1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 – Translations
My wife reminded me after her own study of 1 Thessalonians 1 today that those who don’t read Greek don’t necessarily see the same divisions or indicators of divisions. Translation does often involved changing the sentence structure and might require changing the division of paragraphs.
I noticed that the commentary Dave referenced (see this post) using 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3 as the first division of the book also uses the NIV as it’s English text. The NIV also makes that division in the text. I thought it would be interesting to list some of the major translations and what how they divide the paragraphs in this chapter.
With some help from BibleGateway, my Logos software, and my bookshelves, here goes.
A) 1:1, 1:2-3, 1:4-10 – NIV (1984 & 2011),
B) 1:1, 1:2-3, 1:4-7, 1:8-10 – NLT
C) 1:1, 1:2-10 – NRSV, ESV, CEB, HCSB, REB, NASB
D) 1:1, 1:2-5, 1:6-10 – NET, Die Gute Nachricht
E) 1:1, 1:2-3, 1:4-6, 1:7-10 – CEV
F) 1:1, 1:2-5, 1:6-8, 1:9-10 – ISV
G) 1:1, 1:2-3, 1:4-10 – NJB
I could check quite a number more, especially if I checked all the foreign language Bibles I have available. The author of a commentary on an English translation is generally constrained at least to start from the choices made by the translators, though he or she can certainly debate those.
I’d make a few points:
1) The wide variety of divisions indicates the difficulty of translating this long Greek passage into readable English sentences. We simply don’t make one sentence (or two) quite this long.
2) Reading the passage in English obscures the underlying difficulty. One could wonder why there were so many distinctions.
3) Reading multiple translations while paying attention to the divisions in the text will help the English reader get an overview of the complexity and of the options available.
I try to teach people to understand that the divisions are not original to the writers, and that they should consider understandings of a passage that cross the divisions made in the text. Don’t get hung up on the added material.
