KJV - not exactly a consensus text
In a partial digression from her posts on how different translations treat some of the verses referring to women, Suzanne McCarthy looks nostalgically at the KJV. She acknowledges that it “did not enjoy immediate success”: there was the little matter of a Civil War intervening between its publication and acceptance.
The key part of her argument, however, which I want to comment on is this:
I find the fourth instruction to be of particular interest,
“When a Word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.”
The King James Bible is not a shared text by chance. A consensus was carefully created. The translators came from the two opposing camps, the highest scholars were consulted, the interpretive commentary was eliminated, and tradition was to be followed.
Unfortunately for her project, which is to find an agreeably interpretation-neutral text of the verses about women in the context of intra-evangelical argument, this is not as straightforward as it sounds. The nearest seventeenth century equivalent to her debate was precisely the argument over words such as ekklesia – church / congregation; episkopos – bishop / superintendent and the like.
Puritan scholars who signed up (or were signed up) for the translation project started off by accepting the words “most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers” i.e. church, bishop etc. Thus one “opposing camp” had already effectively sold the pass to the other over one of the most controverted translation issues before the work of translation had started.
The equivalent in today’s rather odd evangelical debate might well be to accept gender-neutral language before beginning the translation. Since there is no equivalent to royal authority to make that uniformity stick, but rather a mass of publishers for whom differentiation is good, a shared text can only come, if ever, through acceptance over time, rather than as the start of a project.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Hi,
I am well aware of this difficulty about “church” etc but wasn’t sure whether to make the digression.
However, I do not see gender neutral language as the issue now. It has been accepted by the NRSV, CEV, NLT, TNIV, and NET probably more. What I see is that Phoebe and Junia are diminshed by the evangelicals in order to establish and prove that men are leaders and women followers. The other verses 1 Cor. 11:10 and 1 Tim. 2:12 are also key.
I think the answer would be to agree on an essentially literal translation of these verses.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I take your point about the specific verses, and am waiting till you’ve finished your trawl of them to reply further on those. I’m less certain than you that the gender-neutral language is not the issue, as witnessed by the bizarre attacks on the TNIV and the sectarian mood that produced the ESV. These verses are just caught up in that wider debate, I think, though I still hope you acheive your aim with them.