CHAPTER 7 Defining Evangelizing - Evangelism Unlimited

338 Evangelizology
them is a sign, not merely of poverty of vocabulary, but of the loss of something which was a living reality
in primitive Christianity.” 475
It may be that there may not be a proper translation of certain communicatory terms into English,
because of a lack of use of the full breadth of the English language. This deficit may be especially
evident if one attempts a back translation of the many communicatory synonyms which we will see
below.
Therefore:
This difficulty may have been why John Wycliffe transliterated “evangelize” from the Latin to
provide us another communicatory verb in English, which continues in common usage in the English
language to this day. However, antagonism to this and other “borrowed terms” continues in various
forms. 476
The great semantic range of original language verbs translated in English “shew” in the KJV, or
“preach,” “proclaim,” and “declare” in the NASB should be sufficient to show that greater clarity
may be needed in translating certain proclamational words into English.
Therefore, in light of the (1) importance and volatility of these terms and (2) number of
communicatory terms in the Hebrew and the Greek, it would seem that:
(a) Greater consistency in the translation of communicatory verbs may be considered
(b) Use could be made of some of the unused or minimally used terms in English, such as
“contest,” “exclaim,” “evangelize,” “profess,” and “recount,” and especially in the NT
Also, in light of the primacy of the Great Commission and the communication of the Gospel, it
may be expedient for a thorough study of this subject to guide a linguistically and evangelisticallytransparent
translation of the Bible.
475 Gerhard Freidrich, “kh/rux (ièrokh/rux), khru,ssw, kh,rugma, prokhru,ssw,” in Theological Dictionary of the
New Testament, ed. By Gerhard Kittel, trans. by Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 3:703.
476 Remembering the 1968 and 1987 “Guidelines for Interconfessional Cooperation in Translating the Bible”
are against the use of “borrowed terms.”