Loading...In my last post I mentioned John 3:22 as a verse that is mistranslated in the NRSV, leading to problems; but the problems of interpretation are not that enormous there – the translators simply removed an internal inconsistency by the way they mistranslated the verse. This second problem, the subject of this post, is more severe. A mistranslation has completely altered the meaning of a passage; it is the result of a very good motive – to make the translation gender-inclusive. But motive has led to a very bad result in this case.
The policy of the NRSV was to render gender neutral statements in a gender neutral way. If a passage refers to humans in general, then it does not make sense to translate it as referring only to “men” (or only to “women” for that matter). And so instead of “man” the translators chose to use “person” or “human” or – if the mortality of people is the issue – “mortals” or … whatever; instead of “men” they used “people,” “humans,” etc. That’s fine and works well in most cases. (In a later post or two I’ll talk about issues of inclusive language more generally.)
For example, one of the most beautiful of the psalms, Ps. 8:
What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
The terms in Hebrew, as it turns out, are singular, so that older translations read “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him…” etc. But the psalmist is not talking only about a male person; he is speaking of persons, who are made just a little lower than God.
And so I very much like the<
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The lack of a plural for “you” in English also leads to misunderstandings. In the third chapter of John’s Gospel where Jesus talks to Nicodemus he starts by using you (singular) and switches to you (plural) halfway through the speech. The change starts in verse 11 where the proper translation would be, “YOU ALL do not receive our testimony.” and goes on to use the plural from there.
This is very obvious in Spanish (tú and vosotros), and in Italian (tu and voi). He starts out talking to a man but then addresses a group. The grammatical necessity changes the intended message.
Of needs meaning will suffer when trying to convey in an English translation what Jesus supposedly said in Aramaic and was later recorded in Greek by the evangelist.
The second person plural is also an advantage of the Vulgate and King James Version, ‘though I rarely recommend these translations!
Does Hebrew have a singular word for human that unlike man and woman is gender neutral? If so, was it used in Psalms 8:4-5 or was a more gender specific word like man used?
Hebrew doesn’t have a neuter gender for its nouns.
What a weird little puzzle. Questions like this make translation so interesting! About “son of man” in this passage, did it really just mean “human” or did it already have messianic overtones at the time the psalmist wrote it? What about in the time of Hebrews writing? Would it have been ordinary to connect a passage like this to Son of Man theology or were they making a bit of a leap?
It would have meant “human.” When Hebrews was written there were some expectations that hte messiah would be a Son of Mn figure.
Isa 9:6 NRSV
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
I recently read an article stating that several translation changed the past tense in this verse to future so it would sound more like a prophecy of Jesus, as opposed to a past statement about king Hezekiah, whose name means the might of God. Nonetheless, the verse isn’t quoted anywhere in the Christian bible.
Ok, here I meant to say that the tense was changed to present or future, depending on the translation.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
In a post from 2017 about how we got the canon of the New Testament you say that Dr Metzger wrote the authoritative book on the topic. What book would that be?
Thank you!
It’s called “The Canon of the New Testament.”
Burn it! Burn the NRSV! Seriously, how do you know the author of Psalm 8 didn’t specifically mean “man” was made a little lower than God (or, the gods: Elohim), whereas woman was made a little lower than man? There are churches that still teach that way (1 Tim.2:13?), so maybe he didn’t mean to be inclusive either? Also, doesn’t Hebrews actually follow the Septuagint and say “angels” rather than God? So doesn’t the NRSV also make that “correction,” going back to the Hebrew psalm rather than the Greek Letter to the Hebrews? (And isn’t this process of “correcting” the documents exactly what led to many of the textual variants down through the centuries, because not everyone “corrects” it in the correct way?)
He’s referring to “humans” because of the parallelism of the couplet: “person” and “son of a person.” And yes, Hebrews quotes the Septuagint precisely, except that it leaves out the first part of teh couplet in Ps. 8.7.
The NRSV translation of Daniel 7:13 raises a similar problem with the Aramaic “Son of Man” being translated as “like a human being.” The Son of Man is clearly more than an ordinary human being. The Aramaic is preserved in a footnote, but not everybody reads the footnotes.
That one’s especially tricky, since the angel identifies the “one like a son of man” as the nation of Israel.
Where do you get this from? Is it from equating the ‘son of man’ in Dan. 7:13 with ‘the people of the saints of the Most High’ in v. 27? That does seem to be a valid equation, and makes sense of Christ, as the son of man inheriting the kingdom, yet the kingdom also being ‘among you’ (Luke 17:21) where ‘you’ is all the saints.
This seems to be yet another example of Christ as the individual, in Christian thinking, fulfilling the Hope of Israel, by being ‘Israel,’ which in turn applies to the new Israel, the real Israel, the body of Christ, as the resurrection body, with all its members being the individual saints. For example, Christ individually and physically comes out of Egypt, Mat. 2:13-15, which makes Christ as an individual ‘Israel’ and yet Christ as ‘Israel’ comes out of Egypt in the new exodus accomplished in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31) by Christ individually, and yet accomplished from Jerusalem by Christ as a body of saints (Gal. 4:21-31; 1 Pet. 1:18-23; Rev. 11:8; 18:2-8).
Yup, that’s the angels’ interpretation of one like a Son of Man.
The ‘son of man’ indicates not one more than a human being, but rather one who is human and serves humans. The designation ‘son of’ often means ‘servant of’ or one of lower rank but of the same nature (e.g. of the same family or kingdom). Thus, ‘son of God’ means ‘servant of God’ but it also means ‘agent of God’ and is therefore a title of high honor and power, yet under God the Father. The term ‘brother’ likewise means of equal status or rank, and in the same family. So, if every man is the son of God, then all men are brothers, i.e. equals, which is the point of Deut. 14:1, for example, in so designating every man a son of God. For example, Christ as the ‘son of man’ is the one with no place to lay his head (Mat. 8:20) and who came not to be served by men but to serve men and give his life for them (Mat. 20:28).
The exalted language is what happens to that otherwise lowly figure, or as the Lord said, ‘whoever would be great among you must be your servant’ (Mat. 20:26-27)
David,
Son of God as ‘agent’ of God is good. Most do not notice that John 3:16 — most Christian of all verses — is about ALL only-begotten (actually, unique, or first) Sons, as Masters who came before: “God so LOVED the world that He GAVE his only-begotten Son …” as Holy Spirit in John the Baptist and all prior saviors. Jesus never said he was the only one. Any verse that appears to have him saying so is misrepresented.
I see the translators were not consistent when it came to translating (failing to mistranslate) Matt 1: 23 to agree with how they translated Is 7:14.
Even though the Author of Hebrews wanted to perceive Psalm 8 as if it was referring to Yeshua [Jesus] as the Moshiach [divinely elected leader] but can it be really that?
The whole hymn theme is about how the humble can became mighty [Because the Lord wants to] & clearly king David wrote it about himself.
He elaborated the concept by giving example of how mighty are the infants👶🏼 in their screams & cries strength which can be debilitating. So with the similarity he moves to talk about his lowly origin and said what is Adam & the son of Adam [David himself] that the Lord VISITED to give him the ultimate dominion 🤴🏻over all SHEEP & OXEN 🐑, etc.
The hymn CAN’T allude to the human who in him is the whole divinity since the honour & dominion has been bestowed AFTER a visit and neither to the human race because he is referring to an individual. The confirmation of the literal meaning of the text is the prime type of dominion which is over ALL household animals since David was the King of the whole kingdom but OMITTED the ALL over the wild life.
So did NRSV distort the Hebrew translation only? No, it also completely destroyed the literal meaning of Psalm 8 because of the sociopolitical motives of our era. Quite comparable to what ancient scribes did 😉.
It would seem, then, that much early Christian exegesis rested on the fact that OT Hebrew, Greek, and Latin nouns/pronouns were a bit ambiguous when it came to talking about “mankind” as opposed to “a man”, such that these passages could be construed, if held up to the right light in the right way, as referring to someone that might appear to be Jesus, as in the case you cite here. Historically, however, how “radical” were these kind of interpretive gymnastics? Obviously contemporaries were perfectly cognizant of the fact that enosh/homo/anthropos and so on were not necessarily referring to a specific, individual male. So how did Christians expect to get away with this? Or did they care? Was this directed at an “in-group” that already believed no matter what, so this was just an attempt to reinforce, regardless of how many straws one needed to grasp, an already accepted interpretation?
The problem is not with the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin per se: all the authors in those languages used the masculine pronoun to refer to men and women both. English is the problem, since now, for us, to say “man” does not mean “men and women.”
Ok, then I’m not quite understanding your point. You wrote: ” When he read Psalm 8, he thought the passage was referring not to “the human being” but specifically to Christ.” If ancient authors/readers understood that anthropos/homo was a broad concept (viz. human being/men & women), why did Christian writers assume they could pursue this line of interpretation? Weren’t they trying, essentially, to argue that it meant “a specific male”, namely Christ? That’s quite a semantic shift! What am I missing? I guess I’m trying to understand why this is merely a modern translation problem and not a more substantial linguistic/philological problem.
I think you’re getting it right, if I understand you. The Psalm meant “human being” in a general sense, and used the phrase “son of man” to express it (just as 50 years ago we would say “man” and mean “humans”). The author of Hebrews took the generic phrase and assumed it meant it as a title “the son of man” — a title used of Jesus as a messianic figure. So he made it gender specific. But the translators failed to follow suit, and *translated* it as if he meant it generically. That doesn’t work in teh context of how the author of Hebrews uses it.
Yea, the NRSV team needed to listen to you for Heb. 2:6-7.
Have you heard if the National Council of the Churches of Christ will revise the translation again?
The new revision is finished and is expected to be out soon. But it’s really more of a touch-up than a new edition.
You have frequently stated that all the gospels are anonymous and only later did they have their current names attached to them.
This being the case, how then were these gospels referred to by those who quoted them before they were given the identifying titles we now have, please?
Normally it was just Jesus’ teachings that were quoted, and the authors would say “As the Lord said,” or something like that. The first to quote them as books is Justin Martyr, around 150 CE, and he refers to them by calling the the Memoirs of the Apostles — but doesn’t say what he means by that or attach a name to any Gospel. Except on. He refers explicitly to the Gospel of Peter. (!)
In an attempt to be inclusive when we recite the Lord’s Prayer at my church, instead of “Our Father who art in heaven…”, we say “Our Creator who art in heaven…”. Although this change is not as serious as altering the original meaning with an inaccurate translation, does this kind of alteration bother you, Dr. Ehrman?
I’d say it’s a very different image. On the other hand, I’m not too kean on “Our Parent”….
In the passage quoted (Heb 2:9) I don’t see the time reference (“for a little while”) except in the RSV and the NRSV. Where did that come from? In most translations it reads “a little lower”. I am not a greek scholar but from what I can read in the interlinear greek NT there is no time reference there, only a reference that Jesus was made inferior for the suffering and death. Of course, this does not alter your objection to the translation point you were making.
It’s a very difficult word to translate.
Could you please elaborate a little? Or perhaps, for a little while…?
It’s a word that can mean several things and in this context it is not clear which it means.
I see how in this case the introduction of the limited time aspect is possible, even though most translations don’t include it. And either translation doesn’t really change the meaning, which is placing a limitation on the action.
But it brings up another question: How do translators approach such problems of ambiguity? If you were going to translate this passage yourself, what english wording would you use, and why?
The only way you can decide in these cases is by doing a detailed analysis of the passage and see if one translation makes better sense in the context. On this one I flip a coin.
There’s a current debate in the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales about the bishop’s decision to use the ESV for the lectionary. Some complainants within the church don’t much like the ESV’s evangelical Protestant roots (their opinion not mine) but most object to the lack of inclusive language in the ESV. They prefer the Jerusalem Bible, which they regard has having a better record on inclusive language. At the time of writing, the bishops are sticking to their guns (pardon the expression) and given the church’s stance on women priests, their decision doesn’t really surprise me.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
I have to do a historical investigation as a big project for my Grade 12 mark. The project is a 2000 word essay and an evaluation of the used sources (4 sources). We can pick any topic at all and I really want to do something relating to the Bible or Christianity.
I know that you typically encourage your students to pick whatever interests them but I was hoping that I could implore you with your expertise to possibly help me out with any suggestions that wouldn’t be too tricky to research and find sources on or to explicate in 2000 words!
I was thinking something like: what was the role of women in Paul’s 1st century churches? or maybe specifically the one addressed in Romans? Or maybe: how did we get our 27 book New Testament canon? Maybe: where does Christian fundamentalism come from? Or: what is Nostra Aetate and what prompted it? Or: where did the myth of Jews being the killers of Christ come from? Or: are Jesus’ teachings actually that far removed from his Jewish context?
I would really appreciate your input Dr Ehrman!!
Thank you so much!
These are all GREAT! Seriously: pick the one you are MOST interested in. Figuring out how to do it in 2000 words is an extremely good discipline! Good luck with it.
Thank you so much! I appreciate it!!
Dr.Ehrman,
You wrote when you read the NT you read it in its original language. Which English version would you recommend for us non Greek readers?🙂 Would it be the NRSV?
Definitely!
Hi Prof. Bart–
You mentioned that, as a NT scholar, you don’t bother with translations and just read it in Greek. This seems to beg the question– where do you go to read the Greek texts? Because we have no “complete” NT until relatively late, and there are so many copies and fragments dating before that collection was finalized that there isn’t one master book (I’m guessing here). Especially when you’re doing research or making an argument for a paper or scholarly work, you would want to compare and contrast multiple Mss. How do you handle that as a researcher? Is there one massive hyperlinked, cross-referenced, and heavily footnoted edition in general use (with occasional amendments as things are discovered and verified) or is that something each researcher puts together on their own?
There is a standard Greek edition of the New Testament that virtually every modern scholar uses. (It’s just called the Novum Testamentum Graece; easily available.
My problem is that I was raised from birth imbibing the sonorous cadences of the KJV. I accept the subsequent improvements in translation and inclusivity without misgivings but these passages seem flat and clunky to me. Perhaps its better now to think of the KJV as an event in the history of the English language rather than as an adequate translation. I was a bit saddened however to find out even the little country church I grew up in has now switched to the execrable NIV. Oh well, “the old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. “
This seems to speak directly to your role in the translation, specifically points 2 and 3 on your 29th Sept post. Presumably, you flagged this with the committee as it was your role to do so? Will you be elaborating on the decision-making process that went into this?
Yes, a very big part of my job was to flag problems and give them to Metzger who would take them to the committee. But I had zero say in the matter.
Ah – so you raised this Ps8/Heb2 problem with Metzger, but the committee decided to go ahead anyway?
Yup.
In the South the plural of you is y’all. Maybe we need a southern Bible translation lol?
Here in Western Pennsylvania, the plural of “you” is “yinz” (elided from “you ones”).
Dr Ehrman, my question is unrelated to this discussion but I was wondering if there is a scholarly consensus with regards to whether or not the majority of Christians escaped to Pella before the destruction of Jerusalem. I guess I’m just trying to figure out if there is any verifiable evidence to such a popular Christian claim made in suppprt of apparent prophetic utterances by Jesus especially relating to the destruction of the 2nd temple or if the ‘Christians-only’ Pella escape is just a conveniently fabricated story giving strength to the aforementioned prophecy.
I don’t know of any evidence for it other than the claim made by Eusebius.
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” Apart from the mistranslation, the sentiment expressed seems to me to be quite insane. Really. How difficult is it to look at the world, see how it works, and put humanity in its proper context? Glory and honor? All things subject to Homo Sapiens? Get real. When humans generate nonsense like this, you have to wonder about the Sapiens part. In the apparent original context it is perhaps not so crazy, since the premise would have been the superiority of Christ. It’s amazing that the scholars responsible for this couldn’t see how very ridiculous the passage becomes. Unless they actually have an exalted view of “mankind”, in which case one might ask, what world do they live in?? And what became of the idea of a FALLEN mankind? Does this passage fit?
Has any reputable scholar ever published a Bible that indicates which verses are most likely historically accurate and which most likely not? Or has anyone compiled a list of all the sayings and deeds of Jesus in the Bible that are most likely historical and those that are least likely historical? Many Bibles have copious notes which may or may indicate this, but the notes contain a great deal of other information as well so it is not easy just to separate the information on historical accuracy of individual verses.
The Jesus Seminar attempted to do this in its book The Five Gospels.
Thanks very much for your answer and for all that you do.
If the Bible is or contains divine revelation, what are some of the most frequent “means” God uses to communicate what he wants humans to know, eg, dreams, individuals literally hearing God speak, ideas that an individual has that he or she believes are divinely inspired?
I’m afraid you’ll need to ask a theologian!
I’m wondering what the Bible itself says about how God communicates, the mediums he uses. He certainly uses dreams on occasion, eg, the angel Gabriel speaking to Joseph.
Somewhere I got the idea that prophets-not just in Israel-often spun themselves around until they went into a trance. “Whirling dervish” comes to mind though the ones we know about might have been trying to do something different.
There’s no record of whirling prophets. The appear to have understood that God spoke directly to them. In 1 Samuel the boy Samuel literally hears God’s voice. More commonly, my guess, is that in prayer or deep thoughtfulness or just randomly thoughts occurred to a person who concluded it came from God. I’ve nknown lots and lots of people who think that today (God spoke to me yesterday and told me that….)
When you address Is. 53 in your book on the history of heaven and hell, you insist that it is talking about Israel as a nation. Israel, as a nation, or at least the righteous remnant, was suffering, and had suffered, persecution and oppression, to make them downtrodden. Yet, they were to rise to honor and glory and produce offspring, prolong their days etc. The Christian application to Christ as an individual, and his physical death and resurrection, you then discount.
This approach seem to miss what the Christians are doing with Is. 53, and Hos. 6 and other passages and I suggest Ps. 8 as well. The technique is to apply what the OT said of Israel, and her death and resurrection, her humiliation and glorification, to Christ as an individual, but only to then incorporate those in Christ into that story and its blessings. Paul in 1 Cor. 15 quotes Hos. 6, which obviously refers to Israel as a nation, to Christ as an individual, in order to apply it back to ‘the dead ones’ [plural], who were in Christ and therefore rising collectively, too.
Individuals are joined with Christ by baptism into his death, resurrection etc.
in the Bible, when a person claims to have a direct communication from God (divine revelation), what are some of the main criteria that other people use to decide whether it probably did in fact come from God? Are most revelations subjected to those criteria?
In addition to other criteria, is someone’s receipt of divine revelation normally publicly validated by supernatural acts like miracles, fulfilled prophecies, or dramatic and otherwise unexpected events that, say, punish or rescue Israel?
The main criterion appears to be whether they agree with the communication or not….
Recently I was reading a summary of how the philosopher John Locke thought the truth of revelation could be justified. Acceptance of revelation by major Enlightenment philosophers was I think rather unusual. It may be a little bit of an exaggeration but Locke essentially said that revelation still had to be justified by reason-which in the case of the Bible he thought had been done. Among other things revelation couldn’t contradict reason, reason was needed to interpret scripture, and the trustworthiness of the historical testimony had to be assessed by reason. And it was extremely helpful for revelation to be certified by things like public miracles.
That’s the most reasonable discussion of revelation I’ve ever come across. In fact it sounds like he’s doing something that has similarities to-but definitely not the same as-the historical-critical method.
I’d like to ask if you think this sounds at all like the historical-critical method but I probably haven’t given you enough information to say anything except maybe no. And he doesn’t rule out things like miracles as long as the testimony is strong enough.
What is man
that You are mindful of him
or
the son of man
that You care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels.
You crowned him with glory and honor.
= = =
Why is there in one case: a little lower than God
and in another case: a little lower than the angels?
Last question: since no where do I see or the Son of Man just son of man,
is Psalms 8 speaking of humans and the children of humans or maybe king and subjects of the king?
Thank you.
He is referring to humans in general. (I don’t see wehre you’re finding “lower than God”)
Your third paragraph:
For example, one of the most beautiful of the psalms, Ps. 8: [5]
What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
Also NASB, Good News Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Christian Standard Bible
Robert, an administrator of the Forum, said:
The ancient translator of the Hebrew into Greek interpreted the Hebrew plural form of ‘elohim as a true plural, ie, ‘gods’ or ‘divine beings’, which for the monotheistuc translator could only be understood as ‘angels’. The author of the book of Hebrews was following the Greek translation rather than the Hebrew original.
1. How did you determine English does not contain a term that refers both to males and to humans generically? I took a random walk through a dozen dictionaries, finding all include both meanings. Some dictionaries comment that some people find the generic usage objectionable. But they do not say the word has lost its generic meaning. I ended up with the Am. Her. Dic. Of the Eng. Lang. (5th Ed. 2020). Its features include a “Usage Panel” it describes as “a group of nearly 2000 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats” and others concerned with language and writing. It reports: “Despite the objections to the generic use of man, a solid majority of the Usage Panel still approves of it.” It also notes such objections appear to be declining.
2. Does it give a distorted view of biblical authors to eliminate their use of ambiguous terminology that can mean either male or human, and substitute words that mean either one or the other? Doesn’t it obscure the writer’s potentially patriarchal and sexist attitudes and assumptions, perhaps hindering a broader understanding of his (I know) message?
Not in my world. “Man” is never ever used as a generic term for women. It was 30 years ago still sometimes. 2. Yes, there’s a very real danger that making language inclusive when the original is not will create obscurities. So too will using exclusive language when the original is including both genders. No way around teh problem apart from creating unreadable English.
Dr Ehrman,
Other than simple translation choices, don’t you think The Translators have the choice of formatting of text and use of punctuation marks as well which may change the meaning and spirit of text?
regards,
Absolutely. It’s a big issue.
Hi Bart how would you address a religion that make changes to the Bible? Like the Jehovah witness they making changes to Bible quit often. If you go to their website there you will see that there will be an update to Bible. Here is an example: this taken from 2kings 8:26 &2 Chronicles 22:2,there they have changed the age of king Ahaziah. The King James Version has were one verse would say that Ahaziah was 22 years old and the other would have 42 years old. They have made the change were both verses are saying the same thing.
I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that. I wonder if they ever state their reasons foer the changeds (different manuscripts? something else?)