A little Vocabulary Quiz

As most of you know, we’re preparing to work with a Bible translation organisation. Whatever you think about Bible translation, if you understand what goes into translating anything, you can have nothing but respect for those who do it, irrespective of their motives.

In the library the other day, I came across an unpublished book that originated in the 1970s at Ukarumpa, the base where we’re heading to in Papua New Guinea. It had a fascinating title:

A COMPILATION of VERNACULAR

to ENGLISH RENDERINGS of

KEY NEW TESTAMENT TERMS

TAKEN from VARIOUS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

LANGUAGES

Hmm… I thought to myself, I wonder what this is. Each double page spread inside had key Bible terms on the right hand page in English and, on the left page, in English was a list of glosses of terms that had been used to express the concept of the key word. Some of them were amazing, most were fascinating, a few were downright hilarious.

IDOLS were deceiving expert gods, TEMPT was to pull one’s feet, RANSOM was the commercially appealing buying to save, REPENT becomes think with different ideas and ANGEL was sky man, a Marvel Comics hero just waiting to be drawn.

And so, I thought I’d pick a few choice morsels and send them your way. See how you get on with the quiz below.
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