Participatory Bible Study Blog

I violate my vow against reading or linking to Jim West to link to the latest Biblical Studies Carnival XXXVI, which is quite good in spite of because of its snarkiness.

There’s a lot of good stuff there, much of which is about SBL.

I’ve begun using the Orthodox Study Bible in my lectionary reading, which brought me to Isaiah 64 a couple of days ago.  It’s been that kind of a week, so I haven’t had time to comment on it until now.

First, let me note that having a study Bible with an overtly Christological interpretation of the Old Testament makes for a nice bit of variety in my reading.  I do have a couple of others, but this one is quite unapologetic about it.  I’m a little less satisfied with the quantity of the notes available.  For example, the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, which I also read regularly, has about 380 words of notes on the page with the major portion of Isaiah 64, while the Orthodox Study Bible has about 160.  In addition, one of the notes, on Isaiah 64:4 does nothing more than restate the message of the verse in other words and so doesn’t advance us that much.

I wrote recently about how easy it is to trash translations, but I hope I can be allowed just a little bit of complaining here.  I knew that the New Testament of the Orthodox Study Bible was from the NKJV.  This makes sense because that is a translation of the majority text, more or less, though there are a number of devations in favor of the text behind the KJV.  The NKJV is not one of the most readable translations around, and I already knew what to expect there.

But for the Old Testament, we have a new translation of the LXX.  The introduction (p. xi) gives us three key points about this translation, in my view:

1. It is based on Alfred Rahlf’s edition of the LXX.  Since I have this text, I am reading the Greek alongside the translation as I review the book.  I’m going to assume until I’ve had time to research this more fully that this was a good textual choice for the purposes of this Bible, i.e. that Rahlf’s is close enough to the text used in Orthodox liturgy.
2. It uses NKJV renderings where the Masoretic text of the Hebrew is the same as the LXX text.  This seems a less useful goal, due to the somewhat stilted nature of the NKJV English.
3. The introduction states that “[t]he Old Testament text presented in this volume does not claim to be a new or superior translation.  The goal was to produce a text to meet the Bible-reading needs of English-speaking Orthodox Christians.”

My problem is with the last one.  But first let me simply note that few Christians outside of the Orthodox tradition will realize just how many differences there are in the LXX text and the Hebrew.  It is fortunate that the introductory materials provide a chart of the differences in chapters and verses, and I hope English speaking readers who are accustomed to our western Bibles will read those materials.

But the real problem here is with English.  I’m not arguing here that the Greek was not correctly understood by the translators.  I’m also not asking for a functional equivalence translation where a formal equivalence translation has been presented.  But even formal equivalence translations can make good, meaningful word choices.

These remarks are preliminary.  I’m basing this on comparison of just two passages, Isaiah 64 and Psalm 80, and all examples are from the former.  But it is not encouraging to find this many examples in just the Psalms and OT reading from this week’s lectionary.

As examples, consider Isaiah 64:8[9]:

Do not be exceedingly angry with us, and do not remember our sins in an opportune time. [emphasis mine]

What does it mean for God to remember sins in an opportune time?  If one did not imagine that the translators know Greek well, one might guess that they had opened a lexicon and simply chosen the first possibility that jumped out at them.  Surely “kairos” here must have some more relevant meaning.  BDAG includes things like a “time of crisis,” though I actually don’t think that is the intended nuance here.

Then in verse 9 we have:

Zion is like a desert, and Jerusalem is for a curse.

Again, in English, what does “Jerusalem is for a curse” mean?  It would seem like a few minutes checking with ordinary speakers of English would suggest some alternative was of phrasing this.  And bluntly, this looks a bit much like a class exercise style of translation for “eis kataran.”

Finally, in verse 10, we find:

. . . and all our glorious things have become extinct.

Were they animal species or something?  Again, I don’t get this.  The Greek word here is “sumpipto/sunepesen” and I don’t see how one would get such an inappropriate English word to use in this context.

The bottom line is a bit like I expected, knowing the translation used as the foundation, and assuming that a similar process was followed in this translation.  I’m frankly enjoying the introductory articles and the excurses in the text.  The translation, on the other hand, is frequently jarring and sometimes puzzling.

I will continue to write notes as I read.

I provided David Ker with a Hippopotamus, but what he really wanted was a creed that would fit in a Tweet.

In particular, he provided the following particulars:

If someone sincerely confessed this creed you would:

1. Consider them to be a brother or sister in Christ.
2. Believe that they are true believers and inheritors of eternal life.

Now I have a few problems with this, one of which is that I’m a distinctly non-creedal person.  I have a personal creed in which I believe, but my major test of fellowship is whether the person wants fellowship with me.

Normally my statement of what is the one fundamental of Christian would come from 1 John 4 as David already suggested, “Jesus come in the flesh.”  The incarnation is for me a non-negotiable.  But as I read the requirement that I regard a person as a brother or sister in Christ, a “true believer”, or an inheritor of eternal life.  Because I like to be consistent, at least occasionally, I must also run this past my post on my Threads blog in which I wrote against the idea that believe in a particular set of facts results in salvation.

That leads me to two other places in scripture.  The first is the father seeking healing for his son in Mark 9:24:  “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”  The second is Luke 23:42, the thief on the cross, who says, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

The first is 34 characters and the second is 51 characters.  Neither speaker understood very much about theology, as best as I can tell, and more importantly than my view, both were accepted by Jesus, surely a greater testimony to the quality of their words than mine!

I’m sorry, however, to break the chain, but I absolutely refuse to nominate anyone.  If you read this and would like to take a stab at this, consider yourself nominated.  If you comment, I’ll move the link up into the post, so you can have free link love if you choose to regard yourself as nominated.

Well, not really.  It’s mine.

Here it is:

I’ve had it since last Christmas but didn’t think of it until today when I looked at it sitting on my desk.  You see, last year I commented to my wife that I thought the song “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas” was “cute.”  She never forgets things like that.

Christmas morning there was a picture of a hippo in a frame so I could have my hippopotamus for Christmas.

And even though I said it was “for” David Ker, well, this post is, but I keep my hippo.

. . . and it’s even more interesting than I anticipated.  This is obviously not the intended review, but I do find the idea of a Bible with a strong flavor of the Orthodox doctrine quite interesting, and the Bible looks fascinating.  The New Testament is NKJV, but the Old Testament uses the St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint, with which I am not too familiar.  I’ll probably have my Septuagint beside me as I study!

I did write up a few descriptive notes on my Energion.com Book site.  They are just a description, not an evaluation.

I expect I will be referencing this Bible quite a bit as I work my way through it.

One of my Bible study methods, though most important for devotional reading, is to read a passage aloud.  Since the lectionary Psalm for this week is Psalm 100, which is very short, I thought I’d read it aloud in a number of versions and then write my subjective impressions.

I chose to read it from the REB, NJB, CEV, NRSV, The JPS Tanakh, and the NLT.  There was very little method to all this; those versions were just nearest my computer at the time.  I could have read from more by either walking farther or by using my Logos library, but I didn’t.

Prior to reading these aloud in English I had read the Psalm a few times in Hebrew and had done a draft literal translation myself.

The purpose of the exercise, beyond “whatever” was to get a feel for how each version would function in public reading.  I’m frequently asked what the “best” translation is, and one obvious question is always “best for what?”

First, whether more functional or more formally equivalent, the translations were more similar than I would have expected when read side by side.  The NJB was fairly choppy.  I like its use of “Yahweh” in the Psalm, though I don’t use that as a rule in reading publicly.  The REB was similarly a bit choppy and appeared to use vocabulary that didn’t fit well.  (Note that I normally prefer the REB, though today was an exception.

I disliked the use of “love” to translate Hebrew “hesed”, as was done by the CEV and the REB.  I understand the reason in the CEV, but the REB uses “acclaim” in verse 1, “acknowledge” in verse 3, I think they might have employed a few more letters on “hesed.”

The very positive thing about the CEV is that it is very easy to understand when heard, with no difficult vocabulary.  At the same time, it loses all sense of Hebrew rhythm and parallelism.  This is one of those necessary trade-offs in translation.  You’re going to lose something, and if your goal is to translate for a fairly basic set of English vocabulary.

The JPS Tanakh is an excellent translation, though it didn’t seem to read as well as the NLT read aloud.  The NRSV sounded remarkably good to me, which again is not usual.  I usually like the NRSV for the formal equivalence, but dislike its sound.  Unfortunately, it is the Bible used for most scripture readings at my church.

Overall I would give the edge to the NLT as a compromise between easy to understand, decently flowing English text, maintaining some sense of the parallelism, and not translating any of the Hebrew words in too jarring a manner.

All this is, as I have said, very subjective.  One impression is very strong–all of the translations seemed less smooth and readable when read aloud than when read silently.  I know the CEV is designed to be read orally, but I think there it is very hard for me to come from reading the Hebrew text with the parallelism and some sense of similar length poetic lines, and then go to a translation that deliberately eliminates both elements.

I suspect that a major reason why the NRSV sounds good to me in this case is that this is one of those Psalms I memorized in the KJV as a child, and the NRSV is the closest to the KJV amongst those I read.

One thing I believe I should think about is the quality of reading involved.  There are some readers who can make a scripture reading really resonate.  I wonder how much my own inclinations about reading impacted the way I felt about what I read aloud?

. . . not to mention easy.

In the just completed presidential election here in the U. S., were I to list all of the reasons why I might not vote for the candidate for whom I eventually did vote, the list would be fairly long, and might convince someone I thought that candidate was quite a scoundrel.

Similarly, I could quite easily make a list of only the positive points of the candidate for whom I did not vote, and make someone think he was the man!

Candidates are rarely perfect.  They rarely fully reflect one’s own views, so there is some compromise involved when one goes out to vote.

So what does this have to do with Bible translation? Quoth the apostle Paul:  Much, in every way!

Critics of one Bible translation or another, or even one method of translation or another often simply find cases in which the particular translation or method produces results they regard as less than the best, or perhaps just plain bad.  Like negative political ads, these notes are supposed to add up in our minds to an eventual rejection of that particular translation or method.

The problem is that every translation is susceptible to this approach, as is any particular mix of translation methods.  That’s because, like political candidates, translations are imperfect.

It’s very easy to get into advocacy rather than evaluation.  I know.  I do it all the time.  But no accumulation of negatives ever turns into a positive message.  Unless, that is, in Bible translation it turns into motivation to learn the Biblical languages.  Since I suspect that isn’t going to happen as a mass movement, we’ll probably be living with translations for the forseeable future.

A particular example of this kind of criticism of translation can be found in the preaching and teaching of many pastors who are well-versed in the Biblical languages.  Because of their extensive knowledge, and based on their extensive study, they can proclaim some particular translation misleading or just plain wrong.

Now doubtless they have good reason for making this claim.  I recently heard it made and I agreed fully with the speaker.  The translation in question was, in my view, unfortunate.

Since I have studied the process of Bible translation, however, I know that the rendering that the speaker and I both thought was poor, was actually produced by a committee of well-qualified scholars in the relevant field.  Their decision was reviewed by many others.  Comments were gathered, and then a final rendering was chosen.

Does the speaker wish to take on that powerful committee?  Does he wish to suggest he knows better?  Of course he does!  So do I!  It’s fun.  It’s what this study is all about.  That’s the normal give and take of scholarship.

But the congregation doesn’t really hear it the way we do.  First, most of them are not so well aware of how translations are made.  What they actually hear is that the translators are wrong, and they may infer possibly that those translators are less intelligent, less well-trained, and or less careful than their pastor or teacher.  They learn to distrust the translation, and instead of trusting the source languages instead, they have to trust their pastor.  Of course, in their personal study, they still have to trust some translation.

I have written before about those who know very little Greek or Hebrew and yet proclaim, based on some commentary or other reference, that a particular word means some particular thing, contrary to the text of their translation.  In that case I’m talking about people with inadequate knowledge misleading because they are not fully competent to say what they say.  In this case, however, I’m talking about people who are very competent accidentally misleading people.

What do I suggest?  To pastors or teachers skilled in the Biblical languages:

1. Moderate your vocabulary.  Even when you are very certain, claim your statements about translation as your opinion.  “I believe” goes a long ways here.
2. Don’t just work from the source languages.  Educate people on translation and on how to make effective use of the numerous English translations.
3. Make both positive and negative statements about translations, when they are applicable.  Don’t just talk negatively about the ones you don’t like.

To Bible students I suggest:

1. Use multiple translations.  If you don’t know the source languages, try to get a better idea.  Choose translations that use different philosophies as well.
2. Read prefaces, introductions, and footnotes.  Know the strengths and weaknesses of your particular Bible version(s).
3. Learn as much as you can about the Biblical languages even if you don’t have time to actually learn them.  This will help you sort through the many, many claims.

Note that I’m not talking about blog posts here for the most part.  You can’t always cover everything in a blog post, so you might simply include something negative from one verse but cover something positive at another time.  In that case the balance is in reading more than one post.

I saw this on the evangelical outpost, and went to check it out.  When I saw they had the new Orthodox Study Bible, I was hooked.

I’ve requested it for my first book and will plan to review it here when I receive it.

You can find out more about the program at brb.thomasnelson.com.

And Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that he will certainly drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.” — Joshua 3:10

The king and his men went to Jerusalem, against the Jebusites who were living in the area . . . — 2 Samuel 5:6

So what happened?  God was surely going to drive them all out when the Israelites entered the land and then something happened, and things weren’t so sure.  In fact, gentiles were living in the land with the Israelites throughout their history.

This isn’t any new sort of a problem.  We all know about it.  What’s more important is that the author of Joshua clearly knew it.  He was living at a time when all these people had not truly been driven from the land, yet he’s quite willing to write this promise into the text.

We find an explanation of the change, of course, in the history that occurs in between in the rest of the book of Joshua and in the book of Judges especially.  The very firm statement is conditioned on the behavior of the Israelites who don’t carry out their part of the task.

A modern tendency would be to “spin” this statement and make sure that everyone understands that God’s command was originally conditional.  But the author of Joshua sees no need for spin.  He allows Joshua to speak here as though something is absolutely certain even though he knows that it won’t have happened by his day.

I think many ways of speaking about spiritual things are similar to this.  We speak “as though” even though sometimes we may not know for certain or may not really understand.

One example of this is the way the Bible speaks about predestination and free will.  Despite the different answers of Arminians and Calvinists none of us really know how this works from a God’s eye view.  I really enjoy speculating, and my thinking leads me to be pretty heavily Arminian.  But a glimpse from somewhat nearer God’s perspective might change everything.

In my own return to the church after some years away I felt very much like I was in a Calvinist experience.  It was like unwillingly following railroad tracks right back into the church.  I will even speak of it that way.  But you would be wrong to assume that I actually believe there is no choice.  That is what it felt like.

Language in scripture and theology is often a distant reflection of the topic, because spiritual matters respond so poorly to the language of the material world.  But it’s all we have, so we need to make the best use of it that we can.

Last night I attended a Bible study in which my pastor was teaching on Romans 1:22-32.  If that verse selection doesn’t fully make sense to you, consider that he was simply following up from the point at which he stopped the prior week.

My pastor is Dr. Wesley Wachob, an accomplished exegete.  One of the joys of attending First UMC in Pensacola is that while I may occasionally disagree on some technical point, I never have to cringe while listening to the sermons.  Elsewhere I frequently have order myself to ignore exegetical problems or those related to Biblical languages while listening to otherwise uplifting sermons.

So, being who he is, Dr. Wachob starting out by teaching precisely what Paul was saying.  It’s not relevant to my point here, but I happen to agree with that position.  I’m also not trying to proclaim Dr. Wachob’s position on all issues related to homosexuality, which is only a minor point of the passage, though it is the primary one for which it is cited.  (I eagerly await the sermon on how gossip and slander represents the true measure of human depravity as in verse 29-30.)  The issue I’m looking at is the starting point.  (For my Methodist readers, Dr. Wachob in no way violated the Methodist discipline in anything he said to the group.)

In particular, Paul is not writing an essay either on what constitutes an appropriate list of sins, nor is he arguing for what things are sinful and why.  He is taking an assumption of what is sinful and tying it all to idolatry, i.e. anything that places anything other than God in God’s place.  Thus homosexuality is assumed to be wrong, based on the Torah, and this is something that Paul can count on as an agreement with his audience.

Thus the point here is that while we can be pretty certain based on this passage that Paul thought homosexuality was wrong, it is as an underlying assumption, rather than as something explicitly explained.  When I say that, if you know my own view of inspiration as message embedded in surrounding cultural views, then you don’t know how I feel about homosexuality generally, gay marriage, or any related issue concerning how we respond to gays in our society today.

The text does not immediately translate itself into modern context.

If you doubt this, consider Numbers 31:15-20.  Does the command that Moses gives, couched in support for the moral preservation, not to mention the physical, of the Israelite people, represent a good standard for warfare?  I would, of course, argue that it does not.  How it can be a command of God in scripture is worthy of a bit more discussion, but that isn’t going to happen today.

Last night in our class there was a gentleman who was clearly quite knowledgeable.  Throughout the discussion he kept asking our teacher to make the application.  His requests were resisted.  Now I understand his impatience, but at the same time I applaud the resistance.  The nuts and bolts of exegesis need to be done first.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t later view the scripture in their canonical context or in the broader context of theology.  It doesn’t mean that we never get down to current, practical applications.  It just means that we have to do the hard work first.

Dr. Wachob’s interpretation of this passage–and mine–will not satisfy many on any side of this debate.  The general desire is to somehow have Romans tell us directly what to do today.  And yes, there are interpretations that make this not address homosexuality as such in its original context.  But that is a very unlikely reading of what Paul is trying to say.  Paul is talking not about some isolated group of people, but rather is talking about all gentiles here (he’ll get to the Jews later) and making a case that all have failed.  That is is theological point.

It may require some patience.  But it is worth it.