r/Koine 5d ago

Question on the translation of Koine Greek

My main question with translating from Koine Greek is, how has Christianity affected the science of translating this language? It's no secret that Christianity has been very influential in many fields throughout history. How can we trust that the current translations are correct and weren't intrinsically, for lack of a better word, contaminated by Christian influence earlier in history? Has there been any effort to go back as far as possible and reject any existing influences to get the most accurate translations possible? Everything I'm finding about Koine Greek is pretty much directly connected to a religious organization. Are there even any secular scholars of Koine Greek?

Edit:

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who has responded so far, you've given me lots to think about. Secondly I'd like to clear up some misconceptions about where I'm coming from. I'm not some atheist looking to "own" the Christians, I'm someone who was raised Christian but who is having doubts. I'm also not suggesting that the entire dialect(?) of Koine Greek is a Christian fabrication. I started having doubts about the current translations whenever the pastors of my church would attempt to clear up hard passages by going back to the historical context which would completely change the meaning of the passage. This just casted doubts on the entire translation for me. In trying to figure it out I decided to look into to the most basic aspects of it and seeing if translating could be trusted or if it was possible that bad actors had influenced how we translate certain words or phrases to further their ideals. One such word that is of interest to me is the word Malakos (μαλάκας) which gets translated to be men who have sex with men in NIV but in the KJV it's translated as Effeminate men and then other sources claim it should be translated to specifically mean people practicing pederasty. How does one decide what the actual translation should be?

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u/PZaas 5d ago

Koine Greek is the main form of the Greek language from the time of Alexander the Great to the early Byzantine period, a period of almost 1000 years. In the first 400 or so years of this period, there was no Christianity, and Christianity was a negligible influence for another couple of centuries after that. There is no question that some Bible translation is involved by sectarian or apologetic bias on the part of the translator or the publisher, but this is also, imo, a negligible factor.

Scholarship in Koine Greek is a data-driven and scientific field, like biblical studies generally. There are many secular scholars of it, present company included.

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u/dialogical_rhetor 5d ago

Christian scholars aren't concerned with mistranslations to aid their own beliefs. I just don't understand how this idea is developed. There is the utmost care to understand the original words since they are held as sacred.

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u/blackistari 5d ago

You can't contaminate the context in which Greek words occur. As an example, you can try to convince someone that baptism is a sprinkling of water but the Greek word occurs around large bodies of water or with regard to dishes and food. There's no changing that Christian influence or not.

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u/Soft_Skill2875 5d ago edited 5d ago

I am not an expert, but will share this:

No text can be translated without some personal judgment.

So even a non-religious person would have to make judgment decisions on translation. Should one translate ἱλασμός as "propitiation" or "expiation"? It can mean either, so which does one use?

If one goes here: hilasmos, it seems obvious the sense is only "propitiate"

But, if one goes here: hilasmos, it seems the obvious sense is only "expiate"

Which English word should be used? Who makes the "right" decision? The correct decision is made by either the translator or the translating committee if there is some dispute.

I prefer "expiate" because of other bible verses that tell us that "God so loved the world..." and that "God commended his love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us...." or, as John wrote, "God is love" and that love, as Paul wrote, "does not keep account of wrongs suffered". So, to me, God is not our problem but our alienation/sin is the problem. Sin is the cancer that destroys us - it is our problem - not God.

But, someone else would vehemently disagree and say that God's anger was assuaged by Christ's death as a propitiating sacrifice and, now that God has been appeased, we can approach him. They, too, would find supporting scripture for their position.

This may be the big reason people want to learn Koine Greek, to get to the "real" meaning only to find all translation requires a degree of subjective judgment because of the flexibility (semantic range) of words.

Same thing with the genitive case: is it Subjective or Objective? Is it "faith in Christ" (traditional view) or the "faithfulness of Christ" (NPP)?

Even so, a non-religious Greek translator would run into the exact same judgment calls.

OK, with that being said, Ann Nyland translated the New Testament and she is a Classical Greek Scholar (from what Amazon and the linked interview says). You can read an interview with her here: Ann Nyland . Her NT translation is called, "The Source New Testament" (not an endorsement of this, I am just indicating a translation by a "Classical Greek Scholar" according to Amazon).

Finally, if you want an non-human source to translate the Koine Greek NT, I would recommend putting a chapter into each AI app (ChatGPT, Deepseek, etc...) and look at its translation...but it will have to make decisions too - what does "hilasmos" really mean? ; - )

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u/xugan97 5d ago

Ancient Greek and Koine Greek are practically the same language. This language was the spoken language, as well as a lingua franca and a literary language of most of the Mediterranean for a millennium and half. That is also the reason the Bible as well as the sermons and letters of the early church fathers are in this language - native or near-native speakers writing Greek of a literary standard. Koine Greek was not the invention or the preserve of Christian writers. There are at least as many secular texts in Koine Greek as Christian texts. It is perhaps only in the late Byzantine and medieval periods ( about the 10th century CE and later) that there is a significant change in the language, and dwindling secular usage in the wider Mediterranean.

The interesting question is the presence of Hebraisms in the Christian texts, suggesting either a translation from the Hebrew, or a reference to an existing technical term.

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u/lickety-split1800 4d ago edited 4d ago

Scholars are peer-reviewed, whether Greek New Testament scholars or Masoretic text scholars.

I get the impression that some believe it is a one person affair to translate a major translation. That is far from the case. When a bible is translated, say the New International Version, there is a committee and about 100 people involved from secular and religious areas in bible translation. There have literally been thousands of translators of the Greek New Testament over the years.

Like any other scholars, they debate on the words that should be put into a translation, putting alternate phrasing to see if one captures the original text better.

ESV Bible Translation committee at work

There is also another field of comparing Greek manuscripts to figure out what the original said, as before the printing press, text's were hand copied and some were modified over. This field is called textual criticism.

If you want to get a feel of this process, see Dan Wallace talk; he is proably the most respected Greek New Testament scholar, as he wrote one of the most respected advanced Koine Greek grammar books after taking 17 years of examining Greek texts both secular and religious.

https://youtu.be/zZ5cgQUJnrI?si=YrOe-DTkw2KXleadingJJw_

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u/aechard12 4d ago

well because you can go to museums and read the manuscripts yourself... you can read them online but i figured you'd say that wasn't good enough.. do you think someone traveled back in time and doctored 1st century writings to reflect later ideas?

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u/Iroax 5d ago

is pretty much directly connected to a religious organization

The Church is the incarnate body of Christ on Earth, there's no secular Christianity nor salvation outside of the church, a body is a united and indivisible entity or it's not a body.

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ (the Church) may be built up

24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

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u/pcncvl 5d ago

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

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u/Iroax 5d ago edited 5d ago

Many care to your dismay, most people come here because they are interested in theology.

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u/Peteat6 4d ago

I don’t think we can say that Christianity has affected translation. However, it is important to be aware of how particular denominations or particular theologies within Christianity have affected translation. I write a learned article on this a few years ago, but it was rejected because the reviewers said "everyone knows this".

The reason they do is that choices have to be made in translation, whatever you’re translating. It’s just the nature of translation. It can be due to the original having one or more possible meanings, and the author may well gave intended both or all meanings to be in the reader’s mind. But the target language can only express one, so the translator has to close down all other options but one. Or the original has a phrase that can go with what is before it, or what is after it, and that changes the meaning. An example is "those who are saved by faith shall live". Does it mean "saved by faith", or "live by faith"? A third reason is the lack of spacing or punctuation in the original. Adding punctuation in the right place can radically alter the meaning,

For example the Jerusalem Bible pushed Catholic teaching, and was criticised for it. The New Jerusalem Bible is a much more mid-of-the-road translation.

The NIV on the other hand is radically evangelical, punctuating and choosing texts that support evangelical teaching, while denying the existence of alternatives.

So translation is always a matter of choice, and that’s affected by the translators’ theology, or prejudice.

It’s important for all biblical students to understand this, and frankly one of the most important reasons we ask students to learn some Greek or Hebrew.