cleaning up the poo
This post indulges in the nerdiest of all nerdy theology student activities. It discusses the difference between our English bible translations and the original languages. And not even in relation to the big themes like loving God and our neighbour, but in relation to some pretty small details. Go and do something less nerdy while you still can. Like playing chess against yourself while watching Star Trek.
There’s a weird and wonderful story in Daniel 5 in which King Belshazzar of Persia throws a party, but is interrupted in his drunken revelry by a disembodied hand writing on the wall. According to most of our English translations, he was so scared that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way, which sounds reasonable enough. But in the Hebrew the phrase is a little more colourful. It says that “the knots of his loins were loosed.” Which almost certainly implies that he momentarily lost control of certain bodily functions. Nice. There’s even a cheeky little pun when Daniel is introduced later in the chapter as someone who “is able to loosen knots” (the NIV has “solve difficult problems”). The message seems to be, “if the writing scared the crap out of you, wait til you hear the interpretation!”
So the translators of our English bibles have decided it is in our best interests to remove the toilet humour from this story, and in the process they’ve made it less earthy and less funny. Now maybe this just grabs my attention at the minute because we have a three-year-old in the house and have an endless supply of poo-related stories with which to entertain our dinner guests. But I’m also taking it as a metaphor for what we repeatedly do to the bible. We find this collection of ancient writings too messy, too wild, too strange. And so we tidy it up. Clean up the poo. Tie up the loose ends. Explain away the mysteries. And end up with a meek, tamed book which has lost its power to provoke and offend and surprise and transform us.
Here’s another (small) example. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable about a mustard seed, which he describes as “the smallest of all the seeds.” Now the mustard seed is pretty darn small, but it isn’t actually, technically, the smallest seed in the world. And some people think this is a problem, what with Jesus being God and all. So the ever-helpful translators of the NIV have fixed it. What Jesus meant to say, of course, was “the smallest of your seeds.” It’s not a big change, but it papers over a little bit of the wonder of the incarnation. There are two possible ways to take the original words of Jesus. Maybe in taking on a human nature, Jesus chose to limit his own knowledge in such a way that, during his earthly life, he didn’t know that there was a smaller seed than the mustard seed. Or maybe he knew, but chose to communicate to his hearers within their own view of the world, within which the mustard seed was the smallest seed they knew. Either way it’s a small but powerful expression of the way God humbled himself to come near and speak to us in the person of Jesus. By tidying up the mess, we have lost a little bit of the glory.
Back to Daniel for one last example. Remember those three flannel-graph heroes, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? Threatened with death by fire for refusing to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, they come out with one of the most quoted and preached on soundbites in Scripture: “the God we serve is able to save us, and he will rescue us – but even if he does not, we won’t bow down to your gods.” It’s great stuff – total confidence in God’s power to rescue them, combined with humility in the face of God’s sovereign plan.
Except, of course, that’s not what they said. Apparently this is a bit of a nightmare to translate, but a much more likely version goes something like this: “If our God is able to save us, he will. But even if he can’t, we won’t bow down…” You see the problem. Total confidence in God’s goodness – not 100% sure about his power. Their theology is a little suspect, so the translators have crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s. It kind of shows you where our priorities lie. These guys loved God enough to go to almost certain death rather than betray that love. But if their doctrine is a little untidy, they get censored. Maybe we should wait until our faith-in-action is close to theirs before we presume to sort out their theology.
So here’s a small plea. Let’s leave in the puzzles, the problems, the paradoxes and the poo. When we tidy them up, we lose some of the humour, and a lot of the power and the beauty. This is not a tame book.
soapbox says:
June 26th, 2007 at 7:59 am
welcome back jaybercrow – its been too long – i’m off back to my virtual chess set…
Vox O'Malley says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Back in fine fragrant form. No doubt you’ve had plenty of poo running about your house in the last while.
Our best to you and yours.
teragram says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Amen brother! How prideful would you have to be to feel that you could and should “fix” the Bible?
Tg
zoomRACA says:
June 26th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Brilliant post and brilliant argument.
wylie says:
June 26th, 2007 at 11:13 am
love it jaybercrow. you’re so right and i am humbled because i too try to clean up the messiness of God.
so glad you escaped the poo long enough to write!
Natalee says:
June 27th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Refreshing and interesting. Thanks…
Blondie says:
June 27th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
very well done! I work at an organization called “The Mustard Seed” (and received your blog address via google alerts) and we have always also wondered about the Mustard Seed and how it’s not actually the smallest.
A very interesting read!
Steve says:
June 27th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Hey Jayber – good to have you back.
And I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by connection nerdiness and Star Trek – sure it’s a fine example of deep and meaningful drama which stretches out understanding, expanding our horizons. :p
Re messiness, fascinating stuff. I’m not quite sure how to respond though. Anger at not being taught these things all through my childhood/teens etc? Or confusion and skepticism (cynicism?) with teaching I hear now? Or nodding and smiling and patronising pats on the head with a “That’s nice, dear” expression, while I keeping going on my merry way?
I remember back to your post about the authority of the bible and how the discussion spread over a couple of other blogs. And you wrote about it as the screenplay for the first four acts of a cosmic five-act epic, with us in the fifth. We have to remain true to the first four acts. I also remember I had a problem with the word “authority” (I think it was “authority”). Attaching that post to this post, my problem is perhaps made a little clearer. The authority of the bible as a benchmark for relationship with God, as the stories of his power on earth, his truths etc. – all this and more I do not disagree with. But, when you have teaching based on “cleaned up” or “slightly wrong” translation/interpretation, the authority becomes cloaked in a mess of human understanding and human response (e.g. smoothing over the cracks). So, the issue I had/have is perhaps more with the people rather than the bible itself.
But this sounds more like a need to explain where I was coming from than what I meant. Which is, what is your angle with this? OK, the extra dimensions added with these little details are fantastic. But, if you’ve been pulling at these threads and finding out that they’re slightly different shades and textures from what you thought, what have you found out? What’s happening/happened to your picture of God and his relationship with us?
Here’s an essay question for you: Compare and contrast God as portrayed by the “cleaned up” version of the biblical texts versus the God presented in the original language. (OK, so “cleaned up” probably wouldn’t appear in an exam paper – but you never know). 4,000 words, deadline July 6.
Sure you could do it for fun! Just in case you’re not busy enough
jaybercrow says:
June 28th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Thanks for the positive feedback. You are all obviously as nerdy and poo-fixated as I am.
Steve – I guess my intention is not really to draw attention to the flaws in out english translations, but to highlight the way we all tend to try and tidy up the Bible rather than receive and wrestle with the curious book he has given us.
For the record, I think we can have a fair degree of confidence that the translations available to us are pretty reliable. But the examples I cited maybe alert us to the fact that every translation is an interpretation. So it’s helpful to compare different translations, and to look at some commentaries to make sure we’re hearing God’s word as clearly as possible.
Interestingly, the updated Today’s NIV (TNIV) has greatly improved some of the less helpful stuff in the old NIV. It restores some of the ambiguity to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s statement in Daniel 3. And it restores the original words of Jesus about the mustard seed. Sadly the poo in Daniel 5 is still nowhere to be seen. I guess we’ll have to wait for Tomorrow’s NIV. Anyway, good reasons to trade in your NIV’s for the TNIV (in addition to the fact that it actually acknowledges the existence of women).
wendy says:
June 28th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
and amen to that!
cheers for the thoughts..would like to see that daniel story on flannel-graph:-)
best wishes.
w.
WhyNotSmile says:
July 18th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Great post JayberCrow, really enjoyed reading it – I’ve been reading stuff along similar lines lately, but they don’t put it as nicely (or poo-y) as you!
Hope you’re all well out there!