We lose keys, telephone numbers and other items and then fuss around looking for them. We also lose words. But we hardly notice they have gone. Who remembers ‘trice’? Yet it was once an everyday word. It means a short time. ‘I’ll be ready in a trice.’ Nobody says that nowadays. We still have ‘twice’ but we have lost ‘thrice’.
There is a word we find in the Bible but hardly ever in daily speech. ‘Woe’ lingers in the expression ‘Woe betide …’ Otherwise it is lost. The fact that it is a lament that has been around a long time and is found in similar forms in many languages has not saved it.
So when we come across the word ‘woe’ in, say, 1 Corinthians 9.16, we have to remember that this is not a translation into any kind of English that is current today. Modern translations find this hard to deal with. The TEV has Paul saying he is under orders to preach the Gospel. ‘And how terrible it would be for me if I did not preach the Gospel!’ The CEV has: ‘Preaching is something God told me to do, and if I don’t do it, I am doomed.’ The REB is even more adventurous: ‘I cannot help myself; it would be agony for me not to preach.’
Truly, as the man said, to translate is to betray. If we venture to try our hand we must have a broad acquaintance with the foreign language and our own language. The multitude of English translations of the Bible suggests that nobody is ever quite satisfied with the products presently available. Tussles over the meaning of the word ‘church’ for example have consumed scholars’ best efforts and printer’s ink time and again.
But if it is difficult to find a good rendering of the original in the case of 1 Corinthians 9.16, it is not impossible to see what the writer is driving at. The proclamation of the Christian Gospel is a momentous responsibility. It deserves the best effort of all those involved. We can’t all declare, orate or argue the point. We can back up those who do.
Paul might have said: ‘Woe betide me if I am not with you in a trice,’ (1 Thessalonians 3.10) but he didn’t. He did, however, say something very much like it. One of the Bible’s ‘might have beens’?
FOOD MINISTRY
St Peter’s church, Harrogate includes a food ministry for the homeless in its programme. This includes a hot breakfast six days out of seven, Sunday lunch and a hot meal three times a week. The Vicar, Alan Garrow, has a particular interest in first-century history and the questions faced by the young Church.
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