← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
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- [00:01]
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- [00:34]
Megan Lewis
Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman, the only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin.
- [00:55]
Bart Ehrman
I'd like to welcome you to this edition of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with me, Bart Ehrman. Today I will be interviewing Jennifer Knust, who is an expert on Bible translation along with many other things. This topic is a very interesting topic for a lot of reasons. It's an issue that most people don't even think about much even though they benefit from it. How do you take the Bible from some of the language translated originally in Greek and Hebrew, and how do you put it into English or into any other modern language? There are over 2 billion Christians in the world and most of them have some kind of access to the Bible in their their language. How does it happen exactly? And it involves problems with translation just generally. And anybody who translates a book, whether it's Dostoevsky or the Apostle Paul, has problems just involved with taking words in one language and sentences one language is putting it into another. There are special problems that come up with the Bible in particular for a lot of reasons that we'll be getting into. And so I'll be talking about all that with Jennifer Knust, who is a colleague of mine in crosstown rival Duke University, where she has been a professor of religious studies since 2019 and has been active in the field of biblical research and teaching for a long time. She did her she did her PhD at Columbia University in New York in 2001 and she's written a number of books and a huge number of articles on all sorts of aspects, especially New Testament and Early Christian studies. And recently she has been a member of the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. This new translation, the newest translation that has just come out that is getting very, very positive reviews. We're not going to talk about that particular translation unless it happens to come up. I'm really more Interested here in the general questions about translation and the Bible. So, Jenny, welcome.
- [03:02]
Jennifer Knust
Thank you, Bart. It's great to be here.
- [03:04]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Okay, thanks. I just want to kind of start with a general thing. I mean, when I was a kid, you know, there are like two translations I knew about. There was the RSV and the King James Version, and now it seems like there are about 26,000. So why do people keep translating the Bible? And like, do we need all these translations?
- [03:22]
Jennifer Knust
Oh, well, I can't speak for others. I mean, I know something about why the New Revised Standard Version decided to be updated or why the SBL and the National Council of Churches decided to update that. I don't know why. Others who Society, Society of Biblical Literature, sorry. And the National Council of Churches, the ncc. I know why they did it. I know a little bit about why the niv, the New International Version Committee, did their translation. I know I've taught some Bible history classes, so I've done some historical investigation of why, but I don't know all of the answers to all of them. But people. You're absolutely right. People love to translate the Bible.
- [03:56]
Bart Ehrman
But why? I mean, like, I was a research grunt for the original NRSV committee for several years toward the end of it, and at that point, I guess they were revising a revision that had been done in 1952. So it was about 30 years later. So I guess that kind of makes sense. So what reasons do people have? I mean, why? I mean, why do you need both a new international version and an nrsv? And why?
- [04:19]
Jennifer Knust
Well, you probably should speak about the nrsp. That is so cool that you were part of that original committee in a way, because obviously Metzger was the lead of that and Metzger was your advisor, if I remember correctly. So of course you were. I think that the new International Version, as I understand it, was a reaction in part to the Revised Standard Version and the decision, among other issues, around how to translate Parthenos or I believe so. I mean, I believe so. You know, virgin. The word is virgin. And as you know, in Hebrew, the word is alma. And so, you know, he shall send a virgin in the is the tradition. And the Hebrew counterpart in that RSV is translated as young woman. And that was considered terrible and a scandal.
- [05:07]
Bart Ehrman
Okay, hold on, hold on. Let's get into that. I was going to get into that later, but let's get into it now because it's going to get to, you know, why you need translation. So, but I mean, okay, so you're talking about a passage in the book of Isaiah. So in Isaiah 7 that is important, always important around, around Christmastime, because a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And that's how it's quoted. And in the King James Version, I don't remember the exact question, but Isaiah 7:14 says something that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel something. And the Revised standard version in 1952 translated Isaiah as a young woman shall conceive. My grandfather went nuts when that came out.
- [05:50]
Jennifer Knust
Oh really?
- [05:51]
Bart Ehrman
Oh my God. Yeah, he was a Pentecostal Christian. He's like, oh my God, they have taken the virgin birth out of the Bible. And but see, it's quoted, as many people on this will know. It's quoted in the New Testament as well. And it seems it's quoted with this word parthenos, meaning virgin.
- [06:06]
Jennifer Knust
Virgin.
- [06:06]
Bart Ehrman
Right, right. And so people got kind of upset because now if you translate it as virgin in the Hebrew Bible, it's not an accurate translation, but if you don't translate translated as virgin, then it sounds like Matthew's not really quoting the Bible correctly.
- [06:18]
Jennifer Knust
Right, exactly.
- [06:20]
Bart Ehrman
So the niv, the New International Version, was partly done in order to kind of correct that kind of, that kind of change.
- [06:27]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly. It's my understanding, I mean, I was on that committee, but my understanding from reading some of the historiography around it, that that was why. And as, as you probably know, the Revised Standard Version was, was received by Truman, President Truman on the steps of the Capitol building, I think the Capitol building. And so there was a big hoopla about it. And the American participation in that translation was really important. And you know, the sort of arrival of American New Testament scholarship in the post war period, I think symbolized by that translation as well as other work on the Greek New Testament that scholars were doing in the United States at that time and really contributing to New Testament scholarship in a different way in the post war period. And then everybody, or not everybody, people like your grandfather were not happy with those decisions. And there were actually book burning. So the Revised Standard Version was burned in some context. So there, there's a lot at stake in terms of how different words are translated and the kinds of investments people have in certain theological and doctrinal concerns. And so when the Bible changes, it can be shocking for people, especially if they're not trained in the Greek and the Hebrew. And most people aren't like, who has time? So, like most people just read it in English and why would they have to, you know, read the Hebrew and the Greek.
- [07:44]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're RSV was. Was burned, sometimes publicly. And as you were mentioning, my. My teacher, my mentor was Bruce Metzger, who was the chair of the New Revised Standard Version Committee, but he was also on the Revised Standard Version back in the 1940s. Yeah, yeah. In the office I worked in, there's this metal box that had ashes in it. And he loved showing it to people because it was a. It was ashes from a. A North Carolina pastor who had taken the blowtorch to the RSV in the 1950s and had sent the ashes to the chair of the committee. And so Metzger would show off this thing of ashes, and he'd always say that he's just glad that in the modern world they burn a copy of the translation rather than the translator.
- [08:29]
Jennifer Knust
That's funny, actually. And great story. I mean, wow.
- [08:34]
Bart Ehrman
So different committees, then. You have committees translating these things. Is that generally the way it works?
- [08:39]
Jennifer Knust
I mean, those are the New Testaments that I read, the ones that are translated by committee. There are some individuals who have made individual translations, translations, and I can understand why they might want to do that, because, you know, as even myself, if I'm reading from the Greek, I'm not necessarily going to follow any of the translations in my own thinking around, oh, I actually think this is what this writer is trying to say, or this book is maybe better translated is this way because I read Greek. But the committee, you know, these committees are responsible not only to themselves and their own sensibility about, oh, I think this means that. But also to a broader set of institutional contexts. And so the committee translations are representative of institutions, it seems to me.
- [09:23]
Bart Ehrman
Okay, so we do have. I guess we do have some translations by individuals, people who just sit down and. And, you know, probably a lot of New Testament scholars get asked by their students, why don't you do one? You know, you're just. Which you could. You could do, obviously. Do you think it's a better idea to do it by yourself? I mean, committees have institutions behind them, and it's not clear. Is that a good thing or not a good thing?
- [09:45]
Jennifer Knust
No, I think it's good, but I think it should be recognized by the readers. Right. So I think sometimes people don't bother to read the prefaces to their translations. And so if they're not reading the preface, they're not understanding historical context within which that translation was made. And every translation is a sort of encapsulation of the priorities of the people involved at that time, which are, in turn set in a context. And that context will inform choices that are made. And people should know that choices are made and that these are not just, you know, word for word translations. I mean, that's impossible anyway, because I definitely.
- [10:22]
Bart Ehrman
I definitely want to get to that about why it's impossible. But I'm interested in the committee idea because it seems like on one level, if you've got an individual doing it, you could get kind of their individual genius about it. Right. Or, you know, like in a particular take. But on the other hand, you get all their idiosyncrasies, like they've got weird views about this, that, or the other, because everyone does. And. And that gets into the translation then. But if you have a committee, I mean, it sounds like, you know, like novels are not written by committees. Us. And like, how do they do it? I mean, in other words, is a group in a room, like the committee in a room, and they're all deciding what to. How to translate this particular verse.
- [10:57]
Jennifer Knust
Well, maybe I could speak about my own experience on the NRSV updated edition. So that was done via Zoom, because it was. A lot of it was done in co. During COVID Right. But my understanding is, is that in the old days that they really were men sitting together in a room making these decisions. But in my case, we met as an editorial board online because that was the COVID days. So the way it worked with us is the individual book editors. So I was one of the general editors of the New Testament with Mike Holmes, my counterpart. And we together identified and invited book editors who were experts, known experts on the books that we invited them to offer suggestions about. And then the book editor would submit comments and suggested changes. And then as individuals, general editors, we would go through that and we would be responsible for doing a first pass of, oh, accept this change, reject that change, discuss this change based on our mandate, and then we would get together as an editorial board to discuss. So the thing that I appreciated about that process is that to translate the Bible is an extremely serious activity that should be done very carefully because people who don't have access to the original languages should not be misled by the translator to the degree possible. Or as. As we put it, that's. We had our slogan, which comes way back. I think the RSP had this slogan too. I just want to get it right, as literal as possible, as free as necessary. I think that is like, whatever that means.
- [12:30]
Bart Ehrman
That was a Metzger. Metzger came up with that. And yeah, that's how they did the. Okay, so you've got a group of people on zoom or you're right, I mean, usually used to be in a room and maybe won't be in rooms anymore, but. But presumably not everybody agrees on true, you know, like how to translate a word or how to translate a verse. So what happens when there's a disagreement?
- [12:50]
Jennifer Knust
Well, we discuss it and weigh various options, and we actually would reach a consensus based on, you know, as a member of a committee, we don't always get our way. Right. We have to be sensitive to the various concerns and reach a consensus that may or may not be representative of any individual point of view.
- [13:12]
Bart Ehrman
Usually the term consensus means that everybody agrees. And I can't imagine Bible translators, everybody in a room or on a zoom agreeing. So does it come down to a majority vote?
- [13:23]
Jennifer Knust
I don't think we ever had a contentious vote about anything. I think we, we would come to an agreement that for all different sorts of reasons, this is what it had to be. I mean, let me give you an example that I found personally difficult. And I'm speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for the board, I'm speaking for myself. As you know, one of the most difficult words to translate in the New Testament is the word doulos and its related term. So the word doulos means slave. And you know, those of us who are historians of that era know that a third of the population of the Roman Empire was enslaved. And while enslaved persons had all different kinds of jobs. So one could be, for example, a slave of the imperial household and be quite well off, in fact, better than most people in a given city if you were managing the emperor's accounts in Aphrodisias or something. Many slaves, most slaves, probably the vast majority were not, you know, live terrible, terribly abject circumstances where masters could make decisions about their. Their bodies in all different kinds of ways. Okay, so that's our background as people who work on the New Testament and who've been thinking about this problem of slavery or enslaved persons in the New Testament for a long time. And there's so much really great work on this question. And as you know, this is a particularly live question in the United States, where we have a history of slavery and the use of Bible to defend slavery in our own context. So it's a very difficult question. So what do you do about the translation of this term? Often what has been done is that in some cases the word is translated slave, and in some cases the word is translated servant. When people might be offended. Like, for example, Paul calls himself slave of Christ. And normally or often the NRSV and the RSV do this, translate this as servant. Paul, servant of Christ. And even in the Magnificat, when Mary says, you know, handmaid, I think is the kjv, what she's actually saying is female slave. So the book editors, I think, pretty much universally recommended that anytime that the word doulos is translated servant, it be translated as slave. This is the nrsv, the nrsv, updated edition. So the nrsv, the old nrsv, follows the rule of having Paul servant. For example, the updated edition, the initial discussion was we should just be consistent and use the word slave or enslaved person. In cases where it's clear that, like, for example, Paul, slave of God, Paul's declaring himself to be slave. But in other cases, if we're talking about slaves, let's use enslaved, because those people aren't choosing to be slaves, right? It's not like they're like, yay, let me be a slave. So, like, enslaved person in that case. That was kind of the consensus of the editorial board, but it went back to the National Council of Churches, and there was a huge debate about it because it was really offensive, actually, to many of the member churches and National Council of Churches, including historically black congregations, who felt really like, no, you know, that's not the same. To say when Paul calls himself slave of God, that's not the same. Right. He's not declaring that he wants to be enslaved by God, and we don't want to do anything that gives the impression that God wants humanity to be enslaved would have been, you know, the art, that argument. And so ultimately, the National Council of Churches is the copyright holder for the New Revised Standard Version, and now the New Revised Standard Version, updated edition. And so they're the ones who make the final decisions about what's in the text. And so what ended up happening is that even though initially the editorial board of scholars, right, had recommended translating doulos as slave or slave language, in every case, what ended up happening is that when the term is being used to describe a person, you know, who's accepting that role, servant language continued to be employed. So I myself, as a scholar, would prefer that doulos be consistently translated as slave throughout or enslaved. Because my sense as a scholar, and, you know, when I'm teaching, is that I want students to wrestle with what it means to have a text that's produced in a slaveholding context and what it means, the history of that, of the use of those texts, even in the United States, and. And how to wrestle with Scripture as an authority that's used even in something as abhorrent as slavery. So that's. As a scholar, that's what I prefer. But because these texts are not only used in classrooms and they're used in chur churches, the decision of the National Council of Churches was, no, we, you know, we're not going to do that. We'll put in footnote, so you'll notice that there'll be a footnote. You know, Greek slave, but the word is sometimes continues to be translated as servant. So there's an instance where. And again, I didn't agree with that, but we didn't vote. I'm like, okay, I accept that decision. Like, I understand the logic of that decision, even though it's not my preference. So we didn't ask people to vote. It was more like, okay, that reasoning there is legitimate.
- [18:10]
Bart Ehrman
There's a different Greek word for servant.
- [18:12]
Jennifer Knust
Correct.
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Bart Ehrman
That's translated as servant.
- [18:15]
Jennifer Knust
Correct.
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Bart Ehrman
And is Doulos ever translated as slave? In the updated edition?
- [18:21]
Jennifer Knust
Yes. Yes. When it. In instances where, like in the slave parables in the Gospels. Right. Where there's slaves, or in instances when Paul or the Pauline epistles or, you know, first Peter talking about enslaved persons and how slaves should behave and like the household codes, these are translated with the word slave, which is appropriate because slaves in particular are being addressed. So. Yeah, no, there's, there's lots of examples where, where doulos and doulas related words are translated as slaves.
- [18:50]
Bart Ehrman
I see. Yeah. But it's the consistency that. That's one of the hard things I think, for translations is just generally whether, I mean, this is obviously a very sticky situation for religious reasons, church reasons for. And so that's a very difficult issue. Yes, but, but even when you're just translating anything, I mean, you know, the question is, do you slavishly follow a particular translation? In other words, you. This is how I've translated this word in this chapter. Do I translate the word the same way in this other chapter in a different context or not?
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Jennifer Knust
Right. Because maybe a different book has a different nuance to that term.
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Bart Ehrman
Yes.
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Jennifer Knust
Right. Because these are, you know, 27 books by different people, by and large, not only. But, you know, and so they might use a word differently.
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Bart Ehrman
But even if you're translating, you know, a French novel, I mean, you still have to decide. It's not that you translate the word the same way every time.
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Jennifer Knust
Exactly.
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Bart Ehrman
You vary it depending. So could you just say something about that? I mean, it sounds like that's a great Illustration of how the nuances of a language are very difficult to translate. I mean, you could. You could just say, you know, this word means that this words means this, and. And just like, you just feed it into a computer, Right. Say what the word means and the word, the computer will chunk out a translation. But, like, it doesn't work that way, right?
- [20:01]
Jennifer Knust
Definitely not. No, definitely not. You have to make decisions because the languages are different. I have so many examples, but maybe an easy one for the NRSP update would be the word adelphoi, which means brothers.
- [20:12]
Bart Ehrman
Yes.
- [20:13]
Jennifer Knust
Or siblings. Siblings would probably be a better translation, although we don't use that word enough in English. But siblings maybe is the way to go with adelphoi. Right.
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Bart Ehrman
But siblings doesn't have a counterpart. Adelphoi does have one with adelphi.
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Jennifer Knust
Well, exactly. But the problem with Adelphoi, of course, this. Because Greek is a gendered language. And so if you have adelphoi, you could well mean siblings, where there are brothers and sisters present. And you cannot tell, because if you have a room of, you know, 10 siblings and one is a sister and nine are brothers, the word is still going to be masculine. Adelphoy. Right.
- [20:47]
Bart Ehrman
So everybody understands this. In Greek, the noun actually indicates whether it's a masculine noun or a feminine noun. And masculine nouns are usually used for male things and feminine for female. But also just every word, you know, bookcase has a noun, and it might be masculine, feminine. It's got nothing to do with whether the bookcase is male or female. So with something like Olafoy, when you're dealing with humans, you're saying that sometimes it means brothers and sometimes it just means, like, brothers and sisters.
- [21:15]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly. And there's really no way to tell if there are sisters in mind. Right. Like, there's no way to actually tell. But back in the day when the NRSV was translated, and we wish we had Metzger here to explain this to us, the decision was made to use inclusive language whenever possible and whenever likely, likely there were women there. So sisters. Right. Because often this term brothers would be employed to talk about members of the Jesus movement.
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Bart Ehrman
Yes.
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Jennifer Knust
Right. And so we know women were there. This is not a mystery. Right. We know there's lots of women named women in the New Testament, so we know there's women there. So they're brothers and sisters. Right?
- [21:54]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah.
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Jennifer Knust
So in the nrsp, when that decision was made to make sure to include sisters, not only to say brothers, there was not consistency around how individual book editors decided to handle that gendered issue. Right. So sometimes I think believers was a translation that was used sometimes or other words besides brothers and sisters. And because one of the goals of the update was to sort of update the English in an appropriate way, we didn't mess with the original mandate of the nrsv, but we did decide to translate Adelphi as brothers and sisters consistently. So if the NRSV had believers for Adelphoi, we translated it as brothers and sisters. So that goes to your consistency point. And in that case, we decided that brothers and sisters was a better way of representing the way that the addressees were being addressed by the writer, you know.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah. You know, actually, when I was hired by the NRSV committee, one of my mandates was to work on the inclusive language issue. And so I. And it was an interesting thing with the NRSV because when it work started, they didn't have a mandate about inclusive language. And that came in only after a while. And it was really interesting to see these. You know, I wasn't one of the translators, I was the research grunt, but I had to kind of go through and make deal with consistency issues, but especially with inclusive language. And it was interesting to see how they evolved over time, because at first a lot of the traditionalists thought you can't do this inclusively and get the words right, you know, you just can't say, you know. And so how do you. You know, they weren't going to say he or she, you know, and they weren't going to. And they weren't going to invent a pronoun. And so how do you. But it was interesting because over time they started realizing there actually are ways to do this that are intelligible and not bad English, you know, and so they. So they got better and better. Metzger in particular, got really pretty good at it. But it did mean that there were these places where I think they just decided they're going to make it inclusive when it was referring to humans, when it was inclusive, when there are men and women both involved, but they weren't going to be wooden in how they did it. Some places might be believed. They thought, yeah, the believer thing isn't. Doesn't work too well. But yeah, they didn't make some good decisions. So their idea was that, like, if Paul's writing a letter to Thessalonica or something, and he says Adelphoi, he's not just talking to the men, and so they'll translate it brothers and sisters. But there were other places, like we're in the book of acts where somebody would be talking to a group of men.
- [24:17]
Jennifer Knust
Yeah, yeah. Like men, brothers. Unless a traditional Greek address. Right.
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Bart Ehrman
Yeah. And so did you all change that as well?
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Jennifer Knust
You know, I can't remember. I didn't check before this conversation. I can't remember what we ended up deciding to do. We talked about it. We talked about how that's formal Greek address. In cases like that, we might have put in notes. I don't remember. I'd have to go look into individual cases.
- [24:38]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Translations often do have notes. Do you. Are you a big fan of translation notes and do you think, like, there should be. My experience is that most students at least don't look at them. So do you have a view?
- [24:50]
Jennifer Knust
I mean, for this purpose? I think, yes. I think it was important to put them in because we're trying to be as transparent as possible about what the decisions were and why they were that and that there were other alternatives. And I'm, I'm happy that we did that. I think that was the right thing. I can, I can see the wisdom of having a translation that's bare of note notes, but in this case, I think given the aspiration of the NRSV and the NRSP update and I think the RSP as well back in the day to speak to an academic as well as confessional audience, it makes sense to have that information available so that people who are studying only the English can see the work.
- [25:30]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. You know, the other thing I'll say is that with the nrsv, they really did take votes on every issue. I was a secretary for a few years before I was hired, but. And I was like, I'd sat in the room with. It was dealing with the. The Old Testament, and they'd have six people in the room and they always wanted to have seven or five because if they actually vote and it's like, would win by one. Okay, we'll do it that way. And interesting. Yeah, the whole. Every word. Basically. Their vote. Oh, they discuss it and they take a vote. It's like, oh my God, it's three to two. Okay, that's what it is then.
- [26:01]
Jennifer Knust
So interesting. Yeah, we didn't do that. I mean, I guess I did feel like we did have votes in the sense that, you know, we. Opportunity to state our opinion and if we could persuade the group, then we won, you know, but we didn't take formal votes.
- [26:13]
Bart Ehrman
Ah, well, you had a much more amenable committee than they did for the original nrc. You all are very agreeable. So you mentioned something a minute ago. And you mentioned several times about people, you know, who just read the English and the New Testament is, of course, written in Greek. And so can you just say something about, like, when you're doing a translation, not just the nrsv, updated edition, but just kind of generally when somebody's translating the New Testament, A lot of people, I think most people will know who are listening to this, that we don't have the original New Testament. When whoever wrote the Gospel of John, wrote the Gospel of John, we don't have that thing that he wrote. We have, like, copies from many later years later. And these copies are all different from each other. So I mean, how do translators decide which. So if you got, you know, if you got 700 copies of this particular book, and they're like differences all over the place, which manuscript you translate?
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Jennifer Knust
Well, the RSV and the nrsv, you know, come out of a tradition of using European and North American textual criticism and the insights of textual criticism in order to make decisions about what the underlying text should be.
- [27:20]
Bart Ehrman
So the underlying textual criticism. Because I think some people will think that means, like, interpreting text.
- [27:24]
Jennifer Knust
Oh, right. Well, you, you know, you're free to help me do this, but so don't
- [27:30]
Bart Ehrman
let her say that you all audience, because she's an expert in this.
- [27:33]
Jennifer Knust
Well, I'm trying to think how say it. I mean, you're better at this kind of, you know, explaining. But the idea is you have, you know, thousands of manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, and you have to make a decision about, well, what text will we print as the guiding text? Right. I'm going to use that word. So we people have decided differently about what that guiding text, that text that's printed in, in if you open up an addition, what the main text is,
- [27:58]
Bart Ehrman
the text about the Greek, the edition of the Greek New Testament, the edition
- [28:01]
Jennifer Knust
of the Greek New Testament. And what textual critics do is debate the method and the rules for how to develop that text that ought to be printed as the text that we might do our translation. And then textual critics, usually, like the English translators, try to show their work through something called a critical apparatus that shows what they didn't decide to put in the main text. Okay, The RSV and the NRSV and also the niv, although that's a different little bit different story. Follow the tradition of employing New Testament textual criticism, that art of, or science of putting, you know, deciding what the text is and then showing your work as the base text for the translations that are made. And so one of the reasons why The Revised Standard Version was made is because there had been so many advances in the ways in which scholars who do work with the manuscript scripts understood what the text should be. And similarly with the New Revised Standard Version, Bruce Metzger, as you know, was himself a very important famous text critic. And there had been advance or changes maybe would be a better way of saying it. New Testament textual critics might want to say advances, but progress or something, but there have been changes in understanding of what the best text ought to be. So in Metzger's generation of New Testament textual critics, the goal was to find the original text, the text as the author of individual New Testament books had written it down, and to try to figure that out based on comparing various manuscripts and using criteria and methods to understand what the original text was. And nowadays people talk about something called the initial text. What was the text, the Greek text, that from which all the other manuscript evidence can be explained. It's incredibly complicated. We could take an entire podcast and we still wouldn't understand what the heck they're talking about.
- [29:58]
Bart Ehrman
And yeah, when your committee or any committee, so we don't. But just when a committee of translators sit down, they're not like deciding on the Greek text for Matthew Chapter one, verse one. Right. They've got an edition in front of them that they've got something in front of them they're actually translating.
- [30:12]
Jennifer Knust
Yes, that's right. So the mandate of the NRSV updated edition was actually to use the most recent text critical editions. So that would be for our purposes, the one that's produced in Germany is The Nestle Alon 28, or in the United States would be the UBS United Bible Society 5th edition, I believe. And then in this other work that's been going on called the Aditio Critica Major, which is this massive project that's being undertaken in Germany where the all the texts of all of the books of the New Testament over time are being gradually reconsidered and they haven't all been finished. So book editors who had all of that information available were their part of their mandate was to review that. And also Mike Holmes, the general editor that I worked with, had produced his own critical edition, the SBL Greek New Testament, and that was also to be consulted. So decisions were. Were to be made. Text critical decisions were made by individual book editors. And then we as general editors would look at that. And you know, one of the reasons why I was, I think, asked to be one of the general editors is, although I do not and never will produce a critical edition of the New Testament. I know how the textual critics working today, how they do their work. And so I was able to. To tell, you know, make suggestions.
- [31:29]
Bart Ehrman
The basic line is, somebody can go online and buy a Greek New Testament, and almost everybody's going to get a Greek New Testament that's pretty similar to every other Greek New Testament. There'll be some. Some differences where there are important differences. The committee has to decide which Greek version do you. Do I follow which. Which Greek text do I follow here? And different. Different committees might decide different things. Like there are some famous instances where most. Most translation committees are going to agree that, yeah, those verses were not originally in there, even though they're in the King James.
- [31:59]
Jennifer Knust
Yes.
- [32:00]
Bart Ehrman
And there are other times where text critics can't decide. Well, in Luke 22, when it says that Jesus was in deep agony before his being arrested and he's sweating great drops as if of blood. So it's a sweating blood passage. Some manuscripts have that and some don't have it. And so a translation committee just has to decide which side do we think is right? Write and then translate it or not? And maybe. Maybe have a footnote. Do they put footnotes for that kind of thing?
- [32:23]
Jennifer Knust
Yes. Among the textual critics who are operating in this particular framework of, like, European and North American textual critics, modernist textual criticism, when there was split decisions among the text critics around something, then, yes, you'll see something like other manuscripts or other. I forget how we had it. We had special words, set of words that we would use that indicate that there's different readings in different manuscripts. Yes.
- [32:44]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, good. So you're translating this Greek. So are there places where the grammar is debate? You were talking about the word doulos, and we can talk about more words because there are a lot more words that are problematic. But. But are there also grammatical issues? Like, are there places where the grammar could be interpreted in a variety of ways? And there must be issues about punctuation. Right. Because Greek manuscripts don't have punctuation. And you got to decide how to punctuate something. And so. Okay, could you just say something about grammar?
- [33:10]
Jennifer Knust
So one that. That comes to mind. It's kind of a grammar question and kind of a translation question. Mixed together is First Corinthians 7:21. Right. Where the Greek is incredibly ambiguous. What does Paul mean when he says Malon Cresae? Right. Rather make use of it. Is that what he means? This is the part. Were you a slave when called. Don't be concerned about it, even if you can Gain your freedom, make use of your present condition. Now more than ever. That was the old nrsv.
- [33:38]
Bart Ehrman
That's Paul talking to people. Somebody in. People in Corinth who are slaves.
- [33:41]
Jennifer Knust
People in Corinth who are slaves. And he's saying to them, either he's saying, if you're a slave, you know, bummer for you, but make good use of your present condition, or is he saying something like, mallon Kresite, make use of your opportunity to obtain freedom. What is his nuance here? So the old NRSV has make use of your present condition. The book editor came back and said, let's leave this as a minimum translation and recommended that we say something like, rather use it. Right? If you can gain your freedom, rather use it or something. So that was their book editor's recommendation. And so we sort of talked about that as a board, because it was awkward English, and we said, well, what. Okay, maybe we could say this was the board's discussion. But even if it is possible to become free, rather do so with a note, meaning of Greek uncertain. That was a recommendation. So what we submitted to the National Council of Churches was, were you a slave when called, do not be concerned about it. But even if it is possible to become free, rather do so. That was the. Somehow that was what we ended up going with. And then what's in the actual translation is, were you a slave when called, do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of it. So that was the National Council of Churches decision. I wasn't part of that. But there's still a footnote that says meaning of Greek uncertain. So here we have them have a kind of ambiguous Greek, I mean, and grammar can't really save it for us. Right? And what. But it actually really matters. Is Paul recommending that slaves try to. To gain their freedom, or is Paul recommending that they don't try to gain their freedom and just, you know, make the best of it and, like, try to show that, in fact, they're not enslaved anymore, you know, because spiritually, they're not enslaved. They're. They're slaves of Christ. So that means they're not enslaved to human masters.
- [35:27]
Bart Ehrman
From Paul, it sounds like you're saying that the final decision is made by people who are not experts in Greek or in translation.
- [35:33]
Jennifer Knust
Well, the people in the National Council of Churches who made that decision do read Greek. So the National Council of Churches representative on our committee was Abraham Smith, who's a fantastic scholar, as you know, who teaches at Perkins. And so presumably he was part of that discussion. And I don't know, somewhere there's notes about why that decision was made, but it's not outside of what the board had discussed. Right. Like what their decision make the most of it is not that different from.
- [36:01]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, but it doesn't sound like it's being decided on academic grounds. In other words, it's not like people who are really wrestling with what an ancient language means. It's people who are concerned that the translation not be used in a bad way or understood in a bad way. Or it sounds like there are issues outside of, you know, linguistic scholarship that are determining how the translation gets done.
- [36:25]
Jennifer Knust
That's true. Which is why people should read the preface to their translations. Right. Because. No, I don't have that.
- [36:31]
Bart Ehrman
I'm not sure I understand what it
- [36:32]
Jennifer Knust
means, but I'm not sure that, you know, people don't. Maybe people don't realize, or our students probably don't realize that, that all of these translations, I don't know of a translation, maybe an individual translation, but every translation has some kind of confessional Christian involvement in it, to my knowledge of the New Testament. So that's going to make a difference in terms of how the translation takes place.
- [36:52]
Bart Ehrman
I mean, you mentioned the New International version earlier, and it's. It's the most popular English translation. It has been for many, many years.
- [36:58]
Jennifer Knust
Yeah.
- [36:59]
Bart Ehrman
And it reads very well. It's a good, good translation that way. But the committee members, if I understand. Correct. Correct. I think I do understand correctly. We're all evangelical Christians and had to be have an evangelical commitment to the inspiration of the Bible.
- [37:13]
Jennifer Knust
Right.
- [37:14]
Bart Ehrman
And there are places where they simply translate away contradictions. I mean, they're contradictions that they just, the way they translate, it's no longer a contradiction. If you're reading that, you can't even tell that there's a problem. So, like, I'll have students in class and I'll be pointing out, you know, this verse, that verse, you know, different, this book, this book, and they'll say, I don't see that. Look, what translation? Yeah, I'm using the niv. It's a great translation in this way, but. But I guess it's really not different. You're saying it's not different. You know, we all have institutional boundaries or translators have institutional boundaries and that, that affects things. Unlike, unlike, say, a translation of, you know, Homer, you know, where.
- [37:54]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly. And a translation of something like Homer has to be attentive not only to sort of ease of reading and how we could teach that text, whatever, to a bunch of scholars who are going to yell at you if you don't get. But, you know, with the, with the New Testament, it's not only a bunch of scholars who are going to yell, and I'm sure. Or not yell, maybe be annoyed or, you know, critical or whatever. And I'm sure there will be criticism of this translation, and I welcome that. I mean, I think that's appropriate, actually, because, I mean, like I said, there's things that as a scholar, I probably wouldn't have chosen that, you know, this translation or that translation, but that's appropriate. And there will also be critics on the confessional Christian side. You know, there will be other Christians who don't like this or that. And it's hard to bring all these interests together into a single translation. I mean, it's impossible, really.
- [38:37]
Bart Ehrman
Let's go back to kind of on a more kind of technical level about translating Greek into English. It's. I mean, it's got to be somewhat different from translating, you know, French or Russian because those are living languages. And yeah, we have trillions of books and articles and things written in these languages. Can you tell us just on the basic, very basic level, this is not Greek is still a spoken language, but the spoken language today, it just ain't like it was 2000 years ago. How do you even know what words meant 2,000 years ago? I mean, talking about the very basic, like, how do you know what a word means?
- [39:09]
Jennifer Knust
Well, I think you have to just read a lot of Greek and not only New Testament, Right. You have to read all the Greek that you can get your hands on, you know, from Homer all the way to, you know, the 13th century, if you can. We have something called the Thesaurus Lingua Greco, which is a giant digital compendium of all Greek literature from its earliest, you know, extant moment up until, I think they're in the 16th century now. So if we could read all of that Greek, then we would have a chance? No, I think that the more people
- [39:36]
Bart Ehrman
would say, you just look it up in a dictionary. Right. But how did the. How do the people make the dictionary know what the words mean?
- [39:41]
Jennifer Knust
Well, they read a lot of Greek. Exactly.
- [39:43]
Bart Ehrman
But you can't read the Greek if you don't know what the words mean. So what. So how's it work?
- [39:47]
Jennifer Knust
They're also, I mean, if they're English speakers, for example, you know, then they're also being trained by other English speakers what these words mean. So I think that what, you know, the way we all start at least I'll speak for myself. You know, I started learning Greek was. I had my Greek professor teaching me how to translate certain words. You know, I think we all learned at least what I did, I learned Luo, you know, to lose is the base. The base way of interpreting or. Or sort of learning all of the verbal forms. And so nobody told me that, you know, to lose could also mean to set free or whatever. And those. I had to learn that over time through encountering the word in context. So initially you learn some kind of, you know, obvious meaning. And then you have to learn.
- [40:25]
Megan Lewis
You have.
- [40:25]
Jennifer Knust
You see the word happening and then you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's not. Not quite what this means. Or it means it, but it means it with a different nuance. So like, to lose might mean to set free? If it's in the right context.
- [40:36]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the idea is then you kind of. You get a basic meaning, you know, so if you get the word hadas, which means like away the road or a path, and then you realize when you read it enough, it doesn't mean dandelion, you know, or it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean, you know, I mean, because it doesn't make sense. And so you see what. So, yeah, okay, that makes sense with this con. But eventually you'll come to a context. You say, wait, ah, yeah, that doesn't really sound, you know, the road or path doesn't really work here, but it means something kind of. And so that's how they come up by reading everything in context, I guess. So exactly what happens with words, some of which you get in the New Testament, for which there is no other usage. In other words, a word is made. So the technical term for those of us who. Those of you into technical terms, those are called hacks. Lagomena.
- [41:25]
Jennifer Knust
Isn't that a great thing to. That's a great term in English, like hapax Legomena is like such an awesome word. Everyone should learn that word.
- [41:31]
Bart Ehrman
They should. And you know, I tell my. My students, you know, you need to learn words like this so your parents will, you know, be able to justify their tuition costs. Learn half a gamma. Okay, so. So you come across. And a singular for that is a half axle, G. Non. And so when you come across a half axle dominant anywhere, like. But in the New Testament, there are a few. I mean, how do you know how to translate it if there's no context? Right? Is it. I mean, somebody's told you what it means, but maybe they're wrong. How do they know? So how do you know go.
- [41:58]
Jennifer Knust
Well, I mean, you just read all the debates and then you make a decision. I mean, I. The example that sticks in my mind, which is, it's, it is a hapax legamana because it, well, it's a hapax leg that ends up being a hapax legamana is the word arsenicotoi, which, which means, is some kind of hybrid of the word man beds. Right. So it's like the word man arsen plus beds, the word for bed, man and beds mushed together into a word.
- [42:23]
Bart Ehrman
Where does this first occur?
- [42:24]
Jennifer Knust
You know, I mean, it first occurs in First Corinthians, Paul. It first occurs in a writing of Paul. That's first known usage of this word in the Greek language. Now that doesn't mean it didn't exist somewhere else, just means it didn't occur, it didn't appear. It doesn't appear in extant literature. Right. So we don't know if it was being used.
- [42:38]
Bart Ehrman
This is the passage where Paul is going through a list of people who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
- [42:43]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly.
- [42:44]
Bart Ehrman
One of. One of the people that won't be our man beds,
- [42:48]
Jennifer Knust
whatever the heck that means. Right. And, and people have made all kinds of different arguments about what it might mean. You know, maybe it's means it's some kind of illicit sex between men. Maybe it's about some kind of exploitative sex between men. I mean, it could, it could mean many different things and there's no way to know. There is no way to know because it, it first occurs in this context as in a list of vices. And frankly, lists of vices are not usually offered in order to be specific about the activity. I mean, that's true, that's true. In our own context, if we're going to slur someone, you know, we're not, we're not like thinking about the exact activity. What we're doing is trying to use words that are mean, mean to stick to somebody.
- [43:26]
Bart Ehrman
Well, that's right. And so, so we know it's something mean because it's in this list of vices and people who like, do whatever these man beds are doing is, is bad. This is the word that gets, sometimes gets translated and understood as homosexual. Is that correct?
- [43:40]
Jennifer Knust
That's right, that's correct.
- [43:42]
Bart Ehrman
And so people just assume it means homosexual. But in fact, you know, maybe, but not really even maybe. I mean, I would, I think you and I.
- [43:50]
Jennifer Knust
No, I say no, it definitely doesn't mean.
- [43:51]
Bart Ehrman
It absolutely cannot mean homosexual.
- [43:53]
Jennifer Knust
Not mean that. Right. It absolutely does not mean that.
- [43:56]
Bart Ehrman
And for a reason other than man beds. I mean, it has to do with. In the ancient world, like, the term homosexual would have made no sense to anybody. I mean, there wouldn't be a concept.
- [44:04]
Jennifer Knust
There was no. There was no category of a person who ontologically desired men that, like, wasn't a thing. So, like, that doesn't exist as a concept.
- [44:14]
Bart Ehrman
There were men who did desire men, but there wasn't a concept that this kind of phenomenon, so they didn't have a sense of sexuality orientation or anything like that to even allow desire was
- [44:22]
Jennifer Knust
not understood the same way.
- [44:24]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, right.
- [44:25]
Jennifer Knust
Completely on board with you. We are totally at. In agreement on this. Okay.
- [44:29]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. So. But when. Okay, so when you come across a word like that, you just take your best guess. I mean, you got to use another word. Right. I'll tell you my biggest problem with translation, Jenny, was when I was. I was trying to translate the Apostolic Fathers, and I'd come across a word, and I was used to doing this with a group of PhD students. And you'd say, well, it could mean this, could mean that, could be that, and you kind of come up with a bunch of things. But then when you're doing translation, translation, you got to type a word, right?
- [44:53]
Jennifer Knust
Yeah.
- [44:53]
Bart Ehrman
And you can't say it could mean this, this, and that. You just take a good guess.
- [44:57]
Jennifer Knust
No, I mean, what we ended up doing, and I felt that was a. Myself. This agreed with me. I agree with myself. This decision was that we ended up deciding as a board to translate that word as men who have illicit sex. Footnote, meaning of Greek uncertain. For exactly this reason. We know it's seeing. We know Paul's saying something mean.
- [45:18]
Bart Ehrman
Mean. Yeah.
- [45:18]
Jennifer Knust
And we know he's saying something mean about men. But beyond that, we don't know.
- [45:22]
Bart Ehrman
Men in bed, something.
- [45:24]
Jennifer Knust
Men who are in beds doing something. But what we don't know.
- [45:28]
Bart Ehrman
I think it's actually a pretty good decision.
- [45:29]
Jennifer Knust
I thought so, too. I was happy with that. I do. I thought that was a good decision. And what we didn't like, and I think rightly so, was what the NRSV had, which.
- [45:37]
Bart Ehrman
What did they have?
- [45:38]
Jennifer Knust
They had sodomitesv. Did they did. I wish. I mean, it's shockingly bad because. But it's anachronistic. It's so bad that makes me cringe. I don't care what your perspective is. It's so bad. It's the worst translation. And so bad. And so that got. We got rid of that and tried to be as clear as possible that this is really an uncertain word because it is a hapax Legomen.
- [46:06]
Bart Ehrman
Let me just say now that you've told me that, I just want everybody to know I had nothing to do with the nrsvo. Yeah, well, we could have a whole thing about why that's bad because it's on a lot of different levels.
- [46:19]
Jennifer Knust
So I would have a thing in Bible Odyssey. I had to write a thing about it in Bible Odyssey because we got in a lot of trouble for translating this as men who have elicit sex. Footnote, meaning of Greek uncertain. When the initial release happened, a bunch of people wrote the NRSP Update Edition board and protested that decision. And so I wrote something about, this
- [46:42]
Bart Ehrman
is why Bible Odyssey is this online thing sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature that people. Yes, just Google Bible. They have articles on stuff like this and they could.
- [46:53]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly. And so I wrote the one about man beds.
- [46:55]
Bart Ehrman
Man. That's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Did these people who protested have an alternative that they were suggesting, or they just, like, didn't like your.
- [47:03]
Jennifer Knust
They just. They thought we weren't mean enough. They wanted us to be meaner in
- [47:06]
Bart Ehrman
our day, go after some specific group they didn't like.
- [47:08]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly. Like, they don't like this group. So let's go after them. I'm like, okay, that's a good reason to translate something the right way. So you can be mean.
- [47:14]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah, right, exactly. But I want to end this with a final question.
- [47:17]
Jennifer Knust
Question.
- [47:18]
Bart Ehrman
You know, there are people in our world today who still think that the King James Version is the best translation, and they don't see any reason to read newer translations. And I don't need anything specific about the NRCV or anything. Just kind of generally, is there. Is there a problem with just reading the King James or is there reason to read something that's a recent translation?
- [47:36]
Jennifer Knust
I like to read the King James Version. I think the King James Version is a beautiful translation. It's, you know, the one that my grandmother knew. And so, you know, reminds me of my grandma. And I have no problem. I have no objection to reading the King James Version. My objection would be to thinking of the King James James Version is an accurate translation of exactly what God said. I mean, that doesn't make sense because the King James Version, like every translation, comes out of a historical context. It uses this archaizing English from our perspective. Right. So the English has changed. Just like Greek changed, English changed. And King James's English is not the English we use in the United States. In 2022. And it offers a misimpression of the language that's used in the New Testament, which is not an elevated language, by and large. Right. So it sounds to us when we hear thy and thou and the. And whatever, that like we're talking in some kind of. We're pretending to be Shakespeare or something. I don't know. And so it makes us think that the New Testament's in this elevated language. It's not. It's written in a very kind of coarse Greek, by and large. And so it's a misimpression if that's all we're reading. So. So that's that. And then it also. I don't know. I mean, it doesn't. It also uses a Greek text that most scholars would not accept as the best Greek text at this point. It is a Greek text. You know, that. That was an important Greek text for Protestants, you know, as that text came forward in the invention of the printing press through the Protestant Reformation, that became the Protestant text. It's called the Textus Receptus, or the received text. And that's the Greek text that's behind the King James Version. So it is a historically valid Protestant text behind the King James Version, but it's not the Greek text that one would find in a critically edited New Testament that we use today.
- [49:23]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. Okay. I mean. I mean, to the extent. There are actually some important verses that are in the King James because it was in the Greek text. They're translating that. That today. Most scholars say. Yeah, those weren't originally there and so.
- [49:35]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly.
- [49:36]
Bart Ehrman
But also. Yeah. And edit a deeper level, too, other than just verses here and there. So. Okay, well, that. Look, that's really helpful. It's nice to have somebody who's been recently involved with this entire process to tell us about it, because it's. It really is a complicated thing, and it's. It's more.
- [49:53]
Jennifer Knust
It was such a privilege. I just want to make that clear. Like, it was complicated and, you know, not every decision went my way, but it was such a privilege to be part of that committee. I mean, and to listen to the book editors and to listen to the other members of the committee and to try to be as responsible as possible to all of these various constituencies who care so deeply about these texts. I. It was an incredible experience, and I feel so lucky that I was part of it. I just want to say that. And really hats off to Mike Holmes, who was the other general editor, and to all the book editors who did such beautiful work. And frankly, they can't be thrilled because a lot of the stuff they recommended didn't happen. So I hope they'll all yell at us because they all made great suggestions that we couldn't incorporate in the end, for all kinds of reasons. It was a great experience.
- [50:42]
Bart Ehrman
Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad. And it's, you know, and it's an. It's important work. The National Council of Churches. That's is the one who owns the copyright to this.
- [50:49]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly.
- [50:49]
Bart Ehrman
And we're talking about the, you know, the. The largest collection of Christian churches in America. And it's a, you know, to an entire group. And so this is the translation that they officially endorse and.
- [50:59]
Jennifer Knust
Exactly.
- [51:00]
Bart Ehrman
Fund, but they endorse it. And so it makes a big difference when you're on that committee because you're. You're influencing how people understand the Bible.
- [51:07]
Jennifer Knust
Bible, which is a huge responsibility, you know. And, I mean, Bart, you do this professionally, too, right? You want to be as fair and accurate and just as possible in how you represent what you're reading and why you're making the decisions that you're making. And you do the best you can. But we're human. I mean, I think that's one of the things to remember when we're reading any translation, is that human beings made these translations, you know, in all of our situatedness and imperfection, and yet also our sincere effort to be responsible to the jobs that we've been entrusted to undertake.
- [51:40]
Bart Ehrman
Well, that's. That's a great way to end it. So thanks, Jenny. I really appreciate it. And so it's been really great. Okay, so good luck, and I suggest not taking on a translation project anytime soon.
- [51:53]
Jennifer Knust
I definitely am not going to, so.
- [51:55]
Bart Ehrman
Yeah. All right, well, thank you all for listening in. In. And we will have another very interesting episode soon as well next week. Okay, thanks a lot.
- [52:09]
Megan Lewis
This has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel, so you don't miss out. From Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis. Thank you for joining us.