On April 8, 2009, David Dault spoke to Wayne Hastings, Senior Vice President and Publisher for the Bible Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers, in Nashville, TN. A portion of the interview is transcribed here. Thank you to Michael Hyatt, president of Thomas Nelson, and my colleague David J. Dunn, for helping make this meeting possible.
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David: Thomas Nelson has been in business since 1798, and in that time it’s business has been the propagation of the Word, but it’s also been in business, and so there’s always a balance between the desire to spread the word as widely as possible and the desire to have a work that is bought by as many people as possible. How, either in your own executive vision, or in terms of the vision of the company, is that balance struck between the market and the mission?
Wayne: They're the same. You can’t do one without the other. So if I didn’t make profit I wouldn’t have funds to reinvest into research to then reinvest into new products to then reinvest in more research. So it’s a cyclical. Without the profitability, without the market, you know, it’s very hard to give away Bibles, and suddenly you just run out of funds to do that unless you made a profit.
David: And so is a part of the mission of Thomas Nelson to actually produce Bibles that are able to be given away, in addition to the Bibles that are sold?
Wayne: We also came up with a program five years ago called The Million Bible Challenge, in which we put together a Bible that retailers were able to sell to churches for $1.00. It's a full Bible. They are sold to churches for $1.00. We would sell cases of them for $20. Twenty Bibles in a case for $20. Our goal was to do a million, and have stores equip churches to give away a million Bibles within 12 months. We hit the million mark in 3 months. And to date I think we’re over 6.5 million Bibles that have been taken by retailers to their local churches who then give them away.
David: And what, if I may ask, are the characteristics of those Bibles? Are they just a cover, Old Testament and New Testament? Or do they include any sort of critical apparatus or any sort of introductions or is it just….
Wayne: [Goes to shelf and produces a copy] No, it’s pretty simple. It’s pretty simple.
David: [Examining the book] Oh, so it’s just like a trade paperback? Fantastic. Okay. I see it's the New King James Version.
Wayne: Yeah.
David: And a very simple introduction.
Wayne: Mostly a "Welcome to the Bible" type of introduction. It’s purposely done without any theology in it. It’s just, Welcome to the Greatest Book of All Time.
David: Absolutely. And the little preface of the New King James Version and then…so what I notice first off is that instead of the traditional two columns there are three columns per page. At what point in the creation of this Bible was that decision made?
Wayne: In the early stages... the beginning, because the goal was to get the cost down as far as we could and biggest cost down was to save paper and so we wanted to develop a product that we could put in a page count that would match the matrix we needed to be a $1 at retail.
David: And where is this Bible produced? Is it produced here in Nashville or is it produced overseas or….?
Wayne: Printed?
David: Printed, yes.
Wayne: Well it started in East Tennessee but they moved their plant to Bogota, Colombia. So now there done in Bogota.
David: Gotcha. Okay. Fantastic. And the text is printed on a different paper stock then people might be used to in Bibles as well.
Wayne: Trade paper stock.
David: Trade paper stock, yeah. Part of what I look at in my own scholarly work is study the actual physical form of Bibles. Like how they are…the process by which they are put together and the physical "stuff" out of which they’re made. So this is very helpful for me to get this in my hands and to take a look at it. This is what I would consider the sort of "low end" of the scale…
Wayne: Right.
David: …it’s a very plain Bible with not a lot done to it other than just making sure that it’s printed in a durable way that gets into people’s hands. But on the other end of the scale of what Thomas Nelson produces you have, for example, the Life/Style Bibles with silver and other colored covers. You have the BibleZines. A lot of very high production values are put into those. When you’re moving from something that is obviously missional and bare bones, like the Dollar Bible, into the "higher production value" items like the BibleZines--items that are intended to evangelize populations that don’t normally feel comfortable picking up Bibles or populations that are on the edge of being churched, like a youth population--what are some of the decisions that go into that process in terms of creating Bibles?
Wayne: From my perspective it’s all based on the customer need and filling a gap. BibleZines are a great example. You look at what young…take Revolve as the best example…you take a look at what young girls ages 11 to maybe on the stretch 16 are reading today and then you compare that to a black bonded Bible. Well there’s a gap and you can say, “Well, gee, they should be reading that black bonded Bible." But the truth is, they’re going to be embarrassed to carry it. It doesn’t match what they’re already reading. And so our goal was to take something that was very familiar to the average young teenage girl, and then wrap in that the Bible text.
So we started at the customer…came to understand the customer…came to understand the habits of the customer and then produced a product that fit the lifestyle…you used a good word…the lifestyle and the need of that customer. What we found after the production of it was that they suddenly were very comfortable carrying it. They were very comfortable taking it to school. They were very comfortable leaving it out because it looked like everything else that they had but when a friend said, “Gee, what’s that?” they could say, “that’s my Bible.” And then that created a conversation that they never perhaps would have been able to have if they had a black bonded Bible with them, and had that barrier go up.
So that’s really where…just about everything where we start is at that customer need. So whether that customer need is exegetical material that’s extra-biblical and gives context, or whatever, or if it’s fashion...you kind of look at the customer and say, “Okay, why is there a need and what is the gap we’re trying to fill?”
David: Now let me stop right there and ask what are the means by which that need is determined demographically?
Wayne: Oh, lots of things…sometimes it dart board and sometimes it's scientific…you just look at it. You first of all…at Nelson especially, you start with our core strength, which is our authors. Most of the core authors for Thomas Nelson are pastors.
David: Like Max Lucado and folks like that?
Wayne: Yeah. So you realize that they have a message and that message needs to be extended in format. And so you take that message and you blend it with Scripture and suddenly the customer has the feeling that they’re going through the Bible with Max Lucado. Or they have the feeling that they’re going through the Bible with John MacArthur and so you’re again filling a need for a customer.
The average Thomas Nelson Bible customer owns 3 to 10 Bibles. I know it’s a wide spread, but that’s the average. So when we talk to the customers, they are sincerely looking for God’s Word to them. They’re sincerely trying to understand the book, and by understanding the book they feel closer to God, more inspired by God. Understanding the message gives them hope, freedom. And believe me, these people are extremely sincere and want that message. I’m talking about my core, core customers.
David: Sure.
Wayne: And so they expand the breadth of their Bible collection because they have a feeling that something done a little differently is going to get them closer to what they really want, which is hearing from God. So you start there and you understand that about the customer. That there is…and I’m talking about the center of the bulls eye…
David: Yes.
Wayne: ….you start there with that understanding that there’s a desire for intimacy between that customer and God, and God’s Word. So now you start asking questions of the customer, of what is going to help facilitate that yearning. And so for some customers it’s having notes, and because those notes either exegete the Scripture, or exposit the Scripture, or inspire the Scripture if it’s a daily Bible or something like that. It doesn’t try to be Scripture, it just….in some broad sense amplifies the Scripture for that customer. That’s one way to do it.
For another group of customers it’s…fashion…it’s such a crass word sometimes, but it’s the look and the feel of the product. So the fashion element sounds kind of plastic, if you will. I have a good friend that owns a Christian bookstore down in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and he’s third generation bookstore owner. So he’s been through a lot. He’s seen all things in the industry and he made a comment to me, he said, “a woman came in the other day and asked me for a lilac Bible and I said, why do you want a lilac Bible? and she says, because it will match my Easter outfit.”
Okay, so now the Bible as fashion doesn’t dilute the message at all; it’s just making that customer much more comfortable carrying it. And it sounds funny, but that’s exactly how they feel. They want something that is appropriate to either style or color or something that sets…makes them…gives them a level of comfort. And we’ve seen it in other things in society. It’s not like they degrade the message, it’s just a level of comfort and a level of style.
We’ve seen it in society, Bibles are just a little slow to react, but go back…I mean I’m a lot older then you are…when I was a little kid growing up the only thing we had was AM radio.
David: Yes.
Wayne: And FM was kind of this underground, weird…I mean my parents didn’t even listen to FM radio even for music, they just didn’t go there. It was all about AM radio.
David: Right.
Wayne: Well then as I became a teenager FM became extremely popular and as FM matured suddenly you not only had just Top 40 stations and country stations and classical stations, they began nicheing those genres down into Hot Country stations and Oldies Country stations and Modern Classical stations, and you’ve got Satellite radio now and you’ve got a whole station that’s nothing but Beatles 24 hours a day. So society in itself…I mean cable channels have done the same thing. As a kid growing up we had 13 channels, that’s all we had. I think I’ve got 500 stations on my television. I mean it’s nuts. And everyone is this little niche that….and magazines, we saw it magazines, you know.
So Bibles have just been a little slow in following, in that we’ve just niched down the presentation of it to very narrow audience types. But in the aggregate they all have the same need. Does that make sense?
David: Yeah, it makes perfect sense. What I want to ask then…what I wonder is have you experienced, as these new demographics are being sort of "narrow-casted" to these Bibles, what happens to the notion of little ‘C’ catholicity? The notion of the people of God reading the same word. Is that lost somehow or is that…?
Wayne: That was lost a while ago. And where it was lost when and I don’t have exact date, but in my mind it was lost when pastors moved away from saying, "this is the only Bible you can read." And they began…and computer software helped in this, because suddenly my pastor could look at 7 different translations on his computer screen and find exactly the word he wanted to describe the point he wanted. And he was smart enough to know that all those words could mean the same thing in the koine [Greek], so he could look at the word and say, “yep they’ve done it there, all around the word, but this one describes it the best. So this Sunday I’m going to show The Message up on the screen….”
But he might also have the King James up, the New King James up, the NIV up, NASB up, and he’s just looking for a way to make his point with his congregation. So pastors did two things…they did three things….they stopped pounding the pulpit and saying this is the only Bible you can read, because they were just concerned about people getting in and reading the Bible. Secondly they started projecting scripture up on the screen and people began not leaving their Bibles at home and then third they went multitranslation on us.
And so the Small ‘C’…everybody reading the same word, just doesn’t happen. Even in my church which is pretty close to…you know my pastor preaches out of the New King James. But even to the point of him never deviating from the New King James, I’ll bet you that our congregation is probably 60% New King James, maybe 10% King James and the rest is mixed. So the translation thing left awhile ago.
In fact when I was in Christian retail, if somebody would walk into the Bible Department and say I want a Bible and I would ask them what translation they wanted, the two most common answers I got were "English" and "Holy." And so even the customer today doesn’t know, because there’s 60 some-odd translations out there. They’re not all carried at retail, but if you go online…some of the online sites….just look at that list…it’s huge.
David: Yes.
Wayne: So translation has really lost its prominence in the customers' mind, and our research shows that less than 15% of people actually making a buying decision based on translation. It’s a little skewed because sometimes they might already know in their head what they want, but for the most part it’s less than 20% that really make a decision based on translation. They’re making a decision based on some other value that they have…sometimes it’s price….sometimes it’s price driven only…sometimes it’s features and benefits….sometimes it’s look and feel, but it’s not necessarily translation anymore.
But it’s just…that’s what makes it work. It’s when something comes together…I mean have you seen our Chronological Study Bible?
David: If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I think I own it.
Wayne: When I was in retail every year one of the best selling Bibles besides Tyndale’s One Year Bible in January was a Bible by another publisher that was a chronological devotional Bible.
David: I think I’ve…it was an older version. Came out like in the 70’s, right?
Wayne: So I walked in one day and said, guys, what would it be like if we did a chronological Bible?…but there’s so many people who don’t understand that the Bible is relevant, they think it’s set over here and all of society was going on over here, and then the Bible just sort of sits here outside of society. What if we did a Bible that glued together culture and history and everything else and put it in order so it was much more readable by the customer and we made it relevant? So we went to our sales team…our sales team goes…I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but if you did this, this and this, this could be kind of cool. So my editorial team…God bless them, they take my ideas and make them real. My editorial team went out and did all those changes…we made it full of color…we brought in page samples, which is what the guys really wanted was full color and page samples, and the guys fell in love with it the second time around.
David: Gotcha.
Wayne: But we still don’t know if anything is going to happen with this thing. It’s just like…it’s still kind of weird. So then the Bible is released. I’m interviewed by a reporter actually. And he wants to pick a fight. He wants to pick a fight with me about, "why in the world would we disrupt Canon?" and, "did we make the right choices?" Now we made choices…we made informed choices…that’s the best you can do because some of it isn’t recorded so how do you know, you know…
David: And if I remember correctly, in the introduction to the Bible you basically state just that…you say…
Wayne: This guy wanted to pick a fight. He just was one of those reporters that just wanted to pick a fight. So we did the interview, but I knew when the article came out it was going to be a negative article. And it did, it came out in Christian News…whatever that news service is…it was extremely negative and a lot of outlets picked it up. So I wrote a rebuttal on my blog…I just wrote a rebuttal on my blog and just outlined what we did and just told the facts as I knew…I didn’t mention the reporter at all ,but just the facts of the product. Is one of the most popular blog articles I’ve ever written and what was funny was…that’s still a bestselling Bible…and it was just…you know you just walk in with an idea and you go how do we make this thing more relevant and it clicks.
David: Would you mind sharing with me your blog address?
Wayne: Oh yeah. It’s www.waynehastings.blogs.com/offtheshelf. That’s my release valve. I love to write.
David: Thomas Nelson has been in the specialty Bible business for a long while. The earliest Bible that I know of that Thomas Nelson has done for the specialty market was the Heart Shield Bible in WWI. Do you know of one that was earlier than that?
Wayne: Well it depends on how you define "specialty." Actually Thomas Nelson himself broke Bibles into signatures so people could afford them. And so he was selling 32 page installments so people in the 1790’s and early 1800’s could actually afford to have a Bible in their house. So the original special Bible…we laugh…the original specialty Bible publisher was actually Thomas Nelson himself.
David: So like later generations would buy an encyclopedia on an installment plan, you could buy a Bible on an installment plan? And then when you got it all together you could stitch it together yourself, or just keep it in the signatures?
Wayne: His whole gig was making books affordable. I mean, he was one of the first….in fact you can read this on Mike’s blog [Michael Hyatt is president of Thomas Nelson]. He’s done some history on Thomas Nelson. [Nelson] was one of the first publishers who understood the mass market, and that books just weren’t for the elite. So he did all kinds of things. In fact, I think he was the first guy that had started book fairs so people could actually see the books and see what they were. He invented the rotary press--but didn’t patent it--so he could print them more effectively, more efficiently and cheaper. And then he broke these Bibles into signatures and sold them. So he was just an entrepreneur who wanted to get books to the mass population in Edinborough, Scotland.
David: There’s a couple more specific questions that I’d like to ask, because in the process of talking to people about this book I'm writing, these are questions that they’ve asked me.
Wayne: Okay.
David: First, and this sort of has a…sort of a sacrilegious tone…so again, it’s not my question but somebody else’s: When I was talking to somebody about BibleZines and how BibleZines are modeled on magazines that are popular in "unchurched" demographic segments, somebody asked me the question, "well is there any limit on what they would do?" In other words, for example, there are unchurched populations that read adult literature…what is the policy for limiting what you would model a BibleZine on? Does that make sense?
Wayne: Yeah. Gosh that’s a good question. I mean…
David: Not just adult magazines, but like Guns and Ammo…
Wayne: Yeah. Yeah. There is an editorial filter for everything we do. But in the case of a BibleZine we try really hard to use features to make Scripture relevant in the kids' lives. So even if one of the features is, you know, top 10 music of 2009…Christian music of 2009…it’s there to help them bridge that gap. Oh this is relevant. I see that. So we’re putting something in a BibleZine, and some of it is overtly tied to the Scripture it’s next too. So you’re in First Timothy and it’s talking about leaders and there’s a sidebar about leadership. I mean…it’s an expositional article about leadership…biblical leadership…and that’s cool. Then there’s some other stuff in there that isn’t [directly tied to Scripture], but they're all religious, all moral. It’s not taking any kind of stand but it’s there to bring in the relevancy factor because, I’m sorry, there’s just a lot of kids out there that don’t think the book is relevant.
David: Oh absolutely.
Wayne: So you got to tease them a little bit with editorial content that’s going to let them know that it is relevant. And that’s all. I know we’ve had our critics, but that’s really what we try to do. So there is tremendous amount of intentional content that drives kids to Scripture, but there’s also some content in there that just lets them know that…you know, like one time we put in an article about 10 ways to attract a guy. We got a lot of flack on that.
David: I think I remember reading some blogs…
Wayne: Yeah. But one of the ways was be in prayer. Dress modestly. So it was like…come on…I mean it’s G rated material but girls are thinking about guys all the time. So let’s put it in there.
David: I have a related question about that intentional content. The entire visual package of a highly specialized Bible--full of color, lots of production values, either the chronological study Bible or BibleZine, to take two examples--is going to include these additional written pieces, and they're also going to include footnotes and pictures and visual presentation. s At what point in the process is the graphic design and the layout staff brought into the process…?
Wayne: Early, early, early.
David: So there’s a general theological feel established that is sort of global to the product and then everybody is sort of on board with working with that page by page?
Wayne: Yeah. That’s right. Highly talented graphic designers who understand the Word. And so it’s really kind of…they're just great people…but they’re still visual and they just shuffle the deck and there it is and we change it and they say there it is and then we go…
David: And so the last question that I would have…you had the flash of insight about the Chronological Study Bible, and then from that point--when an idea sort of hits the ground--to a finished Bible that’s in the stores…about how long on that process?
Wayne: If it’s a major content driven Bible like a Chronological, or Dr. Stanley’s Bible or John MacArthur’s Bible it’s a good 2-2.5 years. I mean the Bible alone is a million words. That’s a lot of words. And then you add 300,000 to 400,000 words so right there…you know the average book is what, 60,000 words?…so you’ve got 5 books that you’ve got to edit. So we put it through at least two if not three proofreading exercises from different proofreaders. Even though we have data files of the text…the Bible text…we still proofread that. Just because anything can happen at the printer or the typesetter…even though the typesetter just importing the file, anything can happen. So we proofread that. And then you’ve got the page layout work. You’ve got the writing work. So it’s a 2-2.5 year process. It’s not a cheap book to make and it’s not a….we have to plan a lot of edits. That’s hard…publishing sometimes can be hit driven…you know, so Sarah Palin becomes the vice presidential candidate and six weeks later somebody’s got a book on Sarah Palin. It’s like, oh my gosh, we could never do that in this division.
David: Mr. Hastings, thank you very much for your time.
Wayne: You're welcome.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Jimmy Barker responds to "Original Text vs. Critical Text"
Note: Jimmy sent an email reply to the previous post. I have taken some excerpts from his response, and he has agreed to let me post them here for you. Many thanks again to Jimmy for starting - and continuing - this conversation.
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Here are a few thoughts on your blog post: One spelling correction: papyrology not papriology. Overall I'm quite pleased with your highlighting "original text" vs. "critical text;" I think it's a very important distinction.
Later on, in mentioning "texts, translations, and interpretations," you say that we're not getting at the "best" version of the "original." At least as far as textual criticism is concerned, though, I think that would actually be the stated goal; though here I think it's important always to put 'original' in quotes. However, as text critics, as best we can, we do want to get back to the earliest layer of text.
For example, between two readings, one convoluted the other easily intelligible, the rule of lectio difficilior (the more difficult reading) is an important principle; we're imagining that someone (later) made sense out of something that (earlier on) didn't make sense. What I think gets lost at this stage of textual criticism, however (and where a project like yours can make a great contribution), is the fact that these later 'corrections' end up creating their own meanings (ones that often carry the day, in that they're usually part of the 'majority text' which went into the KJV, which determines what modern English translations are allowed to say).
Another way to look at this is to take more of a nominalist approach and consider every witness a discrete text. This can become absurd, of course (since many many witnesses agree verbatim or nearly so). However, with something like Codex Washingtonianus's longer 'longer ending of Mark' (which mentions the rule of Satan etc.), we see an example of a text that has/creates its own meaning, and simply considering it a 'secondary' addition to what was already a secondary edition shouldn't virtually deny the codex's existence.
Sorry to get all metaphysical, but I haven't thought this aloud in quite some time, and I guess that's part of what bugs me about my discipline: not enough people look at what's going on in the variants (Bart Ehrman's dissertation The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture is the one example of such an approach--the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head).
I was also interested in your take on "original Hebrew/Greek." I actually tend to consider this a separate issue from original vs. critical text...but maybe I shouldn't. Appeals to "the" original Greek would, of course, be problematic if we're talking about a particularly difficult passage from a text-critical standpoint (e.g. Matthew's Parable of the Two Sons) since we don't know what the 'original' text was...but in such a case we at least know that Greek was the original language of the text.
For the most part, then, in appealing to original languages I think people are signifying that English translations often either get something wrong or at least miss a nuance that's there in the 'original/base' languages. As a Greek teacher, I'm always in favor of people learning the 'original' languages. Of course, as far as the 'original' Greek tells us, Aramaic was the 'original' language for Jesus' sayings, but that's another matter; one, however, that may be worth pursuing in some of your work given that Historical Jesus scholars (most notably Joachim Jeremias back in the day) use our Greek NT texts to go behind what's in the text to recover the 'original' Aramaic, which then can 'correct' or 'refute' what the Greek text tells us...fascinating! (and/or infuriating). Maybe we should talk about "the" "original" "text" or "language"...but that gets quite cumbersome!
On a related note, one place I'd love to see you (as a theologian) do some work someday is on evangelical statements of faith that talk about 'inerrancy in the original manuscripts.' As a biblical scholar it would already be a strawman argument to me (since we don't have any autographs), but as a theologian you could probably make more sense out of how such language works (however well or poorly) theologically.
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Here are a few thoughts on your blog post: One spelling correction: papyrology not papriology. Overall I'm quite pleased with your highlighting "original text" vs. "critical text;" I think it's a very important distinction.
Later on, in mentioning "texts, translations, and interpretations," you say that we're not getting at the "best" version of the "original." At least as far as textual criticism is concerned, though, I think that would actually be the stated goal; though here I think it's important always to put 'original' in quotes. However, as text critics, as best we can, we do want to get back to the earliest layer of text.
For example, between two readings, one convoluted the other easily intelligible, the rule of lectio difficilior (the more difficult reading) is an important principle; we're imagining that someone (later) made sense out of something that (earlier on) didn't make sense. What I think gets lost at this stage of textual criticism, however (and where a project like yours can make a great contribution), is the fact that these later 'corrections' end up creating their own meanings (ones that often carry the day, in that they're usually part of the 'majority text' which went into the KJV, which determines what modern English translations are allowed to say).
Another way to look at this is to take more of a nominalist approach and consider every witness a discrete text. This can become absurd, of course (since many many witnesses agree verbatim or nearly so). However, with something like Codex Washingtonianus's longer 'longer ending of Mark' (which mentions the rule of Satan etc.), we see an example of a text that has/creates its own meaning, and simply considering it a 'secondary' addition to what was already a secondary edition shouldn't virtually deny the codex's existence.
Sorry to get all metaphysical, but I haven't thought this aloud in quite some time, and I guess that's part of what bugs me about my discipline: not enough people look at what's going on in the variants (Bart Ehrman's dissertation The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture is the one example of such an approach--the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head).
I was also interested in your take on "original Hebrew/Greek." I actually tend to consider this a separate issue from original vs. critical text...but maybe I shouldn't. Appeals to "the" original Greek would, of course, be problematic if we're talking about a particularly difficult passage from a text-critical standpoint (e.g. Matthew's Parable of the Two Sons) since we don't know what the 'original' text was...but in such a case we at least know that Greek was the original language of the text.
For the most part, then, in appealing to original languages I think people are signifying that English translations often either get something wrong or at least miss a nuance that's there in the 'original/base' languages. As a Greek teacher, I'm always in favor of people learning the 'original' languages. Of course, as far as the 'original' Greek tells us, Aramaic was the 'original' language for Jesus' sayings, but that's another matter; one, however, that may be worth pursuing in some of your work given that Historical Jesus scholars (most notably Joachim Jeremias back in the day) use our Greek NT texts to go behind what's in the text to recover the 'original' Aramaic, which then can 'correct' or 'refute' what the Greek text tells us...fascinating! (and/or infuriating). Maybe we should talk about "the" "original" "text" or "language"...but that gets quite cumbersome!
On a related note, one place I'd love to see you (as a theologian) do some work someday is on evangelical statements of faith that talk about 'inerrancy in the original manuscripts.' As a biblical scholar it would already be a strawman argument to me (since we don't have any autographs), but as a theologian you could probably make more sense out of how such language works (however well or poorly) theologically.
Monday, April 6, 2009
"Original Text" vs. "Critial Text": a plea for caution in one's terminology
In the concluding chapter of his excellent and highly recommended On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King) gives the reader a glimpse of his writing process "with the door open." In other words, he gives a reproduction of the first draft of a short story, "The Hotel Story," in its entirety. Immediately afterward he reproduces a facsimile of the story (now titled "1408") with his revisions visible--lines are marked through, words are replaced, entire sections gutted and moved.
The chapter is helpful to aspiring writers, certainly, in its bald assertion that a lot of what gets written gets cut and rearranged, and that this process (despite our over-protective suspicions) is okay. It is in fact quite natural. In the process of writing, rewriting and self-editing happens (and happens very often repeatedly before a "final" draft is achieved).
I want to use this illustration of the process, however, to raise a question that cuts to the heart of "Biblical Studies" (and "Theology") as they seem to be undertaken in current practice. That question is, "Having now seen the process laid bare by King that this story has been revised and rewritten prior to its 'first appearance' as a published piece, what, would we venture to say, is the original text of this story?"
The question is tricky. In order to answer it, the answerer is required to make some preliminary decisions about what "original" would mean in such a case. For example, "The Hotel Story" is clearly original in a chronological sense--it comes before "1408" in time, after all. There would be no "1408" if "The Hotel Story" had not existed first. So, in this sense, "The Hotel Story" is "original."
However, it is also clear (from King's testimony in the book, at least) that "The Hotel Story" is inferior to "1408," and therefore it is to be rejected and abandoned by the author in favor of the later revision. In this sense, the author "intends" for "1408" to be the true story, the one upon which the author places name and imprimatur. It is "1408," and not "The Hotel Story," which is first published as a short story proper (as opposed to the pedagogical exercise here in On Writing, where they both appear to demonstrate the process). In this sense, "1408" would be considered the primary text, and thus "original," would it not?
The question, I submit, is problematic for us even when we have a contemporary text distributed through modern publication channels at a time when the author is still alive and available to answer questions about these matters (as occurs in On Writing, above). In other words, the availability of all these aides to our process of answering the question does not actually help us at all in the answering of the question, "What is the original text here?"
We are unaided because the answer cannot come from the text itself. Rather, it must come from the presuppositions we make in what constitutes an "original" text--is it chronology? It is intentionality? Is it some other factor we might choose as a criterion? This decision constitutes the status of the "originality" of a text--not some inherent quality of the text itself.
I make the point because there is a defect in the terminology many of us reflexively utilize in the sister disciplines of Biblical Studies and Theology. Let me put it this way: if I had a nickel for every time a student (myself included) has looked at the Biblia Hebraica or the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and said, "Let's see what the original Hebrew (or Greek) says..." to settle a textual dispute, I would have so many nickels I likely would not have had to take out all those student loans during my graduate work.
We (many of us, myself included) reflexively appeal to these publications as the "original" language for the text in question. For many of my students in seminary, this is a highly uncritical process--but I also observe professors making the same reflexive claims. It is, I submit, a systemic reflex at all levels of the academy (again, for many--not all--of us).
But it must be clearly stated that these texts are no more "original" than the Latin Vulgate. They are not facsimilies of autographs in any sense. Rather, they are themselves assemblages of fragments that are incomplete, often contradictory, and long-disputed.
What we hold in our hands is not the "original" text in such cases, but rather a critical text. This is to say, a text that has been assembled and agreed upon through a critical process that has certain conventions and methodologies, and that is based upon certain preliminary assumptions about what the given text will be allowed to be. These assumptions, moreover, are not generated by "the text itself" (remember - there is no "text itself") but rather through external agreements such as grammar, lexicography, papriology, and so on.
The danger of a terminological blurriness on this point is that, in using the term "original Hebrew" or "original Greek" as our reflex, we might imply an ontological quality to the text which is not proper. An "original text" can exercise an absolute authority over translations and interpretation. A critical text, in contrast, still can exercise and authority in such matters, but it is a negotiated authority. The authority is conventional and debatable--not ontological and absolute.
A result of this claim would be that we acknowledge that our conversations about (biblical) texts, and their translations and interpretations, are not ever attempts to render the "best" version of the "original." Rather we labor to render the "best" version of the given critical text we have agreed, for the purposes of this particular conversation, to read and use at that time and that place.
What I am arguing for, then, is a scruple about the term "original text." If you are like me, it will be difficult to dispense with the reflex to use the term. However, with practice, I hope for myself (and anyone reading this who might share the concern) that the term might come to be replaced with a reflex to call the item what it is--a critical text. Conventional, limited, negotiable and tacit in its authority, though still authoritative and useful in a local, rather than a transcendent sense.
----
(I want to acknowledge the graciousness of my friend and colleague Jimmy Barker in helping me think through these points recently. I am deeply thankful for his insights on these matters. I do not claim he agrees with all the points I have made, of course, and any errors in the arguments above are mine, not his.)
The chapter is helpful to aspiring writers, certainly, in its bald assertion that a lot of what gets written gets cut and rearranged, and that this process (despite our over-protective suspicions) is okay. It is in fact quite natural. In the process of writing, rewriting and self-editing happens (and happens very often repeatedly before a "final" draft is achieved).
I want to use this illustration of the process, however, to raise a question that cuts to the heart of "Biblical Studies" (and "Theology") as they seem to be undertaken in current practice. That question is, "Having now seen the process laid bare by King that this story has been revised and rewritten prior to its 'first appearance' as a published piece, what, would we venture to say, is the original text of this story?"
The question is tricky. In order to answer it, the answerer is required to make some preliminary decisions about what "original" would mean in such a case. For example, "The Hotel Story" is clearly original in a chronological sense--it comes before "1408" in time, after all. There would be no "1408" if "The Hotel Story" had not existed first. So, in this sense, "The Hotel Story" is "original."
However, it is also clear (from King's testimony in the book, at least) that "The Hotel Story" is inferior to "1408," and therefore it is to be rejected and abandoned by the author in favor of the later revision. In this sense, the author "intends" for "1408" to be the true story, the one upon which the author places name and imprimatur. It is "1408," and not "The Hotel Story," which is first published as a short story proper (as opposed to the pedagogical exercise here in On Writing, where they both appear to demonstrate the process). In this sense, "1408" would be considered the primary text, and thus "original," would it not?
The question, I submit, is problematic for us even when we have a contemporary text distributed through modern publication channels at a time when the author is still alive and available to answer questions about these matters (as occurs in On Writing, above). In other words, the availability of all these aides to our process of answering the question does not actually help us at all in the answering of the question, "What is the original text here?"
We are unaided because the answer cannot come from the text itself. Rather, it must come from the presuppositions we make in what constitutes an "original" text--is it chronology? It is intentionality? Is it some other factor we might choose as a criterion? This decision constitutes the status of the "originality" of a text--not some inherent quality of the text itself.
I make the point because there is a defect in the terminology many of us reflexively utilize in the sister disciplines of Biblical Studies and Theology. Let me put it this way: if I had a nickel for every time a student (myself included) has looked at the Biblia Hebraica or the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and said, "Let's see what the original Hebrew (or Greek) says..." to settle a textual dispute, I would have so many nickels I likely would not have had to take out all those student loans during my graduate work.
We (many of us, myself included) reflexively appeal to these publications as the "original" language for the text in question. For many of my students in seminary, this is a highly uncritical process--but I also observe professors making the same reflexive claims. It is, I submit, a systemic reflex at all levels of the academy (again, for many--not all--of us).
But it must be clearly stated that these texts are no more "original" than the Latin Vulgate. They are not facsimilies of autographs in any sense. Rather, they are themselves assemblages of fragments that are incomplete, often contradictory, and long-disputed.
What we hold in our hands is not the "original" text in such cases, but rather a critical text. This is to say, a text that has been assembled and agreed upon through a critical process that has certain conventions and methodologies, and that is based upon certain preliminary assumptions about what the given text will be allowed to be. These assumptions, moreover, are not generated by "the text itself" (remember - there is no "text itself") but rather through external agreements such as grammar, lexicography, papriology, and so on.
The danger of a terminological blurriness on this point is that, in using the term "original Hebrew" or "original Greek" as our reflex, we might imply an ontological quality to the text which is not proper. An "original text" can exercise an absolute authority over translations and interpretation. A critical text, in contrast, still can exercise and authority in such matters, but it is a negotiated authority. The authority is conventional and debatable--not ontological and absolute.
A result of this claim would be that we acknowledge that our conversations about (biblical) texts, and their translations and interpretations, are not ever attempts to render the "best" version of the "original." Rather we labor to render the "best" version of the given critical text we have agreed, for the purposes of this particular conversation, to read and use at that time and that place.
What I am arguing for, then, is a scruple about the term "original text." If you are like me, it will be difficult to dispense with the reflex to use the term. However, with practice, I hope for myself (and anyone reading this who might share the concern) that the term might come to be replaced with a reflex to call the item what it is--a critical text. Conventional, limited, negotiable and tacit in its authority, though still authoritative and useful in a local, rather than a transcendent sense.
----
(I want to acknowledge the graciousness of my friend and colleague Jimmy Barker in helping me think through these points recently. I am deeply thankful for his insights on these matters. I do not claim he agrees with all the points I have made, of course, and any errors in the arguments above are mine, not his.)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Numbers 23:23
Today, April 2nd, marks the death of Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code. Morse passed away in 1872.
On May 24th, 1844, Morse sent the first official message via telegraphy, to commemorate the opening to the line between the B&O Railroad Station in Baltimore and the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Since this is a blog about the material form Scripture takes in our world, and the interpretations that come from the various physical media in which Scripture is transmitted, it seemed fitting to mention this event, as Morse's first official transmission was Numbers 23:23 - "What hath God wrought?"
I find the implications of his choice intriguing. This was the first time Scripture was transmitted in electronic (or, at least, electric) form. This is the precursor to James Earl Jones reading the Scriptures aloud, or versions of the Bible online, and my favorite, of course) the GoBible iPod edition.
For the true nerds out there, here is the code of Numbers 23:23 in all its glory:
On May 24th, 1844, Morse sent the first official message via telegraphy, to commemorate the opening to the line between the B&O Railroad Station in Baltimore and the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
Since this is a blog about the material form Scripture takes in our world, and the interpretations that come from the various physical media in which Scripture is transmitted, it seemed fitting to mention this event, as Morse's first official transmission was Numbers 23:23 - "What hath God wrought?"
I find the implications of his choice intriguing. This was the first time Scripture was transmitted in electronic (or, at least, electric) form. This is the precursor to James Earl Jones reading the Scriptures aloud, or versions of the Bible online, and my favorite, of course) the GoBible iPod edition.
For the true nerds out there, here is the code of Numbers 23:23 in all its glory:
.-- .... .- - / .... .- - .... / --. --- -.. / .-- .-. --- ..- --. .... - ..--..
Di-dah-dah Di-di-di-dit Di-dah Dah, Di-di-di-dit Di-dah Dah Di-di-di-dit, Dah-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-di-dit, Di-dah-dah Di-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-di-dah Dah-dah-dit Di-di-di-dit Dah Di-di-dah-dah-di-dit
Enjoy.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Christianity Today article on The Green Bible
Many thanks for Rebecca Rine of UVA's Scripture, Interpretation and Practice program for bringing this to my attention.
Click here to go to the article.
Click here to go to the article.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Designing the Scriptures: A Brief History of the Manipulation of Printed Bibles
The following is my paper for the Society for Textual Scholarship Conference, New York University in Manhattan, March 19th, 2009.
Elaine Pagels, in her 2003 book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas,1 makes the argument that Irenaeus (the second-century bishop in Gaul) put forth a "bold interpretation" of the Gospel of John that "came virtually to define orthodoxy" with regard to the reading of the text. Pagels goes on to argue that these interpretive choices on the part of Irenaeus (to wit: the equivocation of Jesus with the preexistent Word and with God godself, in contrast to his predecessor, Valentinus's, more gnostic notion that both the Word and Jesus were inferior emanations of the Creator God) become the governing tropes for all subsequent translations of the opening passages of the fourth Gospel.
The result of this re-interpretation, so argues Pagels, is that Irenaeus offers believers "a kind of simple, almost mathematical equation, in which God = word = Jesus Christ." This simple formulation functions from the second century on as the norm for reading and interpreting the text. As Pagels put is, "those who read John's gospel today in any language except the Greek original will find that the translations make [Irenaeus's] conclusion seem obvious--namely that the man 'who dwelt among us' was God incarnate."
In her footnote to these claims, Pagels mentions the editors of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Herbert G. May and Bruce Metzger, as representative examples of this phenomenon. This is to say, May and Metzger particularize and interpret what Pagels claims to be ambivalent or ambiguous Greek phrases. In doing so, they disguise the ambiguity for the contemporary reader and assume the interpretive position that Irenaeus put forth some eighteen centuries ago.
Now I am not claiming I agree with all of Pagel's arguments or conclusions here, but I am very interested in the phenomenon to which her claims point. Namely, that the process of translation, interpretation, and above all publication of Bibles involves a fundamental manipulation of the text--both at the editorial and visual levels.
This is my first time at the STS, so this may not be a provocative position to take here. But I will tell you, it is a quite contentious position to take among my colleagues in the fields of theology and religion.
What I am offering here this morning will by no means do justice to the subject before us. Actually, this is part of a book project I am writing. But I want to present some ideas this morning to get your feedback and thoughts.
The paper will consist of three abbreviated moves: first, some analysis of Martin Luther's versions of the New Testament, particularly. Then, some analysis of a more contemporary version, the Chronological Bible. Finally, I will conclude with some reflections on this phenomenon from a general standpoint.
In a similar manner to Irenaeus, Martin Luther affected the use and reading of the Bible in profound ways. In particular we might cite his hermeneutic stance that the Book of Romans (and to a lesser extent Paul's other Epistles), the Gospel of John, and the first Book of Peter constituted the "True and Most Noble Books of the New Testament."2 These books formed the interpretive framework through which Luther judged all other New Testament writings.
His judgment, moreover, was intimately tied to the structure of the printed New Testament produced under his direction. For example, the table of contents for his New Testament included the book of Hebrews, the letter of James, the Letter of John, and the Revelation of John--though they were included as clearly set apart and inferior. The contents includes all other "acceptable" books in a numbered list. The four just mentioned are after the list; unnumbered, and set apart and aside from the others.3
Thus it is in the printed text that Luther's theology becomes encoded and ingrained into both the corpus and the interpretive structure of the Scriptures. Luther appends prefaces to many of the books of the New Testament, explaining and highlighting for the reader what she should expect to find in the writings themselves. Moreover, Luther adds an apparatus of textual glosses to the margins of the pages, directing the reader's intratextual apprehension of the various books and epistles.4
The effect of all this, to quote Mark U. Edwards, Jr, was that "Luther's translation and the accompanying glosses encouraged a reading of the text that differed sharply from a Catholic reading."5 This is, of course, to be expected at the level of interpretation, but the argument here is that the interpretive dissonances went deeper than extra-textual hermeneutics and fully penetrated the physical corpus of the printed pages of the Testament itself.
Edwards goes on to point out that Luther's redactions and emendations were quite successful, and that Luther's New Testament went on to become a sort of sixteenth-century "best seller," based upon the historical data we have regarding reprints and sales.6 Not all of the reprints reproduced the entirety of Luther's prefaces and glosses, it should be noted. However, the precedent for these sorts of additions was firmly established in these quite popular publications.
There is not time, of course, to highlight all the varieties of manipulated Scripture that have arisen since Luther's New Testament. A lot of my professional work has been spent exploring Bible manipulation, and I'm happy to talk more about that in the question and answer period. For the sake of illustration right now, however, I am going to single out one recent version that is especially thick with manipulations, the New King James Version Chronological Study Bible, published by Thomas Nelson.
What interests me most about this Bible is that it completely shatters any sense of canonical ordering. To a small degree we saw this sort of rearranging of the canonical books with Luther's rearrangement of the table of contents I mentioned a moment ago, but the Chronological Study Bible takes this rearrangement to an unbelievable degree.
The justification for this rearrangement, according to the Introduction, is to present "the Bible as it really is."7 By this they mean, in effect, the Bible narrative re-mapped onto the "actual" historical ordering of events to which the narratives refer.
Such an effort, of course, raises the question of "actual history" itself. The events and their chronology are hotly debated issues and far from settled. The editors, in their introduction to the Chronological Study Bible do their best to acknowledge this, claiming that the approach they choose "treats evenhandedly the entire spectrum of credible opinion on disputed matters."8
Despite such assurances, however, there remains the lingering doubt that the text of the Bible can ever be adequately or satisfactorily "converted" into an historical text of the type the editors envision. Moreover, it would be hard to imagine such a converted text being of much use in a liturgical context.
That the radical rearrangement of canonical elements (both at the level of whole books and at the level of pericopes) is considered acceptable by these editors and publishers is a testament to the depth to which what we might call a positivist notion of history holds sway for them. Moreso, notice that the concern of the editors is to map the narrated events onto this historical chronology. This is quite a different question (both methodologically and textually) from that of attempting to map and reconfigure the order to accord with the chronology of the writing of the books. In other words, the textual development and redactive process by which the texts came to exist as literary units is entirely ignored. This process is instead collapsed into the assumed chronology of narrative qua "actual historical" event.
Needless to say, I find this approach problematic, but I also want to point out that it is not fundamentally different from the approach we observed in Martin Luther. Nor is it fundamentally different from any of a number of other published Scriptures we might examine. This holds true whether we are exploring recent or ancient publications. The common denominator of all published Bibles is, I will assert, that they are products of editorial and hermeneutic manipulation.
In making such a claim, I am standing in contradistinction to theological writers such as John Webster. I mention Webster specifically because his book, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch is absolutely fantastic. I disagree with its argument and its premise, but I still recognize it as a simply excellent work.
Webster wants to take issue with the claim (such as I am making) that the biblical text 's "being is defined by reference to its occupation in a natural field of communicative activity."9 In other words, for Webster, it is the assumption "that the biblical writings are instances of the natural class of texts which is to be resisted."10
Where Webster and I differ, in other words, is in the assumption that there can be a meaningful realm of interpretation in which Scripture is "defined, not simply by its membership [in] the class of texts, but by the fact that it is this text--sanctified, that is, Spirit-generated and preserved--in this field of action--the communicative economy of God's merciful friendship with his lost creatures."11 For you non-theologians out there, this basically boils down to an argument about whether a version of Scripture exists which is beyond and unaffected by human manipulations. Webster posits that there is such a possibility, and I remain skeptical.
To develop this point much further would be to engage in a theological paper, and not a chiefly textual one, however. So, acknowledging the disagreement I have with fellow scholars on this point, I would like to make a few suggestions toward a conclusion.
First, to restate my premise that, for as long as there have been printed Bibles (and, there is some good evidence to suggest for a long time before this, as well), there has been the manipulation of Bibles--by which I here mean the attempt to restrict the possible interpretations and meanings of the text available to readers through editorial and graphic emendations.
These emendations exist across a range. They are translational, graphic (elements such as font, page layout, illuminations within manuscripts, as well as choices as to whether to capitalize or not capitalize certain words to reflect theological assumptions, e.g. the Hebrew ruach, which is translated as "spirit," is at points in certain English Bible versions rendered with a capital "S"), and paratextual elements12 (so elements such as the table of contents I mentioned in Luther's New Testament, or the addition of chapter and verse divisions, punctuation, and critical apparatus to ancient texts that had none of these in their earliest forms.
Second, as we have seen with both the examples of the Luther Testament and the Chronological Study Bible, these editorial manipulations reflect ideological positions, which themselves can and should be examined in detail as part of the process of hermeneutic exegesis and textual analysis.
It is not the goal, however, of such analyses to reach a point where the printed text could be considered "purified" of such manipulations. This, as I mentioned briefly a moment ago, is the error of John Webster and those like him. The error, I assert, of imagining that our analysis can get us past the point of the smudgy human fingerprints on the text. I want to suggest that, far from the manipulation of Bibles being a process we might redeem through a more refined hermeneutic, it is instead (to steal a line from a different conversation about religion), manipulation all the way down.
As long as there are printed Bibles, there will be a conflict of interpretive interests. As long as there are conflicts of interpretive interest, printed Bibles will be products of human, not divine, manipulation. Amen.
1 All quotations from Pagels are from Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Vintage, 2003), pp. 150-151 and 220.
2 Cited in Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1994), p. 112.
3 Edwards, 113.
4 Edwards, 115 - 118.
5 Edwards, 118.
6 Edwards, 123.
7 Timothy B. Cargall, ed., et al, "Introduction," The Chronological Study Bible: New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), p. xi.
8 Cargall, et al., p. xi.
9 John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003), p. 29.
10 Webster, 29.
11 Webster, p. 29.
12 The term "paratext" draws upon the work of Gerard Genette.
Elaine Pagels, in her 2003 book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas,1 makes the argument that Irenaeus (the second-century bishop in Gaul) put forth a "bold interpretation" of the Gospel of John that "came virtually to define orthodoxy" with regard to the reading of the text. Pagels goes on to argue that these interpretive choices on the part of Irenaeus (to wit: the equivocation of Jesus with the preexistent Word and with God godself, in contrast to his predecessor, Valentinus's, more gnostic notion that both the Word and Jesus were inferior emanations of the Creator God) become the governing tropes for all subsequent translations of the opening passages of the fourth Gospel.
The result of this re-interpretation, so argues Pagels, is that Irenaeus offers believers "a kind of simple, almost mathematical equation, in which God = word = Jesus Christ." This simple formulation functions from the second century on as the norm for reading and interpreting the text. As Pagels put is, "those who read John's gospel today in any language except the Greek original will find that the translations make [Irenaeus's] conclusion seem obvious--namely that the man 'who dwelt among us' was God incarnate."
In her footnote to these claims, Pagels mentions the editors of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Herbert G. May and Bruce Metzger, as representative examples of this phenomenon. This is to say, May and Metzger particularize and interpret what Pagels claims to be ambivalent or ambiguous Greek phrases. In doing so, they disguise the ambiguity for the contemporary reader and assume the interpretive position that Irenaeus put forth some eighteen centuries ago.
Now I am not claiming I agree with all of Pagel's arguments or conclusions here, but I am very interested in the phenomenon to which her claims point. Namely, that the process of translation, interpretation, and above all publication of Bibles involves a fundamental manipulation of the text--both at the editorial and visual levels.
This is my first time at the STS, so this may not be a provocative position to take here. But I will tell you, it is a quite contentious position to take among my colleagues in the fields of theology and religion.
What I am offering here this morning will by no means do justice to the subject before us. Actually, this is part of a book project I am writing. But I want to present some ideas this morning to get your feedback and thoughts.
The paper will consist of three abbreviated moves: first, some analysis of Martin Luther's versions of the New Testament, particularly. Then, some analysis of a more contemporary version, the Chronological Bible. Finally, I will conclude with some reflections on this phenomenon from a general standpoint.
In a similar manner to Irenaeus, Martin Luther affected the use and reading of the Bible in profound ways. In particular we might cite his hermeneutic stance that the Book of Romans (and to a lesser extent Paul's other Epistles), the Gospel of John, and the first Book of Peter constituted the "True and Most Noble Books of the New Testament."2 These books formed the interpretive framework through which Luther judged all other New Testament writings.
His judgment, moreover, was intimately tied to the structure of the printed New Testament produced under his direction. For example, the table of contents for his New Testament included the book of Hebrews, the letter of James, the Letter of John, and the Revelation of John--though they were included as clearly set apart and inferior. The contents includes all other "acceptable" books in a numbered list. The four just mentioned are after the list; unnumbered, and set apart and aside from the others.3
Thus it is in the printed text that Luther's theology becomes encoded and ingrained into both the corpus and the interpretive structure of the Scriptures. Luther appends prefaces to many of the books of the New Testament, explaining and highlighting for the reader what she should expect to find in the writings themselves. Moreover, Luther adds an apparatus of textual glosses to the margins of the pages, directing the reader's intratextual apprehension of the various books and epistles.4
The effect of all this, to quote Mark U. Edwards, Jr, was that "Luther's translation and the accompanying glosses encouraged a reading of the text that differed sharply from a Catholic reading."5 This is, of course, to be expected at the level of interpretation, but the argument here is that the interpretive dissonances went deeper than extra-textual hermeneutics and fully penetrated the physical corpus of the printed pages of the Testament itself.
Edwards goes on to point out that Luther's redactions and emendations were quite successful, and that Luther's New Testament went on to become a sort of sixteenth-century "best seller," based upon the historical data we have regarding reprints and sales.6 Not all of the reprints reproduced the entirety of Luther's prefaces and glosses, it should be noted. However, the precedent for these sorts of additions was firmly established in these quite popular publications.
There is not time, of course, to highlight all the varieties of manipulated Scripture that have arisen since Luther's New Testament. A lot of my professional work has been spent exploring Bible manipulation, and I'm happy to talk more about that in the question and answer period. For the sake of illustration right now, however, I am going to single out one recent version that is especially thick with manipulations, the New King James Version Chronological Study Bible, published by Thomas Nelson.
What interests me most about this Bible is that it completely shatters any sense of canonical ordering. To a small degree we saw this sort of rearranging of the canonical books with Luther's rearrangement of the table of contents I mentioned a moment ago, but the Chronological Study Bible takes this rearrangement to an unbelievable degree.
The justification for this rearrangement, according to the Introduction, is to present "the Bible as it really is."7 By this they mean, in effect, the Bible narrative re-mapped onto the "actual" historical ordering of events to which the narratives refer.
Such an effort, of course, raises the question of "actual history" itself. The events and their chronology are hotly debated issues and far from settled. The editors, in their introduction to the Chronological Study Bible do their best to acknowledge this, claiming that the approach they choose "treats evenhandedly the entire spectrum of credible opinion on disputed matters."8
Despite such assurances, however, there remains the lingering doubt that the text of the Bible can ever be adequately or satisfactorily "converted" into an historical text of the type the editors envision. Moreover, it would be hard to imagine such a converted text being of much use in a liturgical context.
That the radical rearrangement of canonical elements (both at the level of whole books and at the level of pericopes) is considered acceptable by these editors and publishers is a testament to the depth to which what we might call a positivist notion of history holds sway for them. Moreso, notice that the concern of the editors is to map the narrated events onto this historical chronology. This is quite a different question (both methodologically and textually) from that of attempting to map and reconfigure the order to accord with the chronology of the writing of the books. In other words, the textual development and redactive process by which the texts came to exist as literary units is entirely ignored. This process is instead collapsed into the assumed chronology of narrative qua "actual historical" event.
Needless to say, I find this approach problematic, but I also want to point out that it is not fundamentally different from the approach we observed in Martin Luther. Nor is it fundamentally different from any of a number of other published Scriptures we might examine. This holds true whether we are exploring recent or ancient publications. The common denominator of all published Bibles is, I will assert, that they are products of editorial and hermeneutic manipulation.
In making such a claim, I am standing in contradistinction to theological writers such as John Webster. I mention Webster specifically because his book, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch is absolutely fantastic. I disagree with its argument and its premise, but I still recognize it as a simply excellent work.
Webster wants to take issue with the claim (such as I am making) that the biblical text 's "being is defined by reference to its occupation in a natural field of communicative activity."9 In other words, for Webster, it is the assumption "that the biblical writings are instances of the natural class of texts which is to be resisted."10
Where Webster and I differ, in other words, is in the assumption that there can be a meaningful realm of interpretation in which Scripture is "defined, not simply by its membership [in] the class of texts, but by the fact that it is this text--sanctified, that is, Spirit-generated and preserved--in this field of action--the communicative economy of God's merciful friendship with his lost creatures."11 For you non-theologians out there, this basically boils down to an argument about whether a version of Scripture exists which is beyond and unaffected by human manipulations. Webster posits that there is such a possibility, and I remain skeptical.
To develop this point much further would be to engage in a theological paper, and not a chiefly textual one, however. So, acknowledging the disagreement I have with fellow scholars on this point, I would like to make a few suggestions toward a conclusion.
First, to restate my premise that, for as long as there have been printed Bibles (and, there is some good evidence to suggest for a long time before this, as well), there has been the manipulation of Bibles--by which I here mean the attempt to restrict the possible interpretations and meanings of the text available to readers through editorial and graphic emendations.
These emendations exist across a range. They are translational, graphic (elements such as font, page layout, illuminations within manuscripts, as well as choices as to whether to capitalize or not capitalize certain words to reflect theological assumptions, e.g. the Hebrew ruach, which is translated as "spirit," is at points in certain English Bible versions rendered with a capital "S"), and paratextual elements12 (so elements such as the table of contents I mentioned in Luther's New Testament, or the addition of chapter and verse divisions, punctuation, and critical apparatus to ancient texts that had none of these in their earliest forms.
Second, as we have seen with both the examples of the Luther Testament and the Chronological Study Bible, these editorial manipulations reflect ideological positions, which themselves can and should be examined in detail as part of the process of hermeneutic exegesis and textual analysis.
It is not the goal, however, of such analyses to reach a point where the printed text could be considered "purified" of such manipulations. This, as I mentioned briefly a moment ago, is the error of John Webster and those like him. The error, I assert, of imagining that our analysis can get us past the point of the smudgy human fingerprints on the text. I want to suggest that, far from the manipulation of Bibles being a process we might redeem through a more refined hermeneutic, it is instead (to steal a line from a different conversation about religion), manipulation all the way down.
As long as there are printed Bibles, there will be a conflict of interpretive interests. As long as there are conflicts of interpretive interest, printed Bibles will be products of human, not divine, manipulation. Amen.
1 All quotations from Pagels are from Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (New York: Vintage, 2003), pp. 150-151 and 220.
2 Cited in Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Printing, Propaganda and Martin Luther (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1994), p. 112.
3 Edwards, 113.
4 Edwards, 115 - 118.
5 Edwards, 118.
6 Edwards, 123.
7 Timothy B. Cargall, ed., et al, "Introduction," The Chronological Study Bible: New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), p. xi.
8 Cargall, et al., p. xi.
9 John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003), p. 29.
10 Webster, 29.
11 Webster, p. 29.
12 The term "paratext" draws upon the work of Gerard Genette.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Teh Bibel in lolcat. Srsly.
The process of translation is not limited to trans-linguistic situations. This is to say, one does not simply translate from ancient languages into contemporary ones and be done with it. Franz Rosenzweig asserted that "everyone translates, and everyone must." It is actually a continuous, constant intra-linguistic process, as well.For a good example of this in action, try to get your hands on a British and American version of the same Harry Potter book. While both are targeted to a language we loosely refer to as "English," there are distinct and forceful differences. The word "boot," for example, will be used in distinct and differing ways in the two versions--one referring to the heavy shoe and the other to the rear storage compartment of a car.
You don't even have to compare the King James to the New King James to see this in action. Merely go to a library archives and look for a King James from 300 years ago. Yes, it is in "English," but not really an "English" we contemporary readers understand anymore. The letter "s" is more often than not an "f" in those versions, and the spelling and grammar is remarkably obtuse to modern readers.
Or consider that the New International Version has now been updated to Today's New International Version. s they describe in the TNIV website, "Although a basic core of the English language remains relatively stable, many diverse and complex cultural forces continue to bring about subtle shifts in the meanings and/or connotations of even old, well-established words and phrases." When these shifts occur, we have no choice but to translate between them. Everyone translates, and everyone must.
Language is mastered, after all, not in its grammar but rather in its idioms. One is fluent when one can swing with the nuances of pronouns--knowing, for example, the important difference between "coming up" and "coming on" to someone.
Idioms are often regional, and sailing among them can be informative. For a good example of this, pick up any of Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch versions of the Gospels and Paul's Letters. The regionalism and idiomatic English allow readers to experience some of the geography, ethnic tensions, and revelation of the Gospels in a striking manner. No doubt about it, idioms can be informative.
So, despite my academic pretensions and the urging of several of my friends, I am not going to dismiss the lolcats Bible project out of hand, tempting though that might be.
For the three of you out there unfamiliar with the phenomenon, "lolcats" (a neologism for "Laugh Out Loud Cats" or somesuch) are a fictional posse of felines that exist mainly through text-modified photos on the web. It works roughly like this: find a cute photo of a cat or kitten (other animals will work, too, if the context is appropriate), add some garbled English-esque text, and post it to a site (or many; these things tend to get forwarded).
The lolcat Bible project is ambitous. It is a wiki-based endeavor, involving many multiples of contributors, and its intention is really and truly to render the whole of the Bible into lolcat-ese. Why I find this so interesting is partly because it is an English-to-emergent-argot-of-English sort of project. In other words, the lolcatters are not (so far as I can tell) working from ancient languages (unless you consider Standard American English ancient, and I guess some do). There is a grammar at work in lolcat, and it is relatively stable (in much the same was as grammar is stable for English speakers from the Bronx, Trinidad, Wales and Liberia--that is to say, there is fluctuation).
Even more interestingly, there is a theology at work in lolcat. God is the "ceiling cat." Good things are cheezburgers, bad things are wet. There is even a nascent eschatology (though the editors scorn technical theological language or anything approximating it). This theology is important to watch--it is dynamic equivalence at work. In other words, if you are of the belief that "meaning" can somehow be moved from language to language with no real regard to grammar and structure (as some advocates of dynamic equivalence seem to suggest) then the lolcat Bible project is a perfect test case. If "meaning" is truly above all culture and context, then we can even make fictional cats understand, right?
I am not saying I agree with any of this. Rather, what I am suggesting is that things like the lolcats Bible project are live test cases, unfolding right before our eyes, of some of the theoretical positions that have governed biblical translation and distribution for over a century. We should pay close attention.
And, at the end of the day, reading the lolcats Bible project is a more worthwhile undertaking than, say, paying any attention at all to Rob Lacey's The Word on the Street. Srsly.
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