Here I will give two rather humorous stories (at least to me) connected with my work as the administrative assistant for the revision of the Revised Standard Version.
In that capacity I was, of course, present for the various deliberations of the committee. Among the many issues they discussed was what to call the new revision. Ultimately it stood in the tradition of the “Authorized Version” – the technical name of the King James Version. In 1881, the KJV underwent an “official” revision (i.e., authorized by the ecclesiastical authorities who owned the copyright) in the Revised Version. Its committee received a lot of flak for the changes it made. Even though it was an English revision, there were several Americans who were on the committee. As part of their terms of involvement, they agreed not to publish an American version of the translation (making changes as they saw fit and bringing spelling and punctuation into conformity with American usage) for 20 years; and so in 1901 was published the American Standard Version.
As I mentioned before, this version was revised to bring the language up to date and to make necessary changes based on advances in scholarship some 50 years later, with the publication of the Revised Standard Version. And now, about 30 years or so later, the revision was being revised again. This too was an “authorized” revision – in this case, authorized by the National Council of Churches in the USA, which held the copyright to the RSV.
But what to call the new translation, a revision of the RSV? There were lots of options considered: the New Authorized Version (NAV) for example. They eventually settle on the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) of course, and it is now the standard translation among churches in the National Council. I had hoped for another option that was sometimes bandied about, however, but to no avail. I thought it should be called the RSVP.
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I had an office in Speer Library – the amazing research library of the Princeton Theological Seminary – to do my work for the committee. It was
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I used to be amused by a perceived similarity between “new revised standard version” and “public static void main”, but no-one else ever found it funny or insightful. This is a computer programming joke; if you don’t get it you don’t get it, but your geekier readers will understand.
One reason I left The Fold is because I never trusted anything agreed upon by committee.
I prefer reading original versions. By the Master.
That is hilarious! I had to read the first part about 4 times in bewilderment before I finished with the last sentence. Being a programmer since 1964, I couldn’t believe I was reading “public static void main” in any context except programming and that just failed to connect in my little brain! Haha…
Hahaha! Great story! And educating as well! I would like to ask you something about fundamentalists though: when do you stop talking to them? I’m asking you because I’ve recently had a rather bitter personal experience with one and I would very much appreciate it to read your take on this. I like to believe that I’m all in for the truth, and I can’t wrap my brain around someone defending something irrational or clearly fallacious. You’ve had public debates with tons of them, but these debates are something completely different, and are carried out for specific reasons. I would like to ask you how do you deal with fundamentalists in your personal life. Like, if you *know* you’re right about something and he/she is definetely wrong, but keeps going at you, how do you treat these things? What’s your mindset?
My mindset is that they *know* THEY are right too! Almost never will you change someone’s mind like that. I do my best to urge them to rethink things, see the problems with their views, and especially not use them to hurt others. But if they are decent human beings, that’s more important to me by a long shot than whether they think the Bible is the inerrant word of God or that I’ll be going to hell because I don’t agree with them. So I have pretty much a live and let live view of things. In large part that’s because I’m pretty sure that much of what I think is wrong too (e.g. about the world or the best ways to live in it, as in 200 years everyone will agree!)
It’s answers like that that have made me appreciate you so much. I really love your noble morality! Thank you for the beautiful and wise response!
There was a translation called “the wicked Bible” which had a typo in one of the commandments. “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printer was fined a huge amount of money.
And there’s still a society today (in USA at least, with videos online) which strongly maintains that if Jesus returned right now he would most definitely quote ONLY the KJV. After all, if was good enough for him 2000 years ago then it should also be good enough for us now.
Once again, it’s the psychology of people that amazes me – the “why” of what people think, say & do. And when they commit heavily, to the point of pinning their identity to something, then there is life itself at stake in the prospect of challenge or change. Unless of course they are committed to seeking, testing & adjusting in response to the truth, rather than insisting they already know it.
Hi Dr. Ehrman, is there no Gold Member Q&A for September?
I shifted it to October, to do two then.
Ha! Love that last line. 🙂
So, are you going to make us ask, what did the “P” stand for?
Never mind. I get it.
Nope! (It was a joke, not to make sense!)
Hi Dr Ehrman!
Is psalm 49 (actually all of the psalms) considered apocalyptic literature?
Thank you!
No, the views of the Psalms in general are not apocalyptic in nature. If you read through some of my posts about what makes apocalypticism distince (views of God and evil, e.g.) you’ll see the Psalms have different views.
How, then, should we understand psalm 49:15? What does the psalmist mean when he speaks about god redeeming him from the realm of the dead? And in 49:14 when he speaks about the upright prevailing over the dead in the morning?
Thank you!
In the OT being redeemed from Sheol/the realm of the dead means that God prevented someone from dying prematurely.
apmorgan please explain!
@Pegill7 In 200 words? OK, essentially I was juxtaposing two different contexts where people chose to solve a problem by putting a bunch of adjectives in a row, in a manner that’s arguably a little clumsy. For “new revised standard” it was the committee deciding what to call the new translation. For “public static void” it was the designers of the programming language Java deciding on the syntax.
Modern computer programs are very structured, with strict rules about e.g. which parts of the program are allowed to invoke which other parts. They have to be, or there’d be complete chaos. Java is an “object-oriented” language, which means that Java programs are structured in a particular way: roughly, programs contain “classes” (corresponding to blueprints for entities) which in turn contain “methods” (things those entities can do). In Java, every method begins with a bunch of tags that specify the circumstances under which it may be invoked, and in broad terms, what it can do.
Every Java program begins by invoking a special method called “main”, and “public static void” are the tags this method must have. I would explain what they mean but I am out of words.
I get a kick out of the fact that King James’ name is on the translation that conservatives love. I understand the expression the English had back in his day was, “Elizabeth was our king, and James is our queen.” Seriously though, it seems silly to consider any translation as “the” authorized version once you know something about how translations are accomplished.
Yeah, I know. But in this case I think they mean “authorized” by the top authority, the Crown that commissioned, paid for, and directed the work. A terrific book tyou might enjoy about the entire production (in its historical, political, and cultural context) of the KJV is Adam Nicolson’s God’s Secretaries. Quite enlightening.
Loved the story of burning the translation rather than the translator. Thanks, Dr. Bart, for a good laugh early this morning.
Metzger was paraphrasing Freud, who said “What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now, they are content with burning my books.”
But Freud of course was incorrect. Had he not escaped Vienna–just in time–to London, “they” wudda burned him, and his wife, and his offspring, etc.
I’ve enjoyed this thread about the NRSV very much.
Before you end the thread perhaps you will post about –
1. What passages caused the most disagreement?
2. Where did the committee muff it? Give some examples of where you think they got it wrong.
Thanks!
I’ll be doing the second, but to do the first would require a much broader knowledge than anyone has — since the committee met for twenty years with four different subcommittees, each with their own disagreements….
There’s something oddly oxymoronic about the title “New Revised Standard Version.” It reminds me of the movie “Spinal Tap” where they talk about how their name was “The Originals” but there was already a band called that so they became “The New Originals” but then the original Originals broke up…and so on.
How did your exposure to such an ecumenical gathering of biblical scholars hammering out a revised translation affect your future scholarship?
It showed me how seriously philological research needs to be done.
Dr Ehrman,
Why do you suppose John the Baptist was captured and ultimately beheaded? Did Herod see him as a real threat to bring unrest to the establishment? Would he have been considered an insurrectionist?
Yes, it appears so. Josephus also mentions him. I’m not sure what the reasons are — in the NT it was not for insurrection per se but for vocal opposition to the king.
Hi Dr Ehrman!
In matt10:5 why does Jesus tell his disciples to not go among the gentiles?
Thank you!
Matthew’s Gospel wants to emphasize that Jesus came to the Jews and offered them salvation, but they rejected it; only then does it go to the non-Jews (Matthew 28:19-20)
The Great Dispensation is not original.
It is not in the original Hebrew Matthew. (Yes, it was in Hebrew first. Read Del Tondo.)
Unrelated question for Bart: is there any substance to the idea that Luke’s genealogy of Jesus is of Mary, and Matthew’s is of Joseph?
It’s commonly said, but it just doesn’t work. Read Luke’s carefully. It’s Joseph’s genealogy.
I get the joke of RSVP, but what would the P stand for as a justification?
Nothing. It was just a joke!
I might suggest the Revised Standard Version for Posterity.
Ah, that would work!
I think I see the allegory behind your true story. That is, you warned us to always do a technology check before any public sermon or performance while using technology, Yes, the disgruntled fundamentalist (perhaps KJV only) pastor would have needed two copies of the newly released NRSV, one for practice and one for the public display. However, he could have avoided embarrassment if he practiced his torching an NRSV Bible technique ahead of going public with his demonstrative illustration. If I’m wrong on this, please correct me 🙂
“so glad to be living in the modern age, when if someone does not like a new edition of the Bible, they burn a copy of the translation, rather than the translator. ”
I like that A LOT because I was just fuming about how tragic it is that we’re so backward, moan, kvetch, bitch – and I MUCH prefer your man’s more positive approach! It restored my smile! We DO still have lots to be grateful about and we must remember that, hard as it sometimes is.
I’ve often wondered, who got the famous box of RSV ashes after Dr. Metzger passed? Do you happen to know, where the box is now, Dr. Ehrman?
I”ve wondered that too! My GUESS is that they are somewhere in the headquarters of the National Council of Churches, who sponosored the transalation.