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“Generally speaking, such things are readily evident in instruction sheets for major products and usually only because the translation is extremely poor.”

If you were to read my remarks closely, you would see that I was not talking about things that are obviously translations because they are poorly translated and because they are included with a product manufactured by a foreign company. A person in my business can tell where a person who hasn’t had the experience could not.

“I would venture to say that looking at a KJV and not knowing from what language it was originally translated, it would not be possible to tell it came from Greek.”

If one’s native language were the Elizabethan English of the KJV, and if one had spent years translating from Greek into Elizabethan English, there might be indications. (Yes, yes, I know, James was King, but it's still called Elizabethan English.)

“It might be said that it would be easy to translate back into Greek”

The argument being made is a good deal more substantial than “easy to translate.” I don’t know how familiar you are with the process of translation, but where two languages are structurally very different, different methodologies can be used, yielding different results.

I don’t want to go on at great length, but today I was doing something for a major international Japanese firm, and ran across a phrase that I translated (consulting memory here; I’m not at work now) “If the recovery in the US economy is sustained, the Japanese economy will also improve, allowing further growth in the digital components industry.”

A Japanese colleague pointed out that the Japanese read, “kakudai suru to kitai shitai,” which with absolute literalism would be rendered, “…the Japanese economy will also improve, and (someone) wants to expect that the digital components industry will expand.”

Now, if I saw the phrase, “the Japanese economy will also improve, allowing further growth in the digital components industry,” I could render that in Japanese in several different ways. But if I saw, in a document published by a Japanese company, “…and (someone) wants to expect,” I would know immediately that it was a translation of the words, “kitai shitai” and no others. This is not a matter of it being “easy to translate,” but a matter of knowing what the original had to have been.

Further, since we don’t say “I want to expect” something, but rather some variant of “I hope” or “I’d like to see,” the use of that odd wording is a further indication that it is a literal translation of something.

Now, suppose we knew that the native language of an author was Japanese, and we’re trying to figure out whether we’re looking at a translation of something he wrote or something written originally in English. We read along, and we find the odd expression, “I was in a situation of singing on four sides.”

Why in the world would a person fluent in English use such a phrase?

If we back-translate, lo and behold, we find the Japanese cliché “shimen souka.” This is a Chinese literary reference to a work in which the protagonist finds himself surrounded on all four sides by his enemies, whom he can hear singing. It’s used to mean, “beset on all sides,” or “surrounded by enemies,” “cornered like a rat,” etc.

A person fluent in English who was writing freely would have chosen one of the many common phrases to express the concept. He would not write “a situation of singing on four sides,” unless he were (a) so unskilled in English that he didn’t know any better, or (b) trying very hard to stay as close as possible to a Japanese original. Even in the latter case, only a person to whom English is a second language would write so oddly.

For these reasons, and particularly if one has run across many such cases, it is not only reasonable but justifiable to conclude that an English text purporting to be the work of a native Japanese speaker which includes the sentence, “I was in a situation of singing on four sides” is in fact a translation of a Japanese original. This is particularly true if the English text contains many such oddities.

Daijal’s article also refers to Hebrew word order and phrasing being used even though the words are Greek. I see this all the time.

In English, we might say, “Yesterday I read in the newspaper that it was going to snow today, so I cancelled my golf game.”

In Japanese, that would come out “Yesterday newspaper in snow today fall read so, golf cancel (I) did.” If an entire document looks like that, and it is attributed to a Japanese person, you don’t have to be Fellini to figure out what happened.

“I would further note that it has been pointed out that there are parts of the Greek language which have no parallel in Chaldee. This has been one of the sticking points from my understanding.”

The author of Daijal’s article is making a case that the Gospels were originally written in Hebrew.

“Furthermore, there are phrases that originate in English that are easier to say and more intuitive in other languages.”

True, but not to the point. Hackneyed as it is, we understand what is meant by the phrase, “He’s a real cool cat.” Try saying, “Kare wa zuibun suzushii neko da” to a Japanese person and see how far you get. Since the phrase just isn’t used, or even understood, if you saw that in Japanese it would be reasonable to think it a literal translation of the English cliché.

“because it's easy”

You really need to get past that to the actual meat of the matter. (And that's something else that isn't said in Japanese, so if you saw "kadai no niku" you'd have to figure it was a literal translation from English.

“So, while it may be a cute aside, it isn't science nor is it evidence in a practical sense.”

Science and the scientific method are not the only ways of discovering or knowing things. The mind can look at an accumulation of phenomena, none of which in itself proves a proposition, and see that taken together they make the proposition so likely as to render doubt unreasonable.

A mother knows when her three-year-old is lying to her. How? Well, she just reads him. Is that “evidence in a practical sense?” Would you take that to court? Nonetheless, she *knows* and she is right.

“...looking at word patterns and trying to guess whether the same person wrote two works based on that. That isn't science either, though some have tried to pass it off as such.”

Nonetheless, it can be done. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that a “new” poster to a forum was actually a known poster under a different handle. “Identified by sound of transmitter,” as they say in the electronic warfare community.

“the level of scientific honesty”

The scientific method is only a tool; and it is not the only tool available to us.

“that there is only one aramaic word for "rock" or "stone" and that 16:18 would have to be rendered a certain way because of this.”

If we’re being honest, let’s note that these arguments are advanced in rebuttal of an argument that asserts the use of a particular *Greek* word for "rock" or "stone" renders one certain meaning impossible. The argument to which you refer holds not that there is only one word for rock in Aramaic, but that because Jesus was speaking in Aramaic the Greek is not definitive.

“Further, no 1st century equivalant of Matthew has ever been found written in Aramaic.”

We know of many ancient works of which we have no surviving manuscript. And, once again, Daijal’s article argues that the original was Hebrew, not Aramaic.

“As someone who learned the scientific method early and took it to heart…”

How about if you took a group of 100 Americans, of whom one was me, and showed them 200 passages of English text, 100 of which were translations from Japanese and 100 of which were written by monolingual Americans, and I got them all right and the other 99 people did no better than random chance would allow? Would that be scientific?

I ask because that is the result I would expect from such an experiment. That being the case, the assertion of the author of Daijal’s article that a renowned scholar was able to detect that a document was a translation from Hebrew seems in no way outlandish to me.

“I've little patience for”

And I have increasingly less patience with people who insist that the scientific method is the sole key to knowledge. Just as one would not try to drive a nail with a piece of sandpaper, or to “intuit” one’s way to the correct answer to a engineering problem, there are things to which the scientific method cannot be applied but which are nonetheless discoverable.

“nor that junk science will cease to prevail.”

Among the things that science has not yet come to understand very well are the human mind and the workings of consciousness. Although many would decry it as “unscientific,” a human being can develop an “ear” for some things that allows him to make correct judgments where those who lack the required knowledge and experience cannot. This is surely far less outré than the idiot savant who has the mind of a small child and yet can solve complex problems of higher mathematics in his head.

A person in my business can tell where a person who hasn’t had the experience could not.

Oh, no, I understand that there is a level of intuitiveness that goes with expertise of translating. I have a friend that graduated from IU Bloomington as a Japanese language major and now lives in Japan as a translator. I'm not unacquainted with the idea. What I'm saying is that by looking at a translated text, suspicion and fact are two different things. One person's suspicion can be another's tinfoil hat theory. When the difference cannot be determined between the two is when I cry foul. And given that if you were handed a document translated from one language to another 3 times, you couldn't discern without knowing what the prior two languages were. Not by looking at the translation. There are things that may appear to point in a given direction; but, in the end, all we would have is your opinion. In that instance, yours would be an educated guess as opposed to an uneducated guess. Which difference is useless in and of itself I'm sorry to say. That isn't to take anything away from your expertise; but, I won't grant that your expertise gives you license to make guesses into facts either. That is my stand and my point.

The argument being made is a good deal more substantial than “easy to translate.”

From your standpoint, maybe. From the standpoint of an outsider looking at the larger picture, it isn't any more substantial than that. Again. If I were to produce a third generation copy of something originally written in French that was later translated to Slavic, then to Chinese, I would place a large sum on the notion that you couldn't give the originating language without knowing in advance it was French. I know some German, some Russian, Greek.. So in studying language, though I'm not a translator, I do understand some of the points you're making about specific phraseology. I also know that doesn't sell on language over any other given the number of langauges and dialects that exist and have existed.

I think the best way to look at this is from a standpoint of science and method. Is there use for circumstantial evidence? Yes. To lead in a direction in search of facts. But not to substitute as facts.

I sat last night and watched a History Channel special on the book of Revelation that was about as big a farce as I think I've ever seen. The entire show was nothing but bad speculation; poor study over selective points, theorizing and treatment of theory as fact. Conclusions were drawn from other bad conclusions until in the end, a book of prophecy was demoted to nothing more than the whims and warnings of an old man from his own viewpoint. This is the folly of following one's nose and one's whims. If we're going to end up with a result that looks nothing like The beginning point with narry a fact to prop any of it up; one might as well just call it fiction. That is the same thing here. Guessing your favorite scenario is not science.

If an entire document looks like that, and it is attributed to a Japanese person, you don’t have to be Fellini to figure out what happened.

Ah, but then you have other factors to consider. A scribe who sat down and wrote in Greek but used Hebrew structure would produce the same result which you beg in your prior example. I'm seeing the forest while you look at a tree. All I'm trying to do is get you to step back and see the forest. Then put this whole contentious issue into perspective by noting that a certain sect has been guilty of both pushing fraud knowingly and of being duped unwittingly by it. I've noted this many times in such conversations and it is usually reliable in creating a stir among the guilty sect. It remains a fact that cannot be ignored. So when you inject fanciful guesses about something which you cannot prove, it just stirs the cauldron of contention. In absence of hard facts, guessing will not do.

True, but not to the point. Hackneyed as it is, we understand what is meant by the phrase

There are cultural things that do not translate. That's a first week foreign language 101 gimme. That isn't the case with entire languages.

Science and the scientific method are not the only ways of discovering or knowing things.

Possibly not; but, we're talking about establishing facts in the midst of an ongoing general debate in which fraud has been invoked prior. Guessing and trying to explain it away as proper methodology when the guess happens to be your favorite theory is not proper science nor is it foundational. It is at best, noting what your favorite fantasy is.

If we’re being honest, let’s note that these arguments are advanced in rebuttal of an argument that asserts the use of a particular *Greek* word for "rock" or "stone" renders one certain meaning impossible. The argument to which you refer holds not that there is only one word for rock in Aramaic, but that because Jesus was speaking in Aramaic the Greek is not definitive.

If we're being honest, this is not the way it is argued either in theory or in practice. The way that it is argued is that one lays forth the contention that Christ is noted as having spoken in Aramaic, therefore the entire passage being referenced must have been spoken in Aramaic. The course of the argument then takes the direction that in aramaic there is no distintion between Rock and stone and that, therefore, the difference so painstakingly preserved in the Greek doesn't exist. This is the way it has been argued countless times both in live debate and in published discourse. I am all too aware of it because I've shot it down countless times with the facts and always to a house that screatches in agony that such cannot be so "sola scriptura" etc.. I've had at least three occasions here at FR wherein the contention was made that the entire book was stated matter of factly as having been written in Aramaic and when they were called on the mat for it, threw a fit as though they'd been injured. The argument is purposedly misleading and mistates the facts on the ground in either case in order to prop up something that cannot be defended. Greek is a very picky and precise language And the structure of the particular phrase is gender modified to support the difference intoned in the words used. Throwing that on top of the actual facts re Aramaic pretty well settles that argument.

How about if you took a group of 100 Americans.. would that be scientific?

That's a poll, not a search to establish a fact. If you want to establish an opinion, it's great. It doesn't establish a fact. And the aim of Science is factual certainty. Therefore in a realm where one posits a notion that cannot be tested, the onus lies upon the one

And I have increasingly less patience with people who insist that the scientific method is the sole key to knowledge.

I didn't say sole key. I said it's the rule in science for establishing fact. If it can't be tested and proven true it isn't a fact. And facts are the things on which we decide issues that are otherwise unresolveable - not popular guesses.

Among the things that science has not yet come to understand very well are the human mind and the workings of consciousness.

The human mind has failed to grasp that facts are facts. Theories are theories. And guesses are guesses. The three are cleanly and clearly discernable from one another. And this clarity is what gives us a method of differentiating between Doctors with cures and hucksters with dilute whiskey curealls which cure nothing. In fantasy we can call our opinions or wishes a fact. In the real world, only real facts will do. This is the way things work.