Why the Mirror Translation?
One day I had the pleasure of taking a very famous photographer on a scenic boat trip in the bay of our home town, Hermanus South Africa. I could tell by the size of his camera lenses and equipment that he was not your average tourist.
He explained to me that he needed to sell only two photographs a year to cover his budget! I felt privileged and was delighted to watch the artist at work. With fluent skill he would exchange lenses and film and go about his work.
After about two hours with the wonderful Southern Right whales we were on our way back to the harbor when we witnessed a flock of a few hundred Cape Cormorants. The next moment they all took off in flight; the rhythm and unison of their wings were like a ballet reflecting on the water.
Our photographer friend was happily clicking away when suddenly he shouted: "I've got it, I've got it!"
It was amazing to witness the joy in the man's face. He knew that he had captured a moment that would perhaps be worth more than all the equipment in the boat.
He immediately proceeded to pack away his expensive gear and carefully zipped up the waterproof bags.
I then watched him relax and sit back glowing with delight.
I couldn't help but reflect on what must have been the greatest moment when for the first time in the history of the universe the invisible Creator witnessed his image and likeness on display in fragile, tangible human form. And God saw everything that he had made and said, "Behold, it is very good! And entered into his rest!
The Sabbath was a celebration of perfection, rather than a break from a busy schedule to observe a religious ritual! Gen.1:31.
I became absorbed with the thought of photography; magic moments of light, shape, color and movement arrested and stored on film or in memory to be reproduced in a million glossy magazines or framed in art galleries. These exhibitions would be appreciated in any culture or language, for countless years to come. I imagined how the artist would document these gems in a way that no virus would flaw the original detail; regardless of what would happen to the prints, whether they be framed, forgotten or destroyed.
Almost like words storing images of rare beauty to be repeated at any time in any language or thought.
In the beginning was the Word.
In one of her classic novels, Gentian Hill, Elizabeth Goudge paints the picture of little Stella listening to her stepfather reading from the Bible: "All through the Book, even in the dreadful parts, the language would now and then suddenly affect her like an enchantment. The peculiarities of Father Sprigg's delivery worried her not at all. It was as though his gruff voice tossed the words roughly in the air separate particles of no great value, and immediately they fell again transmuted, like the music of a peal of bells or raindrops shot through with sunshine and vista beyond vista of incomparable beauty opened before the mind. It was a mystery to Stella that mere words could make this happen. She supposed the makers of these phrases had fashioned them to hold their visions as one makes a box to hold one's treasure, and Father Sprigg's voice was the key grating in the lock, so that the box could open and set them free. That transmutation in the air still remained as unexplainable as the sudden change in herself, when at the moment of the magical fall her dull mind became suddenly sparkling with wonder and her spirit leaped up inside her like a bird."
I am fascinated with words, language intrigue me! Man is in essence a communicator and an interpreter of thoughts and meaning. We live in the most amazing age of a global communication explosion. Age old traditions, interpretations and philosophies are ?Googled" and questioned with deliberate scrutiny.
One wonders why Deity did not delay the spectacular event of the incarnation, his life, his parables, his miracles his love his death his resurrection, with two thousand years. Imagine we had the technology then to capture a glimpse of the Messiah on high definition multi mega pixel cameras and evidence his death and resurrection on undeniable tangible record.
Yet no technology still to be invented in the far future could possibly match the capacity and wonder of a single DNA strand, with its three billion individual characters mirror repeated seventy five trillion times, which is how many cells there are in one person. This dwarfs any terabyte into insignificance.
Their inaudible voice resonate the light of life!
The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both. Proverbs 20:12. Mankind is the god-kind, designed to live by the complete word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
yet their sound transmits through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat. Psalm 19:1-6.
"All flesh shall see it together!"
Isa 40:3 A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isa 40:4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; every crooked place shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth.
Isa 40:5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
In the incarnation God deleted every definition of distance; every possible excuse man could have to feel separated or even neglected by God was removed in one day, through one sacrifice, once and for all!
Life documented in the Rock of ages, now inscribed on hearts of flesh! Hear the echo, feel the resonance! Christ is all and in all!
You are living Epistles, known and read by all men!
More than two thousand years ago the conversation that had begun before time was recorded, and sustained in fragments of thought throughout the ages, whispered in prophetic language, chiseled in stone and inscribed in human conscience and memory, became a man. Beyond the tablet of stone and the papyrus scroll or parchment roll human life has become the articulate voice of God. Jesus is the crescendo of God's conversation with humankind; he gives context and content to the authentic thought. Everything that God had in mind for man is voiced in him. Jesus is God's language. His name declares his mission. As Savior of the world he truly redeemed the image and likeness of the invisible God and made him apparent again in human form. Hebrews 1:1-3.
The destiny of the logos was not the printed page. A mirror can only reflect the object; likewise the purpose of the page was only to reflect the message, which is "Christ in you"; he completes the deepest longing of every human heart. The incarnation is the ultimate translation.
In the words of the song of Moses, "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the gentle rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock, his work is perfect; Deuteronomy 32:1-4.
Mankind has forgotten their Maker and in the process, their identity.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. Deuteronomy 32:18.
Jesus did not come to begin a new religious movement called Christianity, his mandate was to reveal and redeem the image and likeness of God in human form.
While none of Jesus' brothers believed in him during the three years of his ministry, (John 7:5) his brother James discovers his own true identity when Jesus appears to him after the resurrection (1 Cor 15:4-7) and declares, "It was his delightful resolve to give birth to us; we were conceived by the unveiled logic of God." James 1:18.
He continues, "By being a mere spectator in the audience you underestimate yourself (you come to an inferior conclusion about who you really are). You are God's poem. The difference between a mere spectator and a participator is that both of them hear the same voice and perceive in its message the face of their own genesis reflected as in a mirror; they realize that they are looking at themselves, but for the one it seems just too good to be true, he departs (back to his old way of seeing himself) never giving another thought to the man he saw there in the mirror.
The other one is mesmerized by what he sees; he is captivated by the effect of a law that frees man from the obligation to the old written code that restricted him to his own efforts and willpower. No distraction or contradiction can dim the impact of what he sees in that mirror concerning the law of perfect liberty (the law of faith) that now frees him to get on with the act of living the life (of his original design.) He finds a new spontaneous lifestyle; the poetry of practical living. (The law of perfect liberty is the image and likeness of God revealed in Christ, now redeemed in man as in a mirror.
Look deep enough into that law of faith that you may see there in its perfection a portrait that so resembles the original that he becomes distinctly visible in the spirit of your mind and in the face of every man you behold. Let us briefly consider these two words that James use here, parakupto and parameno. I translated the word parakupto with mesmerized, from para, a preposition indicating close proximity, a thing proceeding from a sphere of influence, with a suggestion of union of place of residence, to sprung from its author and giver, originating from, denoting the point from which an action originates, intimate connection, and kupto, to bend, stoop down to view at close scrutiny, parameno, to remain under the influence. The word often translated, freedom, eleutheria, means without obligation.) James 1:23-25.
A word in any language can be most fascinating. Seed stores the life energy and the genetic detail of a plant species, in much the same way thoughts and concepts are concealed in words and language.
Individual words can greatly influence the meaning and interpretation of any conversation.
For many years deliberate as well as oblivious errors in translations were repeated and have empowered the religious institution of the day to influence, manipulate and even abuse masses of people.
Consider the word metanoia, consisting of two components, meta, together with, nous, mind, suggesting a radical mind shift. This word has been translated regularly as repentance, which is an old English word borrowed from the Latin, which means penance. This gross deception led to the perverted doctrines of indulgences, where naive ignorant people were led to believe that they need to purchase favor from an angry god! Most cathedrals as well as many ministries were funded with guilt money!
English translations do little to help us understand what repentance truly is. Until Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation, the word metanoia was commonly used. For instance, Tertullian wrote in 198 A.D., "In Greek, metanoia is not a confession of sins but a change of mind." But despite this the Latin fathers begin to translate the word as "do penance" following the Roman Catholic teaching on doing penance in order to win God's favor.
In 1430, Lorenzo Valla, a Catholic theologian, began a critical study of Jerome's Latin Vulgate and Valla pointed out many mistakes that Jerome had made.
Sadly, the Vulgate-Only crowd of Valla's day forced him to renounce many of the changes that he noted needed in the Vulgate including the poor translation of metanoia.
The business of religion desperately needs paying and returning customers! They crucified Jesus for this reason; their entire system of keeping people dependent on their hierarchy was challenged and condemned!
Isa 55:8-11 gives meaning to metanoia: your thoughts were distanced from God's thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth, but just like the rain and the snow would cancel that distance and saturate the soil to awaken its seed, so shall my word be that proceeds from my mouth.
The Greek preposition meta means together with; together with implies another influence; this is where the gospel becomes so powerful since it appeals to our conscience to reason together with our original design... the authentic thought, the mind of God realized again; the distance caused by Adam's fall, heaven higher than earth, is cancelled in the incarnation.
Your belief in God does not define him; his faith in what he knows to be true about you defines you.
In Mark 11:22 Jesus says, ?have the faith of God'. Unfortunately most translations say, ?have faith in God'; there is a vast difference.
God's belief in you gives substance to your faith. Jesus is what God believes about you!
If our point of departure is not God's faith in the finished work of Christ we have no valid gospel to preach! If our faith is not sourced and sustained in him as the mirror image of God revealed and redeemed in us we are deceiving ourselves with yet another religious disguise called Christianity.
There are countless ?errors' bound in expensive leather books, sold over many years under the notion of "the authentic word of God!" The book is not the word of God; the message it contains certainly is. Millions of lives have been ignited, transformed and blessed by every translation imaginable, in spite of errors in text and translation.
I salute the effort and contribution of the multitudes of people who have painstakingly preserved, documented, gathered fragments, scrutinized and compiled, copied and translated texts over the centuries; then those who translated and literary lost their lives in order to introduce the text in a language that ordinary people could understand.
The Mirror Translation does not replace any other translation; it is simply a study tool that will assist the casual reader as well as the student of scripture to gain highlighted insight in the promise and the Person documented and revealed in the Bible as the mirror image of the likeness of God redeemed in man.
Jesus blows our definitions and doctrines apart with one statement: "Whatever you have known about God that is unlike me, is not God!"
If you have seen me you have seen the Father! This was his purpose, to resonate and redeem the Abba echo in every human heart!
"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!" John 5:39 The Message. See also Luke 24:27,44,45.
Jesus is what the Bible is all about, and man is what Jesus is all about!
Man is the expression of the greatest idea that ever was! John 5:39.
Every invention begins with an original thought. You are God's original thought. You are his initiative; the fruit of his creative inspiration, his intimate design and love-dream.
The first Hebrew word in the Bible, bereshet, literally means ?in the head.' You are his work of art; his poem says Paul in the Greek text of Eph 2:10. Man began in God.
When God imagined you he had a being in mind whose intimate friendship would intrigue him for eternity!
Every human life is equally valued and represented in Christ. He gives context and reference to our being as in a mirror; not as an example for us, but of us. The ?ugly duckling' saw reflected in the water the truth that freed the swan! Ps 23 says, "He leads me beside still waters, and restores my soul" or, "by the waters of reflection my soul remembers who I am!"
"The ends of the earth shall remember and return to the Lord!" Psalm 22:27.
He has come to introduce us to ourselves again, so that we may know, even as we have always been known! Jeremiah 1:5, 1 Corinthians 13:12.
Even illiterate Peter learns to write, he declares, "we were born anew by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead." 1 Peter 1:3.
I love his motivation, "I make it my business to thoroughly arouse you until these truths become permanently molded in your memory." 2 Peter 1:13.
"We are not con-artists, fabricating fictions and fables to add weight to our account of his majestic appearance; with our own eyes we witnessed the powerful display of the illuminate presence of Jesus the Master of the Christ life. (His face shone like the sun, even his raiment were radiant white. Mat.17)
He was spectacularly endorsed by God the Father in the highest honor and glory. God's majestic voice announced, "This is the son of my delight; he has my total approval."
For John, James and I the prophetic word is fulfilled beyond doubt; we heard this voice loud and clear from the heavenly realm while we were with Jesus in that sacred moment on the mountain.
For us the appearing of the Messiah is no longer a future promise, but a fulfilled reality. Now it is your turn to have more than a second hand, hear-say testimony; take my word as one would take a lamp at night; the day is about to dawn for you in your own understanding. When the morning star appears, you no longer need the lamp; this will happen shortly on the horizon of your own hearts..." 2 Pet 1:16-19.
Now we all with new understanding see ourselves in him as in a mirror; thus we are changed from an inferior mindset to the revealed opinion of our true Origin. 2 Corinthians 3:18
May this translation ignite many hearts with the light of life!
Francois du Toit ~ August 2011
