Reading the Bible in Esperanto: Romans 1:1

If you read the Bible regularly or daily for religious reasons, there is no reason why you can’t try reading it in Esperanto. If you have had a few Esperanto lessons, you will probably recognize a few words of any given Bible passage. Unknown words you can always look up.

But where to start? There are a lot of books in the Bible, some more difficult than others. I suggest the book of Romans, which is a letter from Saint Paul to the Christians of the city of Rome. 

Paulo, servisto de Jesuo Kristo, apostolo vokita, apartigita al the evangelio de Dio,

This is verse 1, and the first thing you will note is that it is only the beginning of a sentence. Paul is starting off by introducing himself to the Christians of Rome. He has at this point not gone to Rome to visit these Christians himself. He gives his name, Paulo, and then gives his chief ‘title’ as a church leader: servisto de Jesuo Kristo. The word translated servisto is in the original Greek doulos, which means ‘slave.’ To the original audience of this letter, the word ‘slave’ meant the guy who empties your chamber pot and does other low, unappreciated work for you. Not a high status at all. But to be the slave of Jesus Christ is another thing altogether. Note: one title of the pope is ‘servant of the servants of God.’ Perhaps a reminder to popes not to glory in their status over other church leaders, but to regard themselves as the servant to the other ‘servants of God’.

Apostolo vokita: well, you can probably guess that apostolo means apostle. Vokita comes from the verb voki, which means ‘to call.’ The -ita ending means that it is past tense, and that someone other than Paul did the calling.  In the context of Paul’s life story, we can understand that the calling came from God. 

Apartigita: isn’t that a word and a half? There are three parts to this word: apart- which means separate, -ig- which means ‘make, render,’ and finally -ita, which we have met with above. In other words, Paul has been separated, or set apart, for the Gospel of God.

Evangelio means Gospel, and is related to the Greek word euaggelion, which means ‘good message.’ The Gospel is the Good News, and that is what Paul is set apart for.

You can not only read the rest of this chapter of Romans, but listen to or download an audio version of it, from this web page: 

Here is the Bible verse in English (KJV)

Romans 1:1

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,