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✝️¿Y si la BIBLIA está MAL traducida?
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What if the virgin was not a virgin?
What if there was no apple?
What if Jesus was not from Nazareth?
And why does Michelangelo's Moses have horns?
[Dorotea] With the Virgin?
Hey?
Ok, I am aware that I have gotten myself into an incredible mess,
but I am going to treat this subject in the most respectful way possible.
A couple of months ago I was having a coffee
with Enric, from Adictos a la Filosofía,
and we had a super interesting conversation about the Bible
and from there the doubt arose:
is it not possible that, as old as it is, it has been mistranslated?
Or, what has reached our days, is not what was really put in the original version?
I am not saying the whole Bible, but at least certain parts…
Hello, good afternoon.
Jesus said “I thirst”.
"There was a container with vinegar, they soaked a sponge in it
and gave it to him." [John 19:28-37 NIV]
What bastards, right? Give him vinegar…
Obviously, it wasn't vinegar, but posca.
In Ancient Rome, there was a very popular drink among the lower classes
and, above all, in the army: the posca.
[Dorotea] And what does that have to do with vinegar?
Well, the posca was an old wine,
vinegary mixed with water.
It couldn't taste very good, but it was cheap
and it held up for a long time in good condition.
“Good conditions”, if its original state can be considered that way…
But, let's see,
have you ever been to a restaurant abroad
and asked for the menu in Spanish?
It's hilarious…
Normally, the people who work in these establishments
have little command of languages
and use automatic translators to translate the names of the dishes.
We can find things like these:
[Dorotea] Wait a minute.
[Dorotea] I think this is the perfect time for this:
[Dorotea] do you want to prevent this from happening to you?
[Dorotea] Learn English, German, French or Spanish with Lingoda!
Lingoda is a language learning platform
that allows you to have classes from your home, on the day and at the time you want.
I tell you more at the end of the video.
And well, now yes, the menus of the restaurants (they are real eh):
Fine broad beans with ham, it would be literally in English "you live (from the verb to inhabit)
well with the ham"...
Coca cola, "cocaine tail" …
Botifarra amb mongetes (that is, sausage with beans),
“Catalan sausage with Jews”.
And well, many more wonders.
But, let's see, I also want to make one thing clear,
this is funny, yes,
but laughing at people who don't speak languages is a form of social discrimination.
You have to understand why that is there
and not take advantage of the situation to be elitist.
Maybe they didn't have the same resources as you,
maybe they didn't know about Lingoda,
maybe their socio-cultural context was different,
or they just weren't interested, which is just as valid.
So there is no reason to laugh at these people.
In fact, how many English speakers speak a second language?
And no one thinks it's wrong…
The fact that English is their first language does not give them any more right than others
not to speak a second.
With this we can think that these errors occur
because there is little command of foreign languages,
but this does not have to be the case.
It is often said that great sages only make great mistakes.
The greatest experts or people who have dedicated their lives
to interpretation or translation have made mistakes,
some of them historical.
[Dorotea] For example?
For example, what happened to this man, well, to his interpreter.
This was Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the USA.
In 1977 he traveled to Poland and gave a friendly speech
(or well, that was his intention).
When he wanted to say "I have come to know your opinions
and your wishes for the future,"
the interpreter said something like
"I have come to know your opinions and your sexual desires."
[Dorotea] Actually, the same thing happened to me.
[Dorotea] Once I was writing an email
[Dorotea] to the director of the institute where I worked
[Dorotea] And I wanted to talk to him about the “lexical” content,
[Dorotea] but the translator changed me from “lexical” to “lesbian”…
[ Dorotea] In German, lexicon is “lexische”, and lesbian, “lesbische.”
Well, also, when Carter said that he was very excited to see the country,
the interpreter said “I'm excited to see the private parts of Poland”.
You can imagine the faces of the Poles...
[Dorotea] And, in the Bible, has the same thing happened?
Well, obviously.
And it's the most normal thing in the world.
Do you know who the patron saint of translators is?
San Jerónimo
Do you know why Moses has horns?
Because of his "fault"...
He was the one who translated the Bible from the Greek or and from Hebrew to Latin.
In Hebrew, as in other Semitic languages,
the spelling system does not reflect vowels (explained badly and quickly),
so the translator, in a description of Moses,
confused the word karan, meaning 'radiant, bright'
with keren, which means 'horn'.
So, for this trifle of nothing, for centuries
Moses has been depicted with horns
in paintings and sculptures throughout Christendom.
[Dorotea] And the virgin, was that also a bad translation?
It's quite likely...
but before we get into that, let's put a little bit of context.
In what language was the Bible originally written?
The word bible comes from the Latin BIBLIA,
and this from the Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια [ta biblía ta háguia].
This means 'the sacred books',
and in Latin it remained as a proper name:
THE BIBLE.
But the Greeks already used this expression before Christ.
Well, specifically, it was used by Greek-speaking Jews
or Greeks of the Jewish religion to refer to their holy book,
the Tanakh,
which for Christians is the Old Testament.
The Christians also used this name
to talk about the same thing that the Jews talked about,
but over time the Christians added more books
and, as you know, the Jews did not.
[Dorotea] But then, the original language of the Bible was Greek?
There is not one original language of the Bible, but several.
The oldest texts, corresponding to the Tanakh or the Old Testament,
were written in Hebrew and Aramaic.
They were then translated into Greek,
but the process was slow and involved many scholars,
what we would today call translators and philologists.
It is thought that the first books began to be translated in the 3rd century BC
and were not finished until the 1st century AD
[Dorotea] And the New Testament?
That was written entirely in Greek.
Then, at the end of the fourth century,
Pope Damasus I wanted there to be a version of the Bible in Latin,
it is true that there were already previous versions in Latin,
but they were partial and of not very good quality,
so it was commissioned it to Jerónimo de Estridón,
whom we would later know as Saint Jerome
(remember: the patron saint of translators).
And this version that he wrote is the famous "Vulgate",
a version that, with some subsequent modifications,
has spread throughout Western Europe
and most of the world.
[Dorotea] But, how were translations done at that time?
[Dorotea] Because you have said that we are in the 4th century…
The normal thing at this time is that the translation was a rather free and subjective exercise
that depended totally on the will of the translator,
a person who had not received any instruction in theory of translation,
so you can imagine what could come out of it...
and the mistakes that would be made.
However, it is also true that the Romans
were the first to be concerned with the translation process,
since they treated the subject theoretically
and even classified different types of translations.
Saint Jerome was super systematic and translated differently
depending on the type of text.
He was perfectly aware that the profession of translator
was not something purely linguistic,
but also something cultural,
for which it was necessary to have a humanistic background.
For him it was super important that the meaning be translated,
that the same be transmitted as in the original version,
but this often meant that the interpretation
might not coincide with what the original author wanted to say.
Imagine that a word is mistranslated,
they are going to try to tell something in which that word
fits to convey the meaning,
but, of course, if that word is not what it is
or if the context has been misinterpreted
or if it is simply a word that does not exist in the language into which it is translated,
we are going to have problems.
Think that mistakes would be made in the translation from Hebrew and Aramaic
to Greek,
from Greek to Latin,
and from Latin to the language that is the majority in your area.
Besides, in the Middle Ages this version was copied thousands of times,
so very likely we will also have errors in each author who copied it.
[Dorotea] Ok, but is there any known error?
Of course… You know where we come from, don't you?
[Dorotea] Me from my house…
The people… The human being…
[Dorotea] Oh, well, the monkey…
Adam and Eve!
Okay, this is the allegory (the continued metaphor)
that the Church has to explain the origin of the human being.
And why are they kicked out of paradise?
For an apple!
But what if it wasn't an apple...?
In current bibles the apple does not appear anywhere,
why?
Well, because the appearance of this particular fruit
was caused by a translation error.
Apple in Latin is MALUS-MALI
(in Italian, apple is mela…)
but there was another very similar and very dark word…
evil!
In other words, the word to designate evil, disease, wickedness,
this word is MALUM-MALI,
very very similar,
so the translator simply confused one with another.
[Dorotea] In other words, in the original version it wasn't such a metaphor,
[Dorotea] the temptation wasn't an apple, really who is tempted by an apple…
[Dorotea] It was directly evil…
Well, there were other metaphors :
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
Kind of a weird metaphor, right?
Why a camel? What if…
[Dorotea] Wasn't it a camel?
It seems that the word for camel in Greek, kamelos,
was very similar to the word for rope or rope, kamilos.
To say that a rope stands for a thread as a hyperbole
(that is, as an exaggeration)
seems a bit more logical than a camel.
[Dorotea] And what about Jesus not being from Nazareth?
Well…
it was not common to use the name of the place of origin
as a surname in the inhabitants of Judea at that time.
The most common was to use the name of the father
(Muslims, for example, call Jesus,
Youshua ben Joseph, Jesus son of Joseph).
And in the Bible there is never any mention of any city called Nazareth,
and the first reference made to it is 400 years later.
In the New Testament Jesus is called a Nazarene 18 times,
and this seems to be more of a title
related to his vow of consecration to God.
[Dorotea] But why a Nazarene if it has nothing to do with Nazareth?
Well, people who dedicated their lives to God
were called Nazirites or Nazirites.
And it seems that this denomination is related to the hair.
[Dorothea] Why?
Because these people did not drink wine, did not approach the dead
and, careful, did not cut their hair
(Samson and his famous long hair are an example from the Old Testament).
[Dorotea] Okay, so, at some point, was Nazarene written
[Dorotea] instead of Nazireate or Nazirite
[Dorotea] and all this history of the city of Nazareth invented?
Well, let's see, Nazarene
(or its Nazirite or Nazirite variants)
was a title given to people who dedicated their lives to God.
Presumably this concept would be lost
and some translator or even one of the writers of the Bible would say:
Nazarene?
Well, it must be because it comes from somewhere called Nazareth or something like that,
and pumbaa...
[Dorotea] Mmmm, and that thing about the virgin not being a virgin?
Well, in the Bible the Hebrew word 'almah' appeared
and was translated as 'virgin',
but this is not the word normally used to talk about virginity,
that word was 'bethulah'
and it seems that 'almah' translates simply as young woman or girl.
[Dorotea] The truth is that it would be nice to know Hebrew and Aramaic
[Dorotea] to be able to read the original version…
Yes, but you can read other original versions
in English, French, German, Spanish,
if you take a course with Lingoda!
Let's talk about money…
Because what motivation is better than money?
None...
Do you want to learn English, French, German, Spanish and have it totally free?
Well, do a Super Sprint:
30 classes a month for two months.
And if you don't miss any class (any),
you get back everything you've paid.
But how much money is that? (That is, how much do you have to pay?)
Well, if you use the code SPRINTELENA
(or click on the link in the description),
the class costs €10.33,
if you don't use my link it costs a little more expensive.
Let's see, if you don't miss, you get 100% of what you paid back...
but, of course, not missing...
... It's a lot of commitment...
Because it's one class a day for 2 months...
However, there is another option: the Sprint.
You have to do 30 classes in 60 days,
that is, like one day yes, one day no.
And if you don't miss any class, you get half of what you paid back,
how much is that? Well €12 per class if you use my link.
But don't do it just for the money.
Learning a language is super cool
and Lingoda gives you loads of flexibility
because you can book classes any time you want
and on any day you want.
The courses are reduced and you work on all the skills,
that is, grammar, listening comprehension, pronunciation and writing.
Another thing that I really like is that there are more than 1,500 teachers.
1500 teachers for 4 languages,
that is, we are going to find a lot of different accents and varieties,
and that is also very cool...
Let's see, I think you could book the Super Sprint (or Sprint) now
and in January I you say if you have achieved it or not,
that is, if you have been able to have that discipline
or if you have been tempted by the apple of laziness.
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