Money, Honor, and Bible Translation
It’s well known that the Greek word for “honor” (timi, often spelled timē) also means “price.” This is why timi is used to translate both the Hebrew kavod (“honor”) and the Hebrew m’chir (“price”). It’s also why timi in Matthew 27:6 is translated as “price,” while in Hebrews 2:7, it’s “honor.” Indeed, lexicons often have two entries for the Greek timi, as though the word means two different things.
But that modern analysis isn’t really right.
It’s not quite true that the word timi has two meanings. Rather, “honor” and “price” were considered the same sort of thing in Greek culture, and they were both timi.
As with many cross-cultural, cross-linguistic matters, this claim at first sounds absurd to English speakers, for whom “honor” and “price” have nothing in common, and, in fact, are in a sense nearly opposites. “Price” has to do with mundane matters like money, while “honor” operates on a different plane. (Yet even in English we both “pay a price” and “pay honor.”)
The background that created these two aspects of timi — which we call “honor” and “price” in English — is both fascinating and complicated. For now, we can note that “honor” was a general measure of a person’s value, while a “price” was a measure of a thing’s value, and, sadly, also of a person’s value, as a result of slavery. (If you’re really interested, start with Richard Seaford’s Money and the Early Greek Mind.)
The basic similarity of “honor” and “price” — both a measure of value — is essential if we want to understand the biblical passages that refer to timi.
To start, we find the word in Romans 13:7: “Pay to all what is due them — taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor [timi] to whom honor [timi]is due” (NRSV). But the translation is misleading.
The English rendition makes it seem as though Paul is talking first about one kind of thing (taxes and revenue), then about another (respect and honor). But just as “taxes” and “revenue” are in the same category in English, all four words were similar in Greek. Paul is only talking about one kind of thing here.
This is, of course, a huge translation dilemma. How do we translate timi in such a way as to include the general notion of “honor” but also make it clear that we’re talking about the same kind of thing as “price”? (Any suggestions?)
I Corinthians 6:20 is even more difficult: “For you were bought with a price [timi]; therefore glorify God in your body” (NRSV). The Greek connection between “price” (timi) and “glorify” (from doxa, “glory”) was obvious, because the Greek timi was a near synonym for doxa — just as the English “honor” and “glory” are related. But “price” and “glory” in English have nothing in common. The NRSV translation destroys the linguistic argument. Again, it’s a translation dilemma. (Perhaps: “A price was paid for you, therefore pay God glory with your body.”)
Even Matthew 22:21, the famous “Render under Caesar…,” makes more sense in the correct cultural context. As the NRSV has it: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The original question is regarding taxes. But recognizing that taxes and money are just like honor and glory, we can read between the lines: the emperor gets the emperor’s timi, and God gets God’s.
More generally, we have a problem with more than just Romans 13:7, I Corinthians 6:20, and other passages in which timi connects wealth and merit. Any time we read “honor” for timi, we are missing part of the message, because the very notion of “honor” for us is not what it was for the Greeks. Greek “honor” included an element of finance. Similarly, whenever we read “price” for timi, we are missing the inherent connection to honor and glory.
I can’t think of a clean translation solution (any suggestions?), but understanding the issues is always an important first step. And at least in most egregious instances, we can try to pay careful attention to what our translations miss.
Publication of “The Warwick Files: Revenge”
From my personal blog:
It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of “Revenge,” the second story in my thriller series, “The Warwick Files.”The Warwick Files: Revenge
In “Revenge,” a woman breaks off an affair with the governor, pitting Police Chief Kai Goodman against the State Police.
Like the first story, “Revenge” features Coyote “Kai” Goodman, whose past is so secret that even his cover story is classified. The setting is Warwick, NY, where, according to the official count, there are no spies.
The story is available in paperback for $3.95, and, like most short stories, for only $0.99 on Kindle. Or start reading the story for no-charge on-line.
To celebrate this release, the Kindle edition of “Checkpoint” — the first story in the series — is a free download, but only today.
I hope you enjoy reading “Revenge” it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Once Upon a Time in Bible Translation
Earlier this week I posted a piece on the Huffington Post about different biblical writing styles. In particular, I claim that the exaggerated ages in Genesis served to notify the ancient reader that the stories weren’t meant to be taken literally.
In other words, there are at least two different kinds of stories in the Bible: those meant as history and those not meant as history. Furthermore, the different kinds of stories were written differently.
(The quick summary is this: The OT has three parts, detailing: the world, the people Israel, and life in Jerusalem. Only in the third do the characters tend to live biologically reasonable lives. Furthermore, historians generally agree that only the third is historically accurate. This suggests that the ancient authors used large, symbolic ages to mark non-historical stories. I have more in Chapter 8 of And God Said.)
If I’m right — and with almost 4,000 comments on my Huffington Post piece, it’s clear that not everyone thinks I am — an obvious question presents itself: Should we translate these stories differently?
Sometimes the answer to “should we?” in Bible translation is “yes, but we can’t.” In this case, though, we’re lucky, because in English we have a simple, widely accepted way to mark non-historical stories: “Once upon a time.”
Should we, then, translate Genesis 6:9 as, “Once upon a time, there lived a righteous man named Noah…”? Should Genesis 11:1 read, “Once upon a time, the whole earth had one language…”?
What do you think?
In Christ, In Love, In Translation
Being “in Christ” (en christo) is one of Paul’s central themes. Romans 8:1 is a good example: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (NRSV). But it’s a tricky phrase.
The Greek work en, like its English translation “in,” is what linguists call a “light” preposition, that is, one that usually has little or no meaning on its own. Prepositions (“in,” “on,” “about,” “with” etc.) are notoriously idiosyncratic, and so are light words, so it’s not surprising that the light preposition en is difficult to translate correctly.
Some examples in English help demonstrate the range of issues with light prepositions. There’s air “in an airplane,” but the people breathing that air are “on the plane,” not in it. English speakers disagree about whether one stands “in” or “on” line. Prepositions like “in,” “for,” etc. are sometimes optional: “He’s lived (in) more places than I know,” “I’ve been working here (for) three years,” etc. Books are written “on” a computer but “with” pencil and paper. Friends can talk “to” each other or “with” each other, but they can’t chat “to” each other, only “with.”
In some of those examples, we see a single meaning that requires different prepositions in different contexts. The reverse is also common: a single preposition can express different meanings. The “in” of “in love” doesn’t have anything to do with the “in” of “in translation,” for instance.
Obviously, the details are different in other languages. In Modern Hebrew, unlike in English, books are written “in” a computer and also “in” paper and pencil.
Equally obviously, for speakers of Modern Hebrew and English, it’s a mistake to translate the “in” of “in a computer” literally from Hebrew into English. Rather than “in a computer,” English demands “on a computer.”
More generally, the way to translate prepositions (like everything, really) is to determine what the preposition means in one language, and then find a way of expressing the same thing in another.
And this is the crux of the problem with Romans 8:1, and all of the other places we find “in Christ,” because that phrase in English doesn’t mean anything. (Some people might think it means something, but only because they already have a sense of what Paul meant.) We might compare, for instance, “citizens of the U.S. should be in the President.” It’s impossible to agree or disagree, because it doesn’t mean anything.
Translators already know that the Greek en doesn’t have to be “in” in English. In I Cor 4:21, we find, “What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with [en]a stick, or with [en] love…?” (NRSV, my emphasis). English demands “with a stick” instead of the nonsensical “in a stick.” The translation “in love” is more tempting for en agape, because it does mean something in English, but it doesn’t mean the right thing. Almost all translations get this line right. Translators do their job and find the right preposition in English.
But when it comes to “in Christ,” translations mimic the Greek instead of translating it.
Sometimes no obvious choice for en presents itself, but often English simply demands “with.”
Knowing what you do about the overall meaning of the text, how would you translate Romans 8:1?
Modernity and Accuracy: Another False Dichotomy
Bible translation seems plagued by a few myths that won’t let go. One of them was recently repeated by Dr. Eugene Merrill in the Christian Post when he said that “if you want a more contemporary [...] translation, you’re going to have to give up some accuracy.”
I don’t think it’s true.
Dr. Merrill was explaining the infamous “literal (or word-for-word)” versus “dynamic equivalent (or thought-for-thought)” styles of translation, as the article calls them. But even though there are two broadly different kinds of published Bible versions, that doesn’t mean that there are two equally good ways to convey the ancient text, or that the tradeoff is between modern rendition and accuracy.
Rather the most accurate translation is often also a modern rendition. Just to pick one example (which I explain further in my recent Huffington Post piece on the importance of context), the stiff and word-for-word “God spoke unto Moses saying” is neither modern nor accurate. A better translation, with English punctuation doing the job of some of the Hebrew words, is: “God said to Moses, `…’” And that’s both modern and accurate.
It does seem true that a modern translation and a less accurate word-for-word one say different things — sometimes in terms of basic content, and more often in terms of nuance. I think that some people mistake bad translations for the original meaning, and then lament modern translations that don’t match the older, less accurate ones.
For instance, “God spoke unto Moses saying” has a certain odd tone to it. Some people, I fear, worry that my modern alternative doesn’t convey that odd tone. And, of course, they’re right. But then they make an erroneous leap and conclude that my translation strays from the original, when it’s actually the familiar translation that doesn’t do justice to the source.
Dr. Merrill’s example in the article is b’nai yisrael. He explains that the traditional “sons of Israel” could mislead modern readers into thinking that the phase only refers to males. But the more modern “people of Israel,” accord to Dr. Merrill, also falls short because it strays from the literal, masculine meaning of the word b’nai.
But the reasoning here is flawed. If b’nai refers to both men and women — which everyone agrees that it does — then it what sense does it literally refer only to men? It’s only the older translation, “sons of Israel,” that potentially excludes the women.
So this doesn’t strike me as a choice between modernity and accuracy, but, instead, a modern, accurate option and an older, less accurate one.
To consider an English-only example, one possible way to explain “commuter train” is “a train from the suburbs to a main city.” A possible objection could be that that explanation fails to indicate that “commute” literally means “to change,” and, more specifically, “to change one kind of payment into another,” as in, for example, “combining individual fares into one fare.” The original “commuter trains” were trains in the 19th century from the New York City suburbs in which the full fare was commuted to entice riders.
While I find this sort of background fascinating, I don’t think that it’s necessary for understanding what a 21st century commuter train is. In fact, it’s a mistake to think that a commuter train must be one in which the fare is commuted.
Similarly, I don’t think that knowing the grammatical details of the Hebrew b’nai is necessary for understanding the text in which it is used, and, also similarly, a translation that gets bogged down in those details does a disservice to the original.
It seems to me that this kind of false tradeoff is representative of Bible translation more generally.
And more generally yet, I think that this persistent myth, which pits accuracy against modernity, contributes to Bible translations that are neither accurate nor modern.
The Year in Review (2012)
As 2013 begins, here’s a look at the year just ended, starting with the ten most popular posts from 2012:
- Q&A: What’s the best Bible translation to read and study from?
- The Lord isn’t the Shepherd You Think (or: Don’t Mess with the Shepherds)
- BBC: “Virgin Birth a Mistranslation”
- How to Love the Lord Your God — Part 1, “Heart”
- How to Love the Lord Your God — Part 3, “Heart and Soul”
- Adultery in Matthew 5:32
- Who Says Homosexuality is a Sin?
- Q&A: What color is the “blue” of the Bible?
- What’s the difference between an eagle and a vulture?
- Disaster, Unloved, and Unwanted: Hosea’s Children
I like looking at this list each year because I think it reflects interest in the Bible.
Bible translation remains a popular topic (“What’s the best Bible translation to read and study from?“). Many people, apparently, are interested in the role the Bible plays in modern life, whether spiritually (“The Lord isn’t the Shepherd You Think” and “How to Love the Lord Your God“) or in terms of social issues (“Who Says Homosexuality is a Sin?“). And I see a third group of people who are drawn to the intersection of modern topics and the Bible (“What color is the ‘blue’ of the Bible?“).
On the other hand, my thoughts about translating the names of animal species (“What’s the difference between an eagle and a vulture?“) keep attracting attention for the wrong reasons: The popularity of my blog has unfortunately put the post among the top Google results for searches about the differences between eagles and vultures.
I’ve continued writing for the Huffington Post (most recently, “Putting the Text of the Bible Back Into Context,” and, earlier in the year, the more interesting “Five Bible Images You Probably Misunderstand“), a fact which I mention because normally that site sends more traffic my way than any other single source, but this year, according to WordPress, the superb BibleGateway.com was the top referrer, with HuffPo coming in second. Third in the list was Facebook, presumably from my book’s Facebook page. (I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that my book has so many more friends than I do.)
With my writing (including my latest project, a thriller series called The Warwick Files), lecturing, teaching, and so forth all competing for my time, I was only able to add a few posts a month last year. Each time, the discussion that followed reinforced my belief that there’s room on the Internet for serious, thoughtful, respectful, and fun discussion about things that matter. I’m looking forward to another year.
Happy 2013.
BBC: “Virgin Birth a Mistranslation”
In a recent piece on the BBC, interviewer Nicky Campbell spoke with Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. Responding to a question about the virgin birth, Dr. Stavrakopoulou said that, “basically, the virgin birth idea is a mistranslation.”
I think she’s wrong.
“The Warwick Files: Checkpoint” is Now Available
The Warwick Files: Checkpoint
The stories feature Police Chief Coyote “Kai” Goodman, whose past is so secret that even his cover story is classified. The setting is Warwick, NY, where, according to the official count, there are no spies.
In the inaugural story, “Checkpoint,” a man evades a police checkpoint and unknowingly triggers his own murder. Police Chief Kai Goodman knows why. Do you?
The story is available in soft cover for $3.95, and, like most short stories, for only $0.99 on Kindle. Take a look, or start with the official trailer.
I wrote this to be a fun diversion from my research (even though I try to have fun with that, too). I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
The Mythical Value of Reading the Bible in the Original Languages
One of the commonly suggested solutions for overcoming bad Bible translations is to “learn Hebrew and Greek” and “read the Bible in the original.”
While there are many good reasons to learn biblical Hebrew and Greek, I don’t think that better insight into the original meaning of the Bible is one of them.
This came up most recently in Dr. Bill Mounce’s latest post in his weekly “Mondays with Mounce” column about Bible translation: “A Translation Conundrum – 1 Tim 2:9 (Monday with Mounce 165).” There he addresses the Greek phrase en plegmasin, commonly “with braided hair” (ESV, NIV, etc.), but “with elaborate hairstyles” in the NIV2011 and “by the way they fix their hair” in the NLT.
Dr. Mounce explains that braided hair was one way of “enforcing a social pecking order and class system that was woefully inappropriate for the church.” Accordingly, just to translate “braided hair” leaves the modern reader wrongly thinking that there is something inherently undesirable about braided hair, when the point is really what that braided hair represented.
He concludes that this is “a good reason to learn Greek and Hebrew….”
I disagree.
In this particular case, what’s needed to understand the passage is not only a knowledge of the Greek language but a detailed understanding of Greek fashion (though, in fact, I think the fuller context of the verse makes the meaning pretty clear: “women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes.” [NRSV]).
This sort of issue is exactly what an amateur or even advanced Greek student would get wrong. Armed with a knowledge of Greek, such a student would look at the word plegma, discern that it means “woven,” and proudly announce that the NIV2011 got it wrong.
More generally, the notion that studying Greek (or Hebrew) leads to a better understanding of the original texts is predicated on the idea that a student can do better than the professional translators. While, unfortunately, Bible translations tend to be of lower quality than other translations, they are still good enough that it’s pretty hard for all but the most expert students of Greek and Hebrew to find a true mistake.
What usually happens instead is that a professional translation takes a variety of factors into account while the student misses some of the nuances. Most people, unless they intend to become an expert, will understand the Bible better in translation. Worse, because of their limited knowledge, they’ll think their own reading is better than the accepted translations. This is a case of the clichéd way in which a little knowledge is dangerous.
I still think there’s value to learning Hebrew and Greek. I see it as akin to going to a museum to see an artifact versus just reading about it. It brings people closer to the original in very powerful ways.
Additionally, both Jewish and Christian traditions hold that there’s inherent value to the original words, even beyond their meaning.
So, absolutely, learn Hebrew and Greek. But I think it’s a good idea to keep professional translations handy, too.
The Case of Mistaken Piercing in Zechariah 12:10 and John 19:37
A question on the About page concerns what appears to be a misquotation of Zechariah 12:10 in John 19:37:
Why does John, in John 19:37 CHANGE Zechariah 12:10 from “they shall look upon ME whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for HIM” to only: “they shall look upon HIM whom they have pierced”?
It’s a great question with an important lesson behind it.
It’s hard to find an accurate printed translation of Zechariah 12:10, both because the verse is so theologically charged and because the Hebrew is complex.
The NRSV translates, “And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one* whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn” (my emphasis).
The footnote for “look on the one” in the NRSV advises that the Hebrew means “look on me.” This is the crux of the issue, because John 19:37 is clear: “And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’”
The question is why John appears to misquote Zechariah. (Another good question is why so many translations hide this fact.)
The answer actually comes from John 19:36, where the important technical word plirow introduces two OT quotations. The first is “none of his bones shall be broken” (perhaps a rephrasing of Psalm 34:20 [aka 34:21 aka 33:21]). The second is our verse.
I’ve pointed out before (here: “What Happens to Prophecies in the New Testament?“) that, in spite of common translations, plirow doesn’t mean “fulfill.” Rather, that Greek verb introduces something called a “proof text” — which, despite the name, has nothing to do with what we would now call “proof.”
In this case, the proof text is a passage from the OT that matches the new text in the NT. (In the case of Jewish texts from the same time period, the proof text is also from the OT, but the new texts are usually prayers or something called “midrash,” and they are often introduced by Hebrew that means “as is written,” “as is said,” etc.)
The point of a proof text is to lend textual support to a new idea, but not in the scientific way that we now think of as “proof.” The support indicated by plirow has to do with the text itself, not what it means. That’s why I translate plirow as “match.”
Here, the point is that John 19:37 matches Zechariah 12:10. Both have to do with piercing. The details of the original meaning — who gets pierced, under what circumstances, etc. — are irrelevant.
This is a surprising way for most modern, scientific readers to look at text, but it was the norm in the period of time that gave us the NT. So the question is not “why did John misquote Zechariah?” but rather “How does John’s text match Zechariah’s?” And the answer, of course, is that they match quite closely. (I have more examples of this kind of matching in my longer explanation of pilrow, including perhaps the most famous: the non-virgin/virgin of Isaiah/Matthew.)
There’s one final interesting detail, and here we return to Hebrew grammar.
The Hebrew word for “upon me” is eilai, spelled Aleph-Lamed-Yud. That common word also spells the poetic word elei, which means just “upon.” So even though the text of Zechariah is clearly, “look upon me, whom they have pierced” it could be purposely misread as “look upon the one they have pierced.” (A similar kind of word play in English might turn “atonement” into “at-one-ment.”)
This is what originally made the text of John here so compelling: It takes an OT quotation and reinterprets it to apply to a new context.
Unfortunately, translations that change Zechariah to match John hide the ingenuity of the text, and make it all but impossible for English readers to understand how the NT quotes the OT.
New!
My thriller series: The Warwick Files.
"A police chief with a secretive past. A quiet New York City suburb. And, officially, no spies."Watch the trailer: 
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