I am translating James this summer to keep my Greek skills up for when school starts in the fall and I enter the Greek exegetical class. Well, in the process of translating, I came across a sentence that is pretty ugly grammar-wise when translated to English, and is only that way because of the verse numbers. Here is my translation:
James 1:6-8 (6)But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing, for the one doubting [is] like [a] wave of [a] sea being tossed to and fro by the wind; (7)for that man [must] not suppose that he will receive something from the Lord, (8)a man vacillating, inconsistent in all his ways.
Verses 7-8 in particular don't flow very well. Would I be wrong to combine those verses into more proper grammar, like this:
for a vacillating man [is] inconsistent in all his ways and [must] not suppose that he will receive something from the Lord.
Another question that came from my translating of this was are we bound by the verse numbers when it comes to issues like this? Do we leave a sentence not making sense just to stay literal? I don't see my combining verses 7-8 in the way that I did as being less literal to what the text is saying at all. It is still literal, but more proper in English grammar.
When translating the Bible, should we follow the verse numbers, to the detriment of English readability? How bound are we to the verse numbers?
