Did you know these Bible translation curiosities?
It is said that the profession of translators is one of the oldest in history, so imagine how many anecdotes there are to tell about it! So let’s find out about the Curiosities in the various translations of the Bible.
Today we focus on misunderstandings that have arisen from certain misinterpretations of the original version of the Bible; imagine that it has been translated into more than 2,500 languages!
The official and declared authentic version is called The Vulgate (because it is written in vulgar Latin, the one spoken by “everyone”), a Latin translation of the originals in Greek and Hebrew.
In translating it into the various languages, glaring mistakes were made. So much that contemporary artists portrayed Moses with horns on his head, and why?
Here we find that in the original Hebrew, it said: “krn” (vowels are not used in Hebrew), which can be interpreted as “keren” (radiant, luminous, with rays of light) or “karan” (horn).
Today most Bibles translate that passage as follows:
“And the Children of Israel then saw that rays of light emanated from the complexion of Moses’ face.”
Saint Jerome, instead, opted for the following translation:
“And the Children of Israel then saw that horns emanated from the complexion of Moses’ face.”
The Forbidden Fruit
Another curious Bible translation is related to the forbidden fruit that caused the expulsion from paradise.
In Genesis, it is said that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them that they could eat the fruit of all trees, except the one that came from the so-called “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”.
Then came the Devil (embodied in the serpent) tricking Eve into eating the fruit of that tree (committing the original sin).
However, nowhere does it expressly say that this fruit was an apple. To find the apple, we must go back to the Vulgate, in which “malum” (evil) is translated as apple since malum in Latin also means apple.
And this is how the forbidden fruit is identified with the apple. And, of course, the painters begin to place an apple in Eva’s hand years later.
Did you already know these curious facts?
