Why is this question closed? I am asking if the English word is a good translation of koine Greek

Question

Among this translations of the bible, which one has the meaning of being intoxicated?

Note that this question asks if the following phrases all mean the same or not. I cannot understand why this is not on topic

too much to drink
a lot to drink
drunk freely
are drunk
have drunk freely
have well drunk
had plenty
have well drunk

I also ask which of the phrases is the correct translation of the word methiosin.

Again. Translation is on topic on this site.

Someone says that because this question is on topic in Hermeneutics it shouldn't be on this site; this reasoning doesn't make any sense. So what if this is on topic on hermeneutic.SE? I may ask the same thing over there too but I want to know what secular English language experts think. People in Hermeneutics see the Bible as some special book. I want a more natural perspective. Is "phrase A the translation of word B?" kind of thing.

Finally, there is a confusion because English word drunk can mean past participle of drink or inebriated. In Indonesian it can mean mabuk or minum.

So that is a very legitimate question.

One comment says that the translation is appropriate because it talks about hypothetical case and is deliberately vague and the Bible transcription is not bowdlerized. That is precisely the kind of analysis I want to avoid. I don't care if the word if the book is the Bible or not. I don't care if the word methiosin only shows up there. I don't care if it's a bowdlerized version or not.

I want perspective from someone that don't care about all those.

Okay I care. But I want answers from those that don't care first. That issue I can ask in Hermeneutics.

1. All I care is if all those phrases mean the same thing and if not what's the difference?
2. I care which of those phrases means inebriated by alcohol instead of just drink.
3. I care if those phrases is the best translation of methiosin.

I think all 3 issues are on topic on this site.

After I get those answers, I will compare the answer to the answer on Hermeneutics.

Basically I am not looking for super expert opinion. Just normal unbiased honest answer.

Answer 1

The full help on translation questions is worth a read, although it may not be easily accessible from the tag pop-up (I have a userscript which helps there).

To ask a question with a good chance of a good answer, you need to indicate what the word or phrase is intended to mean, together with any connotation it carries (for example, is it pejorative or adulatory?) This is an essential part of any translation question. [My emphasis]

This is where the question fails: you're asking about the intention, but you need to supply that. Once the intention is known, we can help mould that into good English.

For example, the French phrase Il pleut des cordes literally means "It's raining ropes", but it refers to heavy rain which appears to be ropes falling from the sky. A good English translation would be "It's raining stair-rods" (which carries the same image of extended tracks of each droplet), or "It's raining cats and dogs". Once we are told what the nonsense literal translation means, it's possible to suggest a couple of idiomatic English phrases.

The point of the translation tag is that this community does not know the source language: it's necessary for you to supply the context and general intention of the source phrase. You cannot assume a knowledge of koine* Greek and ask which meaning of drunk is intended for a particular Greek word.

The correct place to ask about the intended meaning is on BH.SE.

Now, if all you want to do is ask

Does English have a word that unambiguously means to be intoxicated?

then that's a reasonable question, and a probable answer is drunk, because — as I commented — people cannot be imbibed, whatever Douglas Adams may have imagined†. If someone is drunk, they are intoxicated. However, there may be other words which do not have that potential ambiguity. Intoxicated, perhaps.

But if that's the case, we don't need all the guff about Greek. It's a couple of sentences of background at most.

---

*Note that it's koine in English, not coin.
† Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "It's unpleasantly like being drunk" "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Just ask a glass of water."