Driscoll and the ESV 6

I've been responding to the 6 reasons Mark Driscoll says Mars Hill uses the ESV. Bottom line: None of them bear up to the barest of examinations. He basically doesn't know what he's talking about.

Throughout, I have affirmed the ESV as a pretty good formal equivalence translation.  I've also suggested that on the few occasions where its biases come out, they are not Wesleyan-Arminian.  That's why I've suggested the NIV2011 is still probably the best translation for Wesleyan churches to use.

I debate whether I should have written in such a sarcastic tone.  I don't know. I don't expect Driscoll to read or even hear about these posts.  I promise I would have been the model of courtesy if he or any of his friends had engaged me. My point was not really to attack Mark Driscoll but to give you just a hint of how flimsy his understanding of the Bible is. Why? Because I don't want his thinking to infect my part of the Christian world.

Previous posts include:
1. The letter kills, the Spirit gives life.
2. All translation involves interpretation.
3. Stay out of semantics; keep your day job.
4. Driscoll likes big words.
5. It was translated for the elect.

Now his final point:
6. The ESV is complementarian.
Now we hit pay dirt.  All the rest of that stuff, all the theorizing?  Smoke and mirrors.  The final point is the real point.  Let me tell you a story.

There are differing versions of the origins of the ESV.  Obviously there was talk of it before the Colorado Springs guidelines that opponents said Zondervan violated when it came out with the TNIV. A sizable group opposed Zondervan coming out with a translation that used "brothers and sisters" where the Greek read "adelphoi," and when Zondervan published the TNIV, it lost the support of fundamentalist America.  This is the real reason the ESV is enjoying so much political support.

Regardless of how long the ESV was in the works, it has only taken the place Driscoll's church and others are giving it because of the backlash against Zondervan over "inclusive language." Driscoll himself corroborates this in his last point. In his last point, he connects together versions like the NIV2011 and the NLT with the extreme The Bible in a More Just Language, which intentionally tries to change the meaning of the text.  Suffice it to say, the NIV2011 and NLT are dramatically different from this revisionist version.

First, let me address the "brothers and sisters" debate.  Perhaps "brothers" is a more formal equivalence translation.  The reason I debate even this statement is because in patriarchal languages, you use the masculine plural if there is a male in the group, even if most of the group is female.  That is to say, "brothers" can actually refer to a group that is technically "brothers and sisters." For that reason, "brothers and sisters" is at least a legitimate dynamic equivalence translation of the masculine Greek "adelphoi."

Here is an important point. The NIV, NLT, NRSV have only translated adelphoi as "brothers and sisters" when they believe women were also being addressed. So is Paul only addressing the men in the Thessalonian church when he tells them to flee sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4)?  Only when these translation committees believed women were also being addressed did they include the sisters or the mothers.  They did not see themselves making the Bible more inclusive but as bringing out an inclusivity that was already there.

Now I respect those who prefer a translation that does not do this sort of thing.  But I do think the more dynamic sort of translation is probably more effective at communicating the biblical meaning to people today than the older approach.

However, once again, Driscoll seems off in his interpretations.  Take the Hebrew word 'adam.  It certainly can be used of a male, but the best reading of Genesis 1:27 seems to include women in it.  Here's a straightforward translation of the Hebrew: "And God created the 'adam in his image. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them."

The "him" in the second clause seems to include both male and female, because the third clause unpacks it as including male and female.  And the "him" in the second clause is expanding on the 'adam of the first clause. Therefore, the best translation of 'adam in this verse seems to relate to all humans, both male and female--all humankind.

And why is it so important to Driscoll in Psalm 8 that 'adam only refer to men? Surely it is because his misguided theology doesn't have room for women leaders. Surely it is because it is important to him that God have only subjected the earth to men, not to women as well.

Sorry Charlie, the command to rule the earth in Genesis 1:28 is in the plural, given to both male and female from the previous verse. (At this point you should here the swirling sound of Pac Man when the little fellow dies, indicating the failure of Driscoll's apparent attempt to cut women out of the dominion of the earth).

You can see why I don't think the ESV is the best translation for Wesleyans. It's subtle biases rub against our grain, not to mention accuracy.  We're a denomination that believes that sons and daughters prophesy (Acts 2:17), that Priscilla may have taken the lead in instructing Apollos (Acts 18:26), that Phoebe was a deacon of the church of Cenchrea (Rom. 16:1), and that Junia was quite possibly an apostle like Barnabas (Rom. 16:7).

The Greek word anthropos is just as generic as 'adam, maybe even more.  1 Peter 3:4 says that a woman's adornment should be the hidden anthropos of the heart.  Clearly it isn't saying women have a little man inside of them.  The word itself means "person."

These are reasons why the TNIV translators considered it "gender accurate" rather than "gender neutral" or "gender inclusive."  They intended only to translate generically when that's what the Bible actually meant.  In that respect, it is the ESV that has more likely screwed up the gender connotations by making them sound less inclusive than they were.

The ESV is a pretty good formal equivalence translation, but not quite ready to be crowned king of the universe.

"Brothers and sisters" in translation

I had an "I'm stupid" a-ha moment a week or so ago in relation to the use of "brothers and sisters" to translate the Greek word "brothers" in the New Testament.

Ever since the TNIV, I've been explaining to others that versions like the NRSV, the NLT, the TNIV, and now the NIV2011 only used "brothers and sisters" when they thought Paul already included them.  So when Paul tells the brothers to flee sexual immorality in 1 Thessalonians 4, he was surely not letting the sisters in the congregation off the hook.

That's all true, but I (stupidly) just caught on that this is not just a dynamic equivalent translation.  It actually can be justified grammatically.  Up until recent days, when you were speaking or writing to a mixed group of people in a gendered language, the convention has been to go with the masculine plural ending.  This has previously been true, for example, in Spanish.  If you were speaking to a group of men and women, you would normally say "amigos" and use the masculine plural ending.  You have to pick a gender, so up until recent times you would have naturally used the masculine for a mixed group.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.  It would be normal for a Greek speaker to address a mixed group of men and women with "brothers," fully including the women in the masculine plural ending.  The implication is that in an age where it has become appropriate to be explicit about references to women in one's language, the best translation of "brothers" actually becomes "brothers and sisters."  This is not just because they are implied in Paul's meaning.  They are implied grammatically as well.

So I repent of my stupidity.  Brothers and sisters actually becomes a more accurate translation, and versions like the ESV actually turn out to be inferior translations in this regard.