Today I (Misha) came across a verse that made me laugh aloud. Actually, it wasn't even a verse, it was a footnote. Usually if I'm laughing at a verse (footnote), it means that something went terribly awry during the drafting stage (don't worry, this doesn't happen too often), but this time it was a good sort of laugh.
For context, the verse (which is in the context of sorcerers burning their sorcery books after believing in Christ) is as follows: A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned
them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to
fifty thousand drachmas (Acts 19:19, NIV). The footnote is to explain the value of a drachma (according to the NIV's footnote, one drachma is a day's wage). In the Ikoma translation, their footnote says that the value of 50,000 drachmas is enough money to buy 250 head of cattle. I guess each bovine is worth about 200 days' wages for an Ikoma person. Now THAT is what I call making a translation good and relevant for the people group for which it is intended!
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