Translation talk:1 John

References

• Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies' Fourth Corrected Edition.
• Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 2nd Edition, F.W. Gingrich and F.W. Danker

(I'm mainly translating at work during lunch, so these are my 2 main references since I can fit them in my briefcase.)

Translation Philosophy

My goal, in the famous phrase of Bishop Lightfoot, is to produce a translation that is, "As literal as possible, as free as necessary." I'm trying to let the text speak for itself with a minimum of interpretation on my part, and using the most natural "standard" english to do so.

Johannine Poetry

The 12th through 14th verses of chapter 2 are obviously a snatch of poetry -- possibly the words to an early Christian hymn. So I've taken a stab at rendering it with a bit more lyricism and concision, but not being much of a poet I haven't tried anything too fancy.