What Would You Do?
Now that you’ve discovered that your language has no word for ‘kiss’, you’ve come to translating the Bible passage where Judas betrays Jesus. Jesus points out the hypocrisy of greeting someone with a kiss while betraying them by saying, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” A literal translation would have no meaning. A meaningful translation would mention no kiss. What would you do?
Maoris would rub noses, Aussies would shake hands, or give a “man” hug
But if Judas ‘kissed’ Jesus, and you translated it as ‘gave him a man hug’, wouldn’t you be changing an historical thing?
translate it correctly. there are plenty of cultural instances in the bible that have had to be explained. this one’s no different.
if anything, it’s a good conversation starter, and it allows people to learn. and anybody reading the bible is one inclined to learn.
What if they don’t know what a kiss is? There’s no word for it.
Adam, I was expecting you to come out with something like:
‘and Jesus said, “judas, you hand me a slice of pizza while selling me out…? dude, that’s pretty lame.”‘
Btw, I don’t have the ‘correct’ answer for this one, since this is a problem we’ve just encountered recently. If people have any good ideas we might use them.
At the moment we’re going with:
Luke 22:47-48
Judas approached Jesus to kiss him, as was their normal custom of greeting one another. Jesus said to him, “You Judas! Are you betraying the son of Adam by kissing him?”
And then we have a footnote that says:
Kissing was the normal practice for the Jews when greeting one another. They would touch their mouth to each other’s cheek and imitate someone calling a chicken.
Your comments/opinions are welcome.
Ha! I like the “and imitate someone calling a chicken”! That’s great!
However, it seems that you’re calling attention to something which I think didn’t really have much focus in the original. So …
Another idea, you could use a more general term like “greet”. So Jesus would say “Are you going to betray the Son of Adam by greeting me”. (The irony is more evident, that Judas is basically ending their friendship with a greeting.)
On a different note, why your choice of “son of Adam”? How did “Son of Adam” better capture the huge meaning of “son of man”?
If you use the more general “greet” you could use a culturally normal type of greeting in v47. Then include a footnote about what was the literal type of greeting he used, that is ” a kiss”.
I grew up in VietNam, where people (like the Maoris that Sally mentions) showing affection would rub noses and would never kiss. In VietNam, men walk hand in hand with their fellow male friends, which is on par with Semitic men kissing; there’s platonic, non-sexual friendship meant by this. But among Vietnamese speakers, there’s enough cross-cultural awareness that there is an understanding of kissing. Kissing is something the French and the Americans and the Japanese (in privacy) and the Chinese (in privacy) do; such foreign kissing is typically associated with lovers — and the more worldly youngsters in SaiGon now will kiss in public (or in parks).
Nonetheless, the Vietnamese Bibles still use “hôn” (“kiss”) for what Judas did to Jesus — the older Bibles and the newer ones have it. The “literal” translation including “kissing” (or “hôn”) is not a stumbling block in the least. We Vietnamese readers just understand its not something typically done in VietNam.
(Once upon a time, I think you and I had a partial blog conversation about something similar: whether “xanh” — the color term in between and inclusive of the hues denoted by the English “blue” or “green” — works in the Vietnamese Bible. It does, literally. And just because the color terms are chunked differently doesn’t mean what you call “literal” translation won’t work.)
Hi J.K. (or is it Kurk?),
Glad you found our little blog.
First, regarding the colour terms, if I recall correctly (‘sally’ up there is my mum, so I’m not sure if everyone here would understand ‘IIRC’), I was saying that “cloths of X” (in this case, “cloths of blue”) is generally unnatural English (as used in ESV), and a good English translation should say “blue cloth/s”, unless there’s a poetic/genre reason for saying “cloths of blue”.
Regarding “kiss”, we want to keep that in the translation, since that’s what actually happened. I’m with you on this – I want all that original cultural stuff to be in there as much as possible. That’s why (for now) we’ve added the phrase, “as was their normal custom of greeting one another.”
I think that translators should be given some leeway to expound implicit information like we’ve done (most original readers would have understood this to be a normal greeting, but no Kwaya reader would make that connection because ‘kissing’ is an unknown idea). The line is sometimes grey between expounding and commentating, but that’s a line that translators have to trod if they want their translations to say what the author was originally saying.
So, I don’t think in a translation it’s fair for us to write, “Judas went and shook Jesus’ hand,” but it is fair to expound a little on what he did (“Judas kissed Jesus as was their normal greeting”) and then put any more commentary in a footnote.
The main difficulty though is that ‘kiss’ is a borrowed word for the Kwaya – they borrow it from Swahili. It definitely warrants a footnote, but oftentimes in non-literate cultures (the PC term for them now is ‘pre-literate’) footnotes are ignored. It’s not that writing ‘kiss’ is better because it’s a literal translation, but because it is historically accurate. Writing “as was their normal greeting” is also accurate (although not literal), because it is information implicit in the original, and implicit information is a valid part of communication.
Donna T wrote:
Ha! I like the “and imitate someone calling a chicken”! That’s great!
Yeah.
On a translation testing trip in a village I got to demonstrate for a group of Kwaya people what kissing is by kissing one of the other (Kwaya) translators. Their response was hilarious.
it seems that you’re calling attention to something which I think didn’t really have much focus in the original.
Can you expand on this? Do you mean this discussion in general, or the way we’re translating it? Or something else….
Another idea, you could use a more general term like “greet”. So Jesus would say “Are you going to betray the Son of Adam by greeting me”. (The irony is more evident, that Judas is basically ending their friendship with a greeting.)
Yeah, I think this is a valid option. Although I prefer to use the word ‘kiss’ unless it just completely doesn’t make sense to them.
Actually, until we got to checking this verse, I’d never really thought about it much myself and what Jesus was saying – the “irony [of] ending their friendship with a greeting.” I might just be slower than others though…
On a different note, why your choice of “son of Adam”?
The phrase “son of Adam” is far from set in stone, but our initial testing of “son of man” or “son of person/human” had lots of issues. First, if we say “son of man” then it sounds like “son of a particular male person”. If we say “son of human” it sounds like it could be anyone, i.e., “some person’s son”. So far it seems like “son of Adam” best captures this as a unique title referring to Jesus. Perhaps it would be a good topic for another WWYD question.
We’re open to suggestions.
Btw, did you like how I responded chiastically instead of chronologically?
‘kiss’ is a borrowed word for the Kwaya – they borrow it from Swahili. It definitely warrants a footnote, but oftentimes in non-literate cultures … footnotes are ignored. It’s not that writing ‘kiss’ is better because it’s a literal translation, but because it is historically accurate. Writing “as was their normal greeting” is also accurate (although not literal), because it is information implicit in the original, and implicit information is a valid part of communication.
Michael,
Please feel free to refer to me by my nickname, Kurk; it’s what all my friend call me. Thanks for taking time to clarify so many things here. The situation of an orally read Bible in Kwaya with footnotes embedded really makes a lot of sense, to the listeners, the readers, and even to the rest of us who are metaphorically “overhearing” the situation.
At Better Bibles blog, you’ve brought up “smote their breasts” (and I’ve mentioned “smote his breast”) as English translations of Luke’s Greek. The problem in Kwaya, you said at the other blog, is that the meaning of chest beating in Kwaya is not what it is in English (or presumably what it is in Greek, or Hebrew Aramaic, as Luke writes it and Jesus speaks it in his parable). Isn’t the best solution in Kwaya for Luke’s verses something similar to what you do with “kiss”?
And if in Kiswahili (which many Kwaya speakers understand?) there’s already a context, doesn’t this cross-language, bi-lingual situation give the Kwaya speakers a bridge of understanding? I’m looking at excerpts from the respective Luke passages in Swahili that seem translated rather literally, respectively, as:
“wakapigapiga vifua vyao kwa huzuni ”
“bali alijipiga piga kifuani na sukema”
Would Kwaya readers and speakers know that in Kiswahili “piga piga” means to strike or to smite or to beat? Wouldn’t they allow for the historical (literal?) fact that Luke reports people beating their chests (and translates Jesus telling a story in which a sinner does the same)? Couldn’t they have heard such in Swahili first, and then understand that the historical cultural facts mean something different from how they’d say it? Wouldn’t an embedded footnote (if it’s something read aloud in the context of the verse) be a good solution?
I said: “it seems that you’re calling attention to something which I think didn’t really have much focus in the original.”
And you asked: “Can you expand on this? Do you mean this discussion in general, or the way we’re translating it? Or something else….”
(By the way, I don’t know how to do bold or italics etc – can someone enlighten me?)
I meant the footnote which mentions “calling a chicken”. I know you’ve also included that it was the normal practise for greeting each other, but will the inclusion of the “calling a chicken” cause more confusion than it’s worth?
My thoughts about this passage, in terms of the 4 dimensions of meaning are:
• Ideational meaning = which here is literally someone touching their mouth to a cheek (which is what your footnote explains). However, I’d argue that the primary meaning of this passage is not this ideational meaning, but rather emotional and intertextual meanings.
• Intertextual = Jesus’ is showing the irony in pointing out that Judas is betraying with a greeting. A way of illustrating Judas’ hypocrisy and double sidedness.
• Emotional = The emotions of betrayal are there, and they are intensified by betraying with something so incongruous as a greeting.
• Pragmatic meaning? There’s little to take from such a small slice of narrative.
So it seems to me that in your current translation (from what you’ve said) most people will have to read the footnote to understand the text at all.
If you use a more general term for kiss like “greeting”, you emphasise the emotional and ironic elements, without needing for the reader to stop and find the footnote. If they want to know what the ideational meaning is, then a footnote (like what you have now) could be included – but it wouldn’t be necessary for the reader to read it to understand the flow of the text.
And yes, I appreciate the chiasm. How very “biblical” of you.
Kurk wrote:
it’s what all my friend call me.
And what do you call your friend?
Isn’t the best solution in Kwaya for Luke’s verses something similar to what you do with “kiss”?
I think they’re similar situations, but slightly different. “Smote their breasts” already has meaning in Kwaya – to show anger. “Kiss” is an unknown concept. The difficulty in the second one is giving meaning to the meaningless. In the first it’s avoiding the existing ‘incorrect’ meaning and giving it the ‘correct’ meaning, i.e., ‘lament’. With “smote their breasts” I’m not sure yet if we should write “smote their breasts in sorrow”, or write “put their hands on their head” with a footnote, since to put one’s hands on one’s head is a sign of lamenting. The addition of “in sorrow” is helpful, but imagine reading in English “he stuck up his middle finger at her in disbelief”. Most English speakers would have a hard time reading that and detaching the English meaning of sticking up the middle finger while assigning it the sole meaning of disbelief. Minority languages have a much harder time than English speakers, because they are far less exposed to cross-cultural awareness. We’ll probably go with “hit their chests in sorrow” and put a footnote saying that for them it’s the same as putting one’s hands on one’s head in sorrow, but it’s not an ideal solution (at least it’s historically accurate, if not meaningfully accurate). Most people won’t ever read the footnote. Embedding them is preferred, but gets clunky after a while.
doesn’t this cross-language, bi-lingual situation give the Kwaya speakers a bridge of understanding?
Some of them, yes. But you’d be surprised how many people out in the villages don’t actually speak Swahili, or speak it less than I do. Also, theirs is not a culture of cross-referencing and checking things, of trying to understand what makes other cultures different etc. There are villagers who think that Jesus spoke Swahili! Silly, we all know he spoke King James English…
Actually, we’ve found that where/when possible, printings that include a parallel Swahili version are really helpful. It’s a lot more work, and there are lots of issues associated with it (higher costs, copyrights, sociolinguistic attitudes, etc.), but we’ll push for it where we can.
I’m looking at excerpts from the respective Luke passages in Swahili that seem translated rather literally
Yes, Swahili has a strong heritage of literal translations. 100 years ago or so the KJV was translated into Swahili. It’s the translation that is used in basically all churches, and Tanzanians just assume that the Bible is a strange book with a strange register of language. We thought we had it hard with a 400 year old translation… they have a 100 year old Swahili translation (which already isn’t their mother-tongue) of a 400 year old English translation (300 at the time). When we work through many of these translation issues, we’ll often hear the translators saying, “Does it really mean this? We always assumed it just meant such-and-such,” or “Were the people really upset? We always thought they were angry, because they beat their chests.”
Donna T wrote:
will the inclusion of the “calling a chicken” cause more confusion than it’s worth?
I don’t think so, but it’s a valid point. The reason we put that in there is because the Kwaya don’t know what a kiss is. Some of them have a vague understanding of it through Swahili, but even in Swahili it’s fairly unknown because Tanzanians just don’t kiss. In our footnote we’re just trying to come up with a definition for ‘kiss’ so they’ll know what it is. I’ll ask the translators what they think though, whether or not this is too much info or distracting or w/e.
Intertextual = Jesus’ is showing the irony in pointing out that Judas is betraying with a greeting. A way of illustrating Judas’ hypocrisy and double sidedness.
Good point, although I’m not totally clear on what you mean by ‘intertextual’.
If you use a more general term for kiss like “greeting”, you emphasise the emotional and ironic elements, without needing for the reader to stop and find the footnote.
Yes, very good point. I might have to take another look at it and try to emphasise the ‘greeting’ aspect. Maybe something like:
Judas approached Jesus to kiss him, as was their normal custom of greeting one another. But Jesus said to him, “You Judas! Are you betraying the son of Adam with a greeting?”
I’ll let you know what we do.
Donna T wrote:
(By the way, I don’t know how to do bold or italics etc – can someone enlighten me?)
http://www.developingwebs.net/html/lesson3.php
A kiss is a specific action, not a generic greeting.
If you don’t want to do it because you are embarrassed, just don’t do it. But to change the text because you think it is unimportant is not honorable.
When I lived in Argentina, we all kissed – regardless of gender. One of my English students was a real modern day Judas. He and his family would all kiss me and my family, but it turns out that he was a busy womanizer who shortly left his wife and children and was secretly hitting on my wife.
He literally betrayed me with a kiss. May he impale himself and his bowels burst open in a potter’s field.
Still, the gesture was very cohesive to Argentine society. It just doesn’t compensate for a wicked design.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for stopping by, and sharing your painful story.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here:
If you don’t want to do it because you are embarrassed, just don’t do it. But to change the text because you think it is unimportant is not honorable.
I’m also confused by what this means:
It just doesn’t compensate for a wicked design.
Michael – thanks for the link about italics etc. I only just now saw it.
Wounded Ego – I think the problem is not so much changing the text because the translator is “embarrassed” but trying to keep the impact of the text the same in an audience which is vastly different to the original audience 2000 years ago.
If someone reads the text (with the word for “kiss” in it) and is distracted by what a kiss is, and why they did that action, and what did it really mean, and “are they calling each other chickens?” I’d say the text has changed in their mind and so changing the translation itself (removing the word for kiss, maybe to a footnote, and using a more generic term), actually makes it a more authentic translation.
I wonder how I did with the bold and italics…
My question is:
* do you understand the Greek to be referring to a kiss or a handshake?
* if a kiss, will a handshake do?
Other cultures read “kiss” and practice “kiss.”
The US reads “kiss” and practices “handshake” (or a man-hug, with three pats on the back that say “I’m-not-gay”…
This is more consistent than conforming the text to the culture.
>>>It just doesn’t compensate for a wicked design.
I meant, “a kiss conceals, but does nothing to compensate for wicked intentions.”
Thanks for clarifying, Bill.
I understand the Greek to be referring to a kiss.
In my culture, a kiss of greeting is usually done between a male and a female who are good friends or family. Men don’t kiss, but the meaning of ‘kiss’ is close enough and our awareness of foreign cultures makes this passage understandable as is.
In the Kwaya language, there is no word for ‘kiss’. Kissing is not practiced, and except for those who live in larger towns, Kwaya people don’t really know what a kiss is or why a person would do one. How then do you propose to translate this word?
I am quite sure that none of the translators, nor my mum who mentioned ‘shaking hands’ and ‘man hugging’, is embarrassed by this, or thinks that it is unimportant.
Personally, I like Donna’s suggestion that what’s important in Jesus’ comment is that Judas betrayed Jesus with an intimate greeting (in their case, a kiss). Therefore, if we say that Judas went over to Jesus and kissed him, and then Jesus said “would you betray me with a greeting?” this would accurately represent the important emotional element of the text, or the focus or impact or climax, if you prefer. The ‘kiss’ hasn’t been taken out, but the focus of Jesus’ comment has been maintained for the Kwaya readers. Focus is an important element of discourse that needs to be considered in translation.
Donna, good job on html.
Like most of the **practices** of the scriptures, this practice is ignored in the States:
Romans 16:16 Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.
1 Corinthians 16:20 All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.
2 Corinthians 13:12 Greet one another with an holy kiss.
1 Thessalonians 5:26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
Bill, what do you think about the ‘practice’ of kissing as a greeting in the context of the USA?
Also, I’m interested to hear what you mean by ‘ignored’ if you can expand on that.
ISTM that if someone is serious about applying scripture then it should be adopted as a practice. I lived in Argentina where this is practiced and it is much harder to cop an attitude with someone that you kiss every time you encounter them! And when someone betrays you, a kiss does seem very sinister and inappropriate.
Ok, thanks for that. So now that you’re back in the US (I’m guessing), do you continue the practice of kissing as a greeting?
I do with my wife.
But I’m not a Christian, so it ain’t my job.
“if someone is serious about applying scripture then it should be adopted as a practice.”
I can’t say I agree with this. One of the useful things my professors told me in college was “You can’t open someone else’s mail and expect it to apply to you.” I wouldn’t read Gen 6:14 and assume it’s something that I should do: “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.”
Likewise, there are things in the Bible that are there as information (recorded accounts/history, etc.), and things that are for edification (Psalms, etc.) and things for our instruction.
So, I don’t think that the writers of the NT are telling us to greet each other by kissing, just as I don’t think that Paul was telling us in Romans 16:15-16 to “Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It’s important to find out who the target audience is, and whether or not we fit into that category. The target audience in Genesis 6 was Noah. In Romans it’s trickier, because the target audience was “all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints”. The things which were written to them as being a ‘church audience’ – well we would fit into that today. The things which were written to them as a group of people in first century Rome – we probably don’t fit into that audience. I don’t think that Paul was giving general instruction to the universal church when he said “kiss!”
That’s my take.
So, by your hermeneutic, unless Paul was writing a letter addressed to you personally, his instructions are irrelevant?
Rom_16:16 Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you.
1Co_16:20 All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.
2Co_13:12 Greet one another with an holy kiss.
1Th_5:26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
What about the following verse?
Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Is that irrelevant?
It this irrelevant?
1Co 16:22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
This?
2Co 13:11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
How about this?
1Th 5:27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
From my perspective, this is picking and choosing, based on how comfortable or uncomfortable you find a text. Your professor is typical of preachers… getting everyone on board with all the workarounds for texts that don’t line up with their dogmas, while pounding home their favorite unscriptural dogmas (Trinity, “going to heaven”, “Hell”, etc.)
So, are you suggesting that I should build an ark?
“So, by your hermeneutic, unless Paul was writing a letter addressed to you personally, his instructions are irrelevant?”
No, and I already addressed that. I said, “It’s important to find out who the target audience is, and whether or not we fit into that category.” That doesn’t mean that I require a personal letter. But if he’s writing different things to different people, I certainly should discern which things apply to me. There are instructions in the Bible that are to parents, but not everyone is a parent, so it’s a bit hard for some people to apply what that target audience is applying.
Are you suggesting that every verb in the Bible that is in the imperative form is something that self-claimed Christians must follow?
“From my perspective, this is picking and choosing, based on how comfortable or uncomfortable you find a text.”
It has nothing to do with being comfortable or uncomfortable. I’d be quite comfortable to prepare a room for Paul to stay with us, but I’m pretty sure that that part was meant for Philemon (“22 At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.”)
I don’t pick up my organisation’s policy manual and apply everything in there to me. There are things written to supervisors, to employees, to volunteers, etc., etc. It seems fairly simple.
I don’t even really know what gopher wood is.
Whatever…
1Th 5:26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
1Th 5:27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
Philem. 22 At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.