Biblical Mistranslations

Editorial Note:

This is an old article I dug up from when I was editor at HabeshaLA (~2014). This article answers one of the most frequently asked questions that I still get today. In fact, that I got today (May 10, 2025). Why do some elements in the EOTC oppose folk music at weddings and secular music in general? Is it more traditional to oppose it or to let it be? What would Jesus do?

My brother in Christ answered the zefen (song) question scholarly. At the time, he was a student at Duke Divinity School getting his Master of Theology degree. He would go on to graduate a year after writing this. He has moved on from this type of scholarship, but we still badly need this type of work. As far as I know, the Amharic translations of scripture from the 1960s to the 1980s were done in consultation of English rather than Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek. The 2000s translation was translated from Ge’ez to Amharic, which is an improvement, and less embarrassing, but those editors violated God’s words in other ways for which they will be liable on Judgement Day. They may be saved, if only for the truth that they left in the footnotes saying, “The Greek says…”.

By: Dcn. Alemayehu Weldai 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 zefen (songs, 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 zefen (ማኅሌት;mahlét) the other verses make no mention of mahlét instead the word is ስካር (sikar), which means inebriation, intoxication, 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.

This was him on the show, early on.