“I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.” Philippians 4:2-3 ESV
Reflection: how accurate is your Bible?
Sometimes we come across a new fact that we just cannot reconcile. It doesn’t align with what we have learned or have understood. So we have a decision to make – either we ignore this new fact and keep going with our current understanding. Or, we have to consider if our current understanding is actually wrong and adjustments are needed. For example, as a result of the recent pandemic, many (most?) people have had to rethink their trust in government, healthcare, and media. Institutions they used to trust and therefore blindly followed, have lost their credibility due to all the propaganda and lies, and the amount of harm inflicted on the population through something promoted as good.
The truth is that we are daily facing so much propaganda and falsehoods, deceptions and lies in almost every aspect of life. It can be very difficult to know who or what to believe. As I started studying Philippians chapter 4 today, I discovered a very interesting difference between the Norwegian Bible version that I usually read from first (Bibelselskapet 2011), and most of the common English translations (ESV, KJV, NIV, AMP, …). In the Norwegian version, verse 3 starts “And I also ask you, who are rightly called Synzygos, to help these two.” Philippians 4:3a. But in the English version it says “Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women,” Philippians 4:3a ESV. Do you see the difference? In Norwegian, we read
“who are rightly called Synzygos”
But for the English versions, the whole phrase is simply translated to the brief two word reference of “true companion”. Paul was referring here to a specific individual, among the believers, whose name was “Synzygos”, a Greek name which means, according to Strong “co-yoked, i.e. (figuratively) as noun, a colleague; probably rather as a proper name; Syzygus, a Christian:—yokefellow.” Now, perhaps this is a very minor point in your mind, wondering why to focus on this. But, why leave out that Paul was talking to a specific individual here, to help resolve a dispute between two women in the church, Euodia and Syntyche? As we can see, he was asking specifically Synzygos to help them. It seems like such a strange omission, and it is omitted in all the common English versions. Are the English and this specific Norwegian version based on different starting points? Different base texts? Probably. And, my point is that, when we find one error, it should probably make us curious and question what other errors are there, right?
The Bible has been translated into many different languages, over hundreds of years. And while so many have faithfully tried to translate correctly, we must realize that the enemy is at work also here. Keep in mind that translators also base their versions on a starting point, which is not always the same. And if the starting point is wrong or has been corrupted, the whole translation will be wrong. As a result, we might have incorrect and false teaching. So we need to be vigilant, curious and discerning, not just blindly accept and trust any version of the Bible, and not just trust the message coming from a pulpit. We must refer back to the most accurate and reliable sources available.