The Queen in Medellín

I was keen for Olwen to get hold of Don Carson for an official opening of the sewing room. I could just see emblazoned on the door, Donald A. Carson Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Sewing Room and we could use the acronym DATED SEWER. Although we´d need to be careful how people pronounced "sewer".

Olwen wasn´t having any of it. So we went to the pictures and saw a film which had been popular in the UK and has just arrived here, "The Queen". Watching a film in English with Spanish subtitles makes you realize how significant things can be lost in translation. "Move over cabbage" says Prince Philip to the Queen as he gets into bed, but that translated into Spanish becomes nonsense, so the subtitle simply read "Move over darling". It´s not quite the same, try it husbands.

Prof. Carson´s subject for the week is the theology of Hebrews. He´s speaking through a translator and that´s not easy. Fantastic anecdotes in the mother tongue can not quite hit the mark when spun out twice as long across a big cultural divide. But as one of God´s notable gifts to the church, he´ll be brilliant.

Next Monday the students come down forcefully to the not so brilliant: Olwen and I are speaking at their weekly service.


Carson in animated flow: Body language
enhancing oral language. And he hasn´t even seen the sewing room.

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