today they did when the books were written?
We had this horribly long discussion on "submit" and "submission".....i'm wondering if the definition/useage has changed in close to 1900+ years?
obviously, there are equivalents across languages to the common verbs that allow a society to function. Unless we’re talking about country in complete anarchy, the concept of submission to authority exists for every language.
Even for the unbeliever, what is the reason, exactly, to doubt the translation of the simply verb “submit”?Not having enough info on the languages in question I won't try to argue the specifics of this case, but for the sake of argument I'll argue a hypothetical, so don't read into this as meaning anything whatsoever as being a statement on anything other than the nature of language.
Let's say one language has multiple words that can be given a single word translation to "submit" in our language, but each one has a specific connotation that isn't necessarily reflected in the word "submit" in and of itself. Let's just say there are they are these five verbs for that in our hypothetical other language:
A - submission to a god in the form of complete obedience
B - submission to an authority figure in the form of complete obedience
C - submission in the sense of some sort of general service, like how a laborer might do as he's told by his supervisor
D - submission in the sense of just giving great respect and reverence, but not necessarily complete obedience
E - submission to some sort of personal oath or code (eg following knightly chivalry or bushido)
So, if you have two different sentences in the original language...
"Wives B to your husbands."
"Wives D to your husbands."
...both could translate to "Wives submit to your husbands", but in the original there was additional context. In this case a good translator would add the context by translating more than just "submit". However, that may not always be the case. Sometimes it might not be practical to do so (you don't want to go into a long translation too often if a word is used multiple times, for instance) or it could just be an oversight in which the translator thinks the context is obvious but it isn't to others. Or sometimes you just get a translator who doesn't actually know the additional meaning the word holds.
This is not in any way unusual. I know enough Japanese to know that there are words where you lose context in translation, even though the translation itself is similar. I can give specific examples if you would like.
