I don't disagree. but it isn't always like a word has contradictory meaning.
This is true. But the problem is not so much contradiction as it is nuance. Or, perhaps even more importantly, that while we tend to think of language as words, strung together by certain grammatical rules, but nonetheless decomposable into atomic elements (the individidual nouns, adjectives, particles, clitics, etc., which make up a phrase, line or sentence), this is too often inaccurate. For example:
it isn't always like a word has contradictory meaning
This is perfectly constructed English. But as soon as we try to translate it into some other language, we notice several issues. For example, what is "it"? If I were teaching English grammar to a class, I might respond that "it" is a pronoun, and that like other pronouns it somehow stands in place of a noun. But a student might point to your sentence and say "what is the noun which "it" stands in place of?"
And then I would either respond with jargon-filled and intricately complex language which, in the end, would make it appear as if I answered but at the same time ensure that no one could possibly understand me (and thus the student, fearing to appear stupid, would drop the issue), or perhaps I would simply banish the student from my classroom.
Why would I do this? Because your use of "it", which again is completely grammatical, does not do what pronouns do. It seems to refer to some sort of state of affairs, such that I might say "it" means "the nature of language" in some sense. Maybe I give it a special name, and call it a "dummy" pronoun or perhaps I say it is part of an "impersonal construction" or some such thing. But again, how do I translate it?
In French, for example, we have two common ways to render such impersonal constructions. I began my post with "This is true", but were we writing in French I'd say "c'est vrai." But why would I say "c'est vrai"? It means "it's true", doesn't it? Why not say "il est vrai?" After all, wouldn't it be crazy to use "ce" when translating "is this true"? On the other hand, what are we to make of "il y..."?
Clearly, French is ridiculous. Let's look at German. There's got to be an easy way to translate this in German. But wait, how would we translate "there's got to be" or even "there is" in German? I call up my German friend, who informs me that the answer is "es gibt". I say thanks, and I am about to hang up when I realize that last week, when I asked how to say "he's giving me something" my friend had said "gibt" then too. Clearly, my friend is simply telling me pretty much every verb can be translated by some form of "gibt" in german, which is obviously not true, so he is lying to me. I tell him that it would have been better if his parents hadn't known one another, or hadn't met, because then he'd never have been born. He responds that that would, in German be "Wenn sich deine Eltern nicht kennen gelernt hätten, dann
gäbe es dich nicht", and I hang up the phone wondering what one earth this form of "gibt" or "gives" has to do with "hadn't been".
This is getting me no where, so I call up Dr. Linguist, who lives down the way, and ask how I might answer my student's question. He starts babbling on about meteorological verbs in Indo-European langauges vs. Uralic languages, and the the relevancy of discourse/pragmatics to the construal of modality in Hebrew, and I am now so frustrated I start ranting, yelling that language is meaningless and crazy and nobody knows what they are talking about. I tell Dr. linguist that every word has a meaning, and I just want to know about "it". He responds that in Latin or Greek, "it is for me"-type constructions (
mihi est) mean something like "have", and that this is true to some extent still in Russian, and quite common in non-indo-european languages. "It is for me a son"= "I have a son" or "He is my son"? What?
"It" is driving me crazy (although, even though I still don't know what "it" is, I do know "it" can't drive anywhere).
Often it can be rendered by any number of synonymous words in the other language.
Yes. The question is "what's the "right" one"? After all, in Greek or Latin, I can translate "it can be rendered" and not include "it" at all.
Or vice versa one English word is used to render a number of different Greek words of similar meaning.
English has this tendency to incorporate foreign words, or invent novel ones, so fast that dictionaries can't keep up. Aristotle would find it disgusting. In Greek, after all, the same verb which can mean "untie" as in "I am not worthy to untie the straps of his sandles", can also mean "kill" or "destroy". Greek
extends the meaning of words far more readily than English, which tends to create lots of words with similar meanings, but none are exactly synonymous, which is a misleading word to begin with (and an example of English stealing from other languages). I can have a cup, a glass, a mug, perhaps even a goblet, from which I can drink or have a drink, or sip (but I can't "have a sip" like I can "have a drink"), or guzzle, or gulp, or which I can drain, empty, and even drink this draught to the last drop.
All I am saying is that I respect the KJV translators faithfulness to the text they were translating.
How does one judge faithfulness? That's my point. Language may be "words, words, words", but a word like "point" can mean "the elements
n, located in a Euclidean plane which represent the vector
X when drawn from the origin" or it could mean something I do with my finger. And none of these correspond exactly to words in other languages.
As opposed to the translators of a lot of other bible versions. I see a lot more obvious theological bias in the latter.
Such as?
