Most English Bibles do a pretty good job of accurately translating
the Greek and Hebrew concepts into corresponding English words, some better
(like the NLB), some worse (like the KJV,
but mostly because the language has changed so much in the last 400 years).
But there are a very few Greek and Hebrew words that translators consistently
get wrong -- especially in the more literalistic "translations" like the
NASB.
I used to have two "litmus" verses that I would use to validate a new
translation, Rev.6:8 and Matt.12:37.
So why did John the Revelator color that horse green? Well, part of the reason is chromatic: the four primary colors in Greek thinking are Black and White, Red and Green. Those are also the four colors in nearly every human language when they have exactly four color words. When they have only two such words, they represent light and dark; if there are three, the third color is red or reddish. The fourth color is green. English has a zillion colors, so we don't appreciate this limit.
The second, and more important, reason is that green is the color of death. No, not today in 21st century western civilization with antiseptic hospitals and morgues with refrigerators for the corpses, but it was in the first century when John wrote this book. What color does "aged" beef turn? Green. What color does a foot turn when it dies and goes gangrene? Yup, green. What color does that steak or casserole turn when you leave it in the fridge too long? Same color. What color do corpses turn in the grave without expensive embalming? The body is essentially meat. When it dies, it turns green and smells bad. Everybody knows that. Everybody, that is, except us moderns, who never see a dead body that hasn't been filled with plastics to keep it from turning green.
Green is the color of death in every culture but ours. So the translators
did exactly the right thing by translating it "gray" or "pale", which are
the modern colors for Death. You see, it's not about what color the horse
is, it's about who the rider is, and the rider is Death. Death is not green
in
English.
There is another reason for understanding this verse as being judged on the basis of our own accountings, and it is linguistic. Whenever, and in whatever language, if there are two similar words that mean nearly the same thing, and a speaker or writer says something involving both words used to refer to different things in that context, then uses one of those two words again in the same context, it always refers to the same thing it did in the previous usage. For an English example, how do you understand this story:
A red car hit a blue van. There were ten people in the car and they all were killed."Were the ten dead people in the red vehicle or the blue one? No question about it! They were all crammed in the red car, as unlikely as that might otherwise seem. I had one translator justify his particular translation by the fact that "accounts" are never in plural. I guess he never heard of "accounts payable". Jesus said you give a separate account for every single idle word; if there are many words, there will be many accounts (plural).
It's not like this is a big deal if you misunderstand this one verse.
The verse helps us to understand that God is exceedingly just, and He does
not arbitrarily condemn people because he doesn't like your vocabulary.
You yourself will agree that the condemnation is just. If you miss it in
this verse, you might get it in Romans 2:14-16, where Paul makes the same
point. If you miss the point entirely, that will not cost your your eternal
salvation, because it's not about what you know, it's about Who is Lord.
There is one context in English that preserves the basic meaning of the Greek word musterion (mysterion), and that is a "mystery novel." Is a mystery novel about some deep unknowable? Hardly. It's about some secret -- perhaps who done it, who committed the murder -- that is unknown at the beginning, but fully explained by the end of the story. Stories that don't tell you their secrets are no fun to read; the appeal of the mystery novel is to see if you can guess what the secret is before the author gets around to telling you. That is basically what the Greek word means, except that you don't need to guess.
Some modern Bibles correctly translate musterion
as "secret" or "secret now revealed" and the rest of the Bibles leave you
confused and mistakenly believing that there is no way you can possibly
understand what the Second Coming is going to be like. Paul is telling
the secret, we will not all die, but we will all be changed, suddenly,
like an eyeblink. It's not some deep unknown and unknowable, he already
told us. It will be like those "Mutant-X" people that change shape, except
they are fiction, for us it will be real.
Two very different Greek words unfortunately get translated by the same
English word "crown" with consequent confusion. Diadem (DIADHMA)
is the kind of crown kings wear. Most of the crowns in the New Testament
-- especially all the reward crowns -- are the Stephen (STEFANOS)
variety, a laurel
wreath awarded to victors in the Games and more accurately translated
into English as "medal". These, not diadems, are what the 24 Elders lay
at the feet of Jesus. All of the crowns given to believers are wreath/medals,
symbols of victory, not symbols of ruling.
As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold... Daniel 3:5It's not the worshippers who are making music, they only hear it as a cue to fall on their faces before the gold image. In the other reference, at the dedication of Solomon's temple in 2Chr.7, all the people worship God with their faces to the ground, then when they finish worshipping, they stand up and the music starts.
The modern English/American word "worship" is not about posture, it's about the warm fuzzies you get when you think about God. That often happens when you hear or sing so-called "praise and worship" music. We have a church service on Sunday mornings (and sometimes other times in the week) that is called "worship"; what about the service constitutes "worship"? The hymns? The rock band music? The sermon? Sometimes the pastor will invite people to "worship God with their tithes and offerings," but most people don't think of putting money in the offering plate as "worship". Worship is what happens when the awesome music plays, and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. That is what "worship" means in our language and culture.
Don't get me wrong, that kind of "worship" is in the Bible, and it's a good thing for us to do, but in the Bible it's called "praise", not "worship".
It turns out we do have a perfectly good English word that means almost
exactly what the Biblical "worship" means. That word is "grovel". Does
God want us to grovel before Him? You betcha. He is God, and you are not
god. You grovel. But we don't like that word. It implies that God is somehow
dominant. Guess what? He is.
Somehow we have gotten the notion that forgiveness is getting rid of the bitter resentment at being hurt and feeling good about the relationship. That's a good and useful (and Biblical) thing to do, but the Bible does not call it "forgiveness". Forgiveness is the specific and Godly response to a person's repentance; it is neither commanded nor reasonable to cancel the debt for (that is, forgive) somebody who continues in their destructive behavior. It is commanded to love your enemies and pray for them and not seek revenge -- but that is never called "forgiveness" in the Bible. For a longer exposition on what it means to "forgive as God forgave us" see my essay on Forgiveness.
The anger, resentment, and bitterness is an emotional response, and
we can choose to control our emotions. Unlike reconciliation, which only
happens if both parties want it, how you choose to feel about the other
person is entirely up to you. Bitterness will eat your gut (literally,
in the form of ulcers and colitis) and you must get past it. Doing good
for the other person -- especially when they don't deserve it -- is a wonderful
way to change your attitude. Doing it in secret, without them knowing who
did it, is wonderful fun and a great way to get past the bitterness. But
if we insist on calling this process "forgiveness" then we need a different
word to translate the Greek word used in the Bible.
What about the heart? It's not about emotions, it's the core of your being, the center of your will. When Jeremiah tells us that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," he's not saying something about our emotions. When we lie (being deceitful) or do wickedly, it's not because our emotions carried us away, it's because we choose to do wrong. It's because the very core of our being is deceitful and wicked. We no longer have an unambiguous body part to represent what "heart" means in Hebrew and Greek, but maybe "backbone" comes close.
It's interesting, that most modern translations (correctly) substitute
the English word "heart" for the Greek and Hebrew words for gut as the
seat of emotions, but they all fail to make an appropriate substitution
for the heart organ when it refers to your spine, the center of your being.
The result is that the modern Bibles seem to make everything an emotional
response, when it's not.
So what is it? The great "love chapter" in the Bible is 1Cor.13, and none of the modern translations accurately capture the meaning of the Greek word agaph (agape). As bad and outdated as it is, I think the King James Version comes closest with "charity". Charity is what you do for other people who don't deserve it, and who don't do anything for you. It's what you do because you are a good Christian and Christians do that kind of thing. It's not an emotional response to the plight of the poor -- oh, it might be -- but usually it's a thoughtful choice of how to spend a little of the bounty God gives every one of us, so to help out people less fortunate than we are. "Charity suffers long. Charity is not proud,..." This is not about your emotions, it's about what you choose to do.
Husbands must choose to treat their wives with courtesy and self-giving
sacrifice, just as Christ chose to do it for His church. The First great
commandment is not about having a warm feeling in your (ahem) heart, it's
about choosing to obey God and make Him first in every part of your life
-- even when God does not apparently return the favor. The book
of Job explores what it means to give God first place when He doesn't seem
to deserve it. Job passed the test. Can you? The Second great commandment
is like the first, to give other people the same first-place consideration
you naturally give yourself. You don't have to like them to do the right
thing for them. Whether God actually likes us, the Bible says very little
about. Are you likeable by God? You can do something about that, if you
want to. That's what loving God is all about.
First Draft 2003 December 30
Revised 2007 May 17