A Word in Edgewise

One of the most significant movements now in missions and missiology is the orality movement. Orality is the recognition that not all people can read or prefer to read, most of us learn by what we hear.  How often have you turned to watch a YouTube video of how to fix something rather than turning to the written manual?  And you’re a literate person, right?  Or else you couldn’t read this blog.  The orality movement recognizes that most learning throughout most of history has been based on what was heard, said, and—we might add—seen. 

The International Orality Network is a network of scholars, church leaders, missionaries, evangelists, and business leaders who are rediscovering the power and truth of oral learning and story-telling.  It is truly changing the way we do business, teach, train, and do missions around the world.

Those of us from the text-based world at one time conducted missions this way.  A missionary would arrive in an area of unreached people.  He or she would spend time with people and learn their language.  Then two things had to happen: first, the language would have to be committed to writing; and second, the Scriptures would have to be translated into the target language.  Then the people  would have to be taught how to read before they could read the Scriptures.  Often, because they were in an oral culture, the only thing they had to read or could read were the Scriptures.  Now there is nothing wrong with this strategy; it is a good process.  It has helped to spread the Gospel in many places in the world.  But what if we could shorten the process by recognizing the power of storytelling and orality.  Then the missionary, after learning the language, could selectively begin to tell Bible stories and teach others how to tell those same stories.  As people in the orality movement say, this method is  “simple and reproducible.”

You might think this would work just fine in illiterate cultures but what about cultures that are highly literate like our own.  Good question.  The fact is that many people who can read and write prefer to learn in ways other than by reading a text.   These are called oral preference learners.  They may be living next door or in your own house.  I don’t know the exact numbers but there is a larger percentage of college graduates who never read a book after college (I’m not sure they read a book in college).  And the Bible is a big book.  People may read short items: webpages, blogs, newspaper articles, but getting them interested in a book with over 780,000 words, not likely to happen.

Orality offers us a significant step forward in sharing the gospel and living the gospel.  In the great commission Jesus instructed his followers to go, make disciples through baptizing and teaching others all that Jesus had taught them.  And what was Jesus’ preferred teaching method? (trick question) . . . orality. Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, pastors, educators, missionaries, and heads of charitable organizations across the world are learning the power of orality.   Pastors are changing their preaching to contain more orality and it is transforming their preaching.  An orality training event may be coming to your city soon.  If so, go and take part.  It is fun and exciting to HEAR what God is up to.

I recently had the privilege of teaching a class for Mark Lanier at Champions Forest Baptist Church.  My topic was “According to Mark” and I spent most of the time on the first 14-15 verses of the Gospel.  It sets the tone for how to read the rest of the story.  Thanks to Mark Lanier for the opportunity.

It’s hard to believe it has been five years since The Voice translation launched.  At the time there was a furor over how the team chose to translate the Greek word “Christos.” As a result Martin Marty invited me to write a post for “Sightings.”  I’ve reproduced some of it here for readers who don’t have access or know of his site.

Martin E. Marty’s article “Annenberg Poll on Religion in the Media” brought to our attention a recent survey: “Most Americans Say Media Coverage of Religion Too Sensationalized.” I saw that side of the media firsthand. On April 17 I was interviewed by Carol Costello on CNN regarding a new Bible translation I had contributed to called The Voice Bible. The interview and subsequent articles falsely positioned The Voice as a new Bible translation which leaves out Jesus Christ, angels, and apostles. The title to CNN’s online article says it all: “Christ Missing from New Bible.” Note: no quotation marks.

CNN’s interest was prompted by an article the day before in USA Today entitled “‘The Voice’: New Bible translation focuses on dialogue.” The USA Today article was itself a heavily truncated version of the original story written by Bob Smietana in Nashville’s paper, The Tennessean entitled “Bible gets new voice.”

Smietana’s original article did a fair job of characterizing the project, but as it passed up the media food chain, a significant part of the story was lost, distorted, and sensationalized. By the time CNN covered it, The Voicebecame a new Bible translation which leaves out Jesus, angels, and the apostles. As one angry fellow said to me: “A Bible without Jesus and the angels! What the heck kind of Bible is that?” Good question.

CNN’s (mis)characterization of the translation was based on a half-truth. The word “Christ” is not found in the translation because “Christ” is not a translation at all; it is a transliteration of the Greek word Christos(which means “anointed one”). We translated every occurrence of Christos as “the Anointed” or “the Anointed One.” So Jesus is not missing—as CNN’s coverage insinuates—he is front and center in this new translation. The translation team did this to clear up a fundamental misunderstanding. Most in the Bible-reading public take the phrase “Jesus Christ” as his name: “Jesus,” his first name and “Christ” his last name. In fact, “Christ” is an honorific title like “Son of God,” “Lord,” and “Savior.” But in the western tradition Christos was the only title not translated into the new language of the church. In the Latin Christos was rendered “Christus,” and in the English Bible tradition it became “Christ.” Our translation decision was intentional: we hoped to recover something of the titular sense of the term in which Jesus the Christos is God’s agent, descended from David’s royal line, who is chosen (“anointed”) and destined to liberate the cosmos from sin, death, oppression, and corruption. We also translated other key terms which happen to be transliterations in all English Bible editions. Words like “apostle” (Greek, apostolos), “baptism” (Greek, baptisma), and “angel” (Greek, angelos) we translated “emissary,” “washing,” and “heavenly messenger” respectively.

As the blogosphere and airwaves heated up over the media coverage, a number of scholars commented on the sensationalized portrayal of The Voice. Larry Hurtado, retired Professor of New Testament from the University of Edinburgh, wrote an essay on his blog entitled “On Translation and Hysteria,” which addressed the media’s mischaracterization. On his blog, “Storied Theology,” J. Daniel Kirk showed how CNN was baiting the audience with inaccurate information to drive a bit of Internet traffic. Darrell Bock, Kristi Swenson, Edward Fudge, and Greg Garrett also chimed in to set the record straight.

The bottom line is this: both CNN and USA Today misrepresented the project. They either did so intentionally (they wanted to see how Christians might react), out of ignorance (they did not know any better), or out of apathy (they did not care enough to get the story right). Likely it was some combination of the three. As the Annenberg study has shown, those who report on religion are not very knowledgeable of it. And as Martin E. Marty has suggested, those who know enough and care enough to report on religion accurately will most often be met with yawns.

References

Larry Hurtado, “On Translation and Hysteria,” April 18, 2012.

J. Daniel Kirk, “‘Link Bait’ and The Voice,” April 18, 2012.

Martin E. Marty, “Annenberg Poll on Religion in the Media,” Sightings, April 23, 2012.

Bob Smietana, “‘The Voice’: New Bible translation focuses on dialogue,” USA Today, April 16, 2012.

Diane Winston and John C. Green, “Most Americans Say Media Coverage of Religion Too Sensationalized,” USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The Voice Bible is at www.hearthevoice.com.
David B. Capes is the Academic Dean at Houston Graduate School of Theology.

Recently two friends and colleagues of mine, Dr. Craig Keener (Asbury Seminary) and Dr. John Walton (Wheaton College) were recognized for their work with the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible.  Craig worked on the comments and sidebars for the New Testament;  John authored the comments and sidebars on the Old Testament.  Here is a link to one of the announcements:

http://asburyseminary.edu/news/craig-keener/

Keener and Walton, or if it we put it in the order of the testaments, Walton and Keener are at the top of their respective fields, and they have pulled together an impressive bit of scholarship to help modern readers understand something of the cultural context in which the 66 books of the Christian Scriptures were written.  We do the writers of the Bible a disservice if we insist on reading it against our culture, values and standards.  If we want to read the most important book in history well, we’d do well to pay close attention to the language, habits, customs and culture of the peoples of the Book.

 

Walton and Keener received the top award in the category of Religion: Christianity in the International Book Awards, announced on May 22nd, by the American Book Fest.

“We understand and apply the Bible much better when we understand the concrete, real-life circumstances to which its words were first addressed,” Dr. Keener said. “I am grateful that this new award, like the previous one, draws attention to this resource to help people access this information.”

The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible released August 2016 and has sold more than 56,000 copies. The book is available for purchase on Amazon for less than $40.00.  N. T. Wright said he wished somebody had put this Bible in his hands 50 years ago.

Mazeltov to Craig Keener and John Walton!

Recently, my rabbi friend, Stuart Federow, and I got into a disagreement.  Well, actually, I didn’t argue with him; I just listened to his criticisms the Christian faith.  Now, I love Rabbi Federow, he is one of my best friends; but when he speaks about the Christian faith, he often gets it wrong.  Yet when he speaks about his own faith, he gets it right.  I guess that is the way it ought to be.

Federow essentially stated his opinion on the unreliability of the NT Gospels based on the “last words” of Jesus.  His argument was that each Gospel has a different saying as the “last words” of Jesus and therefore their accounts of his life cannot be trusted.  Accordingly, Jesus could not have had multiple “last words.”  If Jesus had any last words, then the Gospels should agree on them.  If they are inspired by the Holy Spirit, then there must be four Holy Spirits since there are four accounts.  So Christians should worship six figures, not three: Father, Son and four Holy Spirits.  That was a part of his mocking of the faith.  Now, we are good friends, so his mocking is not malicious.

Now let’s get out the facts.  In one sense, Rabbi Federow is correct.  The last “recorded” words of Jesus in each Gospel are different.  Now, to be clear, we are speaking about Jesus prior to his death by crucifixion.  Here they are in a random order:

Mark 15:34          “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

John 19:30           “It is finished.”

Luke 23:46           “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Matt 27:46          “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

A few notes.  First, the last recorded words of Jesus in Mark agree with Matthew.  So there are not four variations, as the rabbi claimed, there are three.  Second, in both Mark and Matthew, we are told that bystanders misunderstand Jesus and think he is calling for Elijah  to come.  So they ran and filled a sponge with vinegar and gave it to Jesus. Later Mark and Matthew agree that Jesus cried with a loud voice and breathed his last.  The point is that there is an interval of time between Jesus’ cry of dereliction and his cry leading to death.  How much time? We don’t know.  Did Jesus utter other words in the interval? Perhaps.

The fixation we have on someone’s “last words” is a modern phenomenon; it should not be imposed upon ancient people or ancient biographies. I say fixation because that is what it is.  I’ve often heard people at funerals ask: “what was the last thing Sandra said before she died?”  Stories are shared as part of the grieving process.  You can google the “last words” of nearly any famous person and the Internet has the answer.  Here are a few examples.  These are the last recorded words of these people.

Steve Jobs          “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

John Adams       “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”

John Paul II         “Let me go to the house of the Father.” (in Polish)

Michelangelo     “I’m still learning.”

Clearly, we have an interest in the last words of famous people, and Jesus is one of the most famous of history.  But we must be careful not to insist that the first followers of Jesus have the same interests as we do.  That is a kind of cultural arrogance that insists the way we think about these things is superior to anyone else.  We condemn, criticize or mock cultures and people who do things differently. Scholars are clear that the NT Gospels are examples of ancient biography, and ancient biographies do not operate the way modern biographies do.  They have a different set of priorities and purposes.

Let’s be clear.  Nowhere does any Gospel say, “now these are the last words of Jesus . . .”  The writers aren’t thinking in those terms: “Oh, I must record the exact, last words of Jesus for posterity.”  No.  They have a story to tell, and they tell it to the end.  If we know the themes of each Gospel, then we can understand why they tell the story of Jesus’ crucifixion the way they do.  The process of dying and Jesus’ time on the cross took about six hours. He probably said a lot of things from the cross that are not recorded.  Furthermore, as he neared the end and his voice grew weak, he was probably heard to say a number of things that were not understood as Matthew and Mark indicate.  The Gospel writers give us the kinds of things Jesus was saying from the cross.  Jesus was remembered to have said a number of things from the cross, and each Gospel writer focuses on the one that fits his theme.  None claims to give us the exact “last words” of Jesus.

Now I haven’t run any of this by my friend, Mike Licona.  He has written an important, new book published by Oxford Press (2016) entitled Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biographies.   I’d be interested in his take on the “last words” of Jesus.  I’ll be doing a review soon of his book.