The New and Improved Testament
Oct. 6th, 2009 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matthewdalyMuch has been made in the past day of Conservapedia's Conservative Bible Project, so much that the entire site has been offline for the past twelve hours. It's a shame, because the manifesto itself was a delightful mix of fear-mongering over the nearly two millennia of liberal bias of the Bible and squeeing over all the societal transformation that would come from something that acknowledged what an anti-progressive and pro-capital kind of guy Jesus really was. I tried, but I really can't get upset at someone who makes me laugh so much.
Which isn't to deny that they're really wrong on a number of major points. The one that struck me the hardest is that liberal Christians rally around the NIV (as it was written in the seventies by a bunch of intellectuals). They don't. I've belonged to three liberal Christian denominations in my life, and they all read nearly exclusively from the NRSV. I tend to bring my NIV to Bible studies because it is beautifully annotated with maps and footnotes describing why they made some of their specific translation differences, so I suppose that when I am around people are broadened by the NIV's decisions. In addition, that Bible was a gift from four friends in college, and at least three of them would be quite upset to hear themselves described as liberal apologists. It goes back to primary sources and comes up with different interpretations than the King James Version, but one could assume good faith and decide that there was a wider and better understood variety of primary source documents than there was in the seventeenth century rather than assuming that the differences were the result of philosophical bias (and that the KJV's choices themselves were not the result of bias). I am unmoved.
All the same, I think that Conservapedia, and in fact everyone, should feel free to transcribe the Bible as they understand it during their lifetime. I think it says more about you than it does about the Bible, and that you are on very thin ice if you then proclaim it as Scripture when you likely magnified the errors of whatever source you used in a form of the telephone game. I was moved by a specific example reading through the CBP's translation of Mark 14. In it, as you no doubt recall, Jesus was eating dinner when a woman (perhaps Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus) anointed him with expensive perfume. The disciples freaked out, because it was a waste of oil that could have been sold for charitable ends, but Jesus assured them that the woman was in the right (as he would be dead in a few days and they wouldn't have time to properly prepare his body for burial). Anyway, with all that laid out, here is how four different versions translate the first sentence of verse 5:
KJV: For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor.
CBP: We could have sold that for more than three dollars and charitably donated the money to the poor!
NRSV: For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the the money given to the poor.
NIV: It could have been sold for more than a year's wages* and the money given to the poor. (*Greek "than three hundred denarii")
You can see what happened. The KJV translates denarius (represented elsewhere in the Bible as payment for a day of unskilled labor) as "penny", and then some Freeper decides that there hasn't been any inflation since 1611 and so the disciples are getting wound over a woman wasting three bucks. On the other side, the Protestant Bibles don't mind telling you that they used ancient currency in ancient times, and the NIV tried to put that into context but maybe give you the impression that she spent a year's worth of *your* wages instead of a year of minimum wage income. Still, I reckon we'd think of it as being around $15,000 instead of $3, which changes the tone of the story considerably and points out the hazard of not following the eggheads who go back to the source.
So, maybe I'll help if the site comes back up. In fact, since they skipped over Mark 7:24-30 and it is my favorite Bible passage, I'll translate it into modern politically-aware American for them:
(24) Jesus moved on into Tyre. He had hoped to travel in secret, but the people learned of his presence. (25) One woman, whose daughter was possessed by a demon, came to him and fell at his feet. (26) She was an unchurched immigrant, and begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. (27) "I am only here to serve the Jews," Jesus told her. "It would not be right to take bread off my childrens' plates and throw them to the dogs." (28) "Yes Lord," she replied, "but don't the dogs under the table at least get to eat the crumbs?" (29) And he said "Your answer has caused me to change my mind. Go home; your daughter is well." (30) And she returned home to find her daughter lying on her bed, with the demon gone.
Which isn't to deny that they're really wrong on a number of major points. The one that struck me the hardest is that liberal Christians rally around the NIV (as it was written in the seventies by a bunch of intellectuals). They don't. I've belonged to three liberal Christian denominations in my life, and they all read nearly exclusively from the NRSV. I tend to bring my NIV to Bible studies because it is beautifully annotated with maps and footnotes describing why they made some of their specific translation differences, so I suppose that when I am around people are broadened by the NIV's decisions. In addition, that Bible was a gift from four friends in college, and at least three of them would be quite upset to hear themselves described as liberal apologists. It goes back to primary sources and comes up with different interpretations than the King James Version, but one could assume good faith and decide that there was a wider and better understood variety of primary source documents than there was in the seventeenth century rather than assuming that the differences were the result of philosophical bias (and that the KJV's choices themselves were not the result of bias). I am unmoved.
All the same, I think that Conservapedia, and in fact everyone, should feel free to transcribe the Bible as they understand it during their lifetime. I think it says more about you than it does about the Bible, and that you are on very thin ice if you then proclaim it as Scripture when you likely magnified the errors of whatever source you used in a form of the telephone game. I was moved by a specific example reading through the CBP's translation of Mark 14. In it, as you no doubt recall, Jesus was eating dinner when a woman (perhaps Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus) anointed him with expensive perfume. The disciples freaked out, because it was a waste of oil that could have been sold for charitable ends, but Jesus assured them that the woman was in the right (as he would be dead in a few days and they wouldn't have time to properly prepare his body for burial). Anyway, with all that laid out, here is how four different versions translate the first sentence of verse 5:
KJV: For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor.
CBP: We could have sold that for more than three dollars and charitably donated the money to the poor!
NRSV: For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the the money given to the poor.
NIV: It could have been sold for more than a year's wages* and the money given to the poor. (*Greek "than three hundred denarii")
You can see what happened. The KJV translates denarius (represented elsewhere in the Bible as payment for a day of unskilled labor) as "penny", and then some Freeper decides that there hasn't been any inflation since 1611 and so the disciples are getting wound over a woman wasting three bucks. On the other side, the Protestant Bibles don't mind telling you that they used ancient currency in ancient times, and the NIV tried to put that into context but maybe give you the impression that she spent a year's worth of *your* wages instead of a year of minimum wage income. Still, I reckon we'd think of it as being around $15,000 instead of $3, which changes the tone of the story considerably and points out the hazard of not following the eggheads who go back to the source.
So, maybe I'll help if the site comes back up. In fact, since they skipped over Mark 7:24-30 and it is my favorite Bible passage, I'll translate it into modern politically-aware American for them:
(24) Jesus moved on into Tyre. He had hoped to travel in secret, but the people learned of his presence. (25) One woman, whose daughter was possessed by a demon, came to him and fell at his feet. (26) She was an unchurched immigrant, and begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. (27) "I am only here to serve the Jews," Jesus told her. "It would not be right to take bread off my childrens' plates and throw them to the dogs." (28) "Yes Lord," she replied, "but don't the dogs under the table at least get to eat the crumbs?" (29) And he said "Your answer has caused me to change my mind. Go home; your daughter is well." (30) And she returned home to find her daughter lying on her bed, with the demon gone.
