Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Take a Diversion...!

Hyderabad..Jan 12
Got in late last night, the new airport is far out-of-town...and there is a NEW highway being built. It was dark...out in the country...suddenly a sign: TAKE A DIVERSION! In the US it would have been: Detour!...The British influence on the use of English remains...how wonderful that the new highway construction ends and you are required to take the old two lane road...a diversion.

This country is a Diversion...modern, the new airport in Hyderabad makes the Mumbai airport seem old and tired. The work is still being done in Mumbai to finish the "fly-over" highway, it has been a decade long project...the modern along side the tent cities and women walking with mud and rocks on their heads in plastic buckets.

I spent time with a pastor in Mumbai who always asks questions about Hebrew in the Bible. He is now excited about a new translation of the Bible in daily spoken Maharati, the dialect of Mumbai, and he wanted to know how far off I thought it would be from the original. We talked about several passages that he knows by heart from the King James English that do not correspond to the Hebrew which was upsetting to him. I suggested that the more translations which begin with a poor translations, the further we get from the nuance of the original. Yes, he said...but the people need to read it in THEIR language even if that distorts the meaning more.

I did not think that arguing the point would be helpful...I promised to send him the most current translation that I use...he said that he would use it when he teaches. I wonder whether the gap between the latest English from Hebrew is compared to daily Maharati from the King James...as big as Detour and Take a Diversion?


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