“Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word. The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me. Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’ It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”
Samuel nodded. “And his children didn’t do it entirely,” he said.
Lee sipped his coffee. “Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says, ‘Do thou rule over him.’ Now this is very different. This is not a promise, it is an order. And I began to stew about it. I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made.”
Samuel put his palms down on the table and leaned forward and the old young light came into his eyes. “Lee,” he said, “don’t tell me you studied Hebrew!”
(John Steinbeck, East of Eden, 1952. Chapter 24, p299.)Translation, at the best of times, is a ticklish, troublesome task. It requires not just fluency in multiple languages but familiarity with multiple cultures as well as levels of artistic and technical flair at the very least matching the source material. One culture's 'idiomatic' is another's 'idiotic'; in-jokes are unable to stand up outside; poetry loses its poetry – rhyme refuses to chime, meter peters out, alliteration abdicates. Homonyms just aren't the same anymore.
Translation of scripture suffers all the same problems – Zephaniah, for example, is chock-full of puns which are completely lost in the English, to my great disappointment – and a whole heap load more besides. Because these are words on which many people at many times and in many places are aiming or claiming to base their entire understanding of and relationship with reality. And they're nuanced, mysterious, and problematic enough in their raw source form, let alone once one embraces the weighty responsibility of rendering them equivalently in another language and context.
Most of us don't read ancient Hebrew and/or Greek. We necessarily trust skilled scholars to find the words in our own language that most faithfully convey the meaning of the original. But languages have different structures, different priorities, different cultural histories around which they have evolved; it is seldom as simple as plugging in the 'right' one-to-one corresponding word. And as soon as there is a choice of words (or a lack), the expert minority are suddenly in a position to influence the understanding of the rest of us in one or other particular direction. We hope that they strive to be as objective as possible, but even the most well-meaning of translators will inevitably be nudged by their personal (more or less subconscious) commitments and convictions. The decisions they arrive at, as Lee unpacks for his friends in the afore-quoted tour de force [1], can be deeply consequential in the lives of those who read the Bible willing to be shaped by it.
We necessarily trust skilled scholars ... and recently, something happened that, to me, feels almost like a betrayal of that trust.
First, some context. Several years ago, when it first occurred to me to think about caring about this stuff (although, NB, before I became conscious of gender inequality), I switched from mostly reading the New International Version (NIV) I'd been brought up on, to mostly reading the English Standard Version (ESV). After some research, it had seemed the obvious choice for two reasons:
- It takes an "essentially literal" approach, meaning that it seeks word-for-word correspondence as far as possible in order to be as transparent as possible to the original text. This seemed preferable to the (moderate) "dynamic equivalence" approach of the NIV: sense-for-sense correspondence may make for a more accessible text, but it also (I had begun to worry) increases the scope for interpretive opinions to distort the original meaning.
- It is intentional about striving for literary excellence in the arrangement of the translated words (and it generally shows). As a lover of poetry, this was a non-trivial selling point for me!
As an added bonus, when I later started writing stuff here, I discovered that the ESV had a rather lovely website... A rather lovely advert-free website, no less, which was no small relief after some of the unsettling banners BibleGateway.com had thrown at me over the years; I much prefer to spare any readers I may have from the large and largely suspect world of "Christian-themed" commerce, fringe politics, match-making, self-help schemes and "business" opportunities. (In particular, "Answer God's call to..." strikes me as a pretty devastatingly inappropriate opening to any advertising slogan).
So yes, it is no exaggeration to say that I have trusted the ESV translators. I have taken reassurance from their translation philosophy, which seemed to imply a commitment to neutrality and objectivity. I have allowed their judgement to shape my personal understanding and growth. I have given copies of ESV Bibles to friends, and quoted and linked confidently and repeatedly to ESVBible.org.
Imagine my dismay when I discovered that they'd been messing with the words ... behind my back ... without so much as a by-your-leave! And not just any words ... one verse in particular which has been especially significant in shifting my perspectives on this broken world and on what it means to follow Jesus in it. And the change ... well, it's not what I would describe as neutral:
It doesn't ease my sense of unease that the 'sneaking in' of this particular edit was accompanied by the announcement that henceforth there will be no further changes. Having thus fixed and polished it, Crossway are locking down the text for all future editions [2], "so that people who love the ESV Bible can have full confidence in the ESV, knowing that it will continue to be published as is, without being changed, for the rest of their lives, and for generations to come". *Sigh*.
Willfully devious? I sincerely hope and trust not ... but either way, the whole thing's disappointingly divisive. It doesn't surprise or offend me that other Christians have different theological convictions to me. I don't believe we need to be always "singing from the same hymn sheet" – literally or figuratively – in order to share fellowship and learn from one another ... to "pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding" (Romans 14:19). But I wince at the thought of us refusing to read from the same Bible ... having our own tailored versions ... 'locking down' interpretations, closing down the conversation.
So, to swap my ESV, or not to swap? That is the question. Well, that's the first question. If I opt to swap, that prompts a host of other questions, like for what? and what if it has no sense of meter? and do I need it to pass muster with the other feminists? and does this mean I have to retroactively change all the links and quotes in my blog? and what if its online version tries to sell me Christian double glazing or biblical toiletries? and how is it that it's taken me this long to realise the utterly absurd level of privilege at which such questions become askable? and when am I gonna start doing something about the poverty, illiteracy, oppression, linguistic (and broader) imperialism and technological exclusion which continue to deprive so many of quality of life in general as well as access to the Bible in particular? and is there even anything I can do? and what does the Bible have to say about that? and hey, quite a lot, it turns out, much of which sounds distinctly like opposing patriarchy however one reads Genesis 3, don't you think?
[Edited to add (Jan 2017): I have since written a sort of sequel post – "Version update".]
[Edited to add (June 2017): It is now, accidentally, a trilogy; see "Version export".]
[1] If only I'd known from the start quite how good East of Eden would turn out to be, I could have saved myself a lot of time and e-ink by opting to highlight only the bits that I didn't find profoundly insightful and/or beautiful...
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. (Genesis 3:16b, ESV, previous versions)
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. (Genesis 3:16b, ESV 'Permanent Version')I have written whole blog posts about Genesis 3:16 as descriptive of patriarchy and gender conflict, both of which are a result of sin entering the world rather than an aspect of God's perfect design. According to such a reading, gender hierarchy is a reality to be challenged and dismantled rather than celebrated and upheld. But some Christians interpret the same verse prescriptively – that is, they understand male headship to be by divine design, and thus to be accepted as good and right. The ESV's new wording has been understood by scholars and critics to expressly reinforce that prescriptive reading. Complementarians (in very oversimplified terms, Christians who believe in upholding rather than challenging gender hierarchies) are openly celebrating the ESV's 'unapologetic' stance on gender roles. Egalitarians (briefly, Christians who believe that the gender hierarchy is not part of God's design for humankind) are in frustrated uproar, as my Twitter feed aptly demonstrates. And among Hebrew-reading experts it's not just the egalitarian-inclined who consider the changes to be in error:
The question is whether the preposition ‘el ever has the meaning “contrary to”, as the ESV revision committee, following the lead of Susan Foh, claims.
The simple answer is no. [...] Let me break it down. The preposition ‘el means to, unto, or towards. It is a preposition indicating the termination of movement. That is its primary meaning. If I leave my office and walk to my house, I would use the preposition ‘el. Towards. Most commonly, it is used with the verb “to say” to indicate to whom the words are said. In the phrase, “And God said unto Moses”, the preposition ‘el would be used. God designed his words to terminate in the ears of Moses. I hope this makes sense.
[...] To summarize this rather complicated survey, the basic meaning of the word is to, or towards. Sometimes, if the context and the verb used are hostile, “against” would be a proper meaning. But this does not mean that we can pick and choose whatever meaning we want. “Contrary to”, in the context of Genesis 3:16 or 4:7, cannot be justified. Only if we make the assumption that the word “longing” indicates hostility can we make this phrase mean “against her husband”.
(Sam Powell, writing on his blog My Only Comfort, Sept 8th 2016.)As for me ... I am tempted to feel the victim of something like a bait-and-switch. Enticed by the promise of transparency and poetry, I find myself lumped with way more of a gender agenda than I'd bargained for. It doesn't shake my understanding of Genesis 3:16 as a description of a sad reality rather than a prescription of a divine ideal ... at the end of the day, whatever the wording, the pronouncement still follows after sin enters the world, which surely substantially complicates the 'by design' argument. But I'm concerned that other readers may be blinkered from the possibility and reasonableness of the 'descriptive' interpretation by the re-phrasing. And I'm especially concerned that that may be somewhat the effect the editors are trying to achieve! And I start to wonder where else their subjective priorities might be colouring the view that I and others have on the Bible in ways we lack the scholarship to recognise...
It doesn't ease my sense of unease that the 'sneaking in' of this particular edit was accompanied by the announcement that henceforth there will be no further changes. Having thus fixed and polished it, Crossway are locking down the text for all future editions [2], "so that people who love the ESV Bible can have full confidence in the ESV, knowing that it will continue to be published as is, without being changed, for the rest of their lives, and for generations to come". *Sigh*.
Willfully devious? I sincerely hope and trust not ... but either way, the whole thing's disappointingly divisive. It doesn't surprise or offend me that other Christians have different theological convictions to me. I don't believe we need to be always "singing from the same hymn sheet" – literally or figuratively – in order to share fellowship and learn from one another ... to "pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding" (Romans 14:19). But I wince at the thought of us refusing to read from the same Bible ... having our own tailored versions ... 'locking down' interpretations, closing down the conversation.
So, to swap my ESV, or not to swap? That is the question. Well, that's the first question. If I opt to swap, that prompts a host of other questions, like for what? and what if it has no sense of meter? and do I need it to pass muster with the other feminists? and does this mean I have to retroactively change all the links and quotes in my blog? and what if its online version tries to sell me Christian double glazing or biblical toiletries? and how is it that it's taken me this long to realise the utterly absurd level of privilege at which such questions become askable? and when am I gonna start doing something about the poverty, illiteracy, oppression, linguistic (and broader) imperialism and technological exclusion which continue to deprive so many of quality of life in general as well as access to the Bible in particular? and is there even anything I can do? and what does the Bible have to say about that? and hey, quite a lot, it turns out, much of which sounds distinctly like opposing patriarchy however one reads Genesis 3, don't you think?
[Edited to add (Jan 2017): I have since written a sort of sequel post – "Version update".]
[Edited to add (June 2017): It is now, accidentally, a trilogy; see "Version export".]
[1] If only I'd known from the start quite how good East of Eden would turn out to be, I could have saved myself a lot of time and e-ink by opting to highlight only the bits that I didn't find profoundly insightful and/or beautiful...
[2] Edited to add (Oct 2020): The decision to 'lock down' the text was eventually reversed. (See, e.g., Christianity Today: Crossway Reverses Decision to Make ESV Bible Text Permanent, September 2016).
[Thumbnail image is from The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man, by Peter Paul Rubens, and is in the public domain].
[Thumbnail image is from The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man, by Peter Paul Rubens, and is in the public domain].
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