Loading...The translators were absolutely not bound and determined to translate the same Hebrew (or Greek) word the same way every time it appeared in the Bible. In some contexts a word will be better translated one way, in others another. But they at least had to be aware of the fact that the term appears in various passages and they had to be cognizant of how it had been translated each time. In many instances a word will mean exactly the same thing in various contexts, and when that is the case, it should probably be translated the same way.
The problem with the NRSV translation committee, as I have pointed out, is that…
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Sorry, I still can’t see the difference between the restrictive and nonrestricted pronoun. Have you got another example?
If I tell you “Use the lawnmower, which is in the garage” that means there is only one lawnmower and it is in the garage. If I tell you “Use the lawnmower that is in the garage” it means there are several lawnmowers but you are to use the one that happens to be in the garage.
Ah, I understand now. Thank you, I’ve learnt something useful on the blog that Bart Ehrman writes, which I am a member of.
But Dragonfly, we mustn’t end our sentences with prepositions! So, rather it should be: …Bart Ehrman writes, of which I am a member.
Winston Churchill was criticized for frequently violating this rule, to which he, always the wit, responded:
“People who end their sentences with prepositions are hard up with which to put.”
Actually, this is an interesting case of oral transmission and alterations made to sayings. Churchill’s saying is cited in numerous forms. The one I’ve always preferred is “That is the kind of errant pedantry up with which I cannot put!”
You never stop learning on this blog!
Great example!
dragonfly,
Nonrestrictive clause–uses the word “which” and is set off by commas; if taken out of a sentence, the sentence will still make sense.
Restrictive clause–uses the word “that” and will not have any commas because if it’s taken out, the meaning of the sentence is affected.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/which-versus-that-0
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/which-vs-that
Is it correct that Jews and other ancient peoples usually ate large portions of the animals they sacrificed to God(s)? Weren’t at least some Jewish animal sacrifices in atonement for sin? Doesn’t this help us understand where the idea came from that we are consuming Jesus’s body and blood (whether symbolically or literally) in the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist? Just as Jews ate the animals sacrificed for atonement, Christians eat Jesus who was sacrificed in atonement?
When I first thought of this (stimulated by something I read in a book by the mythology expert Joseph Campbell) the connection seemed pretty obvious. How did I miss it for so long? But I can’t recall ever seeing it set forth as clearly as I’m trying to do.
Yes, the “sacrifice” of Christ is indeed often seen as a substitute especially ofr Jewish sacrifice, and “eating” his body and blood (the blood is the strange part) is seen as parallel to other ancient ritual practices. I think you’re right about that!
Didn’t Jewish priests sprinkle the blood from sacrificed animals on the altar? And were/are Jews forbidden from eating the blood of animals or just that it is to be consumed separately from the meat? Wasn’t the blood of the animal thought of as its “life” and offered to God for that reason?
Yes they did. Yes, they were forbidden to consume blood (a carcass had to be drained), because “life is in the blood.”
But a fella’s gotta wash that bread down wit sumptin!
“The Bart Ehrman blog, which I visit regularly, is the biblical discussion forum that I value above all others”.
1. The non restrictive “which” indicates parenthetical information and must be preceded by a comma.
2. The restrictive “that” indicates defining information and can be omitted (“the forum I value above all others”).
Is that worth dinner at the Armadillo Grill?
Yes, “that” as a relative pronoun is losing favor. You win a taco!
Dr. Ehrman, I’ve noticed that much of the confusion English speakers have about the Bible comes from the fact that an English translation can’t truly capture the Hebrew. For example, in the NRSV translation committee, it probably never occured to them to make their translation purposely vague and ambiguous, because, of course, the whole point of a translation is to make it clear and intelligible. The problem is that much of the Hebrew Bible, especially the prophecies, were purposely supposed to be vague. And that’s how they are in the Hebrew. Intentionally vague.
The reason being that ancient prophets were purposely vague. They spoke in symbols and allegories, metaphors and similes, so that they had plausible deniability if one their predictions turned out to be not-so. We need to remember that being a prophet in ancient times was a dangerous profession, and being executed for “false” prophecy was an occupational hazard for all but the most well-respected prophet. (Consider for a second how many prophets are put to death in Biblical times for making false predictions; e.g. 1 Kings 18:40, where Elijah kills the “false” prophets of Ba’al.) That’s why so many of the prophetic passages are hard to translate into English, because the original Hebrew itself is not exactly clear.
A classic example is Hosea. Reading chapter one of Hosea in English is truly baffling. Is Hosea talking about a literal wife and children? Is he talking about a metaphorical prostitute? Why is Hosea talking about a family AND a nation in the same terms? Well, it’s because Hosea is purposely speaking in metaphor so as to make his prophecy somewhat vague. The essence, the meat of Hosea’s prophecy is buried right in the creamy center of that chapter; namely, verse 4, when God says to Hosea: “I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.” Now, the Hebrew word there translated as “visit” is sometimes translated as “punish,” as in the NRSV, etc. But the implication of the line is actually rather difficult to translate, because what God is saying, in essence, is that he is ordering some kind of Divine Retribution on the House of Jehu (i.e. Jehu’s descendents who now rule the Kingdom of Israel) in the same manner with which Jehu obliterated the House of Omri (i.e. Ahab’s family). And it just so happens that the usurper who assassinated the last House of Jehu king of Israel was named Shallum, which means “retribution” in Hebrew. Once that becomes clear, then all of Hosea’s metaphors — of a daughter named No Hope, a son named Not My People, etc. — that all makes some sense within the colorful Hebrew, which cannot be captured in the English translation.
Grammar rules are like algebra to me. The more I use it, the better I am at it. Or if I’m teaching it, then I’m going over the rules class after class, so I keep them fresh in my mind. It’s been a while since I’ve taught either of them, so I would definitely need a refresher!
Prof Ehrman
A fascinating series on the NRSV. Appreciate your eyewitness perspective. But it’s interesting to me for another reason. Growing up in a rural Georgia hyper-fundamentalist Southern Baptist church I can remember being assured that the National Council of Churches took their orders directly from Satan and were responsible for watering down the message of the only truly authorized version (pardon the pun) of Holy Scripture which was of course – the KJV. (Ironically now I find myself having to defend the KJV not as a translation but as one of the often neglected high water marks of English literature.)
So just out of curiosity – I’m not sure where you were in your “faith journey” while your participation with the NRSV was going on but did you ever get any negative feedback from any of your non-academic religious peers about your participation in the project? The RSV and the NRSV were quite controversial in some circles.
Thanks!
I was still a Christian, though a liberal one. I myself didn’t get any push back — but some of the translators did. Maybe I’ll tell a story about that on the blog.
“in 1986 […] search engines still in their somewhat infancy”
I went to college (in your hometown!) even a few years later than that and I don’t remember ‘search engines’ at all. In other words, I wouldn’t say they were ‘in their somewhat infancy’, but were, at best, newborns.
Yeah, what I used was high-tech. And oh boy was it low-tech.
Y’all needed Unix 😉 [hyperbole]An expert can get Unix text tools (awk, grep, sed, etc.) to do the translation themselves.[/hyperbole]
…and which editor: ed, vi or emacs?
Can you think of an example of using which vs that (or vice-versa) that makes a meaningful difference?
If I tell you “Use the lawnmower, which is in the garage” that means there is only one lawnmower and it is in the garage. If I tell you “Use the lawnmower that is in the garage” it means there are several lawnmowers but you are to use the one that happens to be in the garage. To put it differently, if I say “Use the lawnmower that is in the garage” and you go to the garage only to find five lawnmowers, you wouldn’t know which one to use! So I shouldn’t say that!
Guess I didn’t explain that well. I was actually wondering if there were any examples of the ‘which/that’ phenomenon in the bible–in which the choice of ‘which’ vs ‘that’ (or vice-versa) affected the meaning of the text…unless there are lawnmowers in the bible. 😉
I’m sure there are lots and lots! But I don’t have them on the top of my head. One would need simply to read the texts and wherever one of them occurs see what difference it would make to substitute the other.
Two concerns, which are unrelated to this post:
1) Well, actually, this is related to this post: I have been reading about the Gospel of John and the question of how best to translate “hoi iudaioi” (not sure I got the transliteration right, but you know what I mean). The introduction to John in *The Jewish Annotated New Testament* (ed. Levine et al) comes down on the side of retaining the literal “the Jews,” in spite of problems knowing whether it was the author’s intent to refer to all Jews and perpetuating anti-semitic readings of the gospel. It occured to me that, in usages that clearly do not refer to the Jews as a people (unlike “salvation is of the Jews,” for instance) one possibility might be to render the phrase “some Jews,” even though it is technically a mistranslation. That would leave the reader to determine from the context whether those particular Jews are being cast in a positive or a negative light. What would you think of that solution?
2) I sometimes like to read your blog on my android device and, unlike the display on my PC, the most recent posts don’t show up anywhere on the page. I have to go to member content and scroll down to today’s date or something close to it. Could you ask your tech person(s) to see if they could make recent posts easier to find? Thanks.
“Some” Jews doesn’t really work, because of the definite article, “the” Jews.
Androids: yes, we’re having some technical problems now because of an update, and are finding it hard to solve them.
Old computer days: I remember punching whole piles of cards which/that were then fed into a “huge” computer once a week and then you could return the next week and get the result, almost always a programing error or two.
“…since the committee wanted the final version of the translation to go to the publishers by 1988.” Is that because they had 88 reasons Jesus was coming back then? I’m kidding… I just read a comment that mentioned John’s gospel.. and it fits with a question about Papias’ understanding of its authorship… the Catholic Encyclopedia says:
“Finally, according to the testimony of a Vatican manuscript (Codex Regin Sueci seu Alexandrinus, 14), Bishop Papias of Hierapolis in Phrygia, an immediate disciple of the Apostle John, included in his great exegetical work an account of the composition of the Gospel by St. John during which he had been employed as scribe by the Apostle.”
I’m having trouble finding info on “Codex Regin Sueci seu Alexandrinus, 14” (I assume it’s not related to the famous Codex Alexandrinus). My suspicion is this Vatican manuscript is much later than the earliest witnesses to Johannine authorship of the “spiritual gospel” that Clement, Irenaeus and the Muratorian attest to… I guess I’m wondering if this codex is considered credible in regards to Papias believing John wrote the fourth gospel… if it is credible… then it’s before Martyr’s mentioning of the unnamed “memoirs of the apostles”… and obviously before the other late second century sources… so I’m wondering what your thoughts on this are…
It is a medieval Latin manuscript in the Vatican library, but apart from that I’m afraid I don’t know anything about it (I’m out of the country just now and don’t have any books to check). Sorry! But I do know that no, it is not considered a credible source for Papias.
Professor Ehrman, I enjoyed this article. At http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1978 we are currently discussing the proper translation of the underlying Hebrew word for “like a lion” in the Masoretic text (Psalm 22:16). As you know, almost all Christian translations assume the Masoretic text has a spelling error here and the original Hebrew word was “dig”. They then translate this word as “pierced”. Since you knew Hebrew at the time that you were a Research Assistant you knew that “pierced” was not within the lexical range of the Hebrew word for “dig”. I’m curious as to what you thought at this time (when you were a Believer) about the English translation “pierced”.
http://thenewporphyry.blogspot.com/2015/11/psalm-2217-hebrew-text-like-lion.html
I’m not sure I ever thought about it!
This problem with committees shows up with the handling of Son of Man. Fortunately, in Mark 2:28, NRSV has Son of Man, and not the politically correct “human being” found in Dan 7:13, which does a disservice to the reader who may not realize the huios tou anthropou is an allusion to kibar anash. Granted, in some editions (not mine) there is a footnote stating “Aram like a son of man” but it would be better in my view to be consistent in translations. Also, in Mk 2:27, NRSV has the hideous junk word “humankind” instead of the more natural “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath,” which then leads to the punchline, “so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” Man and son of man, in other words, are parallel constructions, as in Ps 8:4, “What is man (enosh) that You should remember him, and the son of man (ben adam) that You should be mindful of him?” (which NRSV ruins with “human beings” and “mortals”, changing the grammar to plural for no linguistically justifiable reason). The point is, man, or the son of man, is the lord, and the sabbath is the servant. Nothing there about Jesus repealing the sabbath law. NRSV completely misses the point.