User:Teras malum

manus teftium prima interficient cum manus reiqui populi extrema mittetut ut auteras malum de medio tui

Deueteronomii XVII

I chose this verse from Deuteronomy for my user page because there is so much significant and interesting variation in it's English version translations. These are some of the translations for this verse:


 * 1) New International Version: The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.


 * 1) New Living Translation: The witnesses must throw the first stones, and then all the people may join in. In this way, you will purge the evil from among you.


 * 1) English Standard Version: The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Same as the Berean Standard Bible)


 * 1) Brenton Septuagint Translation: And the hand of the witnesses shall be upon him among the first to put him to death, and the hand of the people at the last; so shalt thou remove the evil one from among yourselves.


 * 1) Aramaic Bible in Plain English: And the hand of the witnesses shall begin with him at the first to kill him and the hand of all the people at the end, and destroy the workers of evil from among you.

The evil can be "purged", "put away", "removed", or "eliminated". The verse sometimes ends with a command: "thou shalt put away the evil". The Douay-Rheims, a very literal translation from the Latin Vulgate, is didactic: "that thou mayst take away the evil out of the midst of thee". Similarly, the Good News Translation: "In this way you will get rid of this evil".

I've never seen such variation in translations of a single bible verse. I wanted to find out more about why there is so much meaningful variation in these translations and add what I find out about it to Wikipedia.

Roughly speaking "Teras malum" means "destroy evil". Malum means "evil". It is used in some legal terminology like malum in se and malum prohibitum. Maleficium means a crime or evil deed, sometimes an injury or hurt (also called a damnum), and in the post-Augustinian language a harmful, evil magic or black magic.

The Greek word τέρας means a monster. In medicine it means a malformed baby or nonviable fetus. In Latin it has a different meaning, as a verb, to wear our or consume (exhaurio, absumo, consumo). The Latin etymology does not come from Greek and is unclear

About me: I am in my 20s, I listen to heavy metal music, I studied a little Latin in grammar school and have always had an interest in the Bible (strictly academic).