With a wary acknowledgement of the current political proceedings in America, I want to jump back to a post that Doug Chaplin made back in May. Looking at John 6:60, he notes that the NEB is “an example of creative translation that is hard to defend on any technical theory, since it is neither formally nor dynamically equivalent. It does, however, seem to me to verge on the inspired.”
Many of his disciples on hearing it exclaimed, “This is more than we can stomach! Why listen to such talk?”
A more literal rendering of the underlying Greek metaphor is captured by the NRSV: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” In the comments, Peter Kirk offered, “this teaching leaves a nasty taste in the mouth” as a possible idiomatic English alternative, while another reader noted the translation in The Message: “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.”
Building on these, I will offer the verse rendered in idiomatic Alaskan English:
The cheechakos among his disciples heard this and complained, “This teaching is full of gristle and makes us choke!”
7 Comments
I thought this might be about St Herman of Alaska, coincidentally mentioned by Eddie today, or else St Wayne Leman of Ninilchik, whose ancestor Agrafena was an early 19th century contemporary of St Herman on Kodiak Island.
I have learned a lot about Alaska in the last few weeks since it has been in the news!
You know, if you could translate the Bible into Alaskan English really quickly, you might make big bucks between now and the election (and even afterwards if Sarah gets elected–I have been on a couple of linguistics blogs where there have been questions about her dialect–my conclusion was that she was influenced by Bush English–and that has nothing to do with the Bush Doctrine!!). Perhaps you could even get an endorsement on the book jacket from Sarah Palin and her former rival for Lt. Gov., my brother.
You know, if you could translate the Bible into Alaskan English really quickly, you might make big bucks between now and the election [...]
Hmmm… I wonder if one could get away with translating (paraphrasing?) the “strong” and “weak” passages in Romans as “sourdough” and “cheechako”, respectively!
Perhaps you could even get an endorsement on the book jacket from Sarah Palin and her former rival for Lt. Gov., my brother.
I could probably also get one from my brother and his boss, Sen. Lisa Murkowski. I wonder if our brothers know each other - Isaac worked for Frank Murkowski in the U.S. Senate and was involved in his governor campaign as well.
@Peter - sorry, I had to rescue your comment from spam purgatory… Thanks for the link on St. Herman - I’ve heard the name, but didn’t honestly know that much about him - now I do!
cheechakos? that’s a new one
@Nathan - Native Alaskan gold rush slang for a “tenderfoot”, i.e. someone in unfamiliar territory. I’m using it here to suggest that some of Jesus’ disciples were new to his teaching and unfamiliar with the demands that he made.
Wayne - it turns out that my dad went to church with Loren up in Alaska for several years and talked with him quite a bit about the decision to run for governor. What a small world!
Also, evidently somewhere in my dad’s pile of papers, he has a copy of the original permit for your dad to operate a fish trap. Not sure how he ended up with that, but I thought you might be curious…