Just stepped outside to encounter actual sleet. Yay Pensacola!
You’ll probably need to click on the picture and see it full size. That’s how far one must go to see these things here in the sunny southland.
This Canadian born lad was very excited to see such a thing way down here!
I dislike study Bibles. I almost said I hate them, but since I do tolerate some of them, that would be overstating the case.
My problem with them is that they tend to blur the distinction between the text that we’re studying and the commentary made about it.
I have managed to keep my annoyance under control by dividing these Bibles into two classes. The first class is those that present historical and technical data as an aid to the reader. This information is much like what would be found in a Bible handbook, but it is conveniently presented within the same covers as the Bible text. I still would prefer a separate Bible handbook, but I understand the value.
There are still differences in the material presented. What editors choose as the most relevant material to be included in limited space is going to be determined to some extent by their philosophy and view of scripture. Someone who studies the Bible from a secular viewpoint, as history, will be largely interested in the historical context; someone who reads the Bible as the church’s literature will be more interested in theological connections. Both of these items may be valuable to the reader.
Because of the limitations of space, it’s usually not possible to cover a text from all angles, or to provide a wide variety of information that relates to interpretation. So if a Bible student becomes tied too closely to a particular study Bible, which can happen quite easily if it’s the Bible that person carries to church, their perspectives will be limited.
So I’m uncomfortable with these Bibles, but I understand their purpose, and believe that if used appropriately they can be valuable.
But there’s a second class of study Bible. I encountered a number of them over the last couple of days as I looked for a Bible to giveaway at 2014 Reimagine Santa Rosa County. (We ended up using the NLT Study Bible, which I think is one of the better study Bibles, though its notes reflect somewhat more conservative views than mine.) But on the way to buying that Bible, I had to wade through dozens of editions of Bibles with notes by one person. The So-and-So Study Bible. It just doesn’t work for me.
I believe that teachers and scholars are important. I don’t have a problem with commentaries. I don’t mind study guides (I even publish a few.) I would like to see people have the goal of getting to the point where they study the Bible text directly. Use commentaries for backup. Compare notes with others. But get to the text.
In my experience there’s a very real tendency to confuse the interpretations in the notes of such Bibles with the text itself. I recall one man who showed up for a series I was teaching on Revelation with a Jack Van Impe Prophecy Bible. I didn’t mind being challenged by Jack Van Impe’s views. Actually, I don’t find them very challenging. But for this man, what that Bible said a text meant was precisely what the text meant. You couldn’t get him to discuss the text itself. He would only quote the notes.
Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. One lady called me aside in the church hallway with a question. She had read a text and then read the notes, and she couldn’t see how the writer of the note got that interpretation from the text. She assumed she must be wrong, since the note writers were so much more educated about the Bible than she was, but could I please explain. Actually, I thought the note was wrong. I explained to her how the writers might have gotten their interpretation and then explained why I disagreed, and suggested she spend more time with the text and less with the notes.
While I’m uncomfortable with study Bibles generally, I really can’t see the purpose in the study Bible written by an individual. I think it points away from the text and toward a single expert’s opinion. I think that’s bad.
Well, maybe I nuanced my rant a bit …
David F. Watson of United Theological Seminary (Dayton, OH), has written a post title What is a Liberal Christian? (HT: Methoblog).
I’m not going to dissect his post, because much of what I would have said, he summarized already here:
Part of the reason for the difficulty is that “liberal” has at least two meanings that are really quite different from one another.
Having said that, however, I would also point out that many liberals of my acquaintance don’t fit into the box he describes. Yes, I know he admitted the difficulty. He may even have understated it. But concepts of liberal stray even further from the box than …. well, than whatever we may try to say.
I’m editing a book titled just Process Theology for my Topical Line Drives series. I challenged Bruce Epperly to describe process theology in 12,000 words or less. I’m hoping to release the result in a couple of weeks. The result might surprise you.
Then there is my own statement, On Being a Liberal Charismatic Believer. not to mention my book, Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic. There are those who have told me I don’t deserve the label “liberal.” Some meant that as a compliment, as in “you’re not really a liberal, bless your heart.” Others meant it negatively, as in “you’re not really a liberal, you imposter!” And then I mess it up by using “passionate” and “moderate” as well. Each of those four labels I use in this site’s description say something about my approach to Christianity. Or so I believe!
Slippery things, labels, but necessary!
The following quote struck me in Bruce Epperly’s Adventurous Lectionary for the week:
When we say, at our congregations, “come and see” to seekers, we better have something to share that will change lives, our own and others. Jesus’ words call us to examine our ministries. People are looking for meaning; they are looking for a sense of vocation and something to which to their lives. Do we offer them the bread of life or business as usual? What unique transformative gift do we have to offer?
That and this too:
Isaiah does not give us a pattern of vocational success. Indeed, we must not abandon the statement that it is more important that we be faithful than successful.(emphasis mine)
PS: I currently have the privilege of working on layout for Bruce’s next book, Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James, and editing the one after that, which is on Process Theology, introducing it in about 40 pages!
This is another quote from my editing work:
James is a theologian, but his theology moves from the classroom and the study to the street corner and the soup kitchen. James is a “practical theologian,” whose beliefs motivate his actions and whose actions transform his beliefs. Theological reflection and worship find their fulfillment in faithful action. — Bruce Epperly, Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James (forthcoming)
I’ll probably be posting more of these than I have in the past, as I really enjoy the work of editing and often find nuggets to share!
Christianity involves following the path of Jesus in its embrace of the least of these, discovering God’s presence everywhere.
— Bruce Epperly, Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James (forthcoming)
I’ve made a change in how I link Bible verses on this blog. This applies mostly to the Participatory Bible Study blog posts which I merged with this one at the beginning of the year. For some time I had used the RefTagger plugin from Logos Bible Software. Recently, however, I was invited to join the Bible Gateway Blogger Grid.
Why switch? Basically, BibleGateway provides its resources free to everyone and is more accessible. I’ve always used it online myself, even though I have certain resources I’ve bought for Logos that I need access to. Nonetheless, I think linking to BibleGateway.com is of more service to my readers.
I’ll be taking a look at more resources as the days go by!
When I wrote yesterday about the HCSB introduction and its use of the label “optimal equivalence” I fully intended to write another post complaining about that introduction. And I will mention the other issue briefly in this post. But something else was drawn to my attention in the meantime.
Let me lay a foundation. Some years ago I was chatting about a particular Bible passage with a young person who was also a new Christian. We were discussing the best rendering of a particular verse in the Old Testament and when I defended the version we were looking at he said, “Wouldn’t ____ (naming a well-known figure) know best, since he reads Hebrew?” Now I didn’t point out that I read Hebrew as well, which was, perhaps, relevant! But I did point out that the translation we were examining had been made by a committee of several people, each of whom read Hebrew, and then it was reviewed by editorial committees, many of whom read Hebrew. They should get some credit!
This is one thing that concerns me when I hear pastors or teachers say, “This is how this text should be translated …” or “What the Greek text really means is ….” I’ve commented before that you’re generally about to be misinformed when someone says that. But even when an expert makes a comment about just what a translation should be, I have concerns. (Note that I’ve never heard someone say “what the Greek text really means” who was well-qualified in the language. They just don’t talk that way.)
My concern even when the linguistic information to follow is accurate is that this suggests to people that our Bible translations are carelessly put together by people with less language skills than the average pastor. Anyone with a few minutes and a reasonable pastor’s library can correct the work of the Bible translation committee! That’s simply not accurate. It also feeds a concern amongst many Christians that they cannot truly get to the meaning of scripture because so much is lost in translation, and they don’t have the time or talent to acquire facility with the source languages.
People like these come up to me in church hallways all the time. They’ve heard me introduced as knowing Greek and Hebrew, usually in exaggerated terms. “Reads Greek as well as you read English,” is one line that’s been used. I don’t know where they get that. No, most English readers exceed my speed at reading Greek. My main claim to fame is that I have kept my Greek and Hebrew up. I read my devotions in the original languages, so my comprehension is better than average, but I have not kept abreast of all the best linguistic scholarship. Nonetheless, people ask me what’s the best Bible translation. Can they trust the translation they’re using? What wonderful insights can I give them quickly that are missing from their Bible version?
These kinds of questions result, I think, from a profound ignorance about how Bible translations are made, who makes them, and the general quality of the work. I don’t want to diminish the value of knowing biblical languages. I wouldn’t trade that training for anything. But the best use to make of such knowledge is to deepen your own understanding of the scriptures, and then express that deeper understanding in words that people in the pews can understand. You don’t have to tell them with every insight how wonderfully smart you are because you know the languages.
The fact is that we have a very good set of translation options. Most—nearly all, I think—significant errors in interpretation can be avoided simply by carefully studying your text in context from your translation, and then comparing a few other translations to check your work. Properly using the linguistic comments of a few commentaries will help you even more. (May I recommend a book that I publish, “In the Original Text It Says …”?)
My point here is that Bible translators, in general, are a skilled and dedicated group of people who have provided a number of excellent translations for the English-speaking world.
Barring a couple of really troubling efforts, such as Jack Blanco’s Clear Word, any critique I offer relates to details and general approach. I don’t intend to call a translation bad unless I say it outright, for example, The Clear Word is a bad translation, if it can even properly be called a translation. So when I publish a couple of posts criticizing something in the HCSB introduction, I’m not trying to tell you it’s a bad translation. It’s not. It’s quite good. As with most translations, I disagree with some renderings.
Here’s some key points I try to remember in order to avoid the potential pitfalls. How successful am I?
But this last point leads me to my other complaint from the HCSB introduction. It’s under the heading “The gender language policy in Bible translation.”
Some people today ignore the Bible’s teachings on distinctive roles of men and women in family and church and have an agenda to eliminate those distinctions in everhy arena of life. These people have begun a program to engineer the removal of a perceived male bias in the English language. The targets of this program have been such traditional linguistic practices as the generic use of “man” or “men,” as well as “he,” “him,” and “his.”
I resemble that remark. Well, not very much. You see, I prefer “people” to “men,” “humankind” to “mankind,” and “brothers and sisters” rather than “brothers” or “brethren.” I’ve found, in surveying folks I teach, that there is a bit of a generation gap on these terms. Younger people tend to hear “men” as referring just to male persons. Older folks understand it generically. So my approach in translation is to translate as I think my audience understands the term.
I was quite amused by a former pastor of mine who complained bitterly about the use of “brothers and sisters” to translate the Greek adelphoi. In the NRSV this is done when the translators thought the referrent was a group including both genders. He preferred the older RSV because of this issue. Yet when he read from the RSV in church and came to “brothers” he’d look up and say, “That means you sisters as well!” He complained about the translation, but he knew about the problem with understanding, and his pastor’s gift kicked in to make sure nobody felt left out.
But having said that, I don’t think I’m ignoring the Bible’s teaching on “distinctive roles of men and women.” I disagree on where lines should be drawn. You may think I’m wrong, but I assure you my motivation is not to avoid the teaching of scripture. I simply read it differently.
Could we not simply say something like, “We believe that gender distinctions should be maintained in the language and have translated according to the Colorado Springs guidelines? (The introduction references these in the next paragraph.)
The issue of gender roles and gender languages is a legitimate topic of debate. What I’m suggesting here is that we don’t make this kind of issue, on either side, a matter of questioning one’s commitment to scripture or the quality of one’s work on Bible translation.
In my little charting program (MyBibleVersion.com) I rate translations on such issues. The point is that you can use this information to pick a translation that you are comfortable with. Find the NRSV annoying because of gender language? The ESV handles the issue differently while otherwise following a similar translation philosophy. And so on …
It has been some time since I complained about something in a Bible translation, so here goes! In this case it’s not the translation itself, but rather the description of the translation in the introduction.
I used the HCSB in church today, and I noticed something interesting about the way the name of God is used. In most cases, they use LORD for YHWH, but in one case they used Yahweh. According to the introduction, they use Yahweh if there is an emphasis on the name and what the name is. I haven’t looked at how they make this determination, but it would make an interesting study. I’m using the Nook edition, which loses the small caps on LORD, so it comes out as Lord in the edition. The print edition uses the long standing conventions for indicating the name of God.
This was not, however what got on my nerves. Translations handle the name of God in a variety of ways. I just wanted to know how they justified their approach. On the way to finding this explanation I found their description of their translation philosophy. They reject both “dynamic (or functional) equivalence” and “formal equivalence” in favor of “optimal equivalence.”
So what is optimal equivalence? Amongst the various things that seem to characterize it are an acknowledgement that neither formal nor functional equivalence can be followed absolutely, that form cannot completely be separated from meaning, and that the text should be exhaustively analyzed at all levels. Then using “the latest and best language tools and experts, the nearest corresponding semantic and linguistic equivalents are used to convey as much of the information and intention of the original text with as much clarity and readability as possible.”
That, of course, is completely contrary to the intention of other translators who ….
Well, actually, that’s pretty much how translators describe their work. Naming it “optimal equivalence” is just marketing speak. In fact, I think the HCSB has failed in these goals in a number of cases, as do most translations (see my notes on the HCSB). Doubtless were I to put my best effort into accomplishing those goals in a translation, I would fail numerous times. So claiming these ideas as a distinguishing feature of a particular translation is, to put it mildly, a bit misleading. The point is not that the HCSB, contrary to other translations, wants “to convey as much of the information and intention of the original text … as possible.” Rather, they tend to approach that goal in their own particular way, and you can find a statement on that in their introduction as well: “… form cannot be neatly separated from meaning and should not be changed (for example, nouns to verbs or third person ‘they’ to second person ‘you’) unless comprehension demands it.” That suggests that they lean toward formal equivalence, and indeed, my own analysis, done a couple of years ago, supports my initial impression.
I don’t want to be too negative about this particular translation. I actually find it overall quite readable. It’s a credible and usable translation, though not my favorite. The issue is that it is not some sort of break through in translation theory or practice. Everybody tries to accurately convey what’s in their source text via the target language. The question is just what information is regarded as most important (you’re going to lose something) and how that information can best be conveyed.
And that is where the very legitimate differences in translation philosophies occur.
I’ve been involved in various varieties of online activities since the mid-1980s when I established the Wind Dragon Inn, a bulletin board connected with FidoNet. Over time my internet presence has gotten pretty complicated with a variety of domain names, three main blogs and a couple of smaller ones.
You may have arrived here via the URLs for any of these other blogs. All of the posts from those blogs have been preserved here, and you can find them through search.
I have quite a few things to implement to combine the themes and provide all the information that these blogs provided. That will happen over the next couple of days.
Thank you for your patience!
