Talking Out Of Turn

This was a bit surprising. I was directed to this interview about the Holman Christian Standard Bible, which I had been given to understand was just another one of the recent, really good translations (alongside ESV and NASB95). But this interview is making me reconsider.

Problems:

1. Dr. Blum’s very first response, starting with “Well, the ESV comes from the King James tradition,” sets off alarms. Does he really believe that because the ESV and the NASB95 aren’t ground-up retranslations (but instead started from a specific point, the RSV and ASV respectively), that they didn’t actually have to consider the translation of every word, every phrase? Is he saying that the ESV, for example, is worse for using the RSV as a jumping-off point for the new translation, rather than starting from scratch? To be honest I’m a little leery of somebody starting from scratch. A good exercise, yes. A sound foundation for what purports to be a “standard” translation… I don’t know.
2. His issues with modern English are a little weird. It’s hard not to shudder at this: “The use of ‘whom’ is declining. When you answer the phone do you say, ‘Whom do you wish to speak to?’ Or do you say, ‘Who do you want to talk to?’ King James has ‘whom’ 763 times. NKJ has it 760 times. NASB has it 755 times. ESV has it 740 times. NIV has cut it down to 394. HCSB second edition coming out has it only 142. So, it’s dropping.” Did he just dangle a preposition, in the same sentence as saying the word “whom”? Is there really a problem with using standard, good English? Praise for the Bible since the Renaissance has included the idea that it uplifted the language of the people, by holding up standards. I know language changes, and maybe “whom” is deprecated now (it shouldn’t be, but I’m not the King of the English Language, for better or for worse), but “whom do you wish to speak to” reminds me uncomfortably of Miss Brahms in “Are You Being Served?” when she was trying to sound like she lived in a detached house.
3. “ESV continues to use the old terms like ‘leper.’ But then they add a footnote every time they use it, and they have the same footnote 20 times. There’s a confusion in popular thinking about Hansen’s disease. Whatever it was in the Bible period—it grew on the walls and grew on clothing and so on—was not Hansen’s disease.” Um, it’s fine to point out in a footnote that tzara’as isn’t exactly what we think of as leprosy, but is there no room in this translation’s theology to recognize that the leprosy of a person and the leprosy of inanimate objects may have been totally different things, which pointed to spiritual realities?
4. I’m a little concerned (and yes, this is the genetic fallacy, I admit it) about a translation that had its roots in a Majority Text scholar and Zane Hodges. I’m glad they didn’t stick with the MT, though.
5. “They tried to buy the NASB three times, and they had it under contract, and the guy renigged [sic].” This is probably an unfortunate spelling error on behalf of the blogger, but the statement itself is a pretty strong statement about the Lockman Foundation. Is this an appropriate way for Christians to air grievances? I agree that Lockman is unusually difficult about licensing terms in this day and age (although they have been around a while and the times have changed), but essentially Dr. Blum is impugning the Foundation’s representative’s reputation and witness.
6. The “Christian Standard Bible”?
7. “Here are three books that, if you ask me what the three most difficult books in the Bible are, I’d say 1 John, Song of Solomon and the book of Revelation. The reason 1 John is difficult—easiest Greek—but most difficult because it does not have as many connectives, there’s no historical background, and it uses a lot of abstract language, like light, love, and so on. Song of Solomon, people don’t even agree about whether it’s talking about a married couple, two horny teenagers in the back of a chariot, God and Israel or God and the Church. So, people don’t even know whether there are two characters or three characters. Song of Songs is very, very tough.” Does that really matter that much to translation? Shouldn’t this be left to interpretation by preachers and theologians? And do any actual Christians think that Song of Solomon is about “two horny teenagers in the back of a chariot”?
8. “Also, regarding the controversy over the translation of doulos, all the English translations except ours translates doulos either as ’servant’ or ‘bondservant.’ But there is a big difference between a slave and a servant. A servant gets paid, has certain rights, can quit, can change owners, etc. A slave doesn’t get paid, belongs to somebody, and so on. Murray Harris of Trinity Seminary has written a book on the slave of Christ showing that there’s a loss of a significant Pauline metaphor by mistranslating doulos as ’servant’ or ‘bondservant.’ ESV feels like they have to put a footnote every time, and every time that they do it, they say, ‘or slave.’ Then they say, ‘Greek, “bondservant,”‘ but if you look at a standard Greek lexicon, BDAG, it’s against this. In other words, an ESV reader would think he’s getting insight into what the Greek really says, but the standard Greek lexicon says that only English translations in America are using the stupid translation of ’servant’ or ‘bondservant’; the word is ’slave.’” First, I agree about the translation of “slave,” but I strongly disagree that English translations are “stupid” in their translations of that word. Either that, or the HCSB translators are clearly the most intelligent and learned translators in the world.
9. “The Law is 613 commands, positive and negative.” Who told you that? That’s what the Jewish scholars say, but they can’t agree on how to count them. Arguments from gematria don’t hold much water with me anymore.
10. “What does the modern reader make of these words: Molech, Asheroth, Astoreth, Samirtan, firstfruits, atonement, propitiation? See, we offer explanations and definitions for all of them; ESV does not.” But the question is, is HCSB’s explanation and definition for each of these words correct? Or is it better to leave it to a real study Bible, or a commentary, or another research tool, to bridge this gap for people, and stick to translation? That’s why I like my Bible, which isn’t a study Bible at all.

It isn’t all bad. I like the fact that they use special brackets rather than italics to indicate words that were supplied to make the translation smoother; my only fear is that people might think that those words are optional, when sometimes they are in fact necessary to truly translate the words from Hebrew or Greek.

But all in all, this interview makes me think twice before recommending this translation. I think I’d better have a look at it myself, and stop judging the book, either by its own cover, or by Dr. Blum’s.