How do you say ‘white’?
Phil Henderson remembers thinking that Bible translation would be relatively straightforward and simple.
“That was before I actually did it,” he wrote recently.
Even something that seems as simple as “white” can be problematic, Phil discovered as he and his Mwinika co-workers took a stab at Exodus 4:6:
Furthermore the LORD said to him, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow.
“We tried to come up with a way to illustrate whiteness in a culture that is not familiar with snow,” Phil wrote. He suggested “clouds.”
That didn’t seem right to the Mwinikas.
Cotton? That didn’t work either.
Really clean salt? “The translation helpers didn’t bite,” Phil wrote. Then it was their turn.
“Their suggestion was ‘it was really white, like pus is white,’” Phil wrote. “Hmmm. Somehow ‘pus’ didn’t fit with my idea of what the figure of speech needed to convey.
“Then I realized I had to explain to my helpers that this figure needed to do more than just communicate whiteness. It would be used again in the future in different contexts and had to cover a wide range of meaning. It couldn’t just convey color, it had to also convey cleanness and purity.
“This is because another important instance of the use of this figure of speech is in Isaiah 1:18,” which reads, “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
“Somehow I didn’t think we could translate this ‘Your sins will be washed as white as pus’ and communicate what God was trying to say in that passage. In the end we landed (tentatively) on a type of really white clay or chalk that they occasionally use to whitewash the walls of their houses.”
Pray that Phil and his Mwinika co-workers are able to craft a translation that is clear and accurate. Find out how you can help fund the Mwinika translation.