J K, you ask a question about target audiences. I think mashiah is such an unfamiliar rendering for most people that it should only be used for a target audience for whom it would be the normal rendering – if such an audience exists. I suspect that for most people it would simply read like an odd spelling that has been deliberately chosen to make a point that is inaccessible to most of us.

CharlesPDog, Dru, Bob,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Gilbert Wesley Purdy,
> Better even that your readers be presented with a foreign word/concept.

My view is that we should make every effort to relate a foreign concept to our target audience so they can understand it. If we have to use foreign words to do so, we are not actually producing a translation.

Martin Shields
> My main objection to the phrase you’ve used is that it completely avoids the notions of sovereignty inherent in Χριστος. Messianic expectations in the first century (and throughout the OT) are invariably associated with a figure who comes to rule.

I think the concept of rulership includes the component of leadership. Many rulers throughout history have ruled/led by force. Jesus chose to lead by example. Perhaps this is why so many Jews (and others) were disappointed in him.

Peter Kirk
> How about “the One”? It worked in The Matrix, so why not in a Bible? And it has the advantage of being short!

Thanks for the suggestion, Peter, but I think the upper case “O” is conveying meaning (special one?) that may not be understood when the text is heard rather than read. I’m not very familiar with The Matrix. How does the author relate who “the One” represents and what his purpose is?

NKJV “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ).

BLB “I know God promised that someone would come to help us enjoy a better life.”

Ἰωάννης “οἶδα ὅτι Μεσσίας ἔρχεται ὁ λεγόμενος Χριστός”

Barnstone “I know a mashiah is coming who is called the anointed.”

Nyland “I know that the Messiah is coming – he’s called the Anointed One.”

(John, a Jew & an apprentice of this “mashiah,” is translating into Greek the Samaritan-Aramaic of a woman recognizing and talking with that “mashiah.” Barnstone, a Greek & a translation scholar and a Jew, is translating into English the Greek of John. Nyland, a classical Greek scholar and a woman, is translating into English a man’s translation of another outsider-woman’s statement into Greek. Notice how similar these three, and their keen ability to carry the metaphor of “mashiah / μεσσίας” on into a simple-complex single phrase of an-other language, as a similar-different metaphor. Who is John’s “target audience”? Who is Barnstone’s, and Nyland’s?)

My main objection to the phrase you’ve used is that it completely avoids the notions of sovereignty inherent in Χριστος. Messianic expectations in the first century (and throughout the OT) are invariably associated with a figure who comes to rule. I think this is clearly reflected in the NT. So while you object to a simple translation like “king” on the basis that “it would lose the distinction in meaning between the two terms,” I believe your own attempt fails because it obscures that connection completely.

I also think that the expression is too vague. It encompasses far more than it should. I called the plumber a few weeks back and hoped that, as a result of his visit, aspects of my life would improve. I go to the doctor for the same reason. Yet I wouldn’t call either of them a messiah! Although it could be argued that the NT unpacks the nature of the Messiah’s role, emptying the term of meaning does not seem to me to be a good translation choice.

That’s… really very small, isn’t it?

In line with an expansion of meaning of anointing, anointed, Christ Jesus and Jesus Christ or the Christ etc, surely _concepts_ is _not_ at the heart of salvation. Salvation is Christ Jesus, a person who is most emphatically not a concept. I have a personal specialty with brain damaged people who cannot grasp concepts or who take them at a tangent. Salvation must extend to my children, one of whom comes from Islamic stock and was in a car accident and one of whom is a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome from aboriginal stock and both of whom have suffered sever brain damage for one reason or another. Salvation of Christ – the Anointing Spirit of Jesus extends to them. They, outside of my body, are part of my body. Some traditions are hopelessly into conceptual salvation – their concepts on their own become idolatrous. God’s Jesus is not a concept. Neither is the consolation of the anointing of Israel.

Do not translate in the flesh. Translate in Christ. There – rant over. And concatenation of puns over also. Grrr…

That said, perhaps “the Promised One” has possibilities.