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Life, the universe and … more glory

The word ‘life’ appears almost 280 times in a typical English translation of the New Testament. (I’m using the 2011 edition of the NIV 2011.) It’s such an important theme in the Bible, but what do we really understand by it? In John 10.10 Jesus says: I have come that they (the sheep) may have life, and have it to the full. But what sort of ‘life’ is he talking about?

In the original Greek, there are 3 distinct terms which are translated into English as ‘life’, so when we read in English, it’s not easy to distinguish between them. Let’s start with a short summary:

1. bios refers mainly to our physical, earthly life and its daily functions such as when Luke talks about: ‘the pleasures of this life‘. (8.14) It’s where we get the English word ‘biology’ from.

By extension of this, bios can also be used to refer to a means of subsistence, such as ‘property’, ‘goods’ or ‘one’s living’. For example in Luke 15 in the parable of the prodigal son: the father divided his bios between his two sons and the younger son spends all the bios (15.30). Similarly in Mark 12, when the poor widow puts 2 copper coins in the Temple treasury, Jesus says she has given more than all the others, because she gave all her bios – all she had to live on.

2. psuche can be defined as the physical life-principle or breath (Acts 20.10; Rev 8.9) It can refer in general to our natural life here on earth as in Matthew 6.25: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 

This is the life that Christians must be willing to give up: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. (Luke 9.25)

Psuche can also be used to talk about the inner self, sometimes translated ‘soul’ as in Mary’s prayer in Luke 1.46: My soul glorifies the Lord…

3. zoe can also refer to physical life, in particular as the opposite of thanatos (death), for example when Paul at the end of Romans 8 is saying that nothing can separate us from God’s love for us in Jesus: neither death nor life

But most often zoe refers to life of an altogether different quality: God-given, supernatural life, this ‘new life’ that we live as believers, because we’ve been set free from sin (Romans 6.1-4). This is also the term used to talk about ‘eternal life’ – which is not just the physical, earthly life (psuche) which goes on forever, but life (zoe) in an altogether different category, that comes as a gift from God, and starts in the here and now.

These different meanings are not immediately obvious in our English translations, since we only have a single term to represent them. Many languages, though, have more than one word for ‘life’. In 2 of the translations for which I am a consultant, the languages have 2 different terms for ‘life’, so in some ways their translations can be more nuanced than our English versions, though it is not always easy to categorise which of the 2 expressions to use when translating the 3 Greek terms.

Sometimes it’s the other way round: we can come across concepts where, although there is only one term in the Greek, the meaning differs according to the context. One such example is kosmos. This is often translated as ‘world’, but that can be in the sense of ‘universe’ – the sum total of everything God has made. (Acts 17.24) Or it can more narrowly refer to mankind, all the people on earth. Then again kosmos is used, particularly by John, in a moral sense, to refer to mankind alienated from God and hostile to him. So the original context must be fully understood before deciding which term in the language is the most appropriate. Getting the balance between being clear in each context and being consistent in the use of terms can be a tricky business.

But this is why it is such a privilege to be working with mother tongue speakers of the language, who may not always be able to explain why they would instinctively choose one term over another in a particular context, though they are discovering more and more about their own language, through the process of translation. As a consultant, I can try to explain the meaning of the original text, yet as the translators make these choices, they are actually doing theology in their context. I can give advice, but ultimately the translators and speakers of the language must make these decisions. Then, gradually, as God’s word is expressed in different languages, this gives us new insights into God’s character and message; each language revealing a new aspect of God’s glory, and all languages combining to give us a fuller picture, a picture that no single language ever could.