Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Translation

  • Comments for NIV Revision Committee

    Wayne Leman reminds us that comments for the NIV2011 revision are only open until the end of December.  I never can make a final decision on these things, which would make me a lousy translation committee member, but if you have suggestions now is the time!

  • New English Translations Poll

    I’ve posted a poll for discussing the need, or lack thereof, for new English translations.  This post exists solely for comments on that poll.  Note that multiple answers are permitted in case one is not double-minded, but perhaps a bit fuzzy.

  • Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament – Isaiah 7:14 and Hosea 11:1

    With a recent flurry of posts regarding the way in which the Old Testament is used in the New, at least peripherally, I wanted to call attention to one written from a different perspective.

    The post is Isaiah 7, Nativity, and the Theotokos, written by Mark Olson, who speaks from an Orthodox perspective.  He discusses quite accurately the difficulties involved with interpreting Isaiah 7 either from the Masoretic text or the LXX, the first based on language, and the second (or either) based on context.  Let me extract one paragraph from his post:

    But there is a problem for the modern western (protestant?) Christian who has decided the typological/allegorical hermeneutic is to be abandoned. For it seems if you do so, you need to abandon Isaiah 7 as a prophecy which points to Christ. Yet, noting that modern translators of texts such as the ESV, which primarily use the MT documents for their basis use the less proper translation term “virgin” over “unmarried/young girl” in this case. Why? Because they are Christian and the traditional Christian interpretation of this text is that it is in fact pointing to Christ and the Nativity. Yet that does violence to a consistent hermeneutical method.

    I think Mark is right.  If we stick with the historical-critical method, or even the historical-grammatical method, we really have no way to bridge the gap here.  We can say that Matthew prophetically reapplies the passage when he quotes it, and we can give special privileges to early Christian interpreters–they get to take things out of context while we don’t–or we can ask whether the historical meaning taken in context is always the controlling factor.

    As an aside, let me note that I don’t think the LXX is a translation of a different strand.  The TDNT article on parthenos implies that the word may have overlapped the word ;almah more than is normally thought and thus it is neither a mistranslation, nor a different strand, but simply a case in which the semantic range of the two terms overlapped at the time of translation, but less so at the time of quotation (Matthew).  In any case, I don’t think the translation issue will solve the problem completely, and this becomes even more difficult when one considers the syntax of Isaiah 7:14 which could quite easily be translated as “is pregnant” as well as “shall conceive.”

    But laying all that aside we’re stuck with the likelihood that those who first heard Isaiah speak the words of Isaiah 7:14 would have understood it differently from the way in which Matthew applies it in Matthew 1:18-23.

    I see this as an excellent case requiring typological interpretation, but also inviting us to do such typological interpretation within the bounds of church tradition, i.e. as part of a community.  One of the great problems I see with allegorical or typological interpretation is that it lacks controls.  My early inclination, during graduate school and for a time after, was to require the historical/contextual meaning as an anchor point for one’s typological understanding.  To a certain extent, I think that is still good plan, but it doesn’t really cover everything.

    First, the historical meaning doesn’t necessarily make much of a suggestion as to what typology might apply.  One is stuck with a sort of subjective guess as to how far one has deviated from the historical meaning.  Second, and as a result of the first, this idea really provides very little control.  The easy answer from a western protestant perspective, is to try to drop typological and allegorical interpretation entirely.  But if we do that we cut ourselves off from both much of the interpretation of the early church, and also most of the interpretation that scripture does of itself.  Thus any allegorical interpretation we may do will be rootless.

    If I might illustrate from another text, Hosea 11:1 as quoted in Matthew 2:15, I think there is an even greater contextual problem here, based on purely historical-grammatical or critical exegesis.  Yet there is an excellent typological reason to connect the birth and mission of Jesus to the exodus.  In fact, I think it is important to see the shaping of the story of Jesus from the exodus and then the exile and restoration if one is truly to understand redemption.  I don’t think I’m terribly out of line with Christian tradition on that point, but what I want to underline here is that such a view involves a typological interpretation, not a contextual view of a text.

    It seems likely to me here that Matthew, rather than interpreting a specific text loosely or contrary to context, is using a piece of phraseology from the exodus to draw the broader body of the exodus/redemption story into our understanding of the story of Jesus.  To view it as a misappropriation of a phrase is a distinctly modern error, one of which I have been guilty in the past.  Rather, Matthew takes advantage of the fact that his readers will know the broader story, and uses the one phrase as a tie-in to connect the stories together.

  • James McGrath on the Conservative Bible Project

    … in the Christian Science Monitor, no less.  (HT:  Exploring Our Matrix.)

  • OneNewsNow on the Conservative Bible Project

    It looks like pretty much the same article I referenced earlier (I didn’t take the time to compare them word by word, but many of the quotes match.

    The only reason I’m referencing this separately is the headline:  The battle for truth in Bible translation.

    Is it possible that anyone thinks the project really is “battling for truth?”

  • Can We Set Tight Boundaries for Translation

    J. K. Gayle has a post on this topic that I think deserves discussion.  Head over there and comment!

  • Professors are Liberal and They Translate the Bible

    Just in case you thought reinventing Jesus was just a liberal project …

    I haven’t said much about the conservative Bible project, mostly because I suspect everyone can guess quite accurately what I think, but this article on Yahoo! News lays out the ideas, such as they are.  I keep thinking this must all be tongue in cheek, but nobody has jumped out and said “boo!” yet.

    HT:  Better Bibles

  • Translating Philippians 1:9-11

    Philippians 1:3-11 is one of the Lectionary passages this week, and so I read through it this morning during my devotional time in Greek.  Now Paul is good at long sentences.  I remember the embarrassment once working with a Greek student who was translating this passage in his second year.  He was doing OK in literal terms, but I was suggesting how he might make the English clearer.  Well, pride goes before a fall, and I had hardly begun to do my “freer” translation when the moorings came completely loose and I got totally tangled up.  It took three or four tries before the result was coherent, and it still wasn’t that great.

    It’s not that I’m not well acquainted with the passage.  It is even one of those I have recorded for myself on CD so I can listen while driving.  But you wouldn’t have known it from my English that day.  The problem is that you can either translate one of Paul’s long Greek sentences into a harder to understand long English one, or you can try to keep the right sense in the transitions using shorter sentences.

    This morning, after reading, I looked it up in the NLT, and then compared that first to the NRSV and then the CEV.  I’m going to put the NRSV first, as it’s most equivalent in a formal sense, then comment on what I noticed.  Also, before anyone decides I’m beating up on one translation or another, I have a high regard for all three of these translations in the appropriate context.

    NRSV NLT CEV
    9And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. 9I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. 11May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation–the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ–for this will bring much glory and praise to God. 9I pray that your love will keep on growing and that you will fully know and understand 10how to make the right choices. Then you will still be pure and innocent when Christ returns. And until that day, 11Jesus Christ will keep you busy doing good deeds that bring glory and praise to God.

    I think both the NLT and the CEV have some difficulty keeping the relationships between the concepts clear. Obviously, how well one thinks each translation did at that task will depend on how one things those elements are related in Greek.

    So let me say how I hear this when I read it in Greek.  Paul starts from the point of love, but he is not merely saying that he wants love to grow in quantity.  He’s praying that their love will be filled with knowledge and insight.  When love is filled with knowledge and insight, one can discern what is most important, which leads in turn to pure and blameless living.  That in turn brings brings forth the fruit of righteousness, bring honor to Jesus, who brought all this forth in any case.

    Now I can find that in the NRSV, though I do acknowledge that many modern readers will have a hard time holding that long of a sentence together, so the readers may not benefit from it.  (Communication is not accomplished unless the recipient actually receives the message!)  The NLT, however, seems to me to make the growth in knowledge and understanding coordinate with, rather than part of, the growth of love.  Then “determining what is best” is the reason Paul wants them to grow in love.  I must note that I prefer the NLT’s “what really matters,” though I acknowledge the Greek will support either rendering.

    I think the CEV does a better job coordinating the growth of love and the knowledge and insight, but there the translation “make the right choices” seems to lose some of the nuance of the message.  Both the CEV and the NLT break what seems to me to be a tightly linked chain.

    Now I may be too picky here, and as I acknowledged at the start, I find it impossible to satisfy myself with a translation of this passage, along with a number of other long sentences from Paul.  I find elements to commend in all three translations, along with those I have questioned.

  • Paul not Lucid

    I must confess that quite frequently when I read J. K. Gayle’s writing, I’m quite mystified.  But today I was able to interact with what he wrote more effectively in his post Exactly what Paul Meant by “Sarx”.  Somewhere around the middle of that post he quotes C. S. Lewis from Reflections on the Psalms (p. 113 in his edition):

    Descending lower, we find a somewhat similar difficulty with St. Paul. I cannot be the only reader who has wondered why God, having given him so many gifts, withheld from him (what would to us seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian [albeit a formidable Jew]) that of lucidity and orderly exposition. (Reflections on the Psalms, page 113)

    He quotes more, and all of it is worthwhile.  I think there is a balance here in that it is easy either to start to ignore precision in translation and simply be sloppy, while at the same time it is easy to get arrogant.  I’m generally concerned when I hear pastors, especially those whose expertise in Greek is questionable, use the phrase “what the Greek really means here is …”  This generally means that we’re going to hear the preacher’s translation substituted for that of the committee that produced whatever version their reading as though somehow the individual preacher in the minimum time required for translation has earned the right to claim a translation that is “what the Greek really means.”

    I certainly feel free to disagree with translation committees or other translators or interpreters.  But this usage in sermons tends to suggest that one has the inside track on what a Bible writer was saying and that others, often much more qualified, have simply missed the boat.

    My impression on reading The Message was that Peterson very frequently manages very good translations of metaphors and imagery, yet when I read the teachings of Jesus, I thought he made them clearer than they were, so to speak.  Sometimes he took the sharp edges off and made them more friendly.  There is a point to leaving a difficult passage difficult.  At the same time it is much too easy to call a passage difficult because one is struggling to find an expression, and thus make the passage more difficult in translation than in the original.

  • On Translating to be Understood

    One of the experiences that shaped my approach to Biblical languages and Biblical studies occurred late in my first year of Greek.  The teacher was Lucille Knapp at Walla Walla College (now Walla Walla University), and she really enjoyed Greek and was quite expressive.  She kept us on our toes.  I was translating a verse for the class and used the word “propitiation.”

    “Henry!” she exclaimed.  “I am not teaching you to translate Greek into Latin!”

    An argument amongst the students ensued regarding how we should translate that word.  Some students, myself included, felt that people could just learn what propitiation meant, since we couldn’t think of a good single word in English to replace it.  The problem was, to our shame, that we really couldn’t do a good job of defining it either.  For us, the word “propitiation” was a black box.  It filled a space, but we didn’t really have it integrated into our theology enough to explain it rather than just repeating it.

    I thought about that a great deal after that class and it changed my whole idea of what “translation” means as well as what it means to express theology clearly and effectively.  C. S. Lewis once suggested that all ministerial candidates be required to pass a test involving translating a substantial work of theology (I’d suggest a nice passage from Karl Barth!) into language that their congregation would be able to grasp.  I think both ideas are related.  You haven’t translated if you haven’t managed to make the text comprehensible in the target language.  You haven’t preached or proclaimed the gospel unless you have made it understood.

    I was launched into this little note by reading the following today from Dave Black’s blog:

    In the course of teaching Greek (both classical and Koine) the past 34 years I’ve found that translating Greek into English is a very different enterprise from understanding what the text means. A translation may at times sound very erudite, but to be relevant and beneficial the text must be understood — and then applied. One of my greatest challenges as a teacher has been to get my students to see the need to give up theological jargon when translating from Greek into English. If we can use simpler and clearer words to express the truths of Scripture, then by all means let’s do so. Why, for example, should we render Rom. 12:11 “distribute to the needs of the saints” when “share what you have with God’s people who are in need” will do the job and is much clearer? Or why should we insist that the purpose of pastor-teachers is “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry” when we can say “to prepare God’s people for works of service”? If all we do is parrot the standard English versions while translating from English to Greek, I’m afraid we’ll end up with nothing but another secret religious society. If insisting on the use of theological jargon actually helped people to become more obedient to the Word of God, I’d say do it at all costs. But is there any evidence that it does?

    To admit this inadequacy honestly can be very intimidating to the teacher. It means, in fact, that we can no longer be content to offer courses in Greek exegesis that fail to include serious self-examination. Somehow we need to move our students from a mere grammatical approach to the text to one that involves them deeply in the Christian pilgrimage. What is the purpose of exegeting Paul’s Christ-hymn in Phil. 2:5-11 if we, the translators, are not willing to model the upside-down kingdom of God in our own lives? Strangely, I am discovering that more and more of my students are asking the “so what” question of everything they are learning. And I am more and more convinced that the joy of living the Gospel in our lives is what should drive the exegetical process in the first place. I may be wrong, but when we talk about “seminary education,” I think we are talking about training students for the adventure of living the Christian life in the real world by doing what is important in God’s eyes. I have found, to my horror, that it is far easier to simply talk about the text than to seek to live it out. Look at the New Testament writers like Paul or John who wrote and taught in the crucible of actual missionary experience. They were willing to follow the Lord Jesus even at the risk of death. They didn’t just talk about the truth, they lived it.

    Just so!

    If Paul says I am to share what I have with God’s people who are in need, I’d better be doing just that. This pedagogical insight may belong in a fortune cookie, but it’s the best I can do.