I wanted to share this with my friends. Matt Abney, a gifted musician & member of the PaLO VErde family, wrote and performs this moving tribute to the fallen here in Tucson. "Close to Home" is powerful in lyrics and video. We have had a rough time in Tucson. Thank you Matt Abney for blessing us. This was shared with our Sunday morning assembly here at PV.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
I wanted to share this with my friends. Matt Abney, a gifted musician & member of the PaLO VErde family, wrote and performs this moving tribute to the fallen here in Tucson. "Close to Home" is powerful in lyrics and video. We have had a rough time in Tucson. Thank you Matt Abney for blessing us. This was shared with our Sunday morning assembly here at PV.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Previous Essays on the Ancestry of the King James Version are #1; #2; #3; #4; and #5 click on a link.
Opening Quotable Quotes
"A single hour lovingly devoted to the text of the Septuagint will further our exegetical knowledge of the Pauline Epistles more than a whole day spent over a commentary" (Adolf Deismann, 1908)
"We also remind the same class of readers, that an intimate acquaintance with the Septuagint Greek of the Old Testament, is of essential importance in translating the New. The seventy Hebrews ... gave to that translation the idiom of their vernacular tongue. Their translation, if I may so speak is a sort of Hebrew Greek. The BODY [sic] is Greek, but the SOUL [sic] is Hebrew ... we have no Greek by which to understand the apostolic writings, but the Greek of the Jewish and Christian Prophets" (Alexander Campbell, General Preface: An Apology for a New Translation of the Living Oracles in 1826).
The Need for an Ancient Translation
The need for a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures came from the historical reality the Jews found themselves in. After exile from their native homeland and then a pattern of migration to Egypt and other parts of the Hellenistic world hastened the loss the language of the ancestors. This migration had begun by Jeremiah's time. In Jeremiah 41-44 we learn of a band of Jews that fled to Egypt after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587/6 BC (Jeremiah as you will recall was kidnapped and forced to flee with the bandits). Another group of Jews were garrisoned by the king of Egypt at Elephantine on the Nile. This Jewish colony even built a temple some time before 525 BC.
Beginning with the conquests of Alexander in 331, however, is when Jews settled in Egypt in large numbers. Alexander constructed the magnificent city of Alexandria to become one of the premier cultural icons of the Greek world. It would replace even Athens as the center of great learning and it had only one language - Greek. By the time Jesus was born over a million Jews lived in Egypt and many of those in Alexandria.
The Jews living in Alexandria, as in most Hellenistic environments soon lost the ability to speak or read Hebrew creating a crisis over hearing God's word. So sometime after 250 B.C. and down to around 150 B.C. the Septuagint (LXX) was born. Jewish legend (alluded to by Campbell above) preserved in the Letter of Aristeas explains the LXX's origins in the following way.
Aristeas was an official in Ptolemy Philadelphus' court, a renown patron of literature. Under Ptolemy the great library of Alexandria was built becoming one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World [1]. Aristeas describes how Demetrius, the king's librarian, contacted Eleazar the High Priest in Jerusalem about obtaining translators to make a Greek translation of Jewish holy books for the library. So Eleazar chose six men from the twelve tribes. These men, after being honored, were sent to the island of Pharos where in seventy-two days the men finished their task. Later versions of the tale tell how the 72 men worked in separate cells and at the end of the 72 days they compared their work and found them to be exactly the same! The Letter of Aristeas is a tall tale of the origin of the Greek Bible but with more than a kernel of historical truth. But it is fascinating that everyone wants to claim divine inspiration for their particular translation.
As a historical tidbit. It seems that the first time the word "Bible" is ever used in reference to the Scriptures is in the Letter of Aristeas itself. In Aristeas verse 316 we read "I have also received from Theodectus the tragic poet (the report) that when he was about to include in a play a passage from what is written in the Bible, he was afflicted with a cataract of the eyes" (Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol 2, p. 34).
The Greek speaking Jews of Alexandria needed a Bible they could understand. Out of that need the Lord providentially worked and the LXX was born.
The Nature of the LXX
The LXX, as a translation of the ancient Hebrew text, is varied. In the Torah the translation appears to be very careful yet throughout the remainder of the "Old Testament" it is uneven. A wooden literalism characterizes sections of Reigns, Jeremiah, Song of Songs and Lamentations making for "awkward Greek." Conversely Esther, Job and Proverbs are much freer bordering paraphrase at times [2]. The LXX reads at times, we have noted previously, quite differently than the Masoretic text (the text represented in most modern Protestant Old Testament translations). These differences can be attributed to several factors:
1) the underlying Hebrew text from which it was translated was different from the
Masoretic text
2) the translation process was unprecedented and therefore does not reveal a pattern
3) the translator made a mistake
4) the theological understanding of the translator
5) a confluence of these circumstances produce varied results [3]
All of the books of the Hebrew Bible are contained within the LXX. However, one of the primary differences between the LXX and the "Old Testament" known to Protestants today is a collection of ancient writings often termed "The Apocrypha." (For more on The Apocrypha see HERE). The word "Apocrypha" means "hidden" which has lead to considerable misunderstanding for Protestants. This misnomer has almost taken on pejorative connotations with some but the term was not used in such a way by the ancients. Within the LXX these books are not distinguished from the rest of the Bible. Indeed most in the early church regarded them as if they were the word of God. These works are:
First Esdras
Second Esdras
Tobit
Judith
The Greek Esther has lengthy sections that are not present in the Hebrew Bible today
Wisdom of Solomon
Sirach
Baruch
Epistle of Jeremiah
Three lengthy sections of Daniel
1) Susanna
2) Bel and the Dragon
3) The Song of the Three Children
First Maccabees
Second Maccabees
Prayer of Manasseh
Psalm 151
Some mss of the LXX also contain 3rd & 4th Maccabees. These books are also known as Deuterocanonical among Roman Catholics but simply Scripture among the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, Ethiopian & Armenian churches. Contemporary scholarship debates the exact extent of the "Jewish" canon prior to 100 A.D. but it is certain that many Jews held these works in very high esteem if not as "scripture" itself prior to the Fall of Jerusalem. All English translations of the Bible used to include The Apocrypha between the "Old Testament" and the "New." These translations include: John Wycliff's, Coverdale's Bible, Matthew's Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible, Bishop's Bible, Rheims-Douay Bible, King James Version, the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version, etc. Most "non-Evangelical" translations of Scripture have included the Apocrypha - RSV, NEB, REB, NRSV, JB, NJB, NAB, and even the ESV.
The NT writers themselves, contrary to oft repeated claims to the contrary, knew the stories and contents of these books. For example Paul alludes to the critique of pagan society in Wisdom of Solomon in Romans 1 and 2 several times. Psalm 151 preserved and known in the LXX for centuries was also discovered extant in Hebrew among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is the Greek version:
This psalm is a genuine one of David, composed when he fought in single combat with Goliath.
I was small among my brethren, and youngest in my father's
house, I tended my father's sheep. My hands formed a
musical instrument, and my fingers tuned a psaltery. And
who shall tell my Lord? the Lord himself, he himself hears.
He sent forth his angel, and took me from my father's sheep,
and he anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brothers
were handsome and tall; but the Lord did not take pleasure
in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine; and he cursed me
by his idols. But I drew his own sword, and beheaded him, and
removed reproach from the children of Israel." [4]
The LXX and Early Christianity
The LXX, not the Hebrew Bible, was the primary theological and literary context within which the writers of the NT and most early Christians worked. It was THE Bible for the first three Christian centuries. In the 150 to 200 years it circulated prior to the advent of Christianity it enabled many Greeks to seek the God of Israel. The LXX's, in God's gracious wisdom, worked naturally as the perfect "missionary" tool of the early apostles, prophets and missionaries. The apostles did not have to invent theological terms for God's revelation in Christ, the LXX had already done that.
Words, important words, that continually grace the pages of the New Testament have a long history of use already in the LXX. Words for law (nomos), atonement (hilaskomai) ... words for truth, grace, mercy, sin, and even worship are all already in the vocabulary of Paul, Peter, John and most of all Jesus. These notions of mercy, grace, righteousness are hardly inconsequential for understanding "New Testament Christianity."
Yet the LXX's influence on early Christianity and the NT itself extends beyond simply word choices. The LXX was "biblical" language for many Jews in the same way the cadences of the King James Version is "biblical" language for many native English speakers. Luke often models his Greek after the biblical "sound" of the LXX. A Jew picking up the Gospel of Luke in the first century would "feel at home" in story. At times the LXX itself is actually the text of the NT. This happens through quotations of the "Old Testament" of which the vast majority in the NT come from the LXX. This fact, btw, often accounts for why a quotation from the "Old Testament" in may actually differ when one turns to the quoted passage [5]. Beyond actual quotations the LXX provides the thought world and "allusions" that NT writers constantly weave into their writings.
A testament to the influence of the LXX in the early Christian centuries is found in the following numbers. More Greek mss of the "Old Testament" survive from antiquity than any other Greek text except the New Testament itself. Counting both complete and fragmentary mss, nearly 2000 handwritten copies of the LXX have come down to us.
Concluding Remark
As important at the LXX was in the early church it is mind blowing some King James Only advocates claim there was no such piece of literature before Christ. But Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish Philosopher, testified to his reverence for the LXX. For him Jews regarded ...
"them [Ancient Hebrew text & LXX] with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather as one and the same, both in matter and words, and speak of the authors not but as prophets and priests of the mysteries ... hand in hand with the purest of spirits, the spirit of Moses" [6]
Modern scholarship has basically confirmed the insight of Alexander Campbell and Adolf Deissmann quoted at the head of this post. The standard Greek lexicon proclaims in its Introduction "As for the influence of the LXX, every page of this lexicon shows that it outweighs all other influences in our literature" [7].
The NT writers "version of choice" was the LXX. The Greek speaking converts in the book of Acts, Paul's in Corinth, even the preacher "to the Hebrews" knew practically nothing of the Bible in its Hebrew original but only through this imperfect translation that proclaimed God's truth anyway - a valuable lesson here for us today!
The image above is a fragment of the LXX's Exodus.
Notes:
[1] For a nice overview of the origin and significance of this wonder to its destruction at the hands of certain Muslims see Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World (University of California Press, 1987, 1990).
[2] See the fine, non-threatening, survey of these issues in Karen H. Jobes & Moises Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker Academic, 2000), 114ff.
[3] See Jobes & Silva's chapter "The Septuagint as a Translation," pp. 86-102.
[4] A translation from the Hebrew text can be found in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol 2, p. 612f edited by James H. Charlesworth.
[5] This is sometimes not noticed by readers of versions like the NIV which will "conform" the Old Testament quotation to match the NT quotation.
[6] In C.K.Barrett, ed., The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, revised edition (SPCK, 1987), 294.
[7] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2000), xxii.
Opening Quotable Quotes
"A single hour lovingly devoted to the text of the Septuagint will further our exegetical knowledge of the Pauline Epistles more than a whole day spent over a commentary" (Adolf Deismann, 1908)
"We also remind the same class of readers, that an intimate acquaintance with the Septuagint Greek of the Old Testament, is of essential importance in translating the New. The seventy Hebrews ... gave to that translation the idiom of their vernacular tongue. Their translation, if I may so speak is a sort of Hebrew Greek. The BODY [sic] is Greek, but the SOUL [sic] is Hebrew ... we have no Greek by which to understand the apostolic writings, but the Greek of the Jewish and Christian Prophets" (Alexander Campbell, General Preface: An Apology for a New Translation of the Living Oracles in 1826).
The Need for an Ancient Translation
The need for a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures came from the historical reality the Jews found themselves in. After exile from their native homeland and then a pattern of migration to Egypt and other parts of the Hellenistic world hastened the loss the language of the ancestors. This migration had begun by Jeremiah's time. In Jeremiah 41-44 we learn of a band of Jews that fled to Egypt after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587/6 BC (Jeremiah as you will recall was kidnapped and forced to flee with the bandits). Another group of Jews were garrisoned by the king of Egypt at Elephantine on the Nile. This Jewish colony even built a temple some time before 525 BC.
Beginning with the conquests of Alexander in 331, however, is when Jews settled in Egypt in large numbers. Alexander constructed the magnificent city of Alexandria to become one of the premier cultural icons of the Greek world. It would replace even Athens as the center of great learning and it had only one language - Greek. By the time Jesus was born over a million Jews lived in Egypt and many of those in Alexandria.
The Jews living in Alexandria, as in most Hellenistic environments soon lost the ability to speak or read Hebrew creating a crisis over hearing God's word. So sometime after 250 B.C. and down to around 150 B.C. the Septuagint (LXX) was born. Jewish legend (alluded to by Campbell above) preserved in the Letter of Aristeas explains the LXX's origins in the following way.
Aristeas was an official in Ptolemy Philadelphus' court, a renown patron of literature. Under Ptolemy the great library of Alexandria was built becoming one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World [1]. Aristeas describes how Demetrius, the king's librarian, contacted Eleazar the High Priest in Jerusalem about obtaining translators to make a Greek translation of Jewish holy books for the library. So Eleazar chose six men from the twelve tribes. These men, after being honored, were sent to the island of Pharos where in seventy-two days the men finished their task. Later versions of the tale tell how the 72 men worked in separate cells and at the end of the 72 days they compared their work and found them to be exactly the same! The Letter of Aristeas is a tall tale of the origin of the Greek Bible but with more than a kernel of historical truth. But it is fascinating that everyone wants to claim divine inspiration for their particular translation.
As a historical tidbit. It seems that the first time the word "Bible" is ever used in reference to the Scriptures is in the Letter of Aristeas itself. In Aristeas verse 316 we read "I have also received from Theodectus the tragic poet (the report) that when he was about to include in a play a passage from what is written in the Bible, he was afflicted with a cataract of the eyes" (Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol 2, p. 34).
The Greek speaking Jews of Alexandria needed a Bible they could understand. Out of that need the Lord providentially worked and the LXX was born.
The Nature of the LXX
The LXX, as a translation of the ancient Hebrew text, is varied. In the Torah the translation appears to be very careful yet throughout the remainder of the "Old Testament" it is uneven. A wooden literalism characterizes sections of Reigns, Jeremiah, Song of Songs and Lamentations making for "awkward Greek." Conversely Esther, Job and Proverbs are much freer bordering paraphrase at times [2]. The LXX reads at times, we have noted previously, quite differently than the Masoretic text (the text represented in most modern Protestant Old Testament translations). These differences can be attributed to several factors:
1) the underlying Hebrew text from which it was translated was different from the
Masoretic text
2) the translation process was unprecedented and therefore does not reveal a pattern
3) the translator made a mistake
4) the theological understanding of the translator
5) a confluence of these circumstances produce varied results [3]
All of the books of the Hebrew Bible are contained within the LXX. However, one of the primary differences between the LXX and the "Old Testament" known to Protestants today is a collection of ancient writings often termed "The Apocrypha." (For more on The Apocrypha see HERE). The word "Apocrypha" means "hidden" which has lead to considerable misunderstanding for Protestants. This misnomer has almost taken on pejorative connotations with some but the term was not used in such a way by the ancients. Within the LXX these books are not distinguished from the rest of the Bible. Indeed most in the early church regarded them as if they were the word of God. These works are:
First Esdras
Second Esdras
Tobit
Judith
The Greek Esther has lengthy sections that are not present in the Hebrew Bible today
Wisdom of Solomon
Sirach
Baruch
Epistle of Jeremiah
Three lengthy sections of Daniel
1) Susanna
2) Bel and the Dragon
3) The Song of the Three Children
First Maccabees
Second Maccabees
Prayer of Manasseh
Psalm 151
Some mss of the LXX also contain 3rd & 4th Maccabees. These books are also known as Deuterocanonical among Roman Catholics but simply Scripture among the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, Ethiopian & Armenian churches. Contemporary scholarship debates the exact extent of the "Jewish" canon prior to 100 A.D. but it is certain that many Jews held these works in very high esteem if not as "scripture" itself prior to the Fall of Jerusalem. All English translations of the Bible used to include The Apocrypha between the "Old Testament" and the "New." These translations include: John Wycliff's, Coverdale's Bible, Matthew's Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible, Bishop's Bible, Rheims-Douay Bible, King James Version, the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version, etc. Most "non-Evangelical" translations of Scripture have included the Apocrypha - RSV, NEB, REB, NRSV, JB, NJB, NAB, and even the ESV.
The NT writers themselves, contrary to oft repeated claims to the contrary, knew the stories and contents of these books. For example Paul alludes to the critique of pagan society in Wisdom of Solomon in Romans 1 and 2 several times. Psalm 151 preserved and known in the LXX for centuries was also discovered extant in Hebrew among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is the Greek version:
This psalm is a genuine one of David, composed when he fought in single combat with Goliath.
I was small among my brethren, and youngest in my father's
house, I tended my father's sheep. My hands formed a
musical instrument, and my fingers tuned a psaltery. And
who shall tell my Lord? the Lord himself, he himself hears.
He sent forth his angel, and took me from my father's sheep,
and he anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brothers
were handsome and tall; but the Lord did not take pleasure
in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine; and he cursed me
by his idols. But I drew his own sword, and beheaded him, and
removed reproach from the children of Israel." [4]
The LXX and Early Christianity
The LXX, not the Hebrew Bible, was the primary theological and literary context within which the writers of the NT and most early Christians worked. It was THE Bible for the first three Christian centuries. In the 150 to 200 years it circulated prior to the advent of Christianity it enabled many Greeks to seek the God of Israel. The LXX's, in God's gracious wisdom, worked naturally as the perfect "missionary" tool of the early apostles, prophets and missionaries. The apostles did not have to invent theological terms for God's revelation in Christ, the LXX had already done that.
Words, important words, that continually grace the pages of the New Testament have a long history of use already in the LXX. Words for law (nomos), atonement (hilaskomai) ... words for truth, grace, mercy, sin, and even worship are all already in the vocabulary of Paul, Peter, John and most of all Jesus. These notions of mercy, grace, righteousness are hardly inconsequential for understanding "New Testament Christianity."
Yet the LXX's influence on early Christianity and the NT itself extends beyond simply word choices. The LXX was "biblical" language for many Jews in the same way the cadences of the King James Version is "biblical" language for many native English speakers. Luke often models his Greek after the biblical "sound" of the LXX. A Jew picking up the Gospel of Luke in the first century would "feel at home" in story. At times the LXX itself is actually the text of the NT. This happens through quotations of the "Old Testament" of which the vast majority in the NT come from the LXX. This fact, btw, often accounts for why a quotation from the "Old Testament" in may actually differ when one turns to the quoted passage [5]. Beyond actual quotations the LXX provides the thought world and "allusions" that NT writers constantly weave into their writings.
A testament to the influence of the LXX in the early Christian centuries is found in the following numbers. More Greek mss of the "Old Testament" survive from antiquity than any other Greek text except the New Testament itself. Counting both complete and fragmentary mss, nearly 2000 handwritten copies of the LXX have come down to us.
Concluding Remark
As important at the LXX was in the early church it is mind blowing some King James Only advocates claim there was no such piece of literature before Christ. But Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish Philosopher, testified to his reverence for the LXX. For him Jews regarded ...
"them [Ancient Hebrew text & LXX] with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather as one and the same, both in matter and words, and speak of the authors not but as prophets and priests of the mysteries ... hand in hand with the purest of spirits, the spirit of Moses" [6]
Modern scholarship has basically confirmed the insight of Alexander Campbell and Adolf Deissmann quoted at the head of this post. The standard Greek lexicon proclaims in its Introduction "As for the influence of the LXX, every page of this lexicon shows that it outweighs all other influences in our literature" [7].
The NT writers "version of choice" was the LXX. The Greek speaking converts in the book of Acts, Paul's in Corinth, even the preacher "to the Hebrews" knew practically nothing of the Bible in its Hebrew original but only through this imperfect translation that proclaimed God's truth anyway - a valuable lesson here for us today!
The image above is a fragment of the LXX's Exodus.
Notes:
[1] For a nice overview of the origin and significance of this wonder to its destruction at the hands of certain Muslims see Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World (University of California Press, 1987, 1990).
[2] See the fine, non-threatening, survey of these issues in Karen H. Jobes & Moises Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker Academic, 2000), 114ff.
[3] See Jobes & Silva's chapter "The Septuagint as a Translation," pp. 86-102.
[4] A translation from the Hebrew text can be found in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol 2, p. 612f edited by James H. Charlesworth.
[5] This is sometimes not noticed by readers of versions like the NIV which will "conform" the Old Testament quotation to match the NT quotation.
[6] In C.K.Barrett, ed., The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, revised edition (SPCK, 1987), 294.
[7] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2000), xxii.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Previous contributions on this thread are linked here: Ancestry of the KJV #1; Ancestry of the KJV #2; Ancestry of the KJV #3; Ancestry of the KJV #4Just a few thoughts on Greek and translation. In order to show in the clearest manner of the difficulty in this I will point out a few differences between English and Greek. Translation is not simply looking up a definition in the back of Strong’s Concordance and then thinking we can “translate.”
Sentence Structure
The beginning point may well be the difference in structure of the unit of language . . . a sentence. At nearly all stages Greek tended toward long and involved sentences, called by stylists "periods." Short sentences with connectives were avoided by the use of participial constructions, and dependent clauses introduced by conjunctions with verbs in dependent moods, or infinitives. For example, the first paragraph after the salutation of the book of Ephesians runs eleven verses, twenty-eight lines, in Nestle's text. The literalistic ASV attempts to reproduce this entire paragraph in one sentence in English. It does so by the unnatural (to English) use of colons and dashes. Earlier in the 20th century E. J. Goodspeed rendered better by casting the participles, relative clauses and infinitives into six English sentences. The TEV does an even better job (in my opinion). The NIV is quite natural in English as well. There are other areas in structure but this is a basic example.
The Greek Definite Article
Few things illustrate the disparity between English and Greek better than the use of the Greek article. First, the absence of an indefinite article in Greek forces the translator to become an interpreter in nearly all cases as to whether the anarthrous Greek noun is indefinite ( "a" or "an") or qualitative. In many cases where Greek has no article the noun is still definite and must be translated with an article in English. These include such constructions as the Hebrew construct state, Colwell's rule where the definite noun usually omits the article if it precedes the copulative verb, the omission of the article in the rule of regimen, and after prepositions. On the other hand, the tendency to use the article in Greek with well-known items at first mention, with class nouns, with the second mention of a noun which is indefinite at first mention (anaphora) especially with proper names and abstract nouns illustrate the opposite tendency. Thus the tendency to translate the Greek and to omit it where it is not present in Greek is a rule of thumb with many pitfalls.
Constructions Lacking in either English or Greek
A list of constructions which exist either in English or Greek but not the other is revealing. The following examples are suggestive rather than exhaustive. Greek has no gerund. It cannot use the participle in naming or speaking of an action such as "walking is a good exercise." This lack is usually supplied by a nominal use of an infinitive in Greek, though nearly all versions use the participle in translating. The Greek participle used with the definite article as a substantive does not occur in English; the translators usually resort to a relative clause: "the one who sows." Greek has a third person imperative, which we can only paraphrase in English. An Optative mood exists in Greek and though it was disappearing in NT times it still occurs 65 times in the NT. Greek has a middle voice expressing what the subject does "for him/herself" . . . this is interpreted into English with a reflexive pronoun. Greek has five case forms for substantives; English retains case form only in pronouns and even then only three. The differences be compensated for in many ways . . . usually with prepositional phrases such as "of" for the genitive of possession or "in" with the locative of place. This list could be much extended . . . but the effect on so called "literal" translation is obvious.
Ambiguous Constructions in Greek
Greek has many constructions where only the context, and the interpretation of the translator, can decide which of two meanings was intended. Many times, for example, the translation turns on whether the participle is to be taken as middle or passive. The genitive with the noun of action may be either subjective or objective, and even the faithful ASV does not hesitate to decide which (as in 2 Tim 1.12 and Acts 4.9). A Greek adverbial participle may have any one of a number of meanings according to the context: condition, concession, time, cause, purpose. Nearly always the English translator (even in the ASV) must decide which. A standard beginning grammar of NT Greek will list numerous uses of the genitive case ("of") or the accusative (English objective), each with a difference in translation. In each case the translator must decide (i.e. interpret) by the context which use is intended.
Let me illustrate the actual impossibility of a literal "word for word" translation by showing that a student who looked up every word in a typical Greek sentence and set one word in English over the Greek . . . it would look like this:
"And it became in one of the days teaching of him the people in the temple and evangelizing they stood up the high priests and the scribes with the presbyters and they said saying against him, they tell us in such authority these things you do." (Luke 20.1-2 . . . as literal as you can get).
This is not translation!!!
Or how about one single Greek word . . . "angareuo" used in Matthew 5.41.
There is an awful lot of information in this one little verb and it is "literally" impossible to render this one Greek verb with one English verb. It combines at least the following basic semantic components of meaning: 1) burdensome activity; 2) which is compelled; 3) by officers or soldiers of an occupation force; and 4) on non-citizens or persons without status. A so called "literal" rendering of this verb misses the meaning in English (and the NIV is quite "literal" at this point). A good rendering of this might be the TEVs rendering of the text "if one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack . . . "
One final illustration from part of p46 which is pictured above. This portion has our 2 Cor 11.33 to the beginning of 12.2. The numbers correspond to the line numbers on p46. For this papyrus and other early NT mss with transcriptions and photographs see Philip W. Comfort & David Barrett The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts.
1 εν σαργανη εχαλασθην δια του τειχους
in a basket I was lowered through the wall
2 και εξεφυγον τας χειρας αυτου καυχασ
and escaped his hand. To boast
3 θαι δει ου συμφερον μεν ελευσομαι δε
it is necessary (although not expedient indeed), and I will come
4 εις οπτασιας και αποκαλυψεις κυ οιδα
to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know
Our Stoned-Campbell forefathers understood translation principles and practice better than some of their descendants. Moses E. Lard's comments on H. T. Anderson's translation marks a fitting conclusion to our discussion to this point ...
"The sense of the sacred text should be expressed in the fewest English words that adequately convey it to mind. These words, let me add, should be arranged with no reference to the order of the words of the original. The usages of the English and modes of English thought alone should determine the form the English sentence should take ... We should always prefer two or three or even more simple easy words to one learned or unfamiliar one in making a translation" (Moses Lard, "H. T. Anderson's Translation" Lard's Quarterly 2 [January 1865], 190, 191)
Lard understood both Greek and English.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Quotable Quote
"The Bible is the most remarkable piece of literature this world has ever seen. It has outsold every other publication, it has been translated into more languages than any other, and has become part of the fabric of society in the English-speaking world ...
Humanly speaking, it took more than 1500 years to compile the Bible. About forty authors contributed, and they wrote primarily in Greek and Hebrew, with occasional Aramaic ...
Some people were so committed to the belief that this is God's book that they were even willing to die for that proposition. And strangely, others have been willing to put them to death. The bitterness and resentment against this book is difficult to explain ... Even in the twentieth century in some countries men and women have been imprisoned and tortured for reading this forbidden book" (Ken Connolly, The Indestructible Book: The Bible, It's Translators, and Their Sacrifices, p. 7)
Here are Links to previous blogs in this thread: Ancestry of the KJV #1; Ancestry of the KJV #2; Ancestry of the KJV #3.
The Alphabet
When we speak of the Bible, we used a word which originally referred to a particular kind of writing material. When we speak of the Scriptures, we use a word which denotes the writing and not the material.
Writing has been around for a long time. But not all languages are alphabetic. Akkadian, Egyptian, Sumerian, and modern Chinese are examples of non-alphabetic writing. The invention of the alphabet was of monumental importance in human cultural development. It is usually believed that the alphabet has African or Semitic roots. Alphabetic writing is known from Ugarit and even older examples known as the Sinai inscriptions discovered in the earlier part of the 20th century. The earliest samples of Hebrew include the Gezer calendar and the Lachish Ostraca.
How does this affect translation? Well once we have an alphabet learning to read and write is a much simpler matter. In Judges 8.14 we read how Gideon laid his hands on a young man of Succoth, who according to the KJV and the ASV "described" to him the chief men of the city. The marginal reading of both versions point out that the ordinary sense of the Hebrew word is "wrote." But that person should have been able to write at this time seemed unlikely to the translators. When the ASV (1901) was produced the oldest alphabetic writing was the Moabite Stone three hundred years later than Gideon. Now, however, it seems more reasonable to scholars that a person actually could have "wrote down" (NIV) for Gideon a list of the elders of Succoth.
Hebrew
Most of the "Old Testament" is written in Hebrew. Hebrew is classified as a Semitic language. This family of languages center on Palestine and the upper Tigris-Euphrates River Valley. In the "Old Testament" the language is known as the "lip of Canaan" or "language of Canaan."
The language of Israel's surrounding neighbors was very similar to Hebrew. The Moabite Stone for example is fairly easily read by those familiar with Hebrew script. Ugaritic is also closely related to Hebrew.
Hebrew has twenty-two letters - all of which are consonants. Hebrew has no vowels. The language is written from the right to the left instead of left to right as in English.
Aramaic
Aramaic, also a Semitic language, was a major language in the Ancient Near East. We find examples of Aramaic scattered throughout the "Old Testament." It surfaces in Genesis 31.47; Jeremiah 10.11; along with longer sections in Daniel 2.4v-7.28; Ezra 4.8-6.18 and 7.12-26. Aramaic was the language of Syria, a kingdom we read of often in the Book of Kings.
In the eighth century BC, when the Assyrian Empire ruled the world, they made Aramaic the trade language of the world. Letters to Egypt or Judea were written in this language.
In 2 Kings 18.17-37 (cf. Isaiah 36.2-22) we read of the "non-use" of Aramaic by the Assyrian delegation to Jerusalem in 701 BC. Hezekiah sent officials out to meet this Assyrian Rabshakeh (a title not his name). Rabshakeh broke with the convention and spoke in Hebrew so the people on the wall could understand him. Hezekiah's men protested saying "please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it" (18.26). The noble refused. He wanted the citizens of Jerusalem to understand his fearful message.
After the Exile Hebrew began to loose its usage among even the Israelites. Aramaic became the language of the average Jew. In Nehemiah's time we read that a translation had to be made of the Law, which was written in Hebrew, into Aramaic so the people could understand:
"They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so the people could understand what was being read" (Neh 8.8)
The words "making it clear" come from the Hebrew mephorash a technical term in the diplomatic service of the Persian Empire to denote the procedure when an official would read from his Aramaic document into the native tongue of that province. It was translation.
Aramaic would eventually become the mother tongue of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus probably knew some Greek and likely Hebrew but those would not have been the language spoken around the dinner table in his home. Several words have come to us straight from the Aramaic into our English. The word abba (Mk 14.36, etc) is a word used in paternal address. The Jews never used "abba" in addressing God in prayer ... it seemingly disrespected his Majesty. Jesus thought differently.
One word that was meaningful to early Christians was the Aramaic term marana tha ... "our Lord, come!" May he do so ...
P.S. the photo at the top is of the proto-Sinaitic script which is one of the first alphabetic scrips known in history dating to about 1100 BC. Two significant finds have been made: one by the Petrie's in 1904-5 and by the Darnell's in 1999.
Monday, January 3, 2011
See my previous Ancestry of the KJV #1 and Ancestry of the KJV #2The Beginnings ...
When the Lord God called Moses to lead a band of slaves out of the horrors of Egyptian slavery he, an 80 yr old man, would change human history. Up until Moses there had been no Bible of any kind. Moses would become the first great prophet of Yahweh's good news. Tradition has it that Moses was the first great author of the Pentateuch but whether or not he wrote it all need not detain us. He did write and that is the beginning of "enscripturation." Moses did not go one night to Kinko's to have Genesis or Deuteronomy copied on a xerox machine. He likely did not have the opportunity to visit Wal-Mart to buy spiral bound college ruled notebooks either. The making of a book in the Ancient Near East was a far different process than today.
The most likely surface for Moses to have written on was clay tablets or possibly stone. The Ten Words (commandments) were so written (Ex 32.19; 34.4). Paper as we know it did not exist. Papyrus was used to make a paper "like" sheet but was very fragile. Most important documents were inscribed on clay tablets. Like this example of one of the Amarna Letters uncovered from Akhenaton's capital city dating to about 1400 B.C.
Thus a "book" in Moses' day did not have pages rather it had tablets with writing on both sides. A good example of this would be the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian story with affinities to the story in Genesis, is recorded on 6 or 7 tablets.
Much later in history scrolls became common. Though not as durable as clay tablets they were used throughout the Mediterranean basin. Scrolls were, and still are, made mostly of leather. Hide would be dried and smoothed out to make Vellum. Writing would be done on the inside so the writing would be protected. Scrolls could become bulky. For example a the Gospel of Luke would be about 34 feet long. The Isaiah scroll among the Dead Sea Scrolls is over 30 feet long. Knowing this helps us have greater appreciation for the story in Luke 4 where the scroll was handed to Jesus and he turned "to the place where it was written" (referring to Isa 61 cited in Lk 4.17). The Temple Scroll, another treasure from Qumran, is 28 feet long. Here is the famous Isaiah scroll ...
The epistles in the New Testament were most likely written on papyrus instead of leather. Here is a picture of p75
But "how" did the biblical writers go about writing their books? What can we know about their craft? Did they just one day sit down and write, say, 1 Kings, or Psalms or the Gospel of Luke? Did they collect data (do research?) Or were they simply a supernatural word processor that God downloaded a PDF file? The Bible does not answer all these questions directly, however it does provide some remarkable insight into some of these matters.
Here is an exercise for you: Compare Isaiah 36. 1, 4, 11f with 2 Kings 18.13,19ff, 26ff. Note how 2 Kings 18.13-20 is reproduced in Isaiah 36-39.
Jeremiah as our Laboratory
The Book of Jeremiah is one biblical book that makes it clear that it was not composed all at the same time. Indeed this book was written over a period of no less than 18 years and perhaps much longer. The text of the Book tells us that our present book is actually made up of three books that have probably been brought together by Baruch. We are told about the writing down of Jeremiah's oracles in the following manner:
"In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations" (36.1-2)
This command came to Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign or in 605 B.C. By this time Jeremiah had been preaching for 22 years. If we take this command seriously, and I see no reason to doubt its veracity, then prior to this time Jeremiah had not published his oracles in his Jeremiah sermon book! This scroll that Jeremiah had copied out was destroyed by that Judean king and was burned a sliver at a time in the fire (Jer 36.22-23). Thus the "first edition" of Jeremiah suffered a fate that William Tyndale's early efforts would suffer ... pyromaniacs got a hold of it. Jeremiah was instructed to make a second edition (36.27-29). So the prophet called upon the services of his scribe Baruch. The Bible says that Jeremiah called "Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote upon a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD which he had spoken to him" (36.4).
This rewritten scroll was the beginning of our present canonical Jeremiah. This scroll did not contain all our present book of Jeremiah for the prophet ministered for another 18 years after this scroll was written ... The ministry of Jeremiah lasted at least till 586 BC. This scroll probably consisted of chapters 1-25 of our Book. In 25.13 we read, "I will bring upon that land all the words which I have uttered against it, everything written in THIS book, which Jeremiah prophesied against the nations." What makes this statement significant is the reference to "this book" and "this book" is given the same date of the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign (25.1). So the first stage of making our Book of Jeremiah took place around 605 B.C. when Baruch wrote down Jeremiah's early sermons.
The Second Book begins with 46.1 which also referred to a "book" in the Hebrew text. This is a collection of oracles against the nations from chapters 46-51. This second book ends with the words "The words of Jeremiah end here" (51.64b).
The Third component in our canonical Book is called the "Book of Conssolation." It is called such because in it God assures Judah of his grace and the promise of restoration following the Exile. We read in the text "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you" (30.2). Jeremiah's Book of Consolation is written near the END of the prophet's ministry because it is written AFTER the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (which is presupposed in the text, 30.18-21; 31.23-28).
What can we conclude from these seams in the Book of Jeremiah? There were three books: 1) chapters 1-25; 2) chapters 30-31; 3) chapters 46-51. The remaining material in our present Book of Jeremiah consists of chapters 26-29; 32-45; and 52. What is significant about this material in chapters 26-29, 32-45 and 52 is in narrative prose and written almost exclusively in the third person. The material in the other chapters is poetry and oracle in nature. Chapter 52 is almost verbatim 2 Kings 24-25. It is not hard to imagine that Baruch, Jeremiah's loyal scribe, took these three works and put them together and adding the narrative portions about Jeremiah (not just what Jeremiah said). This is how, it appears to me, that at least one book of our Bible was made.
Biblical Writers Use of Research in Composing their Works
Earlier we asked if biblical authors used resources or did "research" in their writing. We have learned from the Book of Jeremiah that our present book clearly went through stages or editions before it came to be what we have today. Other writers went through a process as well. The books in the Hebrew Bible we call Chronicles, Ezra & Nehemiah and Joshuah-2 Kings (one longer work) make frequent use of an ancient version of MLA. I will focus on Chronicles briefly however. The Chronicler is deeply interested in the Temple and seeks an answer to the question (answered throughout his writing): "Will God take us back? Will God dwell with us again?" As he writes his history in search of an answer to that question he peppers his material with "footnotes." The following is probably an incomplete list of works he used in his research ...
1) The annals of King David (1 C 27.24)
2) The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah (2 C 27.7; 35.27; 36.8)
3) The Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (2 C 16.11; 25.26; 28.26; 32.32)
4) The Book of the Kings (2 C 9.1; 2 C 24.27)
5) The Decree of David the King of Israel and the Decree of Solomon his Son (2 C 35.4)
6) The Annotations of the Book of the Kings (2 C 24.27)
7) The Records of Nathan the prophet, the Records of Gad the Seer (1 C29.29; 2 C 9.29)
8) The prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 C 9.29)
9) The Visions of Iddo the Seer (2 C 9.29)
10) The history of Uzziah which Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz has written down (2 C 26.22)
It seems fairly obvious that the Chronicler did quite a bit of research in his effort to communicate a message sorely needed in 400 B.C. Yes, Yahweh WILL take us back in his infinite grace! Research was not limited to the Hebrew Scriptures alone. Luke makes it quite clear that he was a diligent student claiming
"Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first to write an orderly account ..." (1.1-3).
Luke indicates he conducted interviews and collected and evaluated written sources much like the Chronicler had done long before him.
In this post we have looked at the process, as best we can, of how some of the books of the Bible were made. Inspiration included this phenomena. Over a period of time all these books that were made were gathered together to form our present Book of Books ... the Bible.
P.S.
The "editions" of Jeremiah continued after what became our canonical book in the Hebrew text. The Septuagint (LXX) edition of Jeremiah (the Greek translation) is nearly 3000 words shorter than the Hebrew version. And in the LXX the "Epistle of Jeremiah" was often appended to the Book itself. For a nontechnical, and fascinating, introduction to these matters I recommend Steve Delamarter's "But Who Gets the Last Word: Thus Far the Words of Jeremiah" in Bible Review (October 1999): 34-45
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