And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them.
(Mark 10:13, ESV)
We read this verse in church recently. I had to stop myself from laughing.
What’s wrong with it? Any ideas on how could it be translated differently?
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So, the disciples rebuked those little tykes, eh? I bet Mom and Dad weren’t too happy about these men scolding their children.
“that he might bless them…” I can’t say that I wouldn’t laugh either. A similar thing happened to me not long ago when I happened upon this book. In our culture, such titles should really be reconsidered!
Yes, unintentional inuendo is such a difficulty for translators. Since people tend to focus on defects, a text needs to be carefully gone over with this in mind. Another problematic rendering is “No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” (John 7:4 ESV). Probably better is: “If you want to be well known, you must not hide what you do. If you can do such amazing things, let the whole world see” (ERV). Also problematic in the ESV here is the ambiguous “these things,” which probably needs to be disambiguated for today’s readers.
I just posted this morning on my blog about unintended humor. http://lingamish.com/2011/04/its-time-to-cut-the-cheese/
This definitely gets added to the list!
I would replace “touch” with bless and “rebuke” with “scold”, such as the NET does. It seems there is some discrepancy as to whether it was the children being scolded or the people who brought them.
“No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” (John 7:4 ESV).
Great observation!
Though, come to think of it, perhaps Jesus’ brothers were attempting to imitate Will Rogers.
Well, probably not. But it sure did make me think of Will Rogers.
You might want to note 1 Cor. 7:1, too.
περὶ δὲ ὧν ἐγράψατε καλὸν ἀνθρώπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσθαι
Now, concerning the things you wrote about. First, you wrote, “It’s good for a man not to touch a woman.”
I translate with ‘touch’ to highlight the euphemism and to bring out the fact that ἅπτω is used here in 1 Cor. 7, the same word used in Mark 10 (καὶ προσέφερον αὐτῷ παιδία ἵνα αὐτῶν ἅψηται). I think the contexts in the original clearly disambiguated the difference. And did so without the reader needing to analyze the text.
So, we have to make sure of two things in the translation:
1. We choose a good word for ἅπτω.
2. The context (ie. other word choices and sentence constructions) are built such that the reader makes the right choice when reading the translator’s word choice for ἅπτω.
That is, it’s not just the word. It’s the word in context.
FWIW: A clearer translation of 1 Cor. 7:1 should probably be something like, It’s good for a man not to go to bed with a woman..
Tiffany, “bless” is what several translations do use, though I’d like to know how certain that meaning is.
People were bringing their children to Jesus, hoping for just a touch from his hand, but the disciples tried to shoo them away.
Yeah, they sure got a lot of work to do in revising the ESV.
Can someone explain why “No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” (John 7:4 ESV) is problematic? It isn’t obviously so here.
Is this the US idiom equivalent of what the effect would be in UK idiom if one were to translate the passage ‘“No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, expose yourself”? Or is it something quite different that I have not guessed?
I wonder if it would stretch the bounds of accuracy too far to instead say “so they could touch him”? The innuendo is removed because the children are the actors in the sentence, but the meaning (from context) would be interpreted as being similar, the idea of a blessing still comes through….
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