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Bousset at 100

I’ve worked with several scholars–Loren Stuckenbruck, Paula Fredriksen, and Larry Hurtado—to create a special session at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in November 2013 (Baltimore, MD).  Christ enthroned2013 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Bousset’s magisterial work, Kyrios Christos.  We thought it might be helpful to take stock of Bousset’s influence on the field of religious studies. Here are a few of the salient questions we hope to address:

(1)   How do we assess the significance of Bousset’s work today (particularly Kyrios Christos), 100 years later?

(2)   How has Bousset shaped scholarly discussion?

(3)   Is there a new history of religions school (a statement made by Professor Martin Hengel in the 1990s)?

(4)   Is there anything Bousset said that we missed?

(5)   Has subsequent research (Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudepigrapha, archaeology, etc.) proved or disproved any of Bousset’s ideas?

Four prominent New Testament scholars have agreed to present papers and guide our discussion.  They are

       Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St. Edward’s University

      Larry Hurtado, University of Edinburgh

      Lutz Doering, University of Durham

      Cilliers Breytenbach, University of Berlin

Dr. Jeff Peterson of Austin Graduate School of Theology has agreed for his program unit, Extent of Theological Diversity in Early Christianity, to host the session.

Professor Jens Schroeter, editor of the prestigious journal Early Christianity, has agreed to publish the essays in the fall 2014.

As details about the time and place of the session are made known, I’ll share them with you.  If you plan on being in Baltimore, MD in November 2013, I hope you will join us. 

 

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English or Biblish?

I remember a conversation I had with a friend years ago.  He was lamenting the fact that modern Bible translations like the New King James Version and the New American Standard Version had dropped words like “Thee,” “Thou,” “Thine,” “art” (as in the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven . . . “) and “hast.”  These words were typical of the 16th and 17th centuries but have long since fallen out of use with most English-speaking people. The only time people may have heard or used them was “in church.”  For my friend, the Bible was not the Bible if it didn’t sound . . . well “Biblish.”    kjv_bible

(I’m grateful to Mark Strauss and Gordon Fee for bringing this word to my attention in their excellent book, How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007]).  Modern translations, he felt, had left behind the formal language of heaven (God’s language) preferring instead the mundane language of “this world.” The translation he loved sounded more “spiritual” to him than the newer ones, so he was against them, pure and simple.  Like many people, my friend had a deep emotional connection with the King James Version of the Bible based on all the years he spent in church and Sunday School.

As a seminary graduate and a recently minted PhD in New Testament, I tried to explain to him all the complexities of Bible translation. I talked about translation theory, the ins-and-outs of determining word meaning, the difference between functional and formal equivalence. I defended the need for newer translations.  But it didn’t matter.  His mind was made up.

The basic concern we had as a translation team on The Voice was to render Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic sentences (our source languages) into meaningful, natural English (our target language).  In other words, the goal of any English translation must be English not Biblish.  As Strauss and Fee note: “Biblish results when the translator simply replaces Hebrew or Greek words with English ones, without sufficient concern for natural or idiomatic English” (p. 21).   Translation is not about exchanging this Greek word for that English word or this Hebrew word for that English word.  Translation is not that easy. It involves knowing both the source and target languages well enough to be able to move back-and-forth between them.  It entails an understanding of culture—then and now—and recognizing how language is one of the key vehicles of culture.  Translation, I have come to understand, is not a science; it is an art.

I’m not sure what my friend would think about The Voice. I haven’t seen him in years.  I hope he would have mellowed a bit and would appreciate what we have tried to do.  In the last year I have met a number of people who prefer the KJV but now read regularly from The Voice.  But, if I’m honest, I’d be disappointed to learn that my friend had lost his deep, emotional connection with the KJV.  The KJV is a great, historic translation, even if it is no longer in our language.

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Saul a.k.a. Paul

We encounter Paul the apostle in the NT under two names: Saul and Paul. There’s a common misunderstanding about the two names. Often you hear that Saul the Pharisee changed his name to Paul when he came to faith in Jesus. At first glance that seems reasonable because there are biblical people whose names are changed at significant moments in the story. For example, Abram’s name is changed to Abraham when he puts faith in the covenant that God was making with him (Genesis 12-22). Jacob’s name is changed to Israel ( = one who wrestles with God) right before he meets his brother Esau again. Jesus gives Simon the name Peter (Cepha = rock). So there is a tradition of name changes that correspond to important moments in a person’s life. Also, when we first encounter Saul, he’s persecuting the church and standing by as Stephen is stoned (Acts 7). Later, however, in Acts 13-28 the missionary, apostle is referred to as Paul. Conclusion: he changed his name when he accepted Jesus as Messiah. Sounds reasonable, right?
Paul
On closer investigation, however, we find out this is not the case. First, Saul is converted or called in Acts 9. He’s baptized and engages in apparently a significant period of Christian discipleship and ministry under the name of Saul. In Acts 13 Saul along with several others are leaders in the church at Antioch when the Holy Spirit sets them a part for the Gentile mission. In Acts 13:6 Saul is called Paul for the first time (“But Saul, who was also known as Paul, . . . “) on the island of Cyprus. For the rest of the book and in all of his letters he is referred to as Paul. So what is going on?

Saul was a Pharisaic Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. If Jewish tradition were followed–and there is no reason to think it wasn’t–he was given his Jewish name on the day of his circumcision. So Saul was his Jewish name, the name of Israel’s first king. But Saul may well have been a Roman citizen as well (that’s Acts testimony) which means that he needed a Roman name. Perhaps Paul was taken because it was a family name or the name of someone who helped provide citizenship to his family, we don’t know. But the name Paulos in Greek means something like “little fellow.” I suggest that what happens is this: when Saul is around Jews, he uses his Jewish name. But when Saul is around Greeks and Romans, he uses his Roman name. In Antioch where the Jewish population of Christ-believers was significant it made sense that he’d use his Jewish name. But during the Gentile mission, he encountered primarily, well . . . Gentiles. So he used his Roman name then. But there’s another thing. When you take the Jewish name Saul and render it in Greek it sounds like this: Saulos. And the word saulos in Greek means “the sultry walk of a prostitute.” No wonder Paul didn’t want to be introduced like that.

By the way, the same thing happens today. One of my best friends is a Jewish rabbi. His Jewish name is Shimon (Simon). When he is around Jews, particularly at the synagogue, they call him Shimon. But his “American” name, the name on his birth certificate, is Stuart. That’s how I know him.

As you move across cultures, you may find that your name means something odd or even scandalous in another language. That’s true for another friend of mine. His Vietnamese name when properly pronounced in Vietnamese is a really, really bad word in English. So he allows all his non-Vietnamese friends to call him by another, more acceptable name.

Cross-cultural work calls for compromise and creativity. In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul said I have become all things to all people so that I can by all means save some.

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A Londoner at the Astros Game

When Chris Seay started Ecclesia, he had a great idea.  He purchased Houston Astros season tickets in the upper deck of Minute Maid Park and would use the opportunity to connect with new and old friends.  Church growth via 81 home games and America’s favorite past time.  The idea worked well.  A number of lives have been changed forever as the Killer B’s (Biggio, Bagwell, and Berkman) rounded the bases and headed for home. 

 

The very first product in The Voice Bible project was a book several of us worked on entitled The Last Eyewitness: the final week. There is a tradition that John, one of Jesus’ twelve, outlived all the other disciples and became the last person on earth who had seen Jesus of Nazareth as he traveled the Galilean hills preaching, teaching, and healing.  He was the last eyewitness to the life of Jesus, the last person to remember the look of his face and the sound of his voice. Rob Pepper

The book told the story of the last week of Jesus’ life.  It was written in the first person, told from the perspective of an old man (John) who wanted to pass down to his own disciples the key events of that fateful week.

The Last Eyewitness is one of my favorite products in The Voice project because of the artwork of Rob Pepper.  Rob is a Londoner who has a unique style of drawing; it is simple yet elegant.  With just a few lines drawn in ink, highlighted with a minimal amount of metallic gold, Pepper provides our book with 17 dramatic illustrations of Jesus’ life.  These illustrations were themselves inspired by great masterworks of Christian art.  They add a great deal to the tone and texture of the book. 

The first time I met Rob was at an Astros game—courtesy of Chris Seay—on a warm, clear night in Houston.  Because it was not a hot day in the Bayou city, the roof was back which gave us a wonderful view not only of the field but of the Houston skyline.

Rob did not know baseball. But like any good Londoner he knew cricket, so we spent about half the game talking baseball—history, strategy, etc.—comparing it to cricket (You see, I had spent 7 months in Edinburgh, Scotland on sabbatical in 2000; so I knew a bit about cricket). 

It was a good night of baseball for the Houston Astros.  A lot of runs were scored and the Astros came out on top.  Rob learned a little about a quintessential American experience, a night at a baseball game. The Last Eyewitness

But it was what happened in the 7th inning that sticks out most in my mind about that night.  Rob took out paper and pen and began to sketch the lines and contours of the baseball park from our vantage high above the field.  I had become a fan of his during the project and was frankly amazed at the way he was able to capture the world around him with minimal lines and emphases.  He went on to finish the piece and named it “The Juice Bowl,” a reference to the fact that Enron Field had recently been renamed Minute Maid Park.

The Voice Bible project has brought together some amazing people with enormous talents.  We gathered writers, artists, musicians, poets, scholars, and editors to do a project which will never be done again.  It has been a unique—or as the Brits would say—“a one-off” experience.

Often, I’ve learned, the most meaningful moments in life come when you least expect it but most need it.  Meeting Rob that night, hearing his story and seeing him at work provided me—and others I’m sure—with some much-needed inspiration.

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A Few Days in Austin

Most of the collaboration on The Voice took place by means of technology: through email, Internet, SKYPE, and cell phones.  In some cases the work was personal, that is, people knew and worked closely with their reviewers and commentators. In other cases the work was anonymous.  It is standard practice, for example, in scholarly work for a person’s book or article to be reviewed anonymously, meaning both the writers and reviewers do not know the identity of the person offering the review.  This process ensures that a person’s feelings—positively or negatively—about another does not affect the quality of the review.  I understood the need for those checks and balances.The Voice of Hebrews cover

But there were a few remarkable occasions when writers and scholars actually sat down together, face-to-face, to work through a translation.

One of my favorite times working on The Voice project took place in Austin, TX.  Greg Garrett, a noted novelist, was working on the translation of the book of Hebrews, so I drove over to spend a few days with him. It was summer so he had arranged for us to work in empty classrooms at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, an institution where he was writer-in-residence.  The staff of the school graciously allowed me to stay in one of the dorm rooms—on The Voice discount of course.

Over the next few days Greg and I shared meals, swopped stories, and settled down over the Greek text of the letter to the Hebrews.  I watched carefully and listened closely as Greg, a gifted writer, worked through the challenging prose of the New Testament’s most sophisticated and difficult-to-translate books.  We plotted the argument and puzzled over the best way to communicate to our modern audience the way our anonymous Jewish author went about persuading his Jewish audience about the superiority of God’s new covenant.  I remember watching Greg count out the syllables, the rhythm, of the prose.  I learned from watching Greg that well crafted prose has a rhythm; meter is not restricted to poetry.  I had never thought of it before, but working with Greg convinced me it was true. 

Scholars are often strong left-brained people; this means they are good on the technicalities.  A translator might say, “this word is a Greek adverbial concessive participle and its referent is thus-and-so” or “this syllable is a pronominal suffix on the Hebrew root and its antecedent is x-y-z.”  Scholars can do that sort of thing all day long.  But gifted writers, poets, and artists are often strong right-brained people.  They are better equipped than technical scholars at capturing the beauty of a phrase or finding the right word to resolve the rhythm of a poem.  This is why I’m fond of saying about The Voice, “Finally, a Bible for both sides of your brain!”

I remember leaving Austin on the last day a bit sad. Greg and I had run out of time, and we had not been able to translate through all 13 chapters of this tough letter.  We would have to go back to our respective lives to complete it, in between other duties.  I was sad too that more of my Voice-related experience had been so isolated.  Translation is often a solitary experience—the nature of the discipline demands it be so—even if you are working in a “collaborative environment.”  As I started the car and headed for home, I was grateful for Greg’s talent and friendship.  When I look back, those were good days.