Theology Today - Vol 47, No. 3 - October 1990 - ARTICLE - The NSRV and The REB: A New Testament Critique

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The NSRV and The REB: A New Testament Critique
By Burton H. Throckmorton, Jr.

OR over forty years, the Revised Standard Version has been widely thought of as the best English version one could read. In spite of an occasional oddity in translation, and the somewhat lusterless idiom that overlays it, the RSV has remained the most reliable and "safest" English translation of the Bible on the market. It has proved to be both an advantage and a disadvantage that the truly remarkable collection of scholars who produced the original RSV were under the mandate to "revise" the King James or Authorized Version of 1611, not to produce an altogether new translation. And now a different RSV Bible committee has provided the church with what will become the RSV's successor-the New Revised Standard Version, to be known as the NRSV. This just published work is, except on one major point, a remarkable achievement. The committee and its tireless chair, Bruce M. Metzger, are to be congratulated and thanked.

The NRSV has left behind the King James cadences (largely maintained in the RSV, but no longer representing current idiom), while still remaining essentially a revision of what has been called the "noblest monument of English prose." The Authorized Version was the Bible of the English-speaking church for over three hundred years, and, in a sense, through the NRSV, it still is-not in details of translation, and not in its rhythms, but in its basic vocabulary. Illustration: The Authorized Version of John 13:31 reads: "Now is the Son of man glorified." The RSV repeats that verbatim, though that is not the way we would say it. The NRSV, however, puts it in our idiom: "Now the Son of Man has been glorified." The vocabulary is still King James; the cadence is ours.

The idiom of the NRSV is consistently our own, rather than something inherited, vaguely or verbatim, from the KJV. For example, in the RSV of John 11:8 we read: "The Jews were but now seeking to stone you"-hardly contemporary English; but the NRSV reads: "The Jews were just now trying to stone you." With this kind of change, carried out consistently throughout the entire Bible, the NRSV presents us with a major shift into contemporary English. At the same time, it also preserves what has remained through the centuries the characteristic English translation of the Bible, by maintaining, wherever possible, the basic vocabulary of the KJV. That is no small achievement.

Burton H. Throckmorton, Jr. is Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Emeritus, Bangor Theological Seminary, Bangor, Maine. He is a member of the Inclusive Language Lectionary Committee, editor of Gospel Parallels (I 979), and author of books and numerous articles in the field of New Testament studies.

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The NRSV, however, does not simply adjust RSV language; it also greatly improves the translation. There is space here for only a very brief sampling of what the NRSV has done:

In Luke 4:17, 20, NRSV has Jesus given a "scroll" that Jesus reads from and then closes. "Scroll" is surely better than RSV's (and KJV's) "book." In Matt. 5:21, NRSV has "You shall not murder" for the misleading "You shall not kill"; Matt. 22:21 has "Give to the emperor" for "Render to Caesar"; and Mark 10:4 has "divorce her" for "put her away." Hoi polloi, in Rom. 5:15, 19, is correctly translated "the many," rather than RSV's "many." As Rom. 5:18 makes clear, the Greek expression "the many" means "all," and not "many, but not all." John 15:2 is now properly translated "every branch in me," which, incidentally, is also King James, rather than "every branch of mine." The idea of possession is not present in Jesus' words.

The NRSV committee decided not to use either the second person archaic pronouns ("thou," etc. in prayers), or the weak "behold," for such words are no longer in our vocabulary. But they have not just dropped all the "beholds." They have translated the Greek differently, and, I think, very successfully. Examples: "Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking" (Rev. 3:20); "We are treated … as dying, and see we are alive" (II Cor. 6:9); "Here is the Lamb of God" (John 1:29; but the very same Greek word in John 1:36 is translated there weakly, "Look, here is the Lamb of God").

Other improvements in translation that were very much needed: Phoebe is now correctly a "deacon," replacing the RSV "deaconess" (Rom. 16:1); and the person "Junias"-a nonexistent name in both Greek and Latin literature, but identified in RSV as a "kinsman" of Paul (Rom. 16:7)-is called in NRSV, surely properly, by the common Roman female name "Junia," and is identified as Paul's "relative."

For the past fifteen or twenty years, there has been widespread awareness that our language is in need of transformation, away from its androcentric moorings, into a way of speaking that no longer assumes that " man" includes "woman," and that "mankind" means the same thing as "humankind." In order to avoid hiding and insulting the female half of humankind, the attempt is being made to refer to men and women in exactly the same ways, and to speak either of "men and women" (or "women and men"), or of "humanity" when we are referring to the whole human race. This new sensitivity is manifesting itself today in many ways and in diverse places. For example, we seldom, if ever, hear an anchor person on national television refer to "firemen" anymore. They usually say "firefighters." True, they also usually still say "mankind"-perceptions have not been that radically altered-yet no

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one can deny that the movement toward equality is making some progress in our world.

One would have hoped that the movement in the church might be slightly faster than in what we call the secular world, but that has not been the case. Androcentric language continues to be used in the churches, and Scripture is almost always read as though it were written only for men. Which brings us to what will be for many people in the church the important question regarding the NRSV and inclusive language. The answer must be given in two parts: (1) language referring to human beings is almost without exception inclusive; (2) language referring to God and to the pre-existent and post-crucifixion Jesus is not inclusive, also without exception. Let us discuss briefly the first part of this answer, and return later to the second.

III

The NRSV has been highly successful in rendering androcentric Greek into inclusive English (when human beings are being spoken of) with imagination and skill. Very few passages have been noted in which NRSV fails in that regard. Let us look first at what it does with the often-used Greek word anthropos. The word means "person" or "human being"-not male human being; but out of about 439 occurrences of anthropos in the New Testament, RSV rendered it "man" (or "men") 395 times. NRSV, however, almost never translates anthropos by a male term except, of course, where the context demands otherwise.

Let us look at some passages, selected at random, to see what has been done: Gal. 1:1-"Paul an apostle-sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities." Matt. 4:19-"Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Rom. 1:23-"and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds." The famous "man of God" of II Tim. 3:17 becomes "everyone who belongs to God." One passage was noted in which NRSV's retention of " man" is unfortunate, and not in keeping with its general practice. By translating anthropos as "man" in Gal. 5:3, the principle laid down in the following verse-"You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ"-applies only to male Christians. It is too bad the NRSV did not do here what it did in Rom. 2:26-27, dealing with the very same subject, and so make the verse plural.

In I Cor. 13:11, the word is not anthropos, but NRSV translates: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child … ; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." The NRSV has gone beyond the call of duty here. What Paul says is, "when I became a man." His word is aner, which almost always means a male human being. But the committee has recognized that when the much beloved I Cor. 13 is read or heard in faith, the "I" of the text becomes not simply Paul, but every reader and hearer. A woman cannot say, except in delirium, "when I became a man!"

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The NRSV does almost as well translating adelphos, adelphoi (brother, brothers) as it does with anthropos, usually translating the plural as "brothers and sisters," but sometimes as "believers," "friends," " relatives," etc. Occasionally, however, "brothers" remains in NRSV where one wishes another translation had been chosen. For example, in Matt. 28:10, NRSV has Jesus saying, "Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee." Why is Jesus represented as telling women (the "them" of v. 1Oa) to tell only male followers to go to Galilee where they will see Jesus? And "go to my brothers" in John 20:17 remains, although "in the community" is substituted for "among the brethren" in John 21:23. Those whom Peter is to strengthen in Luke 22:32 are all men. Finally, if the andres adelphoi whom Peter addresses in Acts 1:16 can be represented as "friends," why can they not be represented by the same inclusive word in Acts 2:37? There Peter tells the andres adelphoi, translated "brothers," that the promise of the Holy Spirit is for them and for their children (Acts 2:38b-39). But, surely, women were also included in that promise.

The Greek word huios (pl. huioi) for "son" (sons) is also handled imaginatively. NRSV very commonly translates the plural as "children" instead of "sons," but context is taken into account and other translations have been adopted. For example, in Matt. 8:12, we have "heirs of the kingdom," and, in Matt. 23:31, Jesus says, "you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets." In John 17:12 for "the son of perdition" we have "the one destined to be lost," but, in II Thess. 2:3, NRSV translates the same Greek phrase "the one destined for destruction," here used of the antichrist. One isn't sure whether the difference here is intended to have any significance. Incidentally, though NRSV avoids using male oriented words twice in It Thess. 2:3, that "lawless one" who is "destined for destruction" turns out, in v. 4, to be a male after all.

Three passages, however, in which huios is translated "son" in NRSV raise a question. The first is John 4:12, where NRSV has retained "sons." But why does it not translate "children" or "offspring"? Jacob did have a daughter. The other two passages are Rev. 1:13 and 14:14, where the NRSV boldly translates "like the Son of Man," as though the expression in Revelation were without question exactly the same as the title so often used for Jesus in the synoptic Gospels. There may, however, be some significance in the fact that the phrase in Revelation is exactly the same as a phrase used in the Septuagint of Dan. 7:13, to which passage the author of Revelation is often thought to allude. But according to the NRSV translation in Revelation, it appears that the author sees "one like Jesus" who, in the church, is "the Son of Man." The author's extravagant apocalyptic language does not lend itself to

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precise meanings, but "the Son of Man" is very precise, and not necessarily correct.

Bruce M. Metzger states in a preface "To the Reader" that the text used in the translation is the most recent edition of The Greek New Testament, published by the United Bible Societies (3rd. ed. corrected, 1983). The committee also had access to the forthcoming 4th edition, and in only a few instances did it depart from the Bible Societies' text. So, this English version is based on the most reliable eclectic Greek text available, prepared by an interconfessional and international committee of scholars. It is far superior to that of the RSV.

Most English translations of the New Testament have been inadequate and misleading in one major regard, namely, they have not given sufficient weight to the distinction the Greek language makes between "durative action" and "punctilear action" verbs in all its modes, as well as in participles-a distinction not made in the English verb, which does not have a form that inherently describes durative action. The RSV did almost nothing to translate durative action verb forms, following the lead, in this matter, of the Authorized Version before it. In contrast, the NEB made a serious attempt to translate the implications of such verbs. Has the NRSV corrected the inadequacy of the RSV? The answer seems to be, "sometimes, but only in minor ways."

Such changes in the NRSV as "some were saying" (Mark 6:14); or people … were going out to him" (Matt. 3:5); or "an old commandment that you have had" (I John 2:7) are all made in the interest of representing the durative action force of the verb. But obviously they are relatively minor, and they are made infrequently.

The significance of the Greek imperfect tense remains largely hidden, though more attention is paid to its meaning than in the RSV. Such translations as "you used to fasten" (John 21:18), "we tried to stop him" (Mark 9:38), and "at night he would go out" (Luke 21:37) are all made in the interest of representing the implications of the Greek imperfect. Unfortunately, however, such close listening to the imperfect tense is not maintained throughout. So, for example, we still have such impoverished readings as "Jesus was silent" in Matt. 26:63; "he … taught" in Mark 1:21; and "they laughed at him" in Matt. 9:24.

NRSV also seems largely to have ignored the durative significance of present imperatives of injunction, just as its predecessor did. In Matt. 6:25 we have "do not worry" instead of the RSV's "do not be anxious," but there is still no attempt to capture the durative action of the present imperative. Luke 7:13 still reads, "do not weep"; John 20:27 has, "do not doubt"; Rom. 6:12 now says, "do not let sin exercise dominion" for "let not sin … reign," but the significance of the durative action form remains unrepresented.

Perfective (intensive) compound verbs are sometimes given the force they need, in contrast to the weaker translations of the RSV. So, Mark

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1:36 now reads, "Simon and his companions hunted for him"; and "debated with him" in Acts 17:18 is better than RSV's "met him"; but " swallow" in Matt. 23:24 (unchanged from RSV) seems a bit tame for katapino; and katakaio is almost always translated as though it were kaio. The translation "work out your own salvation" of Phil. 2:12 hardly does justice to the full import of the Greek verb, no matter how familiar the English may be; and "consider" in Matt. 6:28 remains weak, conventional as it has become in that famous passage.

VII

There can never be agreement among all translators, of course, as to how to come out of the Greek New Testament into English, but the NRSV translators have given us what will surely come to take its place as the legitimate successor to the RSV. Except at one point to be noted, it is a remarkable translation. There are instances, however, where one would have liked to see something different. Why, for example, are the quite different verbs at the end of Matt. 15:17 and Mark 7:19 translated into the same English? Why is apelthen in Mark 6:46 translated "went up," thus agreeing with Matt. 14:23, where a different verb is used? Why is chiton translated "shirt" in Luke 6:39, but "coat" in the parallel of Matt. 5:40, and why is himation translated both as "coat" and as "cloak" in the same two parallel passages? What does "through faith for faith" (Rom. 1:17) mean? The translation "a pestilent fellow" in Acts 24:5 (from KJV) is clear enough, but is it our English? Wouldn't "pain in the neck" be better? Or just "nuisance"?

A very few errors have been detected. "All" is missing in Mark 3:28; v. 6 of Luke 24 should begin with "he is not here." And I believe that Acts 7:25 and I John 3:14, 16 require footnotes indicating that the Greek is adelphos.

We come finally to the single deficiency of the NRSV which is of such magnitude as will render it in its present form unusable for many believers. Excellent as it is in all other respects, the new version makes not the slightest gesture toward minimizing masculine pronouns for God, and for the "supra-historical" Christ. The same repetitious "he," "his," and "him" that attack so unrelentingly from the pages of the RSV reappear in all their undisguised androcentricity on the pages of NRSV. Why was it necessary always (or is it almost always?) to write the pronoun "he" before all verbs whose subject, unwritten in Greek, is God? So, everyone who listens to the NRSV is forced to hear the most precious words of Scripture in such blatantly man-centered language as this: "He who did not with hold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?" (Rom. 8:32). The NRSV committee needed to take two giant steps; they took one, and it remains for the second step to be taken.

Of course, it is clearly recognized that the very thing that will make the NRSV unusable to some people will allow it to be usable to others. That is also true of the inclusive language that has been incorporated when referring to people. I'm afraid that the NRSV is exposed to attack

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from two flanks: from those who want no inclusive language at all, and from those who want all of it to be inclusive. It is subject to the double whammy, but nothing that could have been done would have satisfied everyone, My final word on this revision as a whole is one of qualified praise.

VIII

In the year just past, the English-speaking church has been blessed by the publication of still another significant translation of the Bible, known as the Revised English Bible (REB), and produced by scholars in Great Britain. The review of this work will be shorter than the preceding one, not because of a judgment about the relative merits of the two translations, but because of space restrictions and the assumption that readers in America (though possibly not in Canada) will have a greater interest in the NRSV than in the REB.

The REB is a revision of the New English Bible, the New Testament of which was first published in 1961. That was the first altogether fresh English translation of the New Testament by a group of representative Protestant scholars since the King James Version of 1611. It broke entirely from the KJV, using few of its distinctive words, expressions, or rhythms. It remains the base of the REB, but the latter makes substantial changes throughout.

Turning to some specific revisions of the NEB, we note that, in the Sermon on the Mount, the REB has abandoned the NEB's slightly exaggerated "How blest are …" and has returned to the more usual, "Blessed are … " We also note that, in its translation of the first beatitude, the REB gives us a sign that it has cut back on the NEB's paraphrases, translating in the customary way, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" in place of the NEB's "How blest are those who know their need of God." But we must add that the REB often repeats many of the paraphrases of the NEB that were very well done. In Matt. 5:37, for example, we still read, "Plain 'Yes' or 'No' is all you need to say"; or in Matt. 6:34b, "Each day has troubles enough of its own."

On the other hand, other NEB paraphrases have not been repeated. In Matt. 18:24, for example, where NEB had "a man whose debt ran into millions," REB reads, more literally, "a man who owed ten thousand talents." And typical British words or expressions of NEB have also been dropped. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, "truckle" (22:16), "be off!" (9:24), "half a hundredweight" (I 3:22), and "gross at heart" (13:15) have all been eliminated; but REB still refers to a " meal-tub" (5:15), and uses the expression "catch me out" for "test" (22:18).

The Roman denarion that NEB sometimes translated "pounds" in the plural (Matt. 18:28; Mark 6:37; 14:5; John 6:7; 12:5), is never so translated in REB, which follows the safer way of simply transliterating into denarii.

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As is the case with the NRSV, the REB has also dropped the use of "thou" in prayers and substituted " you. "

The REB does not make as serious an attempt as the NRSV to translate Greek words so as to permit them to address women as well as men. They apparently adopted no principles for translating androcentric " generic" terms, but quite haphazardly used inclusive language words a number of times.

A few statistics about the way in which anthropos is translated will illuminate the situation. We look first at the Gospel of Matthew, and then at Romans. In Matthew, anthropos is either translated by an inclusive word, or not translated at all, 31 times (not counting "your fellows" in Matt. 5:16). But in 13 instances, REB still translates "man" or "men," so that we read yet again, for example, "for men this is impossible," in Matt. 19:26 and the parallels in Mark and Luke.

In Paul's letter to the Romans, REB translates anthropos 9 times in an inclusive way, but 4 times it doesn't, as in "mortal man" in 1:23 and "the happiness of the man whom God counts as righteous" in 4:6.

In Matthew, REB translates adelphos as "brother" in 5 contexts in which the word clearly has a meaning far broader than our male oriented word (5:22-24, 7:3-5, 18:15, 21, 35); but in Romans, adelphos is consistently translated by an inclusive word: once as "brother and sister"; 7 times as "friends" or "my friends"; 3 times as "fellow Christian" (though "fellow" is male oriented); once as "one another"; once as "Christians"; and once it is not translated at all. But then we read, surprisingly, in 8:9-"a large family of brothers!"

The translation of huioi very often uses an inclusive word, but not consistently. In Matthew, it is rendered "sons" only in 23:31; but in Romans it is very often translated as "sons" in contexts where one would have expected "children." Rom. 8:14 is rigidly translated, "for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." These same people are also "sons" in Rom. 8:19 and 9:26. The word huiothesia, which means "adoption," is unnecessarily translated "the status of sons" in Gal. 4:5. And in Rom. 9:4, we are given a paraphrase of considerable proportions. The Greek "to them [belong] the adoption, the glory" is rendered, "chosen to be God's sons [again "sons" is added); theirs is the glory of the divine presence." This paraphrase is as elaborate as the one in NEB, though it is somewhat different.

The text of the REB is an eclectic text which, however, is not as tied to the text of The Greek New Testament (1983) as is the NRSV. For example, following the NEB it adopts the D readings of Luke 12:27 ("spin nor weave"), of Mark 1:41 ("moved to anger"), and of I Cor. 13:3 ("burnt"). It also translates the Old Latin text of Luke 10: I ("seventy-two" disciples). But in Matt. 10:3, it has abandoned NEB's D reading, "Lebbaeus."

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In a review I wrote of the NEB when it was first published ("The New English Bible," Journal of Bible and Religion. Vol. 29, July, 1961, which was also published later in a volume edited by Dennis Nineham, The New English Bible Reviewed), I praised the translation for its capturing of the significance of Greek durative action verbs, so seldom achieved in English translations. The REB does equally well in that regard, and I will not repeat here what I wrote earlier.

The REB often corrects some inconsistencies found in the NEB. In the latter, for example, ho poneros is "the evil one" I I times, but once, Matt. 5:37, it is "the devil." In REB, the translation in Matt. 5:37 conforms to the others. Another case: in Matt. 9:11, 13 of the NEB, hamartoloi is translated "sinners," but in v, 10 it appears as "bad characters." In REB, we have "sinners" every time. In many other places, and in many other ways, REB has improved on its predecessor.

But some idiosyncrasies remain. Diakaiosune is again translated " religion" in Matt. 6:1, as "goodness" in Acts 13:10 and Rev. 22:11, and as "morals" in Acts 24:25. Such translations as these, taken over from the NEB, point up a certain moralistic tone that was never far away in the NEB and that reappears in the REB. To illustrate further: the Greek word orge ("wrath"), used of God, is translated "retribution" in Romans, lending the word emotional and vengeful overtones it does not necessarily connote.

The Greek word sarx ("flesh") is interpreted often in terms of "nature" and is translated sometimes as "human weakness" (as also in the NEB). The connotation of a prior and more ultimate direction of living, an orientation, is missing. Related to the translation of sarx is the translation of pneuma ("Spirit" or "spirit"). The NRSV's "those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit" is, in REB (following NEB), "those who live on the level of the spirit have the spiritual outlook." Where is the power? In the same vein, in Acts 19:21, for the literal "Paul resolved in the Spirit (spirit?)," REB, again following NEB, translates, "Paul made up his mind." These few quotations indicate something of the tenor that is one aspect of the REB.

But I do not want to end this review on a negative note. The REB is clearly a translation of major import. It is fresh, vibrant, and imaginative, giving us a new way of seeing, unfettered by the literary garb in which the biblical text is customarily clothed. It offers English-speaking readers an alternative to the NRSV, a different, reliable way of hearing the text that will further illuminate the mysteries of the Word of God.

Translation is truly an impossible art. It must be done, but there is no final way of doing it. And, so, it must be redone, again and again. To mix two quotations: God has more truth and light yet to break forth out of God's holy Word than this world dreams of. God be praised for all those who, through their devotion to the study of holy Scripture, make it ever more clearly a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.