Biblical Mistranslations

By: Alemayehu Bahta

Have you ever heard an Ethiopian say “dance and music is a sin”? When you ask the person “why”, the often quoted scripture verse is one of the three, Romans 13:13, Galatians 5:21, 1 Peter 4:3. Well I was curious to see how this verse looked in the original Greek and also in other sister languages and the results have been shocking.

Here are the Amharic verses as printed in the popular 1980 edition.*

በቀን እንደምንሆን በአገባብ እንመላለስ፤ በዘፈንና በስካር አይሁን፥ በዝሙትና በመዳራት አይሁን፥ በክርክርና በቅናት አይሁን፤ (ሮሜ 13፡13)

መለያየት፥ መናፍቅነት፥ ምቀኝነት፥ መግደል፥ ስካር፥ ዘፋኝነት፥ ይህንም የሚመስል ነው። አስቀድሜም እንዳልሁ፥ እንደዚህ ያሉትን የሚያደርጉ የእግዚአብሔርን መንግሥት አይወርሱም። (ገላትያ 5፡21)

የአሕዛብን ፈቃድ ያደረጋችሁበት በመዳራትና በሥጋ ምኞትም በስካርም በዘፈንም ያለ ልክም በመጠጣት ነውርም ባለበት በጣዖት ማምለክ የተመላለሳችሁበት ያለፈው ዘመን ይበቃልና። (1 ጴጥሮስ 4፡3)

It appears that Paul was clearly not a fan of dance or music, but further investigation proved otherwise. The first step was to look to an older translation of the Amharic bible so that a comparison could be made. In the 1879 translation of these texts, the translator rendered the words similarly as well except in Galatians where the term was መሶልሶ (I still cannot find the meaning of this word).

Since this did not answer my question, the next step was to look to the Ge’ez text and interestingly enough besides Romans 13:13 which used a word that resembles dance/music (ማኅሌት) the other verses make no mention of dance/music instead the word is ስካር, which means drunkenness. So it is unclear where the words for dance/music were added into the conversation, unless the translators were consulting the Greek.

The Greek word in all three verses is κομός. The word komos has a deep tradition in ancient Greece. This word according to one source means:

“to 1) a revel, carousal  1a) a nocturnal and riotous procession of half drunken and  frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets  with torches and music in honor of Bacchus or some other  deity, and sing and play before houses of male and female  friends; hence used generally of feasts and drinking parties  that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry.”

So it may be that the translators of the Amharic may have consulted the Greek and either a.) mistranslated or b.) lacked a better word for komos. All in all, this exercise points out three things, 1.) The Amharic translation must be redone from the original languages 2.) Historical context does matter and 3.) There is still a lack of scholarship on the Ge’ez and Amharic bibles.

Now whenever an Ethiopian, quoting from the 1962 Amharic Bible, tells me that dance and music are sinful, I respond with the statement “according to who’s translation?”

Post Scriptum:

*This translation, according to the introduction, was done in 1962 and reprinted in 1980 by Ethiopian scholars with financial assistance from the United bible Societies.

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