Bethlehem

Archive for January, 1970

J. K. Gayle has a couple of posts on translating the Psalms that are really quite helpful.  The first one I read, which is actually the second, is The Difficulty of Psalm 90, in which he discusses some thinking and feeling that may be generated by hearing the Psalm and the first one, which I read second, various poet translators turning around Tehillim 90, which provides several translations with different approaches and characteristics.

I personally find some things I like and some I don’t like so much in all of these translations, which is not a criticism of any of them.  I really appreciated the chance to read them all side by side.  And as much as some of this material deserves comment, that’s not my purpose in writing this post.

Probably the most difficult question I’m asked when I am teaching is this:  What is he best Bible version?  I find that terribly difficult, and I annoy people who ask it all the time.  They think it deserves a simple answer.  I should be able to point them to the one best version, and they can just go use that one.

But instead I ask them what they’re going to use it for, how they approach studying the Bible, and something about their own study and background.  What’s the best Bible version?  The simple answer, which I put on the cover of my book, is:  The best Bible version is  he one you read!

I usually get by for that one for a few minutes until some bright person wonders just which Bible version they will actually read, and then we’re back to the starting point.

Now I haven’t always been this way.  When I was in college I could have given you the simple answer, and I would have been satisfied with it.  I would have recommended a mostly literal version.  In those days that probably would have been the NASB.  But then I did some more studying and I became concerned with comprehension.  That made things much harder.  Now in those days there were many less options available, but I was also concerned with how I would translate in my studies.

It seems that over the years I have become so much less knowledgeable on this subject.  At least I can no longer provide a single, definitive answer to the question, and my response seems to get longer every time I try.  When I hear a preacher say, “What the Greek really says is …” I cringe, not just because he’s probably wrong, but because he’s probably missing so much even if he’s right in some sense.

The problem is that translation always loses something, and I suspect always adds something to a text.  Now I’m not going to start claiming that all translations are equal.  There are wrong translations, but there are many partially right translations.

One of my own early problems was checking translations purely on propositional content.  Is a translation of a parable or a poem correct because it contains the same set of propositions?  Is a clear translation of a parable more correct than an obscure one, irrespective of how clear the parable is in the first place?

The problem is that we often translate as a means of conveying information about the Christian religion.  But just as I’ve found over the years that simply knowing the cognitive content of my faith is far from sufficient, so I have come to learn that the cognitive content of a translation may be much less than adequate.  When I left graduate school I was quite well acquainted with Christian doctrines and very well acquainted with the Bible.  I was referred to as “the human concordance.”  I knew what was there.

At the same time I left the seminary with that knowledge I also left the church.  I returned in a church pastored by a man who knew no Greek and Hebrew at all, but who did know Jesus.

I was again reminded of this same issue in a different form when I was discussing with my former student Geoffrey Lentz.  (Geoffrey was my student when he was high school age.  He has since graduated with an MDiv from Duke.)  We were discussing sermons, and I expressed my distress with that particular genre of speech.  (I am occasionally invited to preach, though not by tense clock-watchers!)  I commented that I found it very hard to really cover a subject in 15-20 minutes.  He said to me, “I regard a sermon more as poetry than prose.”

How’s that for student teacher reversal?

I think it’s the same point.  The content of faith and spirituality is not simply cognitive.  There can be a variety of ways to express it.  It can be felt as well as known.  It can be expressed in many ways.  Often our best translations of the propositions of faith can suck the life right out of it.

Or so it seems to me in the growing ignorance of 30 years since I graduated.

Source: Henry Neufeld

I’ve probably mentioned a few times that I studied under Dr. Alden Thompson at Walla Walla University (then WWC).  He’s the one who taught me Hebrew, though actually I joined his class in the second year, and also introduced me to Aramaic.  But more importantly, he introduced me to what I believe is a very constructive way of dealing with Bible difficulties.

He’s just written a book, Beyond Common Ground: Why Liberals and Conservatives Need Each Other which pulls together many of the things I’ve heard him teach over the years.

I’ll get around to referencing some of those on this blog as I have time, but today I just want to share a video put out by the publisher in which Alden discusses how he goes about understanding some passages from Luke. Now Alden is an Old Testament scholar (PhD, University of Edinburgh), but his passion is for Bible study amongst the laity.

I’m delighted this little book has been published. My major regret is that it may be neglected because it is published by Pacific Press, a Seventh-day Adventist publisher. Though it was written to help address conflicts within that denomination, the ideas are applicable elsewhere as well. I’ve heard Alden teach some of this material to rooms filled with United Methodists, for example.

Alden Thompson is also the author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? which my company publishes, besides being one of my teachers, so perhaps I am not fully free of bias.

Nah. This book is good!

Source: Henry Neufeld

A couple of days ago I linked to a post by J. K. Gayle which is in response to John Hobbins on the question of listing things one needs to read in order to understand the Bible.  I mentioned that I might sound more like J. K. Gayle than John Hobbins when I got around to writing.  John since drew blood (only in the very best sense!) when he drew attention in a comment to the list that is shown in my own masthead.

And indeed my masthead (or header) is a list, and perhaps a more specialized list than either Hobbins or Gayle were discussing.  I produced the header by cropping a section from a picture of my “ready reading” bookcase, the one that sits on my desk and provides my “at arm’s reach” reference and reading.  Those are books I either use regularly in study or that I’m reading or planning to read soon.  There are two more shelves in that bookcase, but those shelves wouldn’t change the composition.  The books would still generally be written by “privileged white males” and the range of subjects would remain largely the same.

But that list also has a context.  It’s the one on my desk.  In my office there is also a computer table, at which I sit more often than I sit at my desk.  There are also eight additional bookcases around the walls, generally much larger than the one that actually sits on my desk.  On these shelves you will find books that vary from mystery and science fiction to literary classics.  You’ll find books in a number of languages.  One of those bookcases is given over to various Bible translations and editions that have interested me over the years.

There are books that reflect my theological history, such as a substantial selection of the books of Ellen G. White, early leader and prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist church and the full set of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary and associated reference series, with my uncle Don F. Neufeld as associate editor of earlier volumes and finally editor of the later ones, such as the Bible Dictionary.  There are books reflecting my search through various traditions and through skepticism, and there are others that reflect my examination of the United Methodist Church.

Finally, I can point to the list of books my company publishes.  We’re about to release our 28th title, The Character of Our Discontent by Dr. Allan R. Bevere.  One might make a similar criticism of that list, which is that it is largely written by white males of privilege, though the list does include some women as writers, one of whom is my wife and partner in this business, Jody.

But as I noted in the previous post I have made many lists myself.  When I teach classes, even Sunday School classes, I make suggested reading lists.  I have suggested reading lists in my own books, trying to tell learners where more can be found.  So it is not so much the idea of lists in itself that I find objectionable, though I approach them with mixed emotions.  It’s particularly the idea of lists that try to specify what one must read in order to be regarded as literate, or, for that matter, in order to understand the Bible or some other piece of literature.

And even there I must try to nuance my point.  It’s not that lists of suggested reading that will help one understand a particular text are not of value, or even necessary.  The problem is that they are, I believe, at one and the same time both incomplete and too overbearing.  A few times over the years I’ve heard two list builders get into debates about their particular lists, claiming that you really didn’t know ____ unless you had read ______, but the lists didn’t coincide.  Then come the accusations that one or the other person hasn’t done his or her homework because of the missing reading.  It’s especially humorous if the accusations can go both ways–and they usually can.

But here’s what set me off about John’s post in the first place:

Frye taught me, in my own words, that you cannot understand the Bible unless you’ve read Ovid, Milton, and Blake first. Who do you think one must read first in order to understand the Bible?

Really?  I <em>cannot</em> understand the Bible unless I’ve read those particular people?  I just don’t see it.  They’re all pretty good reading recommendations, and I think it would be interesting to take a class discussing reading through that particular set of lenses, but I see no reason whatsoever to <em>privilege</em> that set of lenses over another.

There are many possibilities for how I might be reading and studying the Bible.  I would place considerable emphasis, for example, on finding the historical meaning.  That quest is being ridiculed now in many quarters, but I’m not in agreement.  I think there’s a point to being chastened in our assurance that we actually <em>can</em> get to the precise historical meaning, but I don’t agree that there’s little point in trying.

Studying through reception is itself an interesting and valuable quest, but it is not the only one.  It seems that this particular quest shares a failing that I see through the entire history of modern Biblical studies and even leading into postmodern–the notion that one’s particular approach to the Bible is the whole story.  Form critics tend to see everything as orally transmitted even when it isn’t, and once form criticism is done, one “understands” the text.  Redaction and source critics think that once they’ve untangled the threads (or think they have) and described how they were woven together, they understand the text.  Canonical critics, in turn, think that everything about the text when they understand it in its canonical setting.  (This is the form of the error to which I believe I am personally most susceptible.) When we move to reader-response, suddenly the historical writer gets lost and it’s all about readers and how they feel about the text.

Now doubtless I have oversimplified the picture here and aficionados of various of these methodologies will likely point out to me where they do not entirely ignore any valid data from the other disciplines, but it is a rare book that really pays tribute to the various approaches, and I suspect it’s unfair to ask that.

But what I would ask is that when providing lists, one might nuance them by saying something like, “You need to read ______ in order to study the text in the way that I prefer.”

My training emphasized languages and ancient near eastern literature.  That’s the way I wanted to study the Bible, particularly the Hebrew scriptures–as a piece of ancient near eastern literature.  Now a number of other approaches have become part of my arsenal, precisely because I ended up both teaching in the church, largely teaching people who will never see a seminary, and they need to hear the Bible as something other than a merely historical text.  That doesn’t mean I abandoned history.  It does mean that I picked up some of these additional tools.  But I find Milton and Blake distinctly unhelpful in the historical part of my studies.  (I can’t say the same for Ovid, but that would be another topic.)

If I might now turn to J. K. Gayle’s response, I was planning to write something which would doubtless have occupied may words, but Bob MacDonald already said it, and did so much more efficiently than I would have in this comment.  I would copy it here, but I think that would blunt the point.  You really should read J. K. Gayle’s post first (and preferable go back from there to John’s post) before you’ll hear it.  Then Bob applied a few more good words to the topic in his post a good argument for wider reading.

Just so, Bob.  Just so!

Source: Henry Neufeld

J. K. Gayle takes on John Hobbins’ question.  Not precisely answers it.  He takes it on.

I have this post on my list of posts I want to respond to, but I haven’t yet had time.  Let me simply state that there are few forms of writing to which I react more negatively than universally required reading lists–and I have even written a few myself.  There are lists of things you have to read to be a good American, to be literate, and so forth.  Considering the amount of good reading available, I find such lists pretty arrogant (yes, including any ones I’ve ever written).

I think I will write more on this, but I wanted to call attention to the two approaches here.  In this case, I think I’ll come out sounding more like J. K. Gayle when I do write.

Source: Henry Neufeld

I’ve written a note on his resignation from RTS on my Threads blog.

Source: Henry Neufeld

This time it’s from J. K. Gayle at Aristotle’s Feminist Subject.  I’m not getting into this debate.  In general, I’m going to link to any list that has me on it (it’s a nice thank you, I think), and to any list that I find interesting (that’s a service to my readers).

I’m honestly not that sure this should be called a biblioblog anyhow.  I don’t post things for scholars, generally.  I actually set the blog up to allow me to write on topics I’m teaching on in various Sunday School classes, and to separate musings about particular texts from more general “opinion” blogging.  When I wasn’t listed on the old biblioblog top 50, which was right up until the last couple of months, it seemed appropriate.

On the other hand, I appreciate Jeremy doing all that work.  Jeremy – the cowbell idea is a winner!

Source: Henry Neufeld

You can sign up.  They are only guaranteeing delivery for shipping addresses in the United States, but are working on others, and list a number of countries to which they should be able to ship as well.  You can also still download a free copy of Matthew.  I hope to get around to writing a brief review of that soon.

(HT:  Wesley Report)

Source: Henry Neufeld

Michael Patton blogs today about another way not to do apologetics, in this case responding to an e-mail he received claiming that giants had been found in Greece.  The e-mail associated these giants with the Nephilim of scripture and claimed that the photos proved that the Bible was accurate.

It shouldn’t be necessary to say that no giants were dug up in Greece, and that these giants that were not dug up do not somehow prove the Bible.  But there are an unfortunate number of Christians who believe these things uncritically.  I receive similar e-mails quite frequently, though I haven’t (yet) received one about the giants.

In case you wanted to know just how the pictures involved in the e-mail (some of which are duplicated on Dr. Patton’s site), you can check this page from Snopes.  The discussion on Snopes illustrates some points about such hoaxes.  First, they are recycled over and over again with different stories.  This one originated in 2004.  Second, it’s usually easy to find out what happened.  In this case the folks over at snopes.com already did the work.  Third, none of this will make much difference.  People will keep forwarding the e-mail.  Doubtless new stories will be written about it.

Source: Henry Neufeld

… at who am i? (Sorry I’m late with the link!)

Source: Henry Neufeld

… at Free Old Testament Audio.  Surprisingly, considering how little I blogged last month and how much my 30 day Alexa number rose (not good!) I remain #9.

Source: Henry Neufeld