Did the Bible just say that?
Where Blue Parakeets meet Scripture Readings…
I have been faciliting the scripture readings during Lent as a way to get more of the congregation involved in worship. A few weeks back I choose one of the passages from the Lenten psalms in the Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 12, and read over it in my trusty TNIV. I was happy about the passage.
I squared all the details away with the reader before the service started and he headed over to the stack of NLT Bibles our church uses and bookmarked the passage.
How much a translation makes a difference.
Earlier I had read:
May the LORD silence all flattering lips
and every boastful tongue— (TNIV)
That’s good stuff!
Then the reader read the same verse from the NLT and I had to cringe:
May the Lord cut off their flattering lips
and silence their boastful tongues.
Woah, big difference. Silence or Violence. Saying shhh! and grabbing a knife are big differences.
The violence of the psalm has become a little running joke when different leaders gather together to discuss worship. When I picked out the passage for the following weeks the question, "does it involve cutting off lips?" usually arises.
It’s fine, I can laugh about it. It was a "violence in the Bible" issue. That’s why we have translations like the TNIV that are "less violent."
But is it really a translation issue or a censorship issue? I know not one jot or tittle of Hebrew so I really can’t comment. The scenario has gotten me thinking though.
Are our translations running from violence in the Bible? Or dark humor? Or tragedy? Are our Bibles softened and cuddled into being nice?
Are we running from our Bible problems instead of facing off with them and really actually talking about it?
For me this passage demands justice, and sometimes justice looks different in our minds than in our actions. How many times do we think "I want to kill them!" then talk it out? That happens daily for most people. The language we use in personal or casual conversation often has metaphors of violence that are just overly exagerrated ways of saying one is frustrated or angry. Then sometimes we really do feel that way and we temper are emotions and act responsibly. That’s what is happening in the tone of Psalm 12.
Yet why is the tone tempered in the TNIV? Does silencing really say the same thing as cutting? And the bigger question that stems from all this, how far should we go to make the Bible say what it means? Or are we just tricking ourselves into justifying how we censor or edit the Scriptures?
What do you think?
5 Comments
Submit a Comment
SUBSCRIBE:
I Support
Well, just looking at the original text the verb is crt which does in fact mean “to cut [off].” Personally, I would disagree with the TNIV translation here-though I love the TNIV- because it obscures some of the poetic imagery used. In fact, because it’s such a strong statement, I would probably keep it in other genres as well so that it would carry the force intended.
I don’t know … The verb might well mean “to cut off,” but it is a valid question as to whether it’s a piece of vernacular. What do you mean, for example, when you tell your noisy neighbor to “cut it out”? Cut what? Out of what?
When you tell someone to shut up, what does “up” have to do with it?
In “The Princess Diaries,” there is the classic moment when the young lady is told that she’s a princess, and responds by exclaiming, “Shut up!” at her grandmother — a queen. An aide leans over to tell the queen that teenagers sometimes use it as an expression of shock, not just to tell someone to be quiet.
I’ll admit … I not only don’t know Hebrew, I don’t know the vernacular of the day. However, it does seem like it matters. To understand properly, we should know what they mean. A literal word-for-word translation might, without knowing the vernacular, lead to errors.
Well I understand the temptation to try and “understand” what the Bible says to make it more palatable, sometimes it says what it says. One of the things that I love about the Psalms is that it expresses the full range of human emotions to God, nothing is held back. There is screaming against God, there is asking for cursing of one’s enemies, the killing of babies of the enemies, etc. This, I would argue, allows us to find a way to keep in conversation with God no matter how we are feeling toward him. Sure these may not be “good” or “proper” emotions (though I would argue that suppressing them as we do it the wrong thing to do) but they exist in our lives and confronting them rather than running from them is appropriate.
I do not know what the common vernacular of the day was, but “to cut” is used in some very gruesome acts (such as the “cutting” of the covenant between Abraham and God in Gen 15:9ff).
This is why translations are so hard. Every translation involves interpretation. We should remember this, especially as we seek to study the scriptures.
You’re right- the vernacular does matter and I do believe that a word-for-word (which is not really possible, considering there is no such thing as a 1:1 correspondence between languages) can lead to error.
To answer your questions (as best I can!), I think it’s primarily the vernacular of the day that leads me to think we should keep it. The reason for this is not necessarily in the preposition “off” but in the force of the verb “to cut.” The word is used in actual and literal cutting- cutting in half, cutting something down like a tree, cutting something off. The common english idiom “cut it out” wasn’t an idiom used in Hebrew. To be sure, Hebrew has its idioms, and a lot of them at that! But when we see this particular verb- it’s usually just that- actual cutting.
Now here’s the rub. Just because the verb is literal cutting- it’s also able, particularly in the psalms, to be metaphorical. I’m not saying that I think David actually wants God to cut off their lips and tongues- but he does want to use the imagery of those things being cut off to get his emotion across. It’s the imagery that David uses to express himself, so we miss that when we remove the imagery. But it’s the vivid imagery that gives us insight into David’s anger and frustration in this situation. It comes across much clearly than a simple “silence them!”
I hope that makes more sense!
I’ve not looked over the passage in question though I do know of several instances where the translators purposefully softened the language for modern ears (Jer. 20:7 and many passages in Ezekiel where God speaks of his people prostituting themselves, for example). Even in the introduction to the 1611 King James version the translators explain some of the ways they soften their translation for political reasons!
I agree with your line of questions, “are we being too nice?”
Think about how the average congregant (church attender) would feel if, when quoting Paul’s opinion of his ‘good works’, actually used the vernacular as was possibly intended back then? He uses the word ‘scubala’ we translate it ‘dung’ or ‘refuse’ and everyone “gets the picture”. Do we need to use our vernacular to get the point across or will ‘dung’ do?
Regardless of translation issues, I do sense a ‘making nice’ in the way we teach and communicate the Word in many pulpits. And for good reason. I once taught a wednesday evening Bible study at a mid-sized church some years ago. I noticed many of the older crowd quietly began to slip away while the younger crowd grew. One lady in her 70′s explained. “You don’t comfort us like the Pastor. Instead, you make us think about things we don’t want to deal with in our hearts and lives.” I didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned. She told me it was not a compliment. Ouch!
Well, sorry to get long-winded. Good post. Thought provoking and very relevant. Thanks.