Loading...My analysis of the problems with the NRSV continues in Part 3! Translators of the Bible have a terrifically complicated, difficult, and usually thankless task. I knew that, of course ever since taking Greek back in college. But I did not relate to the problems emotionally until I started publishing translations of my own. It’s HARD.
My first translation project was a two-volume edition of the Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (published by Harvard University Press). It was at that point that I realized that what translators do is not at all what the rest of us do who can teach the ancient languages and read Greek and assign Greek translation exercises to classes of graduate students.
When you are with a class of students, you can sit around the table, discuss the various options about how a text can be translated, and talk about the pros and cons of various English renditions. Make a few suggestions for how to provide nuance to a rendering. Explicate the fuller meaning of the Greek by paraphrasing a phrase or a clause in several English sentences to capture the fuller meaning, and so on. But when you’re publishing a translation, you have to make a DECISION and type a few words instead of some other words. It’s really really hard at first.
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Are there any Old Testament or Apocryphal passages that you’ve found any problems with?
None come to mind immediately; but I haven’t done a careful comparison with the Hebrew as I’ve done here and there with the Greek.
Bart says:
“Why then did Jesus die, according to Luke, if not for atonement. It’s a long story. I may tell it in a later post. For now I want to make a different point…”
This is why I love this blog. The $7.95 I spent for membership is the best investment I’ve made this year and when the 3 months are up I will undoubtably sign up for the year.
Thank you for yor continued excellence, Dr. Ehrman, as a writer, thinker, scholar and entertainer.
Great!
Bart,
I just picked up Marcus Borg’s new book “Evolution of the Word”, a chronological new testament tahts starts with 1Thess rather than Matt etc. It sounds to me like you and he are generally on the same page regarding the authorship and dates of the NT documents. Nest, in “Jesus Interrupted”, in the last chapter “Is Faith Possible?” you mentioned friends who the same view of the NT as you, but still believe. So finally, is their kind of Christianity like Borg’s Christianity as far as you know?
Thanks
Jerry
I’m not sure. Most of my friends are themselves experts — either theologically or biblically — and so never ever read Marcus Borg’s work, which is written for the non-expert. So I’m not sure exactly *how* they would stack up.
I wish more scholars would read (and write) popularist books for general audiences. There is such a huge gap between scholars and ordinary folks in pedestrian matters that can be easily grasped and understood.
This is a very significant alteration of the text indeed. Given Paul was the key hero in the book of Acts, Luke must have been supportive of Paul’s teachings. Do you think Luke had access to Paul’s letters? Ideas of atonement are central to Pauline theology. While I find it plausible Luke had a different emphasis and understanding of the cross compared to Mark, I am not yet persuaded by the argument that Luke rejected wholesale any notion of atonement, as argued in Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Is this a consensus of scholarship or a highly debated position?
I’m not sure what hte consensus is. I think the most telling points is that he gets rid of Mark 10:45, changes what happens at the moment of Jesus’ death, and never, ever speaks of atoning sacrifice in reference to Jesus’ death in the speeches in Acts. All that adds up, IMHO.
In one of your books, you state the “authenticity” of a verse is dependent on the passage supporting a particular ideology/philosphy/theology. For example, Jesus being born in Nazareth must be correct because no one would claim Nazareth as Jesus’s birthplace because it is so small and insignificant. Are you applying some of the same criteria to the verses in Luke? Eliminating these verses is a major change in the theology of Luke. (It sometimes appears that the entire theology of “atonement” is connected to one writer, John.) When you say “other manuscripts” do not have the verses, is the authenticity of these verses partially verified by the fact that the verses do not support atonement and may be from the originals?
It is an analogous argument, but not the same one. In the first instance I’m talking about what can be established as historically reliable (with respect to what Jesus said and did) and in the second about what is textual reliable (with respect to what an author origininally wrote). But yes, they are analogous.
These examples are quite interesting and you summarize them quite well. Keep going.
I’m really enjoying your posts about Bruce Metzger and now the NRSV. I recently purchased Forged and I plan to read Misquoting Jesus someday soon.
To your knowledge, are there any plans for an update to the NRSV?
I don’t know! Maybe they could call it the NEW RSVP!
Or perhaps it could be printed in cursive, the CRSV. 😀
Seriously though, I would suggest Third Revised Standard Version. If the National Council of Churches should decide to commission another revision, I hope they’d seek your expertise.
Well, a publisher did talk to me about it, but I’m not sure it’s a great idea for me to be on the committee, given my public stance on religion. They *do*, after all, want the translation to sell!
“Many a scholar has met his Waterloo in an attempt to account for, or explain away, the existence of the Bezan text.”
— BH Streeter
Bravo for accepting Bezae in not Lk 22,19b-20.
Yes, I think it is one of the Western shorter readings that it original, one of the “Western non-interpolations.” I explain it all in Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
Professor, you really shouldn’t discourage your readers from reading your “scholarly” works. From the comments I’ve been following I’d say that many of them easily can follow and digest much of what you’ve written, especially when it’s light on the Greek (as opposed to “Didymus”, for example). I, for one, found the considerable value, both in knowledge and enjoyment, of “Orthodox Corruption” to be well worth the time and modest intellectual effort I put into it. For a lay person like myself it was much easier to understand than Walter Bauer, believe me !
Consider it a clever bit of reverse psychology. 🙂