Thinking about Scripture

Last month I posted about trying to listen to Scourby reading the KJV , and how distracting it was working out what Elizabethan prose meant in expository texts (i.e., the epistles).

This morning one of our readers took me to task. He argued that just because the KJV is hard to understand is not a reason to say that it is a problematic translation. In fact, he thinks it is a virtue of the KJV. He argues — quite correctly — that there is great value to having to think about Scripture.

But I would argue his premises are flawed. There is a big difference between thinking as a part of processing unfamiliar language and thinking about what the language means. There is great spiritual value in the latter, but no spiritual value in the former.

The real question is how did Philippians sound to its intended audience. Did they have to think hard about the wording, or was it a natural way to talk?

Modern translation standards are that a translation should match the original, not just in reference, but also in tone and implication. If Paul or Luke used an ordinary word or expression, then the translation should use an ordinary word or expression. The example in the original post was ἀναστροφή in I Peter 2:12. Since ἀναστροφή is an ordinary word for referring to behavior or conducting one’s life in Koine, so the KJV’s conversation is the wrong word to use to translate it for the modern English speaker. Period. It doesn’t matter that modern English speakers can, by dint of effort, figure out what was intended.

In a backhanded way, the reader was making my point. We should be thinking about Scripture deeply, getting from the milk to the meat. But if we have to spend a lot of our mental capacity just getting to the starting line, we can mistakenly believe we’re chewing on the meat, when all we’ve done is taste the milk.

Appendix

Part of LSJ’s entry for ἀναστροφή showing that it is an ordinary word for  ‘behavior’:

II  3 mode of life, behaviour, Plb.4.82.1, D.L.0.64; -φὴν ποιεῖσθαι IG2.477b12, cf. SIG491.5, LXX To.4.14, Ep.Gal.1.13, Ep.Eph.4.22, al.; ἀ. πολιτική PGiss.40ii29 (iii A.D.); ἐξημερωμένης -φῆς civilized life, Phld.Sto.Herc.339.19.

This is definitely about Bible translation

Thanks for all the comments on my preceding post. You are alert readers. You caught that the issue had to do with whether or not I was referring to a specific tree in my made-up paragraph. (BTW, I did go moose-hunting with my father. I forget how old I was the last time he took me. I know I was big enough to help him pack out the carcass. But I was still fairly small, so I couldn’t carry a very big load.)

The usual pattern for well-formed discourses in English is, as some of you noted, to introduce an item first before we can refer to it with the definite article “the”. For instance, I could have included the following sentence in my moose-hunting story:

There was a tree where we always stopped when we were moose-hunting. It had large branches which could shelter us if there was a sudden downpour of rain.

However, as some of you also noted, English allows for “the” to precede certain other nouns under special conditions. One is if the speaker can assume that the hearer already knows which thing is being talked about, perhaps from previous conversations, or because it is common public knowledge, such as commonly known to everyone who lived in our village.

We properly ask each other in English, “How’s the weather?” We don’t ask, “How’s a weather?” We can safely assume that everyone else knows what we mean by weather.

These days, especially, we may fairly safely talk to someone about “the” national debt, without having to introduce the concept of a national debt.

For those BBB readers who live under the British monarchy, it is perfectly good English for them to refer to “the queen,” without having to first introduce into their discourse a person who is the current monarch of the U.K. There is only one monarch at a time and it is currently a queen. Presumably any resident of the U.K. knows this. Nouns which refer to entities which are assumed to be known as common knowledge can be referred to as definites.

Now, what does this discussion about English “the” have to do with Bible translation? It is on my mind these days because I am nearing the end of my check of the CEB sampler of the Gospel of Matthew. It has impressed me how often in the CEB a noun is marked with “the” as definite (already known to the author and assumed by the author to be known by his audience) when I am unable to find evidence that that noun was introduced yet in the discourse (typically the length of an episode). That clashes with my understanding of the use of English “the”. But it aligns word-for-word with the presence of the Greek definite article before its noun.

Usually this phenomenon occurs with the noun phrase “the house”, as in CEB Matt. 9:28, 13:36, 17:25, 24:43 (UPDATE: only the first instance in CEB 24:43 of “the house”). Notice how 9:27-28 reads:

“As Jesus departed, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” When he came into the house, the blind men approached him.”

I don’t know which house in all of Palestine Jesus entered on this occasion, or any of the other occasions I have listed where a problematical “the house” occurs. (The issue is not for every instance of “the house” in Matthew, only where a specific house has not yet been introduced into the discourse).

The Greek text has ten okian, for which the default literal translation would be “the house,” and so the CEB translation has “the house.” I have checked other English versions and several follow the same practice of translating the Greek noun phrase with the definite article with an English noun phrase with the definite article “the.” (For Matt. 9:28 these other versions include KJV, RSV, ESV, NASB, and NET.)  Matching the Greek definite article with the English definite article makes sense for doing word-for-word translation. But it needs to be questioned if we are attempting to translate all levels of meaning, including pragmatic meaning, discourse meaning, referential meaning, etc.

I have been wondering why Matthew marked these instances of “house” with a definite article. I have not come up with any satisfactory answer. I am assuming that in all of Jesus travels around Palestine while he was teaching, he did not always teach in the same house, a house whose identity was known to Matthew and assumed by Matthew to also be known to his readers.

If I were translating the particular passages in question in Matthew, I would have to translate the phrases with “house” as “a house”, following English rules of introduction of new entities in discourse, in the absence of any other evidence to cause me to believe that it was a specific house known to the author and his hearers.

Note how the translators of the following versions handle this issue of definiteness or indefiniteness of the house mentioned (Matt. 9:27-28):

When Jesus left that place, two blind men followed him. They shouted, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” Jesus went into a house (GW)

When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him (NIV, TNIV)

Jesus left that place, and as he walked along, two blind men started following him. “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” they shouted. When Jesus had gone indoors, the two blind men came to him (TEV/GNB)

As Jesus was walking along, two blind men began following him and shouting, “Son of David, have pity on us!” After Jesus had gone indoors (CEV)

As he went on from there Jesus was followed by two blind men, shouting, ‘Have pity on us, Son of David!’ When he had gone indoors they came to him, and Jesus asked, ‘Do you (REB)

When Jesus was leaving there, two blind men followed him. They cried out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” After Jesus went inside, the blind men went with him. (NCV)

After Jesus left the girl’s home, two blind men followed along behind him, shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” They went right into the house where he was staying (NLT)

By the way, it is well known to students of Greek that Greek marks more nouns with the definite article than English does. One of the most famous instances, one which is debated by theologians, is John 1:1 where a rigorous word-for-word kind of translation would require a wording like:

In beginning was the god and the word was with the god and god was the word.

Since Greek word order is pragmatically determined, not syntactically determined, as is much of English,, the final clause can be re-ordered as “the word was god” or “the word was a god” or “the word was divine”. (Please, this is not the place to argue about the divinity of Christ from this verse. I can assure you who wonder, from what I have just written, that I do believe in the divinity of Christ. I am only referring objectively here to legitimate translation possibilities for the Greek. Please do not address the issue of the divinity of Christ in the Comments to this blog post. Such comments will be off-topic for this post and I will have to delete them.)

The point of referring to the Greek of John 1:1 is that the words for “god” (“God) as well as the word for “word” (Word, Logos) are marked as with the Greek definite articles, except, of course, for the final instance of “god”. Yet we never find word-for-word English Bible versions translating the word for “God” for this verse as “the god”. I assume that Greek theos is marked with the definite article because Matthew is a monotheist and assumes that his readers are, as well. In other words, there is for them, just one “god” (God). (Yes, I am a monotheist, as well!)

Again, in summary, I do not know why Matthew refers to “the” house several times in his gospel. Perhaps some of you might know why and can comment on this. I do know that if Jesus stayed and/or taught in more than one house and if this plurality of houses is noted throughout Matthew’s gospel, there is a mismatch between the Greek and English discourse patterns for marking definiteness.

I guess, in conclusion, I would have to say that I am indefinite about the Greek definite in some cases! How about you?

Is there definitely something wrong here?

Once when I was perhaps five my father took me hunting with him. We walked quite a ways. There was a lot of tall grass which was difficult for me to walk through. When we came to the tree my father stopped. It had good shade. Dad got out our lunch and we ate it.

OK, now re-read that paragraph which I just made up. Look for the definite article “the” and think about whether or not it sounds appropriate in the context of just this amount of story. Does that “the” sound right to your ears? What other word might sound better instead of “the”?

In my next post I’ll tell you how this relates to English Bible translation.

Whose cities?

Several English versions translate Matt. 11:1 similar to:

When Jesus had finished giving instructions to His twelve disciples, He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities. (NASB)

Notice the phrase “their cities”. Whose cities does it sound like Jesus is preaching in (read as much of the context as you would like)? Do you think your answer is the intended meaning of the original Greek text?

robust righteousness

I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ–God’s righteousness. (Phil. 3:9, The Message)

another BBB blogger needed

Would any of you who visit this blog be interested in joining it as a blogger? If so, please email me privately for an interview: wayne dot leman at gmail dot com

Each of us BBB bloggers is so busy with our work that we are not able to post as often as is needed to keep a blog like this going well.

Someone who blogs here would need to have some scholarly background and/or work experience in some area that is relevant to Bible translation.

English Bible translations in progress

I know of three English committee Bible translations which are currently in progress:

  1. ISV (International Standard Version) – nearing completion. Isaiah, the last book, to be translated, is being translated directly from a Dead Sea scroll. The ISV team welcomes revision suggestions.
  2. NIV2011 – revision of the NIV. It will likely read much like the NIV, but the committee will revisit each controversial passage to try to avoid the rejection the TNIV received in some quarters. On this blog we are encouraging readers to submit revision suggestions.
  3. CEB (Common English Bible) – its first goal is clarity with “plain speaking”. It is especially intended to replace the NRSV among mainline denominations which desire to use a Bible version which uses more natural English. On BBB we are also encouraging readers to submit revision suggestions for the CEB.

I wish each of these translation teams well as they work to meet their goals. I also hope to compare some of their translation wordings in future posts. If you would like to do some of that comparison now, feel free to include it in the Comments to this post.

CEB Lord’s Prayer

Following is the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father) from Matthew 6, along with my comments on it for the CEB translation team. I have boldfaced the words in question in the translation; my comments are in italics. Your comments on the translation or my comments are welcome.

9 Pray like this:

Our Father who is in heaven;
let

wrong meaning (permissive) for most current English speakers; “may” is better since it communicates a wish/desire

your name be holy.
10 Let your kingdom come;

May

let what you will

your will

be done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
11 Give us the bread we need for today.
12 And forgive us the things we should have done but didn’t,

I don’t think this will be accepted by your intended audience, especially those which follow a liturgy. I suggest simply “our sins”

just as we also forgive those who don’t treat us as they should.

who sin against us

13 And don’t bring us to the place

It’s more than just a location which “the place,” communicates to most current speakers. A synonym which isn’t limited to geography would be “the point.” But I suspect you may need to stay closer to some traditional wording here, for acceptability, such as simply “temptation” then delete from here to the end of the sentence.

where we will be tempted,
but rescue us from the evil one.

You will, of course, need a footnote here to indicate that some mss. include “For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours” so that those who recite the KJV wording in liturgy will not feel that you have left out the ending.

blog feedback for CEB Matthew

CommonEnglishBibleLogoNow that the CEB Matthew sampler is available for download, feel free to comment upon what you find in the CEB translation of the Gospel of Matthew. Please remember to follow our blog posting guidelines.

Here’s something to start with, if you wish: I consider “the Human One” to be a courageous translation for ho huios tou anthropou in Matt. 9:6 (and elsewhere in the book). That communicates far better to almost all English speakers than does the traditional translation of “Son of Man.” What do you think?

And here is my reaction to two verses earlier, CEB Matt. 9:4:

But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, “Why do you think evil things in your hearts?”

“In your hearts” is not the English translation equivalent of the underlying Greek which represents the Hebraic view of the bodily organ of thinking, the heart. (The author of Matthew was steeped in the Hebraic worldview, even though he, or someone later, wrote his gospel in Greek.) In English the heart is the metaphorical organ for emotions. In Biblical Hebrew (and presumably in Aramaic which Jesus usually spoke) it was the metaphorical organ for thinking and volition. English speakers consider the brain to be the organ for thinking. But, in English we do not normally name an organ when we refer to thinking. So, IMO, a better, more accurate (for English speakers), translation of Matt. 9:4 would be:

But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, “Why are you thinking evil things?”

Notice that I also have suggested a revision from the (IMO) stilted “do you think” to the more natural “are you thinking”? I’m not sure if “evil things” is the most natural way to express the last part of this verse. Perhaps “Why are you thinking in an evil way?” is better English. But that might change the meaning slightly, which should not be done in translation, if it can be avoided.

eagerly waiting

We’re eagerly waiting for CEB Matthew to become available for download from the CEB website today:

http://www.commonenglish.com

If anyone has already found the download already available, please let us know. Since it will be available via a “splash page”, perhaps some of us will not see that page when we view the CEB site, due to popup blockers on our Internet browsers.

From the little I have seen of the CEB, it looks like it will be an above average English translation, with good quality English. It has the potential to take the place of the NRSV as a pulpit and pew Bible, especially if those churches which use the NRSV want a more readable Bible version.