Friday, March 30, 2018

Review: A Commentary on Textual Additions


            Philip W. Comfort’s A Commentary on Textual Additions to the New Testament answers a question that many users of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece have asked:  where are the editors taking us?  Or to put it another way:  if translators consistently applied the principles that have resulted in the promotion of heavily Alexandrian compilations, what would the text of the New Testament look like?
            It would not include “thousands of extra words.”  If Philip Comfort – a senior editor at Tyndale House Publishers and the Coordinating Editor of the New Testament of the New Living Translation – has ever met a short reading he didn’t like, it is hard to tell from this book.  He rejects not only Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 but also many other words, phrases, and verses which are retained in the text of the Gospels in the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament:
            Mt. 3:16 – “to Him”
            ● Mt. 6:15 – “their trespasses”
            Mt. 6:33 – “of God”
            ● Mt. 9:14 – “often”
            ● Mt. 12:15 – “crowds”
            ● Mt. 12:47 – entire verse
            ● Mt. 14:30 – “strong”
            ● Mt. 16:2-3 – entire passage
            ● Mt. 18:15 – ‘against you”
            Mt. 19:29 – “or wife”
            ● Mt. 21:44 – entire verse
            ● Mt. 27:24 – “righteous”
            ● Mk. 1:1 – “Son of God”
            ● Mk. 5:21 – “in the boat”
            ● Mk. 6:44 – “the loaves”
            ● Mk. 9:29 – “and fasting”
            ● Mk. 10:7 – “and will be joined to his wife”
            ● Mk. 14:68 – “and a rooster crowed”
            ● Lk. 8:25 – “and they obey him”
            ● Lk. 8:43 – “though she had spent all she had on physicians”
            ● Lk. 8:45 – “and those with him”
            ● Lk. 11:33 – “or puts it under a basket”
            ● Lk. 17:24 – “in His day”
            ● Lk. 22:43-44 – entire passage
            ● Lk. 23:34 – “And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”
            ● Lk. 24:32 – “within us”
            ● Jn. 3:31 – “is above all”
            ● Jn. 7:39 – “Holy”
            ● Jn. 9:38 – entire verse
            ● Jn. 9:39 – “And Jesus said”
            ● Jn. 10:8 – “before Me”
            ● Jn. 18:40 – “again”
           
            In his comments on Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation, Comfort’s tendency to adopt the shortest reading continues, even if the reading he advocates is supported by only a very narrow array of witnesses.  However, Comfort seldom comments on passages in which the Byzantine reading is shorter than the Alexandrian reading (such as in James 4:12 and Jude verse 25).  In the General Epistles, Comfort’s treatment of the text is remarkably sparse, and in all of Revelation’s text, he comments on a mere eight passages.  More pages are devoted to Romans 16:23-27 than to the text of First Peter, Second Peter, and Jude combined.                
            Comfort’s adamant preference for the shorter reading – a preference which one study after another has drawn into question, if not overthrown, in the past 20 years – is chronically expressed in very confident terms, and often with the evidence presented in a one-sided and incomplete way.  Arguments that begin with qualified premises typically end up being expressed as flat assertions. 
            References to scribes’ “horizon of expectation” are everywhere in Comfort’s arguments.  He does not explain, however, why this “horizon of expectation” only affected some passages and not a host of others which, one would think, were also at risk of scribal assimilation and simplification.  For example, Comfort explains why some scribes erroneously added the name “Isaiah” to Matthew 13:35, but he declines to make the same argument at Mark 1:2, where the same scribal motivation – the desire to identify an unnamed prophet – accounts for the reading “in Isaiah the prophet” as opposed to the less specific “in the prophets.”  Many other examples could be listed – passages which have not been harmonized, even though it is just as easy to imagine in these cases a “horizon of expectation” inviting scribes to adjust the text. 
Comfort uses the “horizon of expectation” argument as a sort of panacea; it is the beginning and end of his case for dozens of shorter readings.  When discussing Mark 16:9-20, for example, he proposes that “the other gospels formed a horizon of expectation” – but what exactly is in the other Gospels’ endings that would elicit the expectation of a passage like Mark 16:17-18?  Nothing at all.  In the same discussion, Comfort exhibits his usual hurried carelessness, misinforming his readers by claiming that minuscule 1221 has a note that indicates that “the more ancient MSS” do not include verses 9-20. (In real life, 1221 has no such note, and in the manuscripts that do have an annotation about verses 9-20, such as MS 20, the notes tend to affirm that either the ancient manuscripts include the passage, or that the majority of manuscripts do so – contrary to the impression that writers such as Comfort have absorbed from Metzger’s comments).
            In addition, Comfort has failed to deliver much analysis of shorter Western readings – a serious shortcoming in a book on the subject of shorter readings.  Not a single “Western Non-Interpolation” is covered.  There is no mention of Codex D’s curious non-mention of Jairus’ name in Mark 5:22 – as if Comfort either was oblivious to the likelihood that some scribes deliberately shortened the text, or wanted his readers to avoid considering that possibility.                 
            The amount of confidence that Comfort expresses in his theories throughout A Commentary on Textual Additions to the New Testament is very high – so high as to be exasperating for anyone looking for a balanced and even-handed presentation of the evidence.  From the introductory chapter onward, Comfort maintains that “Any textual variant that appears to fill in a gap in the text is suspect as a scribal emendation” – and this idea is aimed almost exclusively at Byzantine readings. 
A strong bias in favor of shorter Alexandrian readings is maintained throughout the book; sometimes Comfort essentially declares the Alexandrian reading original, rather than offer evidence supporting it.  For example, in his discussion of Matthew 14:30, where a few manuscripts (including Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and 33) do not include ἰσχυρὸν, Comfort declares that it is “more likely” that non-Alexandrian scribes added the word “to intensify the narrative” than that Alexandrian scribes accidentally skipped it when their line of sight drifted from the final letters in ἄνεμον (the preceding word) to the identical final letters in ἰσχυρὸν.  What was the scientific method by which Comfort calculated that the probability that a copyist deliberately made an interpolation that adds only minimal detail to the narrative is higher than the probability that an early scribe briefly lost his line of sight?
            Although A Commentary on Textual Additions to the New Testament is thoroughly skewed, I recommend it as a nearly perfect specimen of the spin and evidence-molding that is commonly used by commentators to promote the Alexandrian Text and the theory that the original Greek text of a multitude of New Testament passages has survived in only a tiny handful of manuscripts.


[Readers are invited to double-check the data in this post.]

Saturday, March 24, 2018

The Passion Translation - Some Problems


What’s unique about The Passion Translation – a recent translation of the New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, and the Song of Songs by Brian Simmons?  Three things, or, three kinds of things:  its origins, its doctrinal bias, and its highly unusual base-text.
Brian Simmons
            Those who have viewed a video of Brian Simmons’ appearance on the television program That’s Supernatural! will already be aware of Brian Simmons’ description of his call to translate the Bible.  He claimed the following:
            Jesus told him to translate the Bible,
            ● Jesus told him he would help Brian translate the Bible,
            ● Jesus promised to provide secrets about the Hebrew language, and
            ● Brian received downloads when Jesus breathed on him.

This sort of testimony is taken seriously by many members of the New Apostolic Reformation, a loose network of congregations characterized by charismatic doctrine.  (If you can recollect the “Toronto Blessing” and the “Brownsville Revival,” you may get some idea of the NAR’s theological roots.)  The NAR’s leaders affirm that the church today should be led, not by elders and deacons, but by people holding the offices of apostle and prophet (whether male or female).   The NAR also teaches that prophets receive new revelation from God which supplements the written Word of God.  They also put an emphasis on what they consider to be miraculous gifts, such as the reception of knowledge that is naturally unattainable, supernatural healings (including raising the dead – Simmons himself claims to been instrumental in the resurrection of a dead baby), speaking in tongues, and other phenomena (one example described by Simmons is the time he walked into a grocery store and everyone he met collapsed onto the floor). 
Charismatic doctrines are advocated throughout The Passion Translation, because it is not just a translation; it is more like a Charismatic Study Bible with its own running commentary in the form of Simmons’ abundant notes and book-introductions (which in some cases are longer than the books they accompany).  To an extent, TPT resembles some medieval manuscripts in which the Scripture-text is framed on every page by a lot of commentary – with the exception that whereas the medieval commentary-material tended to restate earlier patristic comments, The Passion Translation’s notes – often more lengthy than the books they accompany – consistently promote the teachings of the New Apostolic Reformation.
            One does not get far into the New Testament before it becomes apparent what one is facing in Simmons’ work.  In a note attached to Matthew 1:17, Simmons explains why, in Matthew’s genealogy, there are 41, rather than 42, generations.  Is Matthew simply counting the last unit of generations inclusively?  No; Simmons does not offer such mundane possibilities; the missing generation, he explains, is the church:  “Jesus gave birth to the forty-second generation when he died on the cross, for out of his side blood and water flowed.  Blood and water come forth at birth.  The first Adam “birthed” his wife out of his side, and so Jesus gave birth to his bride from his wounded side.” 
            This sort of thing is pervasive in the notes of The Passion Translation.  Some interpretations that Simmons offers are merely his own allegorical notions – for example, he comments on Mary’s words in John 2:2-3, “Interpreting Mary’s words for today we could say, “Religion has failed, it has run out of wine.””  Others are adamant endorsements of the teachings of the New Apostolic Reformation network. 
Perfectly ordinary and legitimate comments appear too – but some of Simmons’ notes only make sense if the reader really, really, wants them to make sense; for instance, in a note to John 2:20, where the Jewish leaders mention that it had taken 46 years to build the temple, Simmons comments, “Our bodies (temples) have forty-six chromosomes in every cell.” 
Another example:  Simmons’ note for Mark 1:9 – a straightforward statement that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to be baptized by John in the Jordan river – is as follows:  “It is possible to translate the Aramaic as “Then one day Jesus came from victorious revelation” to be baptized by John.  The word Nazareth can mean “victorious one,” and the word Galilee can be translated “the place of revelation.”  Simmons’ ability to squeeze metaphorical meanings out of plain statements in this way knows no bounds.  Many of the notes are like this, offering spiritual lessons that, good or bad, were never in the minds of the New Testament authors. 
            If the doctrinal bias of the notes were the only problem with Simmons’ work, TPT would be no worse than a Charismatic Study Bible or commentary-set.  But in many passages, Simmons’ theological views have colored the translation.  In sync with the NAR’s custom of giving leadership roles to women (including the office of apostle), Simmons has taken inexcusable liberties with some passages that pertain to the role of women and wives:
● First Corinthians 14:34 has been mangled:
            “The woman should be respectfully silent during the evaluation of prophecy in the meetings.  They are not allowed to interrupt, but are to be in a support role, as in fact the law teaches.”  The italicized phrase “during the evaluation of prophecy in the meetings” is just something Simmons threw in there.  And a lengthy note attached to 14:35 begins as follows:  “One interpretation of this passage is that Paul is quoting from a letter written by the Corinthians to him.  They were the ones saying a woman should remain silent and Paul is responding to their questions.  In other words, they were imposing a rule in the church that Paul refutes in v. 36.”
            ● Ephesians 5:22 is also mangled.  Instead of saying, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” Simmons translates the end of verse 21 as “be supportive of each other in love,” and then proceeds to rewrite verse 22 to say, “For wives, this means being devoted to your husbands like you are tenderly devoted to our Lord.”  This is quite politically correct, but it does not correspond to what Paul wrote.  
            ● First Timothy 2:11-12 is hopelessly adulterated in Simmons’ work:  “Let the women who are new converts be willing to learn with all submission to their leaders and not speak out of turn.  I don’t advocate that the newly converted women be the teachers in the church, assuming authority over the men, but to live in peace.”  Simmons attempts to excuse his additions by claiming, in prolonged notes, that he is merely making clear what was implicit in the early church, but this is pure subterfuge; Paul explains the basis for his position in the following verses.  Simmons has blended his commentary into the text of Scripture. 
The NAR believes that the office of apostle should be occupied in the present time.  Accordingly, in Matthew 10:2, Simmons has added the word “first” – “Now, these are the names of the first twelve apostles” – although there is nothing to support the word “first” in the Greek text.    
            So have no illusions about the nature of The Passion Translation:  it is not just a loose translation.  Its notes, which are many – the TPT New Testament is more annotation than translation – constitute a commentary designed to promote the doctrines of the NAR, and its text has been tweaked to decrease the extent to which a formal rendering of the text would challenge NAR beliefs. 
Brian Simmons may believe with full sincerity that the NAR’s doctrines are correct – but that does not excuse the many points in The Passion Translation where he has tampered with the text in such a way as to make it say things that the original text does not really say.

So far I have only described The Passion Translation’s origins and its doctrinal bias.  The remaining distinctive feature of Simmons’ work – its unusual New Testament base-text – is in some ways more concerning.   
Simmons draws his competence into question when he makes statements such as this one (from the book-introduction to Matthew):  “In AD 170 Eusebius quoted Irenaeus as saying, “Matthew published his gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul in Rome were preaching and founding the church” (Eusebius, Historia Eccesiastica III. 24:5-6 and V. 8, 2.).”  The problem is that Eusebius wrote in the early 300s; Irenaeus, not Eusebius, is the writer who wrote in the 170s.  
            Nor does it help Simmons’ credibility when one reads, in a note on John 3:13, his claim that “Most Greek manuscripts read “the Son of Man who came from heaven.””  This is completely false; most Greek manuscripts support the reading, “the Son of Man who is in heaven.”  Similarly Simmons claims, in a note on Mark 9:29, that “Many reliable Greek texts leave out “fasting,”” whereas in reallife only a few Greek manuscripts omit this word.
Some folks might conclude that such simple mistakes imply that Jesus was not helping Simmons write his notes, and that Simmons’ claim about receiving downloads from heaven is either a delusion or chicanery.  But in the NAR, just as prophets who make false predictions are still considered prophets, translators and commentators get to make elementary chronological errors and still be taken seriously.     
            Now let’s take a closer look at the New Testament base-text that Simmons used for TPT. 
            Simmons’ notes refer repeatedly to “Hebrew Matthew,” and this text is cited in his notes over a hundred times.  “Hebrew Matthew,” however, is nothing more than Shem-Tob (as Simmons himself affirms in his note on Matthew 2:6) – a late medieval text assembled by Judaic opponents of Christianity in the 1300s, mainly reworking the meaning of the Vulgate text of that time, with unusual readings shared by the earlier Liège Harmony (from the late 1200s), a harmonization of the four Gospels written in the Middle Dutch dialect, in which some Diatessaronic readings are embedded. 
            What Simmons treats as if it is the original Hebrew text of Matthew (and greater in authority than all Greek manuscripts) is actually a medieval text used by opponents of the gospel, and its unique features, other than echoes of the Diatessaron and a few stray Old Latin readings, are not ancient at all.  We are looking here at a text that post-dates Charlemagne.  Unfortunately, when Simmons made TPT, he was apparently convinced that Shem-Tob is a very ancient text.  That false assumption is in play throughout his work.
            Another false assumption seems to be in play as well:  the idea that the Peshitta – a Syriac translation, probably made in the late 300s – is from the first century rather than the fourth century.   The phrase “As translated from the Aramaic” appears in Simmons’ notes over 400 times.  Simmons has somehow convinced himself that the Peshitta is better than the Greek text in hundreds of passages.  A close study of Simmons’ notes indicates that he believes that the Gospel of Matthew was initially written in Aramaic (the sentence in which Simmons put Eusebius in the year 170 is part of Simmons’ defense of this belief).  This is the only plausible explanation for the following renderings in Simmons’ translation of Matthew:
            Matthew 5:4a – “What delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord!” –   “As translated from the Hebrew Matthew,” Simmons explains in a note, defending his decision to set aside the Greek text, which means, “Blessed are those who mourn.”       
            Matthew 8:6, 8:9, 8:13 – “son” – This is, in the Aramaic sources Simmons has relied upon, an attempted harmonization to the similar account in John 4:47-53.  The Greek text, as Simmons admits in his notes, means “servant.”
            Matthew 12:12 – “it’s always proper to do miracles” – The Greek text, as Simmons admits in his notes, only refers to doing good; there is no reference to miracles.    
            Matthew 19:16a – “Then a teenager approached Jesus and bowed before him” – this harmonization based on Mark 10:17 is not based on Greek manuscripts, but was “translated from the Hebrew Matthew,” i.e., the medieval Shem-Tob text.
            Matthew 19:16b – “and bowed before him, saying, Wonderful teacher” – Simmons, rather than translate the Greek text, translated the word tawa “from the Aramaic.”
            Matthew 19:24 (and Mark 10:25 and Luke 18:25) – “In fact, it’s easier to stuff a heavy rope through the eye of a needle than it is for the wealthy to enter into God’s kingdom realm!”  Simmons explains why he had led away the camel:  “This could be an instance of the Aramaic text being misread by the Greek translators as “camel” instead of “rope.”” 
            Matthew 20:29 – “As Jesus approached Jericho” – The Greek text means just the opposite, “As Jesus left Jericho.”  Simmons’ note displays his openness to the idea that the Shem-Tob text existed in the first century.
            Matthew 21:37 – “Perhaps with my own son standing before them they will be ashamed of what they’ve done.” – This paraphrase has been allowed to usurp the Greek text, which simply means, “They will respect my son.”
            Matthew 27:9 – “This fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah” – Simmons flatly rejects the Greek text which refers to the prophet Jeremiah, stating, “The Greek manuscripts incorrectly identify the prophecy as from Jeremiah.”  Rather than perceive a loose thematic parallel to passages in Jeremiah, Simmons has set aside the Greek text and translated from the medieval Shem-Tob.
            Matthew 27:43b – “let’s see if it’s true, and see if God really wants to rescue his ‘favorite son’!” – This is a drastic departure from the Greek text, in which Jesus’ detractors finish the verse by saying, “for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”
                       
This sort of thing is not limited to the text of Matthew.  Simmons departs from the Greek text  on many occasions, and in almost every book of the New Testament – even in Second Peter, Third John, Jude, and Revelation – books which were not even initially part of the Peshitta. 
For example, in Second Peter 1:4, Simmons has set aside the “us” found in the Greek text (ἡμῖν) and replaced it with “you.”  In Jude verse 9, Simmons rendered Michael the archangel’s words as “”The Lord Yahweh rebuke you,” although the Greek text (Κύριος) only justifies the word “Lord.”
            And in the book of Revelation, Simmons has replaced Jesus’ familiar words, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” with “I am the Aleph and the Tav” in 1:8, and again in 21:6, and again in 22:13.  Other departures from the Greek text occur in Revelation 6:9, 7:17, 11:7 (Simmons:  “the beast that comes up from the sea” – Greek text:  “the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit” (ἀβύσσου)), 11:15, 15:3, and 21:2.                           
            And there is a yet more disturbing aspect to Simmons’ work.  Contrary to the impression given at The Passion Translation’s website, which explicitly states that Simmons used the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation, and which also explicitly states that The Passion Translation follows the practice of excluding passages such as Matthew 17:21, 18:11, Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, Mark 15:28, and Acts 8:37, all of those verses are in the text of the copy of The Passion Translation that I received.  It is quite obvious that Simmons’ New Testament base-text diverges from the Nestle-Aland compilation at many points. 
It is equally obvious that Simmons did not consistently follow the Byzantine Text, for he turns Amos into an ancestor of Christ in Matthew 1:10, and does not describe Jesus as Mary’s firstborn son in Matthew 1:25, and in Mark 1:2 he attributes a prophecy to Isaiah (although in his annotation on Mark 1:2, Simmons states, “This line is a quotation from Ex. 23:20 and Mal. 3:1”).  What was the determining factor in his textual decisions? 
It appears that where the Nestle-Aland compilation and the Byzantine Text disagree, the Aramaic text often cast a deciding vote – and, as we have seen, in some cases, it was allowed to outweigh them both.  But what Aramaic, or Syriac, text was Simmons using?  For just as there are different compilations of the Greek text, there are different compilations of the Peshitta, and there are also the Harklean Syriac, the Philoxenian Syriac, and the Palestinian Aramaic to consider. 
            A modicum of online research into this question led me to the website of Andrew Chapman, who showed concisely but clearly that Simmons has utilized – among other resources – the work of Victor N. Alexander. 
 
Victor Alexander's
English translation of
the Aramaic text
          
I will spare you, reader, the details of Andrew Chapman’s investigations, and cut to the chase.  (You can read about some of them at http://theriveroflife.com/2017/03/23/brian-simmons-claims-to-be-translating-from-the-aramaic-the-ten-cases-in-summary/ .)  It seems apparent that Simmons has been relying on English translations of the Peshitta, rather than directly consulting Aramaic sources.  This seems irrefutable when one looks at the anomalies in the translation made by Victor Alexander, and sees the same, or very similar, anomalies in Simmons’ work.  Here are a few:
            Galatians 1:4a – Simmons:  “He’s the Anointed Messiah who offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins!”  Alexander:  “He who sacrificed himself on behalf of our sins.”  (The Greek text simply says that he gave himself for our sins; the explicit reference to sacrifice-offering implies a link between Alexander’s translation and Simmons.)
            Galatians 2:10 – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):  “that I would be devoted to the poor and needy”  Alexander:  “That we may devote ourselves to the needy alone.”  (The Greek text refers to remembering the poor; the shared reference to being devoted to the poor implies a link between Alexander’s work and Simmons.  This passage has been altered and presently refers to remembering the poor and needy.) 
            Galatians 3:3b – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):  “Why then would you so foolishly turn from living in the Spirit to becoming slaves again to your flesh?”  Alexander:   “Did you become so foolish that while before, the Spirit abided in you, you have now become the slaves of the flesh?”  (The Greek text refers to finishing in the flesh; the shared reference to becoming slaves implies a link between Alexander’s work and Simmons.  This passage has been altered in TPT and presently loosely conforms to the Greek text.
            ● Galatians 3:19 – Simmons (in Letters from Heaven, as cited by Chapman):   “It remained in force until the Joyous Expectation was born to fulfill the promises given to Abraham.”  Simmons  included a note to explain the unusual rendering:  “The Joyous Expectation is translated literally from the Aramaic.”  Consulting Alexander’s translation, Chapman saw no such rendering, but in a footnote there is a reference to the phrase, “to whom were directed the joyous expectations.”  (Again, TPT has been improved in this passage.  What does this imply about the validity of that deleted note?)
(Dependence upon Victor Alexanders work also explains Simmons mangling of Ephesians 5:22; inasmuch as Alexander put be devoted to your husbands in Ephesians 5:22.) 

            The thing to see here is Chapman’s data implies that Simmons’ “downloads” have required revision and correction due in part to his dependence, not upon supernatural revelation, but upon a flawed English translation of the Syriac New Testament.  On one hand, revision is a natural step in translation-work; on the other hand, these particular corrected renderings reveal that there has obviously been quite a heavy dependence upon English resources, which is a different impression than one is likely to get from The Passion Translation’s website and promotional materials.     

            Simmons’ use of Victor Alexander’s translation – particularly in light of the many passages in TPT where the Aramaic text usurps the Greek text of the New Testament – is extremely problematic.  This should be evident to anyone who is aware of who Victor N. Alexander is.  In addition to having translated parts of the Peshitta into English, Victor Alexander directed the film The Red Queen, which might motivate anyone to think twice about relying on his work for any sacred purpose. 
            In addition, Victor Alexander has expressed some anomalous views: 
            ● “The original language of the Scriptures was not Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.”
            “My translation has produced the best version of the New Testament.”
            “All the articles on the Internet regarding the Original Scriptures are inaccurate.”
            ● “All the Western theological seminaries are a joke.”
            ● In his translation, “Thousands of passages have been clarified.”
            ● In his translation, “Major concepts have been restored for the first time.”
            ● And:  “It’s finally possible to interpret the Scriptures correctly and reconcile the tenets of the five major religions: Western Christianity, Modern Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. It's now possible to return to one conception of what the Scriptures are all about.”
Toxic syncretism could hardly make itself more obvious. 
Surely Simmons rejects Alexander’s opinions, and undoubtedly Simmons would be shocked if he ever were to watch even a snippet of Alexander’s surreal films – and yet it seems undeniable that he has relied on Alexander’s translation of the Peshitta while preparing The Passion Translation.  A complete repudiation of everything based on Alexander’s work, it seems to me, is necessary before the English Scripture-text in TPT can be considered in any way a legitimate translation.  All of the passages in which the Shem-Tob text and the Peshitta have usurped the Greek text need to be repaired.
I do not mean that without the bits that have no Greek support, the TPT New Testament would be a good translation; there are plenty of passages I have not mentioned in which Simmons has unnecessarily resorted to paraphrase.  But purging TPT of its deviations from the Greek text of the New Testament would be a good and necessary first step toward making its Scripture-text a legitimate translation. 

Here are some other reviews and critiques of The Passion Translation:

What's Wrong With The Passion "Translation" (by Andrew Wilson)

Endorsements for The Passion Translation

George Athas Reviews TPT Song of Songs





Readers are encouraged to explore the embedded links in this post to find additional resources.

Quotations attributed in this review to The Passion Translation are from The Passion Translation®.  Copyright © 2017, 2018 by BroadStreet Publishing ® Group, LLC.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.





Friday, March 16, 2018

Galatians 3 and 0176 - The Byzantine Text in Egypt


Let’s take a look at one of the earliest manuscripts of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians:  0176, a small uncial fragment from the 400s (or, perhaps, the late 300s).  Researcher Brice Jones described 0176 back in 2015 as the remains of a “miniature codex,” that is, a small book designed for personal use (as opposed to large codices that were intended to be the ancient equivalent of pulpit Bibles).  It is indeed rather small; the description that accompanies the page-views at the CSNTM reports that 0176 is only 8.7 cm x 5.7 cm.  When intact, 0176 would have probably resembled a Gideons New Testament.  It is housed in Florence, Italy at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.
The text that survives on this single parchment sheet, excavated in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, is from Galatians 3:16-24.  Here is the Byzantine Text of Galatians 3:16-24, adjusted to correspond to how the text was formatted by early copyists:  sacred names (God, Lord, Jesus, Christ) are abbreviated and underlined, and punctuation is reduced to a minimum.  The bold print represents text that has survived in 0176.  Red letters are letters in the Byzantine text that are not in 0176; green letters are letters in 0176 that are not in the Byzantine text: 

RECTO: 
16  Τω δε Αβρααμ′ ερρηθησαν αι επαγγελιαι και τω σπερματι αυτου·  Ου λεγει και τοις σπερμασιν ως επι πολλων αλλ’ ως εφ ενος και τω σπερματι σου ος εστιν Χς.
17   Τουτο δε λεγω διαθηκην προκεκυρωμενην υπο του Θυ εις Χν ο μετα ετη τετρακοσια και τριακοντα γεγονως νομος ουκ ακυροι εις το καταργησαι την επαγγελιαν.
18  Ει γαρ εκ νομου η κληρονομια ουκετι εξ επαγ[ν]γελιας· τω δε Αβρααμ′ δι επαγγελιας κεχαρισται[ε] ο Θς.
19  Τι ουν ο νομος;  των παραβασεων χαριν προσετεθη αχρι ου ελθη το σπερμα ω επηγγελται διαταγεις δι’ αγγελων εν χειρι μεσιτου.

VERSO: 
20  Ο δε μεσιτης ενος ουκ εστιν ο δε Θς εις εστιν.
21  Ο ουν νομος κατα των επαγγελιων του Θυ; Μη γενοιτο.  Ει γαρ εδοθη νομος ο δυναμενος ζωοποιησαι οντως αν εκ νομου ην η δικαιοσυνη.
22  Αλλα συνεκλεισεν η γραφη τα παντα υπο αμαρτιαν ινα η επαγγελια εκ πιστεως Ιυ Χυ δοθη τοις πιστευουσιν. 
23  Προ του δε ελθειν την πιστιν υπο νομον εφρουρουμεθα συγ[ν]κεκλεισμενοι εις την μελλουσαν πιστιν αποκαλυφθηναι.
24  Ωστε ο νομος παιδαγωγος ημων γεγονεν εις Χν ινα εκ πιστεως δικαιωθωμεν.

Although the text of 0176 has been classified as “mixed,” there seems to be no valid reason not to classify it as Byzantine, since its only deviations from the standard Byzantine text are trivial orthographic differences.  (This was noticed by Daniel Buck in the NT Textual Criticism discussion-group on Facebook.)  In verse 21, space-considerations require the inclusion of the phrase του Θυ (“of God”); otherwise the copyist would have begun the words that follow (Μη γενοιτο) further to the left.  Space-considerations seem to justify αχρις rather than αχρι in verse 19, but this is quite a minor difference (especially since the Hodges-Farstad 1982 Majority Text reads αχρις).   
The presence of an essentially Byzantine text of Galatians in use at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in the 400s should elicit a question about how widespread it was, and about the plausibility of the theory that the Byzantine text’s popularity was limited to locales where John Chrysostom was influential. 

A few more observations round out this examination:
  The copyist used ekthesis (slight reverse indentation) to separate paragraphs, a feature also seen in Vaticanus and some other early manuscripts.  The initial Pi at the beginning of Galatians 3:23 is also somewhat larger than the other letters; in this respect the script resembles that of Codex Alexandrinus. 
● The reading εις Χν in Galatians 3:17 is supported not only by 0176 (at Oxyrhynchus) but also by Chrysostom (at Constantinople) and by the Peshitta (in Syria) and some Old Latin copies (in the West).  Its support is thus as widespread as the support for non-inclusion.  When one observes that the scribes of the text in Papyrus 46 and Codex Vaticanus managed to find a way to omit short phrases such as “of God” (του Θυ) in nearby 3:21, and also that a copyist could easily consider the phrase “in Christ” as out-of-place in a description of the establishment of the Law of Moses, it seems more reasonable to conclude that an omission yielded the shorter text, rather than that independent copyists reproduced the same accretion.  The phrase “in Christ” should therefore be retained in Galatians 3:17, as it is in the text of the Evangelical Heritage Version.
● The Alands’ categorizations of “mixed” texts (“Category III”), to whatever extent they are accepted, should be tested, in case other manuscripts that support the Byzantine Text have been improperly categorized, giving a false impression (spread by James White and others) that the Byzantine Text has less widespread support than it actually has.

You can see photographs of 0176 at the CSNTM website and elsewhere online.  Here is an artificially enhanced replica, with verse-numbers added and with the Byzantine text superimposed over the manuscript.


Sunday, March 11, 2018

The STEPBible - With David Instone-Brewer

Dr. David Instone-Brewer

            Today, special guest Dr. David Instone-Brewer joins us to talk about the STEPBible, a very useful – and free – digital resource for Bible-related research.  The STEPBible – at www.STEPBible.org – was designed by scholars at Tyndale House in Cambridge to assist Bible-readers around the world; this explains its acrostic-name:  Scripture Tools for Every Person. 

Q:  Dr. Instone-Brewer, thanks for joining us for this interview.  The STEPBible is an enormous collection of materials for the study of the Bible.  How long did it take to prepare all this?

Instone-Brewer:  I've been working on this since 2012, though of course most of the modules inside it have been available for longer.  Crosswire.org has produced most of the modules in STEPBible, and many of those were ported from previous projects such as OnlineBible.net and UnboundBible.  Other organizations such as OpenScriptures.org, CCAT, ApostolicBible.com, Teknia.com and the Perseus project have provided invaluable data for improving these or making our own. So STEPBible is built on decades of work. And if you include the work by translators, then we start counting in centuries!

Q:  The range of materials available using the STEPBible is vast.  Users have access to the popular KJV (1769 standardization), ESV (2011), and NIV (2011), but also to lesser known English versions such as the World English Bible and New Heart English Bible and The Living Oracles (an American translation made in the early 1800’s).  Even William Tyndale’s New Testament – the first printed English translation – is accessible.  For New Testament textual critics, there is access to a textual apparatus of the entire New Testament that presents not only a comparison of manuscripts but also of some printed editions of the text.
Multiple Greek compilations of the New Testament can be accessed via the STEPBible:  Stephanus’ 1550 compilation, the Elzevirs’ Textus Receptus of 1624, Westcott & Hort’s 1881 critical text (specially formatted to show where the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland compilation diverges from it), Michael Holmes’ SBLGNT, the historically significant compilations made by Tischendorf (8th edition) and Tregelles in the 1800’s, and the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform
            What additional features can we expect to see in the future?

Instone-Brewer:  A lot! But we don't want to shout about it too much before bringing them out.  Two of them have already been spoken about publicly, so I'll mention them.  First, morphology for Old Testament Hebrew. This won’t just tell you ‘hophal’, ‘hiphil’ etc, but decode them as ‘passive intensive’ etc, and add explanations and examples, like for the NT morphology.  And, second, a full BDB lexicon for the Old Testament like the LSJ for the NT and LXX. This will be formatted nicely (like the LSJ) so that it will be much more readable than the printed version.
            There’s a very interesting project at https://stepweb.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SUG/pages/7766018/Manuscripts+and+Meanings .  We are still looking for volunteers to help with the final edit of this resource, so if you love the Bible and have good English and a few hours a week, we'd love to get you involved.

Q:  It sounds like the STEPBible allows users to dig pretty deep into the text, and these planned new features will facilitate research in even greater detail. 
Along with English translations, there are materials that textual critics will find helpful such as English translations of the (Syriac) Peshitta, the New Testament in Sahidic (including the Sahidica texts edited by J. Warren Wells), and several editions of the Vulgate.  There are even transcripts of two important Hebrew manuscripts (the Aleppo Codex and the LeningradCodex).          
            There’s a pretty impressive linguistic range to the STEPBible’s design, too.  I noticed that it has translations of the Bible (or New Testament) in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Swahili, Russian, German, Hebrew, and more, including over 200 languages limited mainly to Papau New Guinea.  Is the STEPBIble able to be used in all of those languages?

Instone-Brewer:  The STEPBible’s interface can currently be rendered into 59 different languages.  If a user clicks on the “Language” option in the top right menu, these languages can be selected, and you can switch to them.  Don’t worry if all your menus become indecipherable; you can get back to normal by selecting English. But most people never need to change because the menu system is automatic. Open STEPBible in Hong Kong and it will be in Traditional Chinese, and open it in Qatar and it will be in Arabic.  It opens in whatever language your computer normally uses.

Q:  What if someone wants to use the STEPBible to study the Bible somewhere that does not have reliable internet access?

Instone-Brewer:    From the ground up, STEPBible was designed to run without the internet – a tall order for a dynamic web-based program. But it works!  All you need to do is click on “Help” at www.STEPBible.org and then “Download,” and chose Mac or PC. The installation program is large, so make sure you do it with on a cheap or free wi-fi connection. It downloads a small group of Bibles, and you can add as many as you like.

Q:  So after that initial download, the materials can be accessed anywhere.  How do you hope preachers and missionaries around the world will use the STEPBible?

Instone-Brewer:  The centre of STEPBible is the Bible itself.  We want people to read it.  Lots of other good programs enable you to do that of course, but we want people to be able pursue an investigation as far as they want, for example: 
● What was the Hebrew or Greek word that was translated this way?  
● What does that word mean?  
● Where else is it used, and how else is it translated in my Bible?  
● What did it mean to the first readers?  
● How was it used by other authors?  
And so on.  Few people will want to pursue questions to this kind of depth but we want them to be able to go wherever their curiosity takes them.

Q:  New users who might assume that it is a lot to navigate are advised to use the Help-button in the upper right of the STEP Bible’s website to get acquainted with the vast digital landscape.  Selecting “Available Bibles” from the sub-menu will take the visitor to a page which serves as the trunk from which branches of materials extend:  Bible versions, commentaries, dictionaries (including the Teknia Greek Dictionary), and a Take-the-Tour introduction. 
            But despite this abundance of materials, some things are noticeably absent.  Why no NLT, NRSV, or CSB?

Instone-Brewer:  STEPBible is free, because we are aiming specifically at helping the disadvantaged world. This means, unfortunately, that we can only include commercial Bibles if the publishers allow us.  Some publishers have been very generous:  Biblica (for the NIV and many others), Crossway (for the ESV), Lockman (NASB) Holman (for CSB), and Bible.org (for NET Bible).  You'll notice that I included the CSB in that list – but it still isn’t on the STEPBible site. Ill have to chase it up!

Q:  So that is on the way.  Finally, is there anything you would like to share with potential STEPBible users around the world?

Instone-Brewer: 
I use it all the time myself, even though I own lots of other software. Usually I use it just to read the text.  The advantage is that if a question comes to mind (as they often do), I can quickly follow it up.  At home and work I’m surrounded by commentaries and textbooks that will give me pre-digested conclusions, but STEPBible puts all the facts at my fingertips to explore by myself.  I love it.

Q:  Thanks for sharing this information about the STEPBible.

The STEPBible offers free resources that are very useful for Bible students around the world, from complete beginners to seasoned scholars.  I encourage everyone to make the most of this tremendous collection of resources.

Monday, March 5, 2018

Want to Learn New Testament Greek?

            There are many free resources available online for people who wish to gain the ability to read the New Testament in the language in which it was written.  Here are some resources that should be considered by those who want to learn (or re-learn) how to read the Greek New Testament.

(1)  Dr. Bill Mounce offers many resources for learning New Testament Greek.  These range from Kids’ Greek to a 35-part introductory course.

(2)  Daily Dose of Greek, overseen by Dr. Rob Plummer of Southern Seminary (Louisville Kentucky), offers a 26-part course of videos about New Testament Greek, plus additional videos on related subjects. 

(3)  LearnGreekFree is a 13-part video-course taught by D. Eric Williams.

Dr. Ted Hildebrandt
of Gordon College.
(4)  Mastering New Testament Greek with Ted Hildebrandt offers 28 introductory lessons, supplemented by PowerPoint presentations, audio files, and more.   
   
(5)  Morling College (in Sydney, Australia) offers a free online course in New Testament Greek. 

(6)  Rick Aschmann’s Greek Charts – all 56 pages of them! – illustrating Greek vocabulary, grammar, etc., are very informative. 

(7)  The late Rod Decker (founder of the NT Resources website) prepared a simple list of Greek words every student should learn.  The first 28 pages of his book Reading Koine Greek are also available online.

(8) The Online Greek Bible makes available several compilations – not only the Nestle-Aland text but also the Textus Receptus, the compilations of Tischendorf and Westcott & Hort, and the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform.  The Byzantine Textform is also available in print in a special edition for beginning readers.

(9)  Learn Koine Greek consists of a series of 43 lessons with audio files, compiled by Roy Davison.   

(10)  LaParola offers multiple editions of the Greek New Testament (including the Byzantine Textform), and has some useful search-features.


(11)  H. P. V. Nunn’s Elements of New Testament Greek, published in 1914, remains an excellent introduction.  An answer-key to the exercises in Nunn’s primer is also available. 

(12)  Harold Greenlee’s A Concise Exegetical Grammar of New Testament Greek is available as a free download from Asbury Seminary’s website.

(13)  J. Gresham Machen’s New Testament Greek for Beginners, published in 1923, is still a very useful textbook.  It is among the resources made available by the International College of the Bible.

(14) Alexander Souter’s A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, published in 1917, is very handy.  Souter, a textual critic, included some terms that are found in textual variants in the Western Text.