I know of an ethnic group which has no word for ‘God’. The translators of the Bible decided to use the word "Dios," which is Spanish for God. However, this group do have a word for ‘spirit’, because they believe that there are many spirits, for example in the trees, in the waterfalls, and of the animals. These spirits can be good, bad, or indifferent to humans. Because the group do not have a word for the Devil either, the translators used their word for ‘spirit’ with a suffix which means "the biggest" to describe the Devil.
Do you think this is theologically correct? If so, why? If not, why not?
1 comment:
Would be interesting to know how they have translated words like 'angel' and 'sons of God' in the OT. Also how they translate 'spirit of God' in the OT and 'Holy Spirit' in the NT. (And how they translate John 4:24. If God is spirit but the devil is the biggest spirit...!) Are they using Dios for the name of God, or the category of God (Hebrew elohim - which can have a more 'spirit' meaning potentially in places).
This would help to work out how their translation is portraying the category of spirit in Christian theology - is God other than spirit (in their understanding)?
Would it be better to call God 'THE spirit' - singularise a plural concept (again a little like elohim)?
Huh - typical theologian's response - I reply to your question with lots of other questions.
One final question for you - 'theologically correct' - but who defines what 'correct' is?
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