{"id":47961,"date":"2024-10-04T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=47961"},"modified":"2024-10-01T08:10:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T14:10:33","slug":"on-overreliance-on-specific-bible-translations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/10\/on-overreliance-on-specific-bible-translations\/","title":{"rendered":"On Overreliance on Specific Bible Translations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One aspect of Islam that I appreciate is their approach to translation of scriptures. You see, the Quran is considered a sacred text that was originally revealed in Arabic, and translations into other languages are often called “interpretations”. This is because Muslims believe that the Quran’s sacred character is unique to the Arabic language, and that translating it into another language changes its meaning. While I don\u2019t know that the original language of a volume of scripture is sacred per se<\/em>, any translation of that text can be viewed as an interpretation that changes its meaning to one degree or another and should be approached with a degree of caution as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Renaissance has an excellent example of why this is important to keep in mind while reading scripture. In Western Europe, the Vulgate (a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible prepared by Jerome) was the main form of the Bible used throughout the middle ages. As humanism began to gain traction, however, there was an increased emphasis on going back to original sources. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Erasmus of Rotterdam) was a key figure in this movement\u2019s impact on Christianity due to his work on scholarly Greek and Latin editions of the New Testament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his work in comparing the Bible text with earlier Greek manuscripts, Erasmus discovered that some Catholic doctrines were problematic because they relied specifically on the Vulgate in ways that the Greek did not support. Christian historian Diarmaid MacCulloch shared an example of this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Most notorious was Erasmus\u2019s retranslation of Gospel passages (especially Matthew 3.2) where John the Baptist is presented in the Greek as crying out to his listeners in the wilderness, \u2018metanoeite<\/em>\u2019. Jerome had translated this as poenitentiam agite<\/em>, \u2018do penance\u2019, and the medieval Church had pointed to the Baptist\u2019s cry as biblical support for its theology of the sacrament of penance. Erasmus said that John had told his listeners to come to their senses, or repent, and he translated the command into Latin as resipiscite<\/em>. Indeed, throughout the Bible, it was very difficult to find any direct reference to Purgatory, as Orthodox theologians had been pointing out to Westerners since the thirteenth century.<\/p>\nDiarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years<\/em>, Kindle Edition, 596.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This translation undercut the Catholic system of penance, including the payment of indulgences that Martin Luther would oppose (partly based on Erasmus\u2019s work). In another example, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Erasmus faced up more honestly than most theologians to one problem which later proved as troublesome to Protestants as to Catholics, and whose solution was unavoidably dependent on the exploitation of allegorical reading of the Bible, whether humanists and Protestants liked it or not. This was the universally held belief in Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity \u2013 that she had remained a virgin all her life. Much of the traditional case for this belief, which has no direct justification in scripture, was based on allegorical use of Ezekiel 44.2, which talks about the shutting of a gate which only the Lord could enter. This was then bolstered by the forced Greek and Latin reading of Isaiah\u2019s original Hebrew prophecy that a young woman would conceive a son, Immanuel (Isaiah 7.14; see p. 81). Erasmus could not read these texts as Jerome had done. In response to shocked complaints about his comments, he set out a precise position: \u2018We believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, although it is not expounded in the sacred books.\u2019<\/p>\nDiarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years<\/em>, Kindle Edition, 596\u2013597.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Another Catholic doctrine (the perpetual virginity of Mary) proved to hinge on the translations that had been commonly used for the past millennia rather than the actual texts of the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These specific points proved to be fodder for Protestant Reformers, but I think they highlight a broader issue\u2014overreliance on a specific translation as a source of doctrine. One example of a doctrinal interpretation that relies on the language of the King James Version comes in the narrative of Adam and Eve. When the Lord God is talking to Adam about the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, He states, \u201c Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life\u201d (Genesis 3:17). Based on this specific wording and the Latter-day Saint view of a fortunate Fall, some Latter-day Saint leaders have interpreted the phrase \u201ccursed is the ground for thy sake<\/em>\u201d in a very positive way. For example, President Marion G. Romney of the First Presidency taught: \u201cNote that the curse was not placed upon Adam, but upon the ground for Adam\u2019s sake. Rather than a curse upon Adam, it was a blessing to him\u201d (\u201cIn Mine Own Way,\u201d Ensign<\/em>, Nov. 1976, 125). The problem here is that \u201cfor thy sake\u201d doesn\u2019t actually mean \u201cfor your benefit,\u201d as President Romney thought. A better translation is \u201cbecause of you.\u201d For example, in the NRSV, it reads \u201cBecause you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, \u2018You shall not eat of it,\u2019 cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life\u201d (Genesis 3:17, NRSV). The NIV also renders this as \u201cCursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.\u201d Thus, this is a situation where an interpretation is based on the specific wording of the KJV that does not hold water when going back to original sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A more peripheral example is from a General Conference talk by Linda K. Burton from 2017. In the talk, she discussed reading in the gospels about how \u201ccertain women\u201d were present at key moments in the Passion narrative. Then she noted how she interprets the phrase:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I have read and passed over the seemingly unremarkable expression \u201ccertain women\u201d numerous times before, but recently as I pondered more carefully, those words seemed to jump off the page. Consider these synonyms of one meaning of the word certain as connected to faithful, certain women: \u201cconvinced,\u201d \u201cpositive,\u201d \u201cconfident,\u201d \u201cfirm,\u201d \u201cdefinite,\u201d \u201cassured,\u201d and \u201cdependable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I pondered those powerful descriptors, I remembered two of those New Testament certain women who bore positive, confident, firm, assured testimonies of the Savior. Though they, like us, were imperfect women, their witness is inspiring. <\/p>\nLinda K. Burton, \u201cCertain Women,\u201d Conference Report, April 2017, https:\/\/www.churchofjesuschrist.org\/study\/general-conference\/2017\/04\/certain-women?lang=eng<\/a>.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She does mention in the footnotes that, \u201cIn English the word certain has a second meaning of \u2018a selection of\u2019 or \u2018a variety of,\u2019\u201d which, from what I can tell, is more in line with the meaning of the Greek. For example, modern translations of the same passages she discussed have interpreted the same phrase as \u201csome women,\u201d \u201csome women of our group,\u201d or \u201csome of our women\u201d (see NRSV and NIV for Luke 8:1\u20133 and Luke 24:22\u201323.) In this case, it doesn\u2019t negate the basic purpose and message of her talk, but it isn\u2019t a great way of getting to that point. I can imagine that it also caused a fair amount of headaches for the folks translating her talk into other languages that don\u2019t have that double meaning like it does in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this is partly why I am hesitant to limit myself to the King James Version or any other specific translation of the Bible in my study. As I stated up front, any translation of the Bible can be viewed as an interpretation that changes its meaning to one degree or another and should be approached with a degree of caution as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One aspect of Islam that I appreciate is their approach to translation of scriptures. You see, the Quran is considered a sacred text that was originally revealed in Arabic, and translations into other languages are often called “interpretations”. This is because Muslims believe that the Quran’s sacred character is unique to the Arabic language, and that translating it into another language changes its meaning. While I don\u2019t know that the original language of a volume of scripture is sacred per se, any translation of that text can be viewed as an interpretation that changes its meaning to one degree or another and should be approached with a degree of caution as a result. The Renaissance has an excellent example of why this is important to keep in mind while reading scripture. In Western Europe, the Vulgate (a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible prepared by Jerome) was the main form of the Bible used throughout the middle ages. As humanism began to gain traction, however, there was an increased emphasis on going back to original sources. Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Erasmus of Rotterdam) was a key figure in this movement\u2019s impact on Christianity due to his work on scholarly Greek and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2907,2906],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-testament","category-old-testament"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47988,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47961\/revisions\/47988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}