MetaCatholic

After some critical posts about the ESV (here, here, and here) I’m actually going to be nice to it for once, and train my sights instead on the NET and NIV. Many of us are quite used to an interpretative tradition of reading Luke’s Emmaus road story as a balance of Word and Sacrament. First the disciples on the road have their hearts set on fire by the risen Jesus’ exposition of the scriptures, then they know him in the sharing of the Eucharistic meal.

Now, clearly, Luke is not teaching a balance of word and sacrament in any sense shaped by the debates of later church history. Nonetheless the eucharistic echoes of the story are unmistakable. This is true even of the NIV and NET translations, although I question whether they seek to minimize them. Here they are:

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how they recognized him when he broke the bread. (Luke 24:35 NET)
Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognised by them when he broke the bread.(Luke 24:35 NIV)

The ESV instead ( rightly, as I shall argue) follows in the more literal tradition of the KJV and translates the phrase ἐν τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου as in the breaking of the bread.

Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24:35 ESV)

Now one could argue that NIV and NET are simply trying to render this in idiomatic English, and that may be so: indeed, the NET notes on the verse say about the phrase they recognized

Here the passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.

But it seems to me that these translations have two major drawbacks:

1. First is the question of the verb recognised, whether active (NET) or passive (NIV). The account being related here as reported dialogue has already been narrated. In that first telling of the story there is a quality of divine revelation, and that the mystery of Jesus risen is made known to them. That points here to a divine passive, and not simply a stylistic choice. The sense that this is God’s (or Jesus’) work and not their own ability is missing from the verb.
2. Second is the phrase he broke the bread. It is certainly clear English, but strongly suggests that there was something characteristic about the action that led them to their recognition. At a linguistic level it assumes there is nothing significant about Luke’s phraseology. Yet when it comes to Acts 2:42, where the phrase τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου is one of the four marks of the early church, both translations revert to treating it as a technical term the breaking of bread.

It may be pure coincidence that both of these translation choices are made together. Yet they do have the effect of making the story somewhat less hospitable to a sacramental interpretation, and so I can’t help but wonder if a minimal sacramental theology has actually coloured what I see as poor translation choices.