One of my favorite authors calls John 3:16 the most beautiful 25 words of the English language and I agree. The book he wrote was translated into Russian, where John 3:16 only occupies 21 words (not to mention that the original Greek is actually 26 words). When the book was translated into Russian, it maintained the figure of 25 words. It was a good translation, but sometimes when we explain the Gospel, we need to use localization.
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linguistics
Kurdish Language and Missions
We’ve been reading a book called Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from Kurdistan. It is a record of mission work in Kurdistan from 1668-1990 and is packed with wisdom that is relevant to missionaries all over the world. Even the American church could stand to learn a few things from Blincoe’s research.
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What is an Inclusio?
Inclusio is just another word for sandwich.
-John Niemelä
Ancient Greek and Hebrew literature, such as the Bible, did not have punctuation and paragraph breaks, so the authors had to use other methods to tell their audiences when certain things were happening in the structure of their books. One literary device they used to do this is called the “inclusio.”
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A Chiasm Noticed
A lot of details stand out when you read the Bible in its original languages. I’ve been reading through James lately, which is a book that has suffered greatly at the hands of English translation (especially toward the end of chapter 2).
I came across a noticeable turning point in Jas 4:6b-7a this morning:
”God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (ESV)
It would be easy to breeze through this in English and take away something beneficial. But, if we take a look at the Greek, we might notice what we call a “chiastic” structure:
John 3:16 tract for Wookies
We at Grace Abroad Ministries have a passion for translating clear Gospel materials into other languages. With the new month of April, we have decided to translate a useful John 3:16 tract into Wookie, to assist any of you who are evangelizing in Kashyyyk. You can see the original English version here.
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No, Jesus did not call God, ‘Allah.’
I have recently received a Qur’an in the mail along with a couple of booklets with some basic information about Islam. The booklet made an incorrect claim that stood out to me. It isn’t a fundamental doctrine to Islam, and I’m sure the author was not intentionally trying to mislead people, but he wrote:
Allah is the One and Only True God’s personal name […] It is interesting to note that Allah is also used for God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, peace be upon him […]1
Arabic and Aramaic (along with Hebrew and a bunch of other languages) are Semitic languages, and have lots of similarities. One similarity that pops up across Semitics languages is their words for “god.” There tends to be “el” or “il” somehow related to the word for god in Semitic languages; some examples include ʾil in Ugaritic, ʾl in Phoenician, and ilu in Akkadian.
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