Theology Today - Vol 47, No. 3 - October 1990 - ARTICLE - The NRSV and The REB: A Feminist Critique

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The NRSV and The REB: A Feminist Critique
By Carole R. Fontaine

THE production of new translations of the Bible is an awesome task. One cannot even begin to calculate the thousands of hours of individual and committee work involved without standing back in amazed appreciation for those who have committed themselves to such an undertaking. When we multiply the amount of labor expended on one such translation by the number of new translations that have exploded around us in recent years, it is clear that the modern world's hunger for the "Word" is no less than that of less mediasaturated generations of long ago.

As our knowledge of text history has expanded since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s and our appreciation of the philosophical issues involved in translating from one language to another has grown, it is no surprise that two new and clearly soon-to-be influential versions should appear in time to usher the community of faith into the next century. Growth in our understanding of the biblical languages and text traditions, along with the always changing nature of the English language and our sensibilities about the use of that language, have created the need for new, accurate translations that respond to our greater knowledge of the text, translations that could be used in a variety of settings-liturgical, educational, and personal. As a reviewer of the translations of the Hebrew Bible found in the New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible, I will be reflecting on the literary characteristics of the two translations with a special view to the perspectives raised in current feminist literary critical circles, both secular and religious. This is appropriate since it is clear that considerations of the gender-biased language of the earlier Revised Standard Version and the New English Bible figured in the work of the translators of the NRSV and the REB.

As a scholar in Hebrew Bible, the RSV had always been one of my favorite English translations, and the one I most often recommended to seminary students. The use of the full range of versions and critically edited manuscripts, including the substitution of an earlier Ben Asher codex for that of the Ben Chayyim family, yielded a superior text from which translations could be made. That translation, too, has a literary

Carole R. Fontaine is Associate Professor of Old Testament, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, Massachusetts. She is the author of Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament (I 982) and of "Proverbs" in the Harper Bible Commentary (1988).

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quality whose resonance, while perhaps not equaling that of the beloved KJV, achieved a high degree of artistry of its own without sacrificing literal correspondence with the underlying biblical languages.

The New English Bible, undertaken upon the initiatives of the Church of Scotland in 1946 and appearing in 1970 as an ecumenical project, also presented a version that made full use of the range of textual sources available to scholars and represented a fresh translation that stood in a long line of esteemed British versions of the Bible. The aim was to produce a readable, understandable, and elegant English translation that relied more on "dynamic equivalence" principles of translation ("meaning-for-meaning" equivalence as opposed to a literal rendering of the language structures of the ancient languages) than on the "formal correspondence" principles the RSV had preferred.

But however critically well-prepared, lyrical, and literal the old RSV may have been and however fluid, idiomatic, and "elevated" the prose and poetry of the NEB may have been, as a feminist my feelings toward these works were quite different from my professional evaluation as a biblical scholar. Considerable bias, much of it surely unconscious, permeated the works, and this alone made the revisions of the RSV and NEB events to be anticipated with great hope-and great doubt. Even with all the attention in the world given to the possibilities of inclusive translations that free the Bible from the androcentric biases of its translators, we are still left with the crux of the text itself. Translation committees are charged with the faithful transmission of a text in which a male god relates primarily to his male followers. In this tradition, women are viewed largely from the perspective of their prescribed biological destinies and, as such, are grist for the mill of the patriarchal household. Most of their deviations from those culturally prescribed roles are portrayed in the text with considerable ambivalence. Under such conditions, there is simply not much to be done to "rehabilitate" the biblical text without being untrue to the task of accurate translation. What is the well-meaning translator then to do? By what principles does she or he proceed in an effort to be true to both ancient text and modern critique of the biases inherent in language use?

Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza has forcefully delineated some of the issues involved in feminist biblical hermeneutics in her critical works, In Memory of Her and Bread Not Stone. She points out that while all biblical texts are androcentric in nature, not all are patriarchal in character. That is, some texts-though very few in proportion to the burden of Scripture-support the agenda of human liberation and reject the culturally accepted oppression of women and other marginal groups embodied in the hierarchical organization of the patriarchal household. For some, such texts have come to form the core of a feminist "working canon," and undergird the reformist attempts to recover a usable biblical tradition for women and others who share their concerns.

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But a signal question remains as to how much women may authentically rejoice in the presence of a handful of androcentric-that is, male-biased-texts that view them as fully human. When deconstructed, the metaphors and symbols of those texts reveal the same biases in their discourse found in patriarchal texts, taking male experience of reality as normative for the entire species, which, of course, it is not.

Translators have had to walk a perilous path in their work, energetically ridding themselves of the hidden biases that have led them to assume the exclusion of women and other marginal groups where the text did not necessarily mean to exclude, while simultaneously resisting the temptation to make the text conform to modern political sensibilities, making it say something it did not. Both NRSV and REB have grappled well with the first problem of hidden biases in their own translations, making inclusive language that has the human community as its referent where it seemed logical to do so. Nowhere has the feminist critique of gender-biased language operated as powerfully as in the new translations of the creation stories in Genesis I and 2. Compare the changes:

RSV
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… Gen. 1:26a.

NRSV
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness… " Gen. 1:26a.

NEB
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness … " Gen. 1:26a.

REB
Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness … " Gen. 1:26a.

The next line, agreeing in the old RSV and NEB, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27) had always made clear the inadequacy of the English term "man" as an inclusive term for humanity, since "male and female he created them" identified the creation as dual in gender. Now our new translations have incorporated this Hebrew midrash on the multi-dimensional meanings of the image of God into the English translation. Both the NRSV and the REB take this into account in their translations of verse 27 by making the pronoun in the middle tricolon plural:

NRSV
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

REB
God created human beings in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

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The problems of the inclusive meaning of the Hebrew (ha)'adam become even trickier when we move into the Yahwist's creation story. This is compounded by the lack of a third-person singular neutral pronoun in English that could form the singular counterpart to the gender-neutral "them, their, theirs." Both earlier translations simply read "man" or "the man" for the earthling created by God, but the new translations diverge:

NRSV
"Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" Gen. 2:7.

REB
"The Lord God formed a human being from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living creature" Gen. 2:7.

Though the REB boldly starts the Yahwist's version with an inclusive insight in harmony with the Priestly verse from 1:27, the lack of the third-person neutral singular pronoun in English hampers the possibility of carrying this through the translation. Both NRSV and REB continue on with the Lord God planting the "man" in the garden, where the REB at least, given the fine beginning of "human being" in 2:7 might have opted for "person," even if pronominal difficulties remained.

III

The problems involved in translating "God-language" inclusively remain more or less untouched in each of the new revisions. While this is no doubt due in part to the paucity of texts that might authentically be given inclusive renderings where God is concerned, I suspect traditional and theological biases are at work behind the scenes. We have advanced to the point where we can recognize that the human community of faith truly is inclusive of genders, races, and classes (though both REB's and NRSV's use of "slave-girl" instead of "slave-woman" or "maid" in Genesis 16, for example, suggests that subtle biases are still at work where issues of class, race, and sex intersect). But when faced with a male-authorized tradition that views its Creator and Redeemer as male, no one is going to translate "goddess" for "god" or "She" for "He" where there is no textual authorization for such a move. Consider, for example, the difficulties raised in enlarging the horizon of imagery for God where it does occur, as in Deut. 32:18, the Song of Moses.

RSV
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

NRSV
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

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NEB
You forsook the creator who begot you and cared nothing for God who brought you to birth.

REB
You forsook the Creator who begot you and ceased to care for God who brought you to birth.

Here the NRSV translation is clearly superior, as it brings out the nuances of the birthing imagery in the Hebrew, which refers to women's role in the process, as well as maintaining the original "Rock" for the more euphemistic "Creator" preferred in both NEB and REB versions. Similar points might be raised over all four versions' translations of Prov. 8:22, 25 where Woman Wisdom speaks of her origins with God. Those who do not read Hebrew or routinely refer to commentaries on such points will be left without the significant textual witness of ancient authorities that suggests the possibility of preexistent Wisdom who is acquired (not "created") by God or perhaps even given birth to by God (see the comment on this passage in the Harper's Bible Commentary for further discussion).

The drive to render the Bible as theologically inclusive can sometimes lead to the temptation to salvage the tradition in the face of the overwhelming critique brought against it by feminist and liberationist perspectives. Once again, we may not make the text say what it does not say; we cannot make an exclusive tradition inclusive just because it suits our enlarged vision. Where language for God is male-exclusive, where the text is explicitly misogynist, we must translate it as it stands-and then repent of it in our study notes by calling attention to other textual evidence that disagrees with the verse under discussion, offering reasons for the view presented and perhaps even suggesting alternative meanings. If our tradition tells us of the sage searching for a good person who says "One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found" (Eccl. 7:28, RSV), the implications of such a sentiment must be dealt with, not shirked or ignored, and both new translations leave the content as they found it.

Consider the plight of the sensitive translator of the Psalms. The " wisdom" psalm which introduces the Psalter reads as follows in the old RSV: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night." The NEB translated similarly: "Happy is the man who does not take the wicked for his guide nor walk the road that sinners tread nor take his seat among the scornful: the law of the Lord is his delight, the law his meditation night and day." The REB follows the NEB in translating the subject of this blessing as singular: "Happy is the one who does not take the counsel of the wicked for a guide, or follow the

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path that sinners tread, or take his seat in the company of scoffers. His delight is in the law of the Lord; it is his meditation day and night." The NRSV translates the text inclusively through pluralization of subject: "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night." As much as this translation is to be relished for the sake of women of faith who use the Psalter devotionally, there are some problems with the NRSV. Pluralization of the third masculine singular pronoun or nouns that are male-exclusive in the singular is often the solution to genderexclusive problems in translation, but if we feel free to depart from the text where the referents are human beings, why do we still leave the male-exclusive language for God untouched? Doesn't that suggest that while we have finally realized that human beings come in two categories, male and female, we and our tradition still think of God as firmly, exclusively male?

The Psalm's departure from "the man" in favor of pluralization may also be saying something that is seriously misleading. Psalm I has as its subject the blessings to be found in the study of the Torah, a realm reserved to men in antiquity. If such blessings had been accorded to women of the society from which this text comes, allowing them to " meditate day and night" on the law of their male god, who would have been available to watch the babies, prepare the food, and spin the flax? While this is perhaps a narrower reading of the theme of Psalm I than some would like, the point is a legitimate one. Women should know that the precious gift of study they may now claim was denied to their earlier sisters; they must wrestle with male culture's theft from them of the leisure needed for study. This theft was carried out mainly by failure to apportion equally the chores of the household, and reformist translations that obscure the real condition of women in the past add to its continuation in the present. Should we translate "God of your ancestors" as the NRSV does in Exod. 3:13, 16 for the RSV's "God of your fathers," or is the NEB's and REB's "God of their forefathers" actually more accurate?

Concerns for the philosophy of translation of gender-exclusive language are naturally not the only ones that determine the usefulness of the new versions. The NRSV follows the earlier version in its preference for "formal correspondence," and this produces a similarity in "sound" with the RSV and the older KJV whose polished but now archaic English long served as the standard to which other English versions are compared. Passages read aloud from the NRSV will sound more familiar, if still occasionally stilted from the adherence to the underlying grammatical structures of the Hebrew and Aramaic. Hence, the NRSV will routinely give us "the daughter of Pharoah" (Exod. 2:5a), indicating a Hebrew construct chain in the original language, instead of the

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REB's more idiomatic English, "Pharaoh's daughter." This trait in the NRSV will give it a slight edge for Bible study groups, seminary use, and other educational contexts. While both versions continue to reuse the same translation for key words that recur throughout a given passage, the REB's greater range of synonyms usually makes for less monotonous reading and sometimes greater clarity. Compare the NRSV's more literal translation of Eccl. 5:1 with the REB's:

NRSV
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil.

REB
Go circumspectly when you visit the house of God. Better draw near in obedience than offer the sacrifice of fools, who sin without a thought.

While the notes to the NRSV state that the final clause "for they do not know how to keep from doing evil" is a correction of the Hebrew, the REB seems, on the whole, to present a clearer, more logical unit. This is done by choosing to render "to listen" more idiomatically, since, when it occurs with "to the voice of X" (which is, however, absent in this passage), it usually carries the nuance of obedience. Similarly, the freer " go circumspectly" for the literal "guard your steps" adds to the comprehensibility for the modern English-speaker even as it loses something of the flavor of the original.

Both translations have chosen to abandon the archaic "thee, thou, thine" second-person forms when referring to God since these terms have passed out of use in modern English. Some may feel that this cheapens the devotional language found in the Psalter, but this change is actually in keeping with ancient usage which did not reserve special pronouns for addressing God. Both translations have tried to improve confusing word order and increase readability, and the NRSV has made a concerted effort to substitute new English translations where the dominant meaning of a word has changed (the example given in publicity materials is the word "dumb," which now means "stupid" rather than "silent" for most American readers and speakers). Because of its dedication to a broader range of possibilities in selection of English synonyms, the REB is less attentive to this issue.

Anyone who has ever used the NEB liturgically or in other public reading will rejoice over one rather formal but significant change. The NEB placed its verse numbers in the margins rather than at the head of each individual sentence in order not to interrupt the flow of the prose or poetry. While this was a noble goal, this choice meant in practical terms that it became well-nigh impossible to find and keep one's place while reading. The REB has reverted to the more typical method of keeping track of verses, placing the verse numbers at the beginning of each new verse. This will greatly facilitate the use of the translation in public and educational contexts.

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Both translations offer valuable new resources for making the text available to modern audiences for reading and study. The very difficult issue of gender bias in language use was addressed in each version, but success varies from passage to passage within each work and between works, with the REB sometimes offering elegant, fresh readings where the NRSV stays with more traditional renderings, while in other passages the NRSV presents superior readings to those of the REB. Although results on this point are uneven in both new versions, either one presents a real advance over the earlier RSV and NEB. Both show a fine "ear" for English, offering improved readability for public contexts, with the REB winning out over the NRSV primarily because of its reliance on dynamic equivalence that produces a more idiomatic English text. For the same reason, the NRSV will continue to be preferred by those who use the text with some concern for the original language structures in mind. The NRSV sounds more "familiar," a plus for some in liturgical situations, while the REB may be more enlightening.

Ideally, one should use these translations together, supplemented with at least two others. These are the New Jerusalem Bible, translated from the French into English and useful for its textual notes and extensive emendations usually based on the LXX, and the New Jewish Version of the Jewish Publication Society published in 1982, notable for its Jewish perspective and lack of textual emendations.

There is still no substitute for knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In the absence of familiarity with the original languages, one can only guard against misunderstanding and misinterpretation by consulting a variety of authorities. While all these translation options may seem overwhelming at times, where "the Book" that binds the community in faith is concerned, there can never be too many attempts at accurate transmission.