Translation talk:3 John

Draft Complete!
Here is the first draft. This is an original translation of 3 John, done by me. My knowledge of Greek and of English are both limited, so it would be great for people to edit it and correct it.

I have used the following source text: I have used the Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon from Perseus rather extensively as a dictionary. At times I have also referred to a Greek text marked with Strongs numbering.
 * Nestle Aland Novum Testamentum Grace (26 ed)

For the most difficult verses I referenced:
 * Green's Literal Translation
 * Young's Literal Translation
 * Bible in Basic English
 * Tyndale's Translation
 * Darby's Translation

stranger vs. unbeliever
Hi Laleena! Thanks for your hard work. I changed it from wanderer to stranger (which the World English Translation uses). Is that satisfactory? I can see from the Greek that it would be unbeliever or sinner. --Jdavid2008 02:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Review
Assessment: very close—close—FREE—very free
 * very close means "only inevitable, insignificant semantic variations."
 * close means "a few, minor semantic variations—noted in review."
 * free means "noticable adaptation to English, with loss of Greek details—noted in review."
 * very free means "substantially paraphrased, imported meanings, or both—noted in review."

I really like this translation, for the following reasons.


 * It tries hard to express ancient Greek ideas in modern English words.
 * It documents decisions it makes that differ with other translations.
 * The translator acknowledges personal limitations and
 * invites others to make improvements.
 * Indeed, a second translator has already attempted some refinements.

Overall, I think the translation succeeds well in its aims. I have a handful of specific suggestions for improvement. I will document them below, rather than altering the text myself. In the same spirit as the original translator, I note that this review is not the final word, and reflects the opinions and limitations of the reviewer. Alastair Haines 23:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Layout

 * Paragraphing: The paragraphing matches NA27 exactly. I strongly approve of this, however, I would not consider it binding on the Free Bible to adopt this practice. The original manuscripts did not have paragraphs, but modern English does. Paragraphing is essential, however, there is no authoritative source to establish what is appropriate.


 * Headings: No headings have been inserted as paragraph or section summaries. Again, I strongly approve of this. Translators know that such headings are not part of the original text, readers do not always know this. Long term, the absence of headings could, in fact, be a distinctive of the accuracy of the Free Bible, since it would set it apart from the many translations designed for church use, which include such headings, some of which depend on theological tradition.


 * Greeting blocks: I have offset "From" and "To" as we would in modern letters. In this particular letter, the conventional opening greeting is absent. That stands out more clearly if we adopt the convention of new lines for From, To and Greeting across the New Testament letters. The final greetings section seems right, with a fuller farewell preceding a more convention closing formula. That both are somewhat formulaic of letter closing is evident from 2 John. A line break between the two closing greetings seems right to me (as well as NA27 and the original FB translator).


 * Footnotes: Indicating verse to which a note refers is an excellent feature of the notes here, and should be adopted across the translation imo. I think it helps keep things clear for a reader. Some of the content, however, is probably best on the Talk page for other translators, rather than included with the main text, where it could distract readers.

Translation
Overall, this translation is marked by a clear understanding of the major challenge of the process. Clear and idiomatic expression in the receptor language cannot always be achieved by formal equivalence of word counts, word order, consistent lexical glossing et cetera. The tendency of this translation is to provide idiomatic English, at the expense of minor details of subtleties in the Greek. I think this is done well and responsibly, though my personal preference is to transmit the Greek at the expense of English idiom. That's because Free Bible is not for public reading or private devotion, but rather to make the original documents available independent of professional institutions and their potential biases. In any case, here are some specific comments.

Greek

 * siblings (3)—The Greek is adelphon. The root originally meant "from the same womb" (so either full or half sibs). It is not neuter. It is either "sisters" (which excludes men) or "brothers" (which includes women). Greek has a feminine word for "sister" (adelphe) and a masculine word for "brother" (adelphos), these look identical in the genitive plural. In the genitive plural, a Greek writer would not write "of brothers and sisters", because this would sound silly, adelphon kai adelphon, and usage of adelphos alone was inclusive of women when it needed to be.
 * Context is important in translating this word. The Greek suggests that before the letter was written, a group of people, the adelphoi and xenoi (strangers, X), visited Gaius' church (G) and came back to John's church (J) telling everyone at J how nice people at G were. Although it is not spelled out, the X were probably from J. At the time of writing, the X are visiting G once again, and John seems to be asking that G gives them support in travelling further.
 * This is just the simplest explanation, others are possible. The question is, is there any evidence that there were women among them? Actually, even the unambiguous masculine nouns and pronouns do not exclude even a majority of women among the X. There was no need for the letter to be precise about this, since J and G both knew exactly who they were talking about. Culturally, however, travel was often dangerous and the X were probably men. Even so, women without domestic responsibilities (like children), may well have accompanied the men. Such women are explicitly reported as accompanying Jesus and the disciples in the gospels, and even financially supporting that group of "travelling preachers". Elsewhere there is talk of "believing wives" accompanying such evangelists.
 * I think there is a real possibility a few women may have been among the X in this letter. If this fact was significant, however, a feminine marked word or pronoun would be expected in order to make it explicit. In the absence of any such marker, making inclusion of women explicit in translation in this context is to supply information that is not in the Greek.
 * Free Bible does need to address this issue in an objective and systematic way. Adelphos, and even more so adelphoi (plural), can be inclusive of women, but cannot be presumed to be in every instance. It was standard practice in English to use "brother", and more so "brothers", as inclusive of women until the 1980s. It is still current usage, though avoided by many, probably a majority.
 * The only attempt at a general academic statement on translating gender in the Bible I know of is the Colorado Springs Guidelines. Many denomination or publisher specific discussions also exist however.


 * labours (5)—The Greek has a subordinate clause, subjunctive mood and two "verbs of doing". The "tone of voice" is lost by smoothing the English here. A more precise rendering would be, "Beloved, you [singular] are faithfully doing whatever you [singular] can manage for the sake of the brothers and even for these outsiders."


 * witnesses ... you do well (6)—The Greek is past tense followed by future tense. I think it is important to translate this. Perhaps the Elder wrote this letter specifically to encourage this future action. I would translate this verse, "They testified about you faithfully in front of the congregation, you will do well to send them onwards in a manner worthy of God."


 * this (8)—The Greek has "these".

Other minor comments could be made, but I think these are more than enough to provide a stimulus for further discussion.

English

 * who (1)—the Greek and Free Bible 2 John have "whom". I would be happy with either, consistency across Free Bible is the issue here. Do we adopt a policy for or against "who" or "whom"? Do we adopt this everywhere, book by book, or writer by writer? Do we simply accept this kind of inconsistency as inevitable in a Wiki translation?


 * love in truth (1)—given other freedoms in expression in this translation, "truly love" would be an option here, though I agree "in truth" is better, since it is repeated many times in the letter, not all of which suit simple transformation into an adverb.


 * fare well (2)—likewise, "going well" would seem more idiomatic in verse 2, without compromising the Greek.


 * soul (2)—I agree "soul" is best here, however, "life" and "mind" are other options among several.


 * witnessed of (3)—"testify to" may be more idiomatic, without compromising the Greek. If "witness" is used here, "witnessed about" would seem to be more idiomatic to me. The difficulty here is that idiomatic English prefers "witnesses testifying" where Greek has marturoi marturousin. Since the Greek root is a theme word of the letter (and other writings by John), serious consideration needs to be given to the extent to which we reflect unique Greek roots by unique English glosses.


 * do ... labours (5)—"pursue ... labours" would seem more idiomatic to me.


 * loved ones (15)—I agree with the translator that rendering philoi as "loved ones" is better comprehended in English than "lovers". However, I think "friends" is even more natural English (and possibly better reflects the Greek). The focus is, in this case, on love in the phileo rather than agape sense.

There are other comments I could make, but these answer questions in footnotes, and are (I hope) sufficient to stimulate some discussion towards refinements of this translation.

Text
The translation follows all the text-critical decisions made by NA27, which again I strongly endorse. Since UBS4 provides an apparatus specifically designed for translation, limiting cases to significant or likely variants and including "likelihood ratings", I'm attaching a translation of the UBS4 apparatus, so those interested in textual evidence, without the resources to check this for themselves, may get a general idea of the possible alternative readings.

Conclusion
I think this is a very nice translation, and although I'd like to see changes in it (and consistency across the Free Bible), were the gospel and letters of John translated more idiomatically than other books of the Bible, I think this may actually be an appropriate thing, since John has a different "tone of voice". Suitably managed, differences in tone of voice, might prove to be more evident in a Wiki Bible than in streamlined professional translations, and actually present a more realistic picture of how the originals would have "sounded" to their readers.

Thanks for your work Laleena. Alastair Haines 00:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Textual variants for 3 John
UBS4 considers there to be only three locations of significant, translatable, textual uncertainty in 3 John. The table shows the UBS4 text in bold first, followed by other variants. The dagger (†) indicates all evidence from UBS4 has been transcribed.

This will probably be the last time I produce a table of variants at Free Bible. These, together with those at 2 John and some at 1 Corinthians should give enough of a picture of why textual variation in the New Testament is generally a much smaller concern than translation itself.

The centre two of the four columns in the following high quality scan are 3 John. Line 10 of column two (the first column of 3 John) is the beginning of verse 3 as we know it. The variation from the majority and from the NA27/UBS4 text can be seen, as the first words are echaren lian, omitting gar.
 * 3 John in Codex Sinaiticus (c. 350 AD).

Alastair Haines 05:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)