[00:00] OPENING Welcome back to Reading Scripture Clearly. I’m Ernst Gunther von Harringa, and this is Episode 2 of our fifty-week journey. Last week we asked: How did you get your Bible? Today, we dig into translation.[05:00] NOT DECODING Translation is not code-breaking. It's a living system of meaning. A single English word like "run" has dozens of meanings. Every act of translation is an act of interpretation.[12:00] PERSONAL DISCOVERY For fifty years, the King James was my Bible. I don't say this to dishonor it, but I discovered that the translators often misrepresented the tenses and parts of speech of the original languages.[20:00] ISAIAH 26:3 KJV says "perfect peace." The Hebrew shalom shalom is a doubling. The KJ3 renders it "peace, [perfect] peace." The sustaining comes from God, not from our own staying.[25:00] ISAIAH 24:19 KJV: "utterly broken down." KJ3: "breaking, breaking!" The KJV adds adverbs like "utterly" and "clean" which aren't in the Hebrew. The Hebrew is present and active.[30:00] THE RIDDLE (AINIGMA) 1 Corinthians 13:12. KJV says "darkly." The Greek is ainigma—enigma, or riddle. We aren't looking through fog; we are engaging with a divine riddle that transforms us.
BMI AUDIO VOL. 1 / EP. 2 TRANSLATION
00:00 / 35:00
STANDBY / CUE LIFTED
SEMANTIC RANGE
The breadth of meaning a single word carries. Meaning is determined by context, not just a dictionary definition.
SHALOM SHALOM
Hebrew doubling for intensity. "Perfect peace" is a smoothing; "peace, peace" is the raw structural emphasis.
AINIGMA (αἴνιγμα)
Literally "a riddle." The Bible is an enigma that requires active engagement, leading to transformation (2 Cor 3:18).
TENSE & AGENCY
Who is doing the action? The "mind sustained by You" shifts the agency from human effort to divine faithfulness.
