A Bible Translator's Dilemma --Gil Prost

When translating Paul's Epistle to the Galatians for a society without a written set of codified values and principles, I was immediately faced not only with a translation problem, but a missiological dilemma. Specifically, the theological question was: Whom had Christ come to redeem? Was it just the Jews, which nearly every English translation of Galatians 4: 4-5 implied; or all mankind?

Marian and I went to this small unreached, Bible-less tribe living in the Amazon Rainforest of Northern Bolivia believing the Gospel was for all mankind. As I pondered how to translate these two versus, all English translations seemed to imply, on the surface at least, that the Gospel was only for the Jews. Yet the missionary mandate was to evangelize all nations and all language groups.

So what exactly was the apostle attempting to convey to his non-Jewish readers living in Galatia? The Contemporary English Version (CEV), as a representative of other translations, renders Gal. 4: 4-5 as:

“But when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him. His Son

obeyed the Law, so he could set us free from the Law, and we could become God's children."

Now if nomos, ‘law,’ in this case, refers specifically to the written Law of Moses, which is how most Biblical translators interpret the word nomos absent the article, then the verse certainly did not apply to tribes like the Chácobo living in the Amazon Rainforest, nor to the Pushtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan, nor to the thousands of other tribes to whom the Law of Moses was completely foreign.

But because such societies were not living under the Law of Moses, it doesn't follow that they are “lawless.” They were simply living under a very different kind of law-system. For tribal societies, their laws have never been written down and codified. Yet they lived under law. The Chácobo called their unwritten law-system “jabi,” that is, the Chácobo Way, or, the Chácobo “Law-way of doing things.”

Likewise, the Pushtun tribe of Pakistan was governed by a law called “Pushtunwali,” literally, “the Way of the Pushtun." For the Chinese, it was called the “Tao,” or, "the Way." Chinese Philosopher Hzün Tzu said, “Tao is the way to rule a state ...to organize people.” All though unwritten and elusive, the Tao had regulated Chinese behavior for 4,000 years.

Similarly, the Chácobo, who lived in isolation from the rest of the world, had their behavior regulated by the life-way of the Chácobo. They were totally ignorant of codified written laws like that of Moses, not to mention a codified set of Bolivian laws to which they were unknowingly subject. For them, law meant the outsider’s “Way of doing things." It contrasted with their “Way of doing things.”

Like the Pushtun and the ancient Chinese, the Chácobo were living under a KIND OF law that exhibited all the qualities of an abstract super-category we call "LAW." For them, their unwritten law-system consisted of customs, behavioral patterns, values, principles for living, rules, rights, and cultural forms, all of which exhibited qualities of an abstraction called LAW. Their “Way” contrasted with the Jewish Way of doing things, the Chinese Way of doing things, and the American way of doing things.

As outsiders we certainly had not come to teach them the American Way of doing things, nor about Moses’ way of doing things. We had come specifically to share with them what we called “the Good News.” But was it really the Good News if they had to subject themselves to a Jewish Way of doing things before they could be "redeemed"?

These two verses in Galatians, as translated in the Contemporary English Version, implied it was only Good News for the Jews. Only those who "could become the children of God," were those who lived according to the Written Way of Moses. It implied that the Chácobo would first have to learn the Written Way of Moses given to the nation of Israel over 3,000 years ago before they "could become the children of God."

That certainly didn’t sound like Good News to me. So I asked myself: Was it my responsibility to teach the Chácobo the customs, rituals, and values of the Jewish written law-system as a precondition for becoming "God's children?"

The Significance of the Grammatical Absence in Language

In time it became clear that how I dealt with the absence of the Greek article before nomos was extremely important because it centered on how a gentile could become a "child of God." It meant unraveling the mysteries of the Greek article in the same way I had to uncover the rules governing syllable absence in the Chácobo language.

This compelled me to review the conclusions of Greek grammarians like Dana and Mantey and what others had to say. Did absence of the article before nomos carry meaning? Was I dealing with an abstract noun, or, with something concrete having physical form like the Torah or Law of Moses written on stone?

First, I was confronted with the semantic reality that unlike English and Greek, there was no definite article in the Chácobo language. For me, it meant every time the Greek article occurred before the word nomos, ‘law,’ I would have to translate o nomos, ‘the law,’ specifically as something concrete like Principle from God engraved on stone given to Moses.

But since in Galatians 4:4 and 5 nomos occurs without the article and herein I faced a translation problem. Did absence of the Greek article carry inherent meaning or didn’t it? Commentators differed on this point. Most translators simply ignored the problem. Nevertheless, most Greek scholars affirm that absence of the article carries "qualitative" meaning in the same way abstract nouns like ANIMAL, BIRD, and PLANT do. If they didn't, it meant it would be impossible to known what constituted an ANIMAL, BIRD, or PLANT.

In this regard, Greek scholar James Moulton (1863-1917) wrote, "for exegesis, there are few of the finer points of Greek which need more constant attention than this omission of the article when the writer would lay stress on the quality or character of the object." Accordingly, if the meaning and intent of the New Testament writers was to be accurately conveyed, it meant that I, as a translator, was obligated to convey the semantic content of "absence."

Providentially Prepared to Understand the Significance of Grammatical Absence

Fortunately, the concept of grammatical absence was not new to me. If one was to speak Chácobo coherently, then one had to adhere to the rules of syllable subtraction. Since intentional absenting of syllables in the Chácobo language carried semantic content, I sided with the Greek grammarians. In the Greek language, o nomos and nomos absent the article carried different meanings,

Nomos absent the article could not possibly denote a specific law like the Law of Moses which was written on tablets of stone. In this case, nomos, ‘law’ had to be treated as an abstract noun like ANIMAL, BIRD, or FLOWER. If nomos was an abstract noun, then there had to more than one kind of law-system in the same way there are many kinds of ANIMALS, many kinds of BIRDS, and many kinds of FLOWERS.

There was the unwritten Law-system of the Pushtun called "Puntawali;" the Law-system of the ancient Chinese called "The Tao;" and the thousand of unwritten Law-systems of the tribes of the world.

By rendering nomos absent the article, using the abstract concept of a society’s “way of doing things (jabi),” the verses, literally read back into English, became:

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son. Being born of a Jewish mother

he was raised under a Jewish law-way of doing things (nomos absent the article)

so that he might redeem all mankind from their particular law-way of doing things

(nomos).”

But translating nomos as “a law-way of doing things,” or, as a “design for living” also implied there existed the Chácobo life-way negative and harmful cultural forms from which they needed to be “redeemed.” The translation implied the Chácobo needed to be redeemed from the biological “one flesh” principle of a dominant mother-daughter dyad that had suppressed husband-wife intimacy, destroyed husband headship, and was ultimately leading them down the path to cultural extinction.

It existed as a negative cultural form from which they needed to be redeemed. It also meant that being a "contextualizer" was a bad idea, since, according to missiologist Charles Kraft, "Though the forms are parts of culture, the meanings belong to the people. They are not inherent in the forms themselves." For Kraft, the replacement of a negative form of the nuclear family, a form which makes the mother-daughter dyad the dominant dyad is considered to be inappropriate because he thinks the meaning attached to the mother-daughter dyad best satisfies a need and "fits" the environment .

At some point in history, the Chácobo, like most societies, had reconfigured the internal structure of the nuclear family as the decided "to go their own way" (Acts 14:16) and in the process violated "the internal law of marriage."

If Jesus had come to redeem mankind from their normative, mechanistic way of doing things grounded in nature and ascribed functions, it implied that one of my primary tasks was to discover the kinds of meaning-content they had attached to forms held in common by all people.

Were there meaning-content attached to these forms which were imported from the outside the mind to which were created by SOCIAL EXISTENCE in the Amazonian Rainforest, or, did there exist Divine meaning-content which were attached to these Universal Forms when Adam, the first man, was created in "God's image" but which they could reject and replace with meaning-content which belonged to the Chácobo?

Every Missionary a Teacher of Moses’ Way of Doing Things?

If I were to ignore the advice of Greek scholars who declared that absence of the article before nomos carried meaning and had translated nomos specifically as “the Written Way of Moses,” it would have directly affected how I did evangelism.

It meant bringing the “Good News” to the Chácobo would not only be a very complicated long drawn out process, it would be extremely difficult, a task for which I was not prepared.

I basically would be obligated to teach them how to live as Jews who practiced its customs and rituals of Judaism. But was it my task as an outsider to inform them that before Christ could “redeem” them, they first needed to replace their unwritten Chácobo jabi with its customs, practices, and institutions with the written jabi of Moses and become a "Jew"?

For example, would every Chácobo male need to be circumcised (Exodus 12:48; Lev. 12:3), and collectively worship on the last day of the week and not cut firewood? Then, after becoming functional Jews, was it now my task to then tell them the “Good News,” that Christ had come to set them free from the maiming effects of living under this Jewish life-way?

If evangelism meant teaching them the Way of Moses, such a missiological strategy would take a few years.

First, we would have had to teach them to count to seven since their counting system had only three words, wëstita, ‘one,’ wëstima, ‘not one,’ and rabëta, 'a few.'
After teaching them to count to seven, using Spanish numerals, we then would have to teach them the concept of a seven-day week cycle and that each day of this seven-day cycle had a name. Learning that each day had a name would certainly be a novel idea since they only gave names to people, things, villages, and seasons, never to days.
Next, we would need to teach them that the Jewish way of doing things meant they would need to rest on the last day of this series of seven days we called a “week” and not cut firewood. The name of that day of rest was “Sabado.”
This codified Jewish way of doing things now meant they could only rest one day out of seven rather than the two or three day out of seven as was their custom. Then to frustrate them more, we would have to eventually teach them about what we call a “week-end.” Up until now they never awoke in the morning wondering what they were going to do on the “week-end” like the rest of the world. Up to now there were no week-ends to think about.
After learning to become functional Jews, they would then need to learn the Christian way of doing things. This meant they would now have to stop resting and worshipping on the last day of the week and begin resting and worshipping on the first day of the week, a day we said was called “the Owner’s Day.” They could also return to cutting firewood on Sabado.

Now if evangelism meant they needed to be “freed” from Moses’ way of doing things given to the nation of Israel and presumably to all nations, evangelism would not only be difficult, it would take time. Instead of sounding like “Good News,” the Gospel now appeared to “Bad News.” So I ask myself: Is this the appropriate way to do evangelism among a people that were moving toward self-extinction?

So while my colleagues where translating the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai, I decided not to translate such "pre-evangelistic" passages since it was now obvious to me personally, they were already fully aware of the basic moral principles stated in the Law of Moses. Why troubled them with a set of rituals, laws, values, and institutions given specifically to the nation of Israel when it was obvious that they already had the Principles of God’s Moral Law “written on their hearts”?

On the contrary, I was now convinced that the apostle Paul was referring to the maiming effects of all law-systems or cultural life-ways. Every Chácobo needed to understand that no one could be proclaimed righteous on the basis of living up to the standards of one's jabi or institutionalized ways of doing things. This holds true for both Jew and non-Jew.

This, I concluded, was the meaning of these two important verses so I translated Galatians 4:4-5 as

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son. Being born of a Jewish mother

he was raised under a Jewish law-way of doing things (nomos absent the article)

so that he might redeem all mankind from their particular law-way of doing things

(nomos).”

I was convinced, not on the basis of some theological perspective, but on the basis of the Greek rules of grammar governing the use or absence of the article that this was the appropriate way to translate these versus.

So the question every missionary should ask is: Does absence of the Greek article before nomos ‘law’ carry meaning? If so, what is that meaning?

Convictions:

Both culture and law are inherently abstract nouns. When concretized and given specific form in Greek as a "thing," the article is added. Absence of the article carried meaning.
"Recognition of the qualitative usage of nouns [signaled by absence of article] is of extreme importance in the translation and interpretation of the New Testament. That the significance of this usage is not generally recognized is apparent not only in many renderings of the Revised Version, but even in critical commentaries upon the Greek text and in the standard grammars of the New Testament.”

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