Shan Dai Advocacy

His Next Verse: What’s In A Name?

March 24, 2007 on 6:33 am | In His First Bible, PrayerGrams |

What is in a name? The SD Bible translators have faced an initial dilemma. How will the names of each book of the Bible be translated? Or should they not be translated but rather transliterated? “Genesis” is a name foreign to Shan Dai speakers. Should 66 foreign words be introduced to them and learned? Should they use the same names that are used in the Chinese or the Shan Bible (which again are foreign)? The English word “Genesis” means origin, beginnings, start, birth… should the Shan Dai word for Genesis be “beginnings” or “birth”? These are lots of questions. Let’s pray together for insight.

Read further for more clarity offered by the SD Bible consultant:

Just a few points about translating the names of books and other names.
First you need to decide whether you are going to translate or transliterate. It is very seldom that you can translate proper personal names, otherwise David becomes Beloved, Joshua becomes Saviour, Jonah become Dove, Peter becomes Rock, Barnabas becomes Consoler etc. But you can usually translate the names of books. But which language you are going to translate from. The Hebrew names are just the first word of the book. The Septuagint Greek names are better. In English we have translated some book names, but transliterated others. For instance Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes are transliterated from Latin, and Joshua, Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, and the prophets are transliterated from Hebrew, but Numbers, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and Lamentation are translated! It is probably better to follow whatever the Chinese or Shan Bible translators have done. If you prefer to translate, then the names become:The Beginning, The Departure, The Book of Levi, The Population, The Law, etc., With other names, even if you decide to transliterate, what are you going to work from? The Shan or Chinese is probably the best. If you work from Hebrew or Greek you end up with some names that are hard to identify with. Isaac in Hebrew is Yitsahak, Solomon is Shlomo, Jerusalem is Yerushalayim etc. But it isn’t a good idea to try to make up a list of all the names in the Bible. That will take you about a year to do. It is better to do the names of the books first, then only the names you are going to meet in your selected passages.