Month: December 2017

 

I am presenting evidence that seems to suggest that the ‘Passion Translation’, so-called, is not in fact a translation from the original languages as it is represented to be. ¹  Yesterday, I examined two of the translator’s footnotes to John 1.10 and today I continue with John 1.11 and its footnote.

Continue reading John 1.11 in Brian Simmons’ ‘Passion Translation’: does τὰ ἴδια mean His ‘own things’ or His ‘own people’?

In my last post, I asked, in connection with a footnote to John 2.3 in the 2015 edition of John: Eternal Love, whether Brian Simmons, the supposed translator of the ‘Passion Translation’, was even looking at the Greek text at all. Today, I ask the same question with regard to the first footnote to John 1.10 in the 2014 edition. The second footnote also casts some doubt on whether he is really translating from Greek. I take them one at a time. Tomorrow, I plan to look at the following verse and its footnote.

I give both verses together here, since the Greek text of verse 11 helps to explain a blunder in the first footnote to verse 10:

Continue reading John 1.10 in the ‘Passion Translation’: more evidence that Brian Simmons may not be translating from Greek.

I have been considering two closely related questions:

a) Is the so-called ‘Passion Translation’ New Testament actually translated at all, or is it derived from English versions?

b) Does Brian Simmons, who says he is the ‘translator’, lack elementary competence in Greek?

In this post I consider a second example of a mistake in transliteration. Yesterday, I asked how Simmons could have transliterated ἑώρακα (heōraka) in John 1.34 as ophesthe. Today I consider the implications of his transliterating ἐξηγέομαι (exēgēomai) as hexegeomai, as if the first epsilon had a rough breathing ἑ rather than a smooth breathing ἐ  . Although this may seem like a relatively minor error, in comparison with the one I examined yesterday, I would like to ask whether it is an error that somebody who has elementary competence in Greek could plausibly make?

Continue reading Why did Brian Simmons transliterate ἐξηγέομαι (exēgeomai) as ‘hexegeomai’?

In my last two posts  I have been presenting evidence (here and here) that Brian Simmons, who calls himself ‘the translator’ of the ‘Passion Translation’ New Testament, is less than familiar with the Greek language. I continue with a surprising mistake in a footnote to John 1.34 in the 2014 edition of John: Eternal Love.

John 1.34

κἀγὼ ἑώρακα καὶ μεμαρτύρηκα ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ [NA 28]

"I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God." [NASB]

In the Passion Translation, 2014 edition, the verse and first footnote read:

ἑώρακα is the first person perfect active indicative of ὁράω, ‘I see’, ‘I perceive’, and means ‘I have seen’ or ‘I have perceived’. This must be the Greek word that Simmons is referring to in his footnote.

ἑώρακα transliterates as heōraka;

ὁράω, the lexical form, transliterates as horaō.

Why then does Simmons transliterate it as ophesthe?

I cannot give a definitive answer, but I do have a possible partial explanation.

Continue reading Why did Brian Simmons transliterate ἑώρακα (heōraka) as ‘ophesthe’?

In my last post I began to present evidence that seems to betray a lack of elementary competence in Greek on the part of the supposed translator of the ‘Passion Translation’. I say ‘supposed’, because I have reluctantly come to the provisional conclusion that Brian Simmons is not translating at all, in any meaningful way, but rather is working from English versions, while making some use of lexicons to find novel renderings for individual words. I stand to be corrected. I have written to the author and publisher presenting my evidence and have not received any alternative explanation for the gross blunders in the ‘translator’ footnotes. Yesterday I showed that:

ἐλάλησα αὐτοῖς

cannot mean: ¹

spoken these things

but must mean

spoken to them.

Today I draw attention to a similarly glaring error in another footnote just three verses later in John.

Continue reading Is the ‘Passion Translation’ actually a translation? (part 2)