La voilà!

French Bible, Gospel of John and 1 Corinthians.

(SOOC, full color, with Pic Stitch frame.)

I own a number of Bible translations in English because comparing them is an easy way to get further into the subtleties of a dead language. When I'm really serious, I go to the original in Hebrew and Greek.

I also own Bibles in the two modern languages I have studied, Spanish and French. It can be enlightening, even thrilling, to see what light they cast. I love the way the Psalms in French address God not as Lord but as Éternel!

The Prologue to the Gospel of John begins, Au commencement était la Parole. (In the beginning was the Word.)

In English the gender of a word can be masculine (he), feminine (she), or neuter (it). There's no neuter gender in French, and Parole happens to be feminine. If Jesus is the Word and the Word is feminine, how does that enlarge the possibilities of who Jesus is? I don't know how this strikes a French person, but to me it's one of the rewards of reading familiar texts in a foreign language.

Vive les langues étrangères!
Vive le français!

FRENCH: DDW August challenge