| ▲ | chrismorgan 2 hours ago | |
Here’s one verse from the Bible itself that shows that language changed: 1 Samuel 9:9: > (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come, let us go to the seer”; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.) I love that one because it translates so well into English because we also have an older and a newer word for close enough to the same thing. Though when saying older and newer I should note that the words “prophet” and “seer” have been used consistently since the very first English translation, Wycliffe’s in ~1382. Maybe it’s more the feel of the words. (In Bible Gateway’s catalogue of English translations, only the CEV doesn’t use both of those words: <https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1sam9.9>; I disqualify OJB as not English.) That’s the only one I can think of off the top of my head that’s specifically about language, but there are plenty of others about changed customs over time, in Old and New Testaments. | ||
| ▲ | rsynnott an hour ago | parent [-] | |
Arguably the CEV version is clearer, because approximately no-one knows the difference between ‘prophet’ and ‘seer’ in English (a seer is a practitioner of divination). I’m assuming that the distinction was similar in the original (ie that the original didn’t just use two words for the same thing). | ||