|
“And in the same way as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, in order that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Because in that way God loved the world – to the extent that he gave his only Son - therefore whoever believes in him may not self-destruct but may have eternal life.....” (Jesus speaking with a Judean ruler, circa AD 30, as recorded in John’s biography of Jesus (John 3: 16), written around AD 90)
|
A charitable organization named Wycliffe Bible Translators is doing – and has done for a very long time - an enormous amount of work to translate the Bible into hundreds of different languages across the world.
Its Hdi translation team was struggling to find the right translation for the verb “to love” – as used in the extract on bold red above.
They had discussed it thoroughly, but one more conversation was needed to reveal God’s fingerprints on this language, and his love for this Cameroonian people group.
Almost every verb in the Hdi language has forms ending in I, a and u, each with a different meaning. But when it came to the word for “love” (underlined above), there were only dvi and dva.
Dangwa Pierre, president of the Hdi translation committee, remembers how the discussion started: “Could you dvi your wife?”
|
|
“Yes”, everyone agreed. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone. “Could you dva your wife?”
“Yes,” Dangwa said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.
Could you dvu your wife? Everyone laughed.
|
|
“Of course not!” Dangwa explained, “If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even f she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to keep on loving her. No, we would never say dvu. It just doesn’t exist.”
Thinking about John 3: 16 (above in bold red), the Bible translator asked, “Could God dvi people?”
There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears flowed down Dangwa’s face. The others began weeping too.
Finally, Dangwa responded, “Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all the time we rejected his great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people”
|
|
“And in the same way as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, in order that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Because in that way God dvu’d the world – to the extent that he gave his only Son - therefore whoever believes in him may not self-destruct but may have eternal life.....”
|
|
A tax-collector named Matthew also wrote a biography of Jesus, the Son of Man who, as John wrote, was lifted up on a cross. If you would like to read and discuss Mathew’s biography, please contact me. I’d love to do that with you, alone (confidentially if you wish) or with a few others.
If you’d like to, just click “Reply” and send me a message.
|
|
|
