That plays, somewhat, into part II

Good point about foreign languages–it strikes me that there will always be room for non-KJVersions in the English-speaking church as long as there are English-speaking missionaries who go to foreign countries, where they have to confront some of these issues head-on.

Nitzav,

What about the fact that Targums aren’t simply translations, but are overt interpretations? Does this affect the analogy you’re making at all?

In a liturgical setting, you don’t want people puzzling over words, you want them paying attention to the homiletic message. This invariably involves grasping the larger point from a single aural experience. Hence, liturgical translations have certain vocabularly constraints and disambiguation strategies.

In an NT intro course, use either the HarperCollins Study Bible NRSV or the St. Joseph Study Edition of the NAB. It’s actually fun to have both because then students “discover” translation and annotation differences all on their own when they do their first group activity. (OT, use the JPS and the NRSV! The OT NAB has some real challenges.)

When teaching an NT intro course, never fail to demonstrate the need to consult multiple translations by doing so yourself. Explain why you’ve selected a certain translation for a certain passage so that students can follow the logic and begin to emulate it.

In a second round of scripture classwork, students must select and defend their translation choice in their exegetical papers. This usually requires (surprise!) consultation with the teacher, which gives the opportunity to further a student’s socialization into the scholarly world. And I just hate doing that…

When I teach GD and the situation requires use of an alternative translation, I usually pull up Bibleworks and provide a two-column printout of the AV and the NAB or NRSV. FP letter not withstanding, it takes about ten seconds for folks to figure out that they really, really, want an NAB or an NRSV in their Christmas stocking.

I also encourage my GD students to read and bring in their modern language versions. Last week we had Russian, German, Dutch, French, and Spanish going. Folks can get very interested in finding the differences and considering the possibilities so raised.

I provide the link to the NET bible on a regular basis, as well.

For meditational purposes, you should read whatever gives you that meditational experience. For me, that’s often the AV. What can I say? I grew up with it!

I’m most familiar with the NRSV, as are many of us here, but I’m finding myself more and more dissatisfied with it, mostly over emendations or subtle interpretation. An example of this is Gen 15:6: And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness. (NRSV) The second LORD is a stance the NRSV translators have taken, but it didn’t have to be so: English can handle this perfectly: “and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Leave the ambiguity, I say, and let the reader decide.

I think, further, when teaching about this we help people understand that all translation involves interpretation, and therefore to be suspicious of translation. At least suspicious enough to look at a couple of different takes on a given passage.

I’m becoming more and more a fan of the JPS. The translation is certainly a little more “literary” as Bodhi, I think, mentioned. Also, of the “academic” study Bibles, the Jewish Study Bible is the best for annotations, IMHO. Jewish interpretation in general is less inclined to deal with interpretation external to the text. This is not to say that there’s not an agenda in this very stance, but it’s one more friendly to the text (again, of the Hebrew Bible) as it stands.

I’d love to see a JPS annotated NT!