Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Peter Kirk wrote:


>Rolf ended his long posting as follows:
>
>"...the only natural rendition would be "the firstborn of all
>creation"."
>
>The problem is, that is not a natural rendition in modern English. For
>a start, we would use "oldest child" rather than "firstborn". But
>suppose we do look at this phrase, apart from the context, as Rolf
>suggests. In English, it certainly does not mean "the first part to be
>created of all creation". It probably suggests that the one referred
>to is the child, the oldest one, of "all creation". The only other
>sensible meaning is to take "firstborn" in the sense of Psalm 89:28 as
>"one in authority over", broadly equivalent to KEFALH in Col 1:18
>where the genitive, as in the English "head of", implies authority
>over. But there is no way that Rolf's English rendering makes Jesus a
>part of creation; either he has authority over it, or he is born of
>it.
>

Dear Peter,


A friend of mine made a survey of about 20 theologically loaded passages in
130 Bible translations in 6 languages. Regarding Col 1:15, he found that
more than 50% had a literal rendition equal to "the firstborn of all
creation". It may be true that this is not modern idiomatic English. But
you must keep in mind that you are immersed in Nida's dynamic equivalence
method (which is fine / save the theologically manipulations of the text/
when the target group is the general reader), but this method does not fit
all situations and all groups.

I have not argued in favour of any theological interpretation of Col 1:15,
but underlaying all my posts in this thread has been the question: "Why not
make a literal translation and let the readers decide its meaning?" By
using renditions making Jesus "above" or "before" the creation, the
readers' possibilities for making their decisions are greatly restricted.
What in effect is done, is to force upon the readers a particular
theological interpretation and prevent them from seeing that there are
other possibilities.

R.G. Bratcher and E.A, Nida, 1977, "A Translators Handbook on Paul's Letter
to the Colossians and to Philemon", which you have on your own SIL CD and
which I have quoted before, says on p 22:
"Translated literally (as RSV), it implies that Jesus is included in the
created universe, which is inconsistent with the context of the whole
passage." These authors evidently reasoned that "the firstborn of all
creation" could only imply that the genitive was partitive (Jesus was a
part of creation), giving it the same meaning as is expressed by EN in
Romans 8:29 (quoted by Dan-Ake). I agree with the authors in this.
You have other interpretations of the phrase which evidently are shared by
others on the list, and that is your privilege. But is this not the best
alternative: Translate the text literally and let the readers decide,
instead of bombing some alternatives away through translation, to use the
slogan of the day?


Regards
Rolf

Rolf Furuli
Lecturer in Semitic languages
University of Oslo