The most elegant Greek passages are sometimes the hardest to translate. I’ve been chewing over Mark 9:22-23 this morning. It is an absolutely fascinating story and just full of implications. A guy tells Jesus that the disciples couldn’t cast some demon out of his son, and he says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, please have pity on us and help us.”
Jesus, who acts pretty miffed with the whole situation then answers back “If I can??” And then the Greek has a four-word sentence that I seem to need at least twice as many to begin to translate: panta dunata tw pisteuonti. The traditional translation is very much along the lines of the RSV’s “all things are possible to him who believes” which is 8 words. The panta does easily translate to all things … which is marginally better than everything since panta is all, not every (insofar as those are distinguishable from each other). The verb to be is missing / understood in the Greek sentence, which is not unusual. To translate dunata as possible, however, misses a shade of meaning. I’d want capability in there. In context, the dispute has been that the disciples don’t have the power or strength to do the business (v. 18; the word there is not dunamis/power, but a form of the word for strength). Here in 23, the word is related to power and the dative construction that follows (to him who believes) confirms that the things are possible not because of the things themselves but because of the person attempting them. The point is, I think, not that everything is possible to the believer, as if the things are in themselves possible and belief helps you see that, but rather, when you’re equipped with faith, everything becomes doable.
Ah ha! “Doable” is a word that really fits the implied narrator — the Mark I’m reconstructing — it’s a word I can imagine him loving.
Now the second part. “to the one who believes” is standard, but I’ve made a decision overall to use trust for pisteuw rather than belief. The point is faith, and I think throughout most of the New Testament, the relationality of faith is more the issue than intellectual or doctrinal faith.
This has left me with this translation: “All things are doable, for the one who trusts”. Nine English words for four in Greek. I may yet switch to Everything because All things sounds unnatural.
As well as the translation, of course, I’m hugely conflicted about the interpretation. This healing was not doable for the disciples and it’s not unlike Jesus to question and criticise the faith of the disciples. And yet, if he meant it as criticism why the singular “to the one who trusts” and why the definite article instead of simple dative and a three-word reply? Is the tw meant to parallel the panta? See? It isn’t “All things are possible to all who trust” or “to trusters”. This passage thus seems to me to perhaps relate into an old chestnut argument about whether we are saved by faith in Jesus or by the faith of Jesus.