Saturday, February 14, 2015

A Small But Important Change in NWT 2013 (Revelation 19:17-18)

Greek: Καὶ εἶδον ἕνα ἄγγελον ἑστῶτα ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ, καὶ ἔκραξεν ἐν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ λέγων πᾶσι τοῖς ὀρνέοις τοῖς πετομένοις ἐν μεσουρανήματι Δεῦτε συνάχθητε εἰς τὸ δεῖπνον τὸ μέγα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα φάγητε σάρκας βασιλέων καὶ σάρκας χιλιάρχων καὶ σάρκας ἰσχυρῶν καὶ σάρκας ἵππων καὶ τῶν καθημένων ἐπ' αὐτούς, καὶ σάρκας πάντων ἐλευθέρων τε καὶ δούλων καὶ μικρῶν καὶ μεγάλων (Rev 19:17-18, WH).

NWT (1984): I saw also an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice and said to all the birds that fly in midheaven: "Come here, be gathered together to the great evening meal of God, that YOU may eat the fleshy parts of kings and the fleshy parts of military commanders and the fleshy parts of strong men and the fleshy parts of horses and of those seated upon them, and the fleshy parts of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great."

NWT (2013 Rev): I saw also an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice and said to all the birds that fly in midheaven: "Come here, be gathered together to the great evening meal of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of military commanders and the flesh of strong men and the flesh of horses and of those seated on them, and the flesh of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great."

It's a good change to render 19:18 with "flesh" instead of "fleshy parts."

2 comments:

Alethinon61 said...

Agreed! On the other hand, they didn't take the opportunity to render John 8:58 into better English:

"I have been in existence since before Abraham was born!" (McKay)

As Jason BeDuhn has pointed out, a first step in Bible translation is to put the words into normal English word order (subject, verb, predicate), which makes good sense except when doing so yields an unusually cumbersome result. Yet the NWT continues to follow the lead of the majority by keeping the word order at the interlinear stage. I find this very strange indeed.

~Kaz

Edgar Foster said...

Kaz,

The NWT is my favorite translation, and it continues to improve (IMO). But I agree that more improvements could and probably will be made.

On the other hand, translation is hard work--there are numerous factors to consider like one's target audience and the quest for accuracy along with intelligibility. The interlinear feel may also come from the desire to render verses in a quasi-literal fashion. I don't envy the brothers doing this work.