mind/repent, evil-assertion/blasphemy, justice/righteousness, etc. (some of these are "context dependent" words from the same Greek word and others are just modern "Christianese"). I was emboldened to bring it up specifically because you had asserted what you had in the previously mentioned sections as well as the "Avoiding 'Chrstianese'" section. I figured I'd dip my toe in the water with a single word rather than shotgunning a bunch of threads at you.
I will acknowledge that, as I implied in my previous post, I take significant issue with your interpretation of Matthew 5:28, but this is a conversation best had elsewhere. I only seek to address that there are many places such as these where a translator inserts his interpretation into Scripture without considering that he is not infallible and should avoid interpretation as much as possible. If you seek for this to be a truly open-source translation you would need to acknowledge this bias you have and adjust your perspective to minimize interpretation.
I do see your points 1 Cor 11, and also about the other word translation pairings; I've recently been considering changing some of them.
But for this thread, the underlying issue is that γυνή/gune means wife/woman, while the English word "woman" means only "woman" and doesn't mean "wife". For example, if you say "He has a new woman", I would assume that the woman was not married to him for the simple reason that if she was married, in English, you would've said "He has a new wife".
The additional specificity/precision is a function of the English language, not translation, because the English and Greek words simply mean different things. The ancients simply had different words. This is a limitation of English and I don't see a way around it.
We can completely jettison any discussion of cultural context and that's still true.
I did a find/replace in a Word file on some of the marriage passages to be more like you suggested to see if I was wrong about the above. The result gave me the impression that it was about cohabitation because again, the Greek and English words don't mean the same thing. (It also made a lot less sense.)
That's part of the reason for the "Avoiding "Linguistic Baggage"." section of the translation principles page.
The Greek word and English words simply don't mean the same thing, so we need to close off some meanings in translation; that's unavoidable. Translating it "wife" closes off cohabitation, while "woman" implies that cohabitation is acceptable. So if I have to close off a meaning in translation, I'd rather close off the immoral application.
Even if you disagree, does that make sense?
And BTW, feel free to start a thread about Matt 5:28 and we can discuss it there. 🙂
I certainly understand what you are saying, but I still disagree because I don't think that we should be imposing our modern understanding of marriage onto Scripture. The language simply didn't have a word to distinguish a married woman from an unmarried one. You either had a woman or you didn't. If you had a woman, it was either legitimate (having had a wedding) or not (fornication). Further, I don't agree that, in English, woman can't mean wife because my wife is a woman and while formal English does not tend to use "woman" to refer to wife, it is sufficiently prevalent in informal use. I have certainly heard men refer to their wife as "my woman".
In fact, if you think about it, the modern English cultural connotations of "marriage" do not lend to a good understanding of Scripture anyway. As I'm sure you know, the English speaking world does not treat marriage with any sort of reverence. People get married through the secular pagan court system, possibly with a religious ceremony covering over that, and then when they get tired of their spouses, they go back to the secular pagan court system and ask for the marriages to be undone. In fact, this is not unlike the pagan way of doing things during the time of the ancients, who also practiced serial polygamy by "having one spouse at a time", remarrying after forsaking the previous one(s). Yet it was not this way from the beginning. "What the God yokes together, man: be no separating." (Matt 19:6b and Mark 10:9 GHT)
So this is my point. Scripture informs scripture. It is clearly presented in scripture that sexual immorality exists and is inappropriate. Marriage as the representation of Christ and his bride is to be held in regard and undefiled. This theme is clearly and simply shown in the context of scripture, and does not need us, as translators, to add clarity, even if the option for further specificity exists in our language. Instead, we allow the reader to read scripture and learn what it means for himself. Scripture transcends culture and is counter-cultural, so what right have we to introduce our own cultural bias into it (our concept of marital status) based on the cultural bias present (assumption that a woman was married) at the time of writing.
So, we are still faced with the problem of interpretation bias. I agree that most translations are correct where they choose wife or woman and do not confuse the meaning when they do so, but you and I both take issue with at least one place where that is done. (You with Matt 5:28 and me with Matt 5:32.) Hence, why my proposed solution is to eliminate that type of interpretation entirely. Additional specificity introduces bias.
I appreciate that you went and tested my hypothesis, but I wonder if you found it more confusing simply because you aren't used to it and because your translation maintains many of the prevailing translation traditions that impose English language on the Greek source rather than allowing the simplicity of the Greek source to shine through, even if it results in poor English.
You said:
The language simply didn't have a word to distinguish a married woman from an unmarried one.
But it does: παρθένος. That fact undercuts your argument.
You also said:
Further, I don't agree that, in English, woman can't mean wife because my wife is a woman and while formal English does not tend to use "woman" to refer to wife, it is sufficiently prevalent in informal use.
I agree with the first highlighted clause, but completely disagree with the second. As far as I can recall, I've literally never heard it used that way. I asked my own wife if she had, since we grew up quite different backgrounds and areas. She hasn't ever heard it used that way either as far as she can recall.
Have you personally heard others use "woman" to mean "wife" with significant frequency?
I'll gladly concede that parthenos does not exclusively mean a literal virgin, but I'm not sure it undercuts the point I was trying to make, which was that the Greeks did not use a different word to refer to a married woman. In English we have "woman" and "wife" where the latter is a specificity word which can be defined as "woman who is married". On the other hand, in Greek they had "gune" and then "parthenos" where the latter is a specificity word which can be defined as "gune who is not married". Yes, I see how this flips the default assumption, but still do not concede that this gives us license to use additional specificity where the Holy Spirit did not see fit to use it.
And perhaps it's not as clear as it seems to be for me. I have heard men use "woman" to refer to their wives, but I grant that this practice has fallen into disuse due to centuries of cultural baggage surrounding marriage. Yet this only makes me feel like it is more important to be disciplined about translation choices. As you said about linguistic baggage; it is my contention that the word "wife" is actually linguistic baggage that we impose upon the scriptures. Scripture transcends culture and is counter-cultural.
You said:
I have heard men use "woman" to refer to their wives, but I grant that this practice has fallen into disuse due to centuries of cultural baggage surrounding marriage.
That alone makes translating γυνή as "woman" all of the time virtually certain to lead people astray for the reasons I've already stated.
You also said:
I agree that most translations are correct where they choose wife or woman and do not confuse the meaning when they do so, but you and I both take issue with at least one place where that is done. (You with Matt 5:28 and me with Matt 5:32.) Hence, why my proposed solution is to eliminate that type of interpretation entirely.
Okay, so it sounds to me like almost the entirety of the issue for you surrounds the translation of just two passages, as you agreed that most of the time, it's not an issue. Instead of changing γυνή everywhere, wouldn't it make sense to just concentrate on the two passages where you think it's problematic then?
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