Nuggets from the NRSV

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Tex

There are a lot of benefits that we gain from using the KJV, speaking particularly of missionary work, so I would be sad to see those go.

But from a spiritual perspective, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.



I don't think Joseph Smith looked at it that way. Robert Matthews put out a book on the JST years ago that is still looked upon as the definitive work, and he indicates that the translation falls into several categories, one of which is commentary.

But there are other passages that he feels clearly indicated Smith was restoring lost text. In any case, why would we not want a scriptural translation that had passed through a prophet's hands?

I'm not an expert on the JST, but Stephen Robinson gave a couple examples in his NT class which show why the JST should be considered commentary and not translation. The examples were something to the effect that KLV said A which was not correct LDS doctrine, JST said B which was correct LDS doctrine but was not the intent of original author, an alternate translation and interpretation said C which was both correct by LDS doctrine and restored original intent. I wish I could remember the examples, but I seem to recall one was about the rich man entering heaven.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by jay santos

I wish I could remember the examples, but I seem to recall one was about the rich man entering heaven.

Mark 10 perhaps? The scripture I quoted above is from the end of the "rich man entering heaven" passage.

17 ¶ And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none agood but one, that is, God.

19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit aadultery, Do not bkill, Do not csteal, Do not bear false witness, dDefraud not, eHonour thy father and mother.

20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.

21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and agive to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and bfollow me.

22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Well, to start with, JS never completed the work. And he was working with the inferior KJV as a base. Why hold on to an inferior translation to gain the few extra insights he provided? Why not keep it as a footnote and get the best of both worlds? Especially if some (at the very least) is commentary?

Again: we refer to biblical errors of translation as part of our articles of faith. Why are we not actively promoting and engaging in textual criticism using the best source texts available? Doesn't make sense.

The idea that JS didn't complete the work is a bit of a misconception (unless we want to debate the meaning of the term "complete"). Yes, he wanted to go back and make further changes, but he did actually make it through the entire book at least once.

Let me ask the question another way, since I'm not really advocating using the JST. How would you feel if the church came out with an independent JST-style translation, regardless of the text it was based on? Would that matter to you?

Note: I'm not necessarily trying to be provocative here. I'm genuinely curious.

Originally Posted by jay santos

I'm not an expert on the JST, but Stephen Robinson gave a couple examples in his NT class which show why the JST should be considered commentary and not translation. The examples were something to the effect that KLV said A which was not correct LDS doctrine, JST said B which was correct LDS doctrine but was not the intent of original author, an alternate translation and interpretation said C which was both correct by LDS doctrine and restored original intent. I wish I could remember the examples, but I seem to recall one was about the rich man entering heaven.

Hmm, we may have to agree to disagree here. When I get home and get my JST material, I'll be better equipped to discuss it--I'm shooting a little from the hip. Joseph Smith clearly intended at least SOME portions of his translation to be considered restorations of lost text.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by jay santos

I'm not an expert on the JST, but Stephen Robinson gave a couple examples in his NT class which show why the JST should be considered commentary and not translation. The examples were something to the effect that KLV said A which was not correct LDS doctrine, JST said B which was correct LDS doctrine but was not the intent of original author, an alternate translation and interpretation said C which was both correct by LDS doctrine and restored original intent. I wish I could remember the examples, but I seem to recall one was about the rich man entering heaven.

Darn, wish I could remember. Now I'm thinking "God is spirit" was one of the examples.

[Sleeping in EQ]

An NRSV nugget from Galatians 1:15:

"But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased"


The KJV reads:

"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,"

In my experience, the KJV is one of the least "LDS friendly" English translations.

[Archaea]

Don't forget the Johannine Comma, come on guys.

Or 1 Cor. 7:3-5 in NSRV is clear as a bell, but not so clear in the KJV.

The Johannine Comma

(1 John 5:7-8)

The so-called Johannine Comma (also called the Comma Johanneum) is a sequence of extra words which appear in 1 John 5:7-8 in some early printed editions of the Greek New Testament. In these editions the verses appear thus (we put backets around the extra words):

ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες [ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἔν εἰσι. 8 καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ] τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν.

The King James Version, which was based upon these editions, gives the following translation:

For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth], the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

These extra words are generally absent from the Greek manuscripts. In fact, they only appear in the text of four late medieval manuscripts. They seem to have originated as a marginal note added to certain Latin manuscripts during the middle ages, which was eventually incorporated into the text of most of the later Vulgate manuscripts. In the Clementine edition of the Vulgate the verses were printed thus:

Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant [in caelo: Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt. 8 Et tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra:] spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt.

From the Vulgate, then, it seems that the Comma was translated into Greek and inserted into some printed editions of the Greek text, and in a handful of late Greek manuscripts. All scholars consider it to be spurious, and it is not included in modern critical editions of the Greek text, or in the English versions based upon them. For example, the English Standard Version reads:

For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

We give below the comments of Dr. Bruce M. Metzger on 1 John 5:7-8, from his book, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1993).
After μαρτυροῦντες the Textus Receptus adds the following: ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἔν εἰσι. 8 καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ. That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.
(A) External Evidence.

(1) The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except eight, and these contain the passage in what appears to be a translation from a late recension of the Latin Vulgate. Four of the eight manuscripts contain the passage as a variant reading written in the margin as a later addition to the manuscript. The eight manuscripts are as follows:

• 61: codex Montfortianus, dating from the early sixteenth century.
• 88: a variant reading in a sixteenth century hand, added to the fourteenth-century codex Regius of Naples.
• 221: a variant reading added to a tenth-century manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
• 429: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Wolfenbüttel.
• 629: a fourteenth or fifteenth century manuscript in the Vatican.
• 636: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Naples.
• 918: a sixteenth-century manuscript at the Escorial, Spain.
• 2318: an eighteenth-century manuscript, influenced by the Clementine Vulgate, at Bucharest, Rumania.

(2) The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers, who, had they known it, would most certainly have employed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian and Arian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.
(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541-46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).
The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4), attributed either to the Spanish heretic Priscillian (died about 385) or to his follower Bishop Instantius. Apparently the gloss arose when the original passage was understood to symbolize the Trinity (through the mention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), an interpretation that may have been written first as a marginal note that afterwards found its way into the text. In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle, and from the sixth century onwards it is found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the Vulgate. In these various witnesses the wording of the passage differs in several particulars. (For examples of other intrusions into the Latin text of 1 John, see 2.17; 4.3; 5.6, and 20.)
(B) Internal Probabilities.

(1) As regards transcriptional probability, if the passage were original, no good reason can be found to account for its omission, either accidentally or intentionally, by copyists of hundreds of Greek manuscripts, and by translators of ancient versions.
(2) As regards intrinsic probability, the passage makes an awkward break in the sense.
For the story of how the spurious words came to be included in the Textus Receptus, see any critical commentary on 1 John, or Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 101 f.; cf. also Ezra Abbot, "I. John v. 7 and Luther's German Bible," in The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays (Boston, 1888), pp. 458-463.

[Archaea]

7There are three that testify:* 8the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.

From NSRV.

[Archaea]

NSRV 1 Cor. 7:3-5:

3The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.
4For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
5Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

The clumsy KJV:

3 Let the ahusband render unto the bwife due cbenevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

5 aDefraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that bSatan ctempt you not for your incontinency.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Tex

Let me ask the question another way, since I'm not really advocating using the JST. How would you feel if the church came out with an independent JST-style translation, regardless of the text it was based on? Would that matter to you?

I wouldn't be interested in such a version. The JST parts are so sparse that it makes much more sense to use the footnote approach as we currently do. If you had the JST bible, wouldn't you want to know when you were reading a JS-edited portion? And wouldn't you want to know how it differs from the original?

Furthermore, what I am longing for now is a dual NRSV-KJV copy of the bible (new testament at least) where I have the NRSV version of the left page and the KJV on the right. Now that would be awesome.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I wouldn't be interested in such a version. The JST parts are so sparse that it makes much more sense to use the footnote approach as we currently do. If you had the JST bible, wouldn't you want to know when you were reading a JS-edited portion? And wouldn't you want to know how it differs from the original?

Furthermore, what I am longing for now is a dual NRSV-KJV copy of the bible (new testament at least) where I have the NRSV version of the left page and the KJV on the right. Now that would be awesome.

There is a seven version bible, that has seven translations side by side, but I forgot where I saw it.