348 Bible 19 – God’s Form or God’s Nature (Translating Philippians 2.6-7)

This is our first of five examples of bias in translation. Today we’ll examine Philippians 2.6-7, specifically focusing on how translators render two important words (ἁρπαγμός harpagmon and μορφή morphe). We’ll see how a couple of the most popular evangelical versions break free from the underlying Greek syntax in order to inject their own doctrinal bias into scripture. Regardless of your own interpretation of this passage, can we all agree that translators should not read their beliefs into scripture?

—— Books ——

• A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition (BDAG)
• New American Bible (NAB)
• The New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV)
• Truth in Translation by Jason David BeDuhn

—— Links ——

• Check out all the lectures in How We Got the Bible
• See what other classes are available here or on the Restitutio Classes podcast (subscribe in Apple, Spotify, RSS feed)
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• Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library