How do you render jilted love in language strong as an arm with its veins popping out? On translating Matthew 23:1-10 (Round Two)

The text I consider below, Matthew 23:1-10, is part of a larger unit in which Jesus takes aim at the religious faction of the day whose views were closest to his own. Can you feel the love? I can, I really can. It’s jilted love, with a sharp and poisonous edge.

Pharisees like Nicodemus were attracted and repelled by Jesus at the same time. They longed for the Messiah. Was he the one? It didn’t seem like it. It says a lot about human nature that it was easier for a Pharisee to mistake an insurgent and a terrorist like Simon bar-Kochba for the Messiah, as Akiva did, than to take Jesus’ claims with seriousness.

Jesus asks his followers to do as the Pharisees say, not as they do. There is evidence that in response, some of Jesus’ followers kept Pharisaic halakhah for generations thereafter. For doing so, history seems to show, they were despised by fellow Jews and fellow Christians alike.

This post is about translation technique, a follow-up on a previous post and comments thereto. A post by Rich Rhodes got the ball rolling. David Ker and J. K. Gayle have joined the fray. Thanks to the latter, it’s possible to compare three different translation techniques applied to the same passage. Below the fold, I reproduce them, and add a fourth translation, my own. Question #1: which translation catches the rhetoric of the passage best? Question #2: which translation, more than the others, is couched in such a way that it resonates with related texts elsewhere in scripture? Question #3: which translation do you think would serve best as the point of departure for an expository sermon? Question #4: which translation did you find easiest to understand? Question #5: do you think the translation that is easiest to understand is therefore the best one?

My answer to the above questions will be clear from the translation I offer. I put it first, in the hopes that it will catch your fancy before you read the others. In fact, my translation pillages other translations, particularly Barnstone’s translation, in the quest for a rhetorical, stylistic, and semantic equivalent of a base text, not quite the Greek, but the viva vox of Jesus behind the Greek. It’s a daring exercise, I admit. Is my English natural? I trust it is, at least in the way a poet’s language may be new and natural at the same time. Barnstone showed the way.

Hobbins

Then Yeshua spoke to the crowds and to his students.

 

On the seat of Moshe

sit the scholars and Perushim.

 

Do and observe

all they tell you to,

 

but do not do as they do.

They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

 

They tie up heavy bundles

and lay them on the shoulders of others,

but will not lift a finger to ease the burden.

 

 

All they do is for show.

They make their prayer-boxes extra-wide

and lengthen their tassels

 

and love the foremost couch at dinners,

the front seats in synagogues,

 

to be greeted in the marketplace,

to be called rabbi by the people.

 

 

Don’t let anyone call you rabbi,

for you have one teacher

and you are brothers all!

 

On earth call no one father.

You have one father, in heaven!

 

Don’t let anyone call you guides.

You have one guide, the mashiach!

 

Barnstone

a translation of a back translation of the Aramaic of Jesus

as Barnstone reconstructed it

I format per J. K. Gayle; I assume he’s following Barnstone

 

Then Yeshua spoke to the crowds and to his students, saying,

On the seat of Mosheh sit the scholars and Prushim.

Do and observe all that they tell you,

But do not do as they do. They speak and do nothing.

They tie up heavy bundles

and lay them on the shoulders of other men,

but will not lift a finger to move them.

All they do is for show.

They spread their tephillin and lengthen their tassels

and love the foremost couch at the dinners,

the front seats in the synagogues,

to be greeted in the market places

and to be called rabbi by the people.

 

But you must not be called rabbi,

for you have one teacher and are all students.

On earth call no one father.

You have one father in heaven.

And do not call yourselves instructors.

You have one instructor, the mashiach.

 

New Living Translation

a gutsy dynamic equivalence translation

I respect the translation’s trisection into three paragraphs

 

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

“Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.’

“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your spiritual Father. And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.

New Revised Standard Version

(a non-stupid formal equivalence translation)

 

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father-- the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.

A comment on Rich Rhodes’ original post. When all is said and done, pure FE stinks to high heaven, as Rich suggests. Note that neither NRSV, nor RSV and KJV before it, are consistently FE. My translation certainly is not.

A comment on David Ker’s comment. He claims to be carrying water for Rich Rhodes. Funny, then, that he bases his exposition on the FE translation of the phrase in question, ‘sit in Moses’ seat,’ the one Rich wishes to replace, rather than Rich’s replacement, ‘bear the authority of Moses.’ David’s daring tie-in with Psalm 110 would not fly if he based his exposition on Rich’s DE translation. Rich’s translation is not adequate for David’s purposes.

I picture Lingamish making a mash of things, carrying water every which way, the would-be apprentice of two sorcerers. My brother-to-brother comment: he would do better to follow his own lights, and cyber the passage in his own, inimitable voice.

A comment on J. K. Gayle’s comment. Thanks for introducing Barnstone to a wider audience. You are absolutely right, J. K.: Barnstone rocks. Most scholars cringe before his creativity. May they enjoy the reward of their pedantic conservatism: the insurance men will praise them. As for me, I prefer skydiving with the likes of Barnstone.

Comments

[Wayne Leman]

John, very nice exercise. And you make your points well. It is important to try to maintain co-textual relationships.

But I can't answer your four questions for the translation of the passage as a whole very well. I need to look at the trees, not the entire forest here, although there is also value in looking at the forest.

At the clause or sentence level, I prefer, for instance, your sharp, idiomatic, contemporary "They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk." For this sentence it lays each of the other translations in the dust (so to speak!).

I don't know what "the seat of ___" means so I can't speak about accuracy of it, since accuracy is a moot point when the original meaning is not communicated in translation. My translation co-workers refer to this kind of example as one conveying "zero meaning". Zero meaning is just as serious a problem as wrong meaning.

The job of a pastor, Bible teacher, or other biblical expositor is not to explain the language used in a translation. It is to help people understand the concepts which that language conveys and application to their own lives.

Perhaps you have heard the traditional response that some pastors have given when asked why they continue to preach from some old translation, "Well, what would I have to preach about if I didn't preach from that?"

:-)

[JohnFH]

The beauty about what you do, Wayne, is that you can comment on any base text whatsoever, regardless of what translation technique informs its structure and vocabulary, and suggest improvements based on an ear for intelligible and fluent English.

Any translation team is blessed to have you on board.

[Wayne Leman]

I thank my dear mother for that, John. Bless her heart! She's nearing 90 and can't remember things for more than about 2 minutes. But the language part of her brain still works well and nearly 60 years ago taught me much about good English.

[Lingamish]

Google came to the rescue on "halakhah." ;-)

I agree that the NRSV isn't stupid but it's too smart for its own good. Without footnotes or a whole lot of exposition "seat" "burdens," phylacteries" and "fringes" are meaningless.

NLT reads out loud very well. Barnstone and Hobbins don't seem to add anything to the debate. And you accuse me of making a hash! "Walk the walk!" Indeed!

Has anyone noticed "tie up?" Was this the standard collocation with "bundles" or was this evocative for Jesus' audience but not for us?

And you don't have to wonder at my translation for general use by modern English speakers. NLT is the answer to Questions 1-4.

Regarding question #5, turn it around: "Is a hard to understand translation the best one?"

[JohnFH]

David, you identify the issues well. I agree with you that NLT is a clear and powerful translation. And you're right if you are implying that my translation is all over the map in terms of deployed translation technique.

I approach the text on the following basis.

The terms 'seat of Moses' (cathedra de-Moshe in the Talmud, equivalent to a bima in current usage), 'phylacteries' ('tefillin' in standard rabbinic terminology, going back to Exod 13:9, 16; Deut 6:8-9 and 11:18, 20), and 'tassels/fringes' ('tsitsit,' of tallit fame, going back to Numb 15:37-40; Deut 22:12) all refer in the first instance to concrete entities.

What entitles the translator to do away with the concreteness of 'the seat of Moses' but not the other two? All three terms, after all, will have zero meaning for the average reader, who never has and never will read through and assimilate the contents of Moses, and lives far away from an orthodox Jewish environment, and thus has no mental images to associate with 'prayer boxes' and 'tassels' either.

I actually know the answer to my question. Jesus uses the phrase 'sit in the seat of Moses' as a metaphor for something larger, the teaching authority of Moses, and the Pharisees who saw themselves as Moses' successors (NLT's 'official interpreters' is over the top; official according to what central authority? There was and is none, a point Iyov likes to make). The fact that Jesus's phrase is metaphorical authorizes translators, apparently, to do away with it. Probably a good idea, come to think of it. Metaphors are very dangerous, a point made with exquisite force in a favorite film of mine, il postino (the Postman), which I hope you've seen. Get rid of metaphors. They might hurt somebody.

You fail to note that your strictures against the terms 'phlyacteries' and 'fringes' also apply to 'prayer boxes' and 'tassels.' Admittedly, the latter seem to be marginally better in terms of preparing the way for a reader to associate a mental image with them that makes sense in the context - on the same grounds, I assume, a translation like NHCB has 'chair of Moses' rather than 'seat of Moses.' But the fact remains that if I ask my confirmands what 'prayer boxes' and 'tassels' are, they will simply say, "I dunno." Footnotes are necessary here. Why not preserve the metaphor and footnote 'seat of Moses,' too, just as, I assume, NLT footnotes 'prayer-boxes' and 'tassels'?

C'mon, I want an answer.

Some of the specifics of a passage like this one cry out for exposition and explication no matter what translation is used as a point of departure. Perforce it is the job of the expositor to clarify the specifics of a passage that speaks about a culture that is strange and unknown territory to the contemporary reader. It is a non-starter to suggest, as Wayne seems to do, that you can DE a passage like this one and then sit back and watch people's eyes light up with understanding. It doesn't work that way.

[J. K. Gayle]

John,
Wow, this is a lot to digest. But the feast is delicious, and I also appreciate the table settings and the useful utensils. Thank you for inviting us over to your house here. It's so very easy, rather simply, just to consume and to criticize. Thank you very much for your brave translation. Could any of the rest of us do better (or want to try?)

Question #1: which translation catches the rhetoric of the passage best?

The Hobbins! Yes, indeed, and the formatting helps. Each of Jesus' criticisms is best outlined in the couplets (which is so Hebrew, which is so what the Barnstone is after, and the tripartate NLT helps with though not at all the NRSV).

John, I always appreciate your sensitivity to "rhetoric" in the texts. And you never ignore how translation can bring that out. What do you think of the rhetoric of the translations? Barnstone in his Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice (Yale, 1993) is very interested in the (sometimes unwitting) anti-Semitic rhetoric of English Bible translation (especially the NT translations). Barnstone, then, is not just about style (i.e., blank verse) although he's convinced of the rhetorical poetry of Jesus, but Barnstone is also wanting to restore the Jewishness (not just in the names erased by Christian transliterations of the Greek) of the NT.

So what is the rhetoric OF the Hobbins? We go back to your post and the ones before for that. You are not so keen on DE but do see value in literary translation, right. It shows! And your translation packs a punch!

Question #2: which translation, more than the others, is couched in such a way that it resonates with related texts elsewhere in scripture?

Well, the Barnstone and the Hobbins use the English word "couch." That, coupled with the concern for "seat" and "sitting" and for that big comfy thing that the scholars and Perushim want vs. the thing that Jesus overturns in the Temple courtyard, gives us English readers and listeners many apt images. In contrast, there's "head table" and "place of honor" which, in my childrens' editions of NLT and NRSV, only corresponds to some artist's painted etchings. I'm overstating this, a bit, to make another crucial point at the end of this comment, below.

Question #3: which translation do you think would serve best as the point of departure for an expository sermon?

As a missionary kid hearing many more sermons than the average person (and many more "simultaneously" in two, sometimes three, different languages), I recuse myself from answering this question. And, as the son-in-law of a preacher, and an American now living a few years in the U.S. with a TV too, I've heard a few English only sermons; that alone ought to disqualify me from judgment on this question. Makes Jesus' teaching and preaching stand out sorely! But, I do make a critical comment at the end of this comment.

Question #4: which translation did you find easiest to understand?

Do you really want to know so much about me? (If not, I think some of those "readability" tools might give a more "objective" answer).

Question #5: do you think the translation that is easiest to understand is therefore the best one?

Yes.

And I think difficulty is not a bad thing. George Steiner makes some difficult points on this.

And I think good (easy to get) translation as a polite "host" is best when it invites in side by side with the other text as its "guest." There's conversation and "interlation" with new rhetorics and styles, rather than just translation with all that's lost.

(Lydia He Liu is the one coining the notion of translation as guest and host languages vs. "source" and "target." And Mikhail Epstein provides that neologism, "interlation," which he also calls "stereotexting.")

If we would provide "diglots" (as I've heard Suzanne McCarthy call them), then I think more of us would "read" some Greek and Hebrew and, then, more of us would read (differently) the Englishes. What, then, might we hear?

Great stuff, John. Much obliged to you for these posts and now your translation with comments.

Kurk (the name my friends call me)

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Kurk, for taking the time to comment so thoughtfully. This Barnstone guy seems worth exploring in greater detail.

[Stephen (aka Q)]

First off, I think it's absurd to argue that "they sit in Moses' seat" has zero meaning. Here in Canada, we have the Speaker in the House of Commons sitting in a red velvet chair, symbolizing royal authority. And can Americans not picture the office of a CEO, with an oversized desk and an oversized chair?

That said — I never understood the appeal of dynamic equivalence versions. I was not brought up with much exposure to the Bible, but when I became a Christian around age 20, I never had any difficulty understanding the RSV.

I think we underestimate people's intelligence. And I think one of the great failings of many contemporary churches is an appalling failure to really educate believers in scripture. Week after week, people are fed pablum.

I would rather give believers a translation that is relatively close to the original words, and then teach them! People need to be exposed to unfamiliar words in order to break out of familiar mental ruts.

Welcome to the world of the Bible. It's not your world, but you will be enriched if you make the effort to learn your way around in it.

[Wayne Leman]

John wrote:

It is a non-starter to suggest, as Wayne seems to do, that you can DE a passage like this one and then sit back and watch people's eyes light up with understanding. It doesn't work that way.

But, John, have you ever tried it. I have, with a tribal translation, and it works. It works for non-biblicized English speakers, as well, who currently are in the majority.

There is a place for speciality Bibles with all the precise terminology. That place is scholarly Bibles such as the NRSV, especially if they are accompanied by the footnotes you mention which give cultural background information.

As always, the over-riding question is: "For whom are we translating?"

If we are translating for ourselves, then we can translate using whatever we ourselves understand. We don't even have to translate, for that matter, if we already read Biblical Hebrew and Greek.

But if we want to ranslated for a wider audience, we need to specify who that audience is so that it can be evaluated whether or not the shoe fits.

It is impossible to make broad statements about what kinds of translations are best. We must always first ask: Best for whom?

If we translate using words which are not in the language of the people for whom we are translated we have an incomplete translation. We have, instead, done something like syntactic and lexical transliteration, not translation.

And, yes, over time, people will learn Biblish, but if we expect them to understand Bibles written in Biblish from the start we are mistaken.

(Field)Test all things! :-)

That's where we get our answers to these important questions.

[JohnFH]

Wayne, I like the emphasis on testing. I'm a little bit skeptical, but you're pulling me up short and making me re-examine my assumptions. Thanks for the stimulus.

[Wayne Leman]

John, here are some fun wordings to fieldtest:

"Do not lift up your horn."
"How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news."
"When they saw the enemy advancing, their hearts melted within them."
And, of course, "they sat in Moses' seat"

I really do like biblical figurative language. I have been fascinated with metaphors ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. They provide much of the spice of language. They never leave us cold. They suit me just fine! :-)

And I do think there is a place for literally translating biblical figurative language. That place, IMO, is for those who already understand that language, just as the original Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek hearers already understood the figurative language in the biblical texts written to them.

The proof of the pudding is in the testing!

[Wayne Leman]

I would rather give believers a translation that is relatively close to the original words, and then teach them! People need to be exposed to unfamiliar words in order to break out of familiar mental ruts

Stephen, why not just teach them the biblical languages? Then we wouldn't have to deal with the problems of translations and Bible teachers would still have a job.

[ElShaddai Edwards]

Stephen, why not just teach them the biblical languages? Then we wouldn't have to deal with the problems of translations and Bible teachers would still have a job.

Doesn't that just reinforce the notion that the Bible is a book written for someone other than "me"? Why should I accept some religion if I have to learn dead languages in order to understand the playbook? Surely the gospel of Christ should not be limited to those who understand Hebrew or Greek? That didn't seem to be the experience of Pentecost.

If the Bible is to have immediacy and relevance to the reader, it needs to be communicated in the language of the reader. Unless of course the argument is that the Bible is not a primary source of understanding for our faith/religion, but instead we focus on extra-canonical writings, a la Osteen, that are application focused. I didn't think so...

Back on track... I'd be willing to wager that for the vast majority of American Christians, the NLT or CEV is a superior translation to anything else they could use. There has been an idol set up in the name of "literal transparency" and it's sad to watch the droves of evangelicals flock to Biblish as an object of worship, further widening the gap between themselves and the needs of the world.

[JohnFH]

Hi ElShaddai. So is NLT the REB of the masses? If that is what it is meant to be, it needs improvement.

[ElShaddai Edwards]

Ha! I knew I'd end up pigeonholing myself with the REB... I love using it and it begs to be read out loud like no other translation I have. The language of "the masses" is what they hear from the pulpit and, for all of the NLT's positives, I can't say that it's reached that ease of spoken communication.

I'm still in the process of crawling out of my "essentially literal" hole, so if there's a DE translation with emphasis on spoken diction (other than the REB), I'm not yet aware of it.

[Peter Kirk]

It's a coincidence that yesterday I quoted verse 9 to Doug.

[JohnFH]

Peter, your comment there is an insightful hoot, and you comment on an amazingly well-written post.

[Stephen (aka Q)]

Wayne:
Are you seriously proposing that teaching someone to understand a translation like the NRSV is equivalent to teaching them Greek, Hebrew, and a little Aramaic? Your suggestion involves not only learning some new vocabulary, but three entire languages, including two alphabets.

I can show the NRSV to an eight-year-old and she will recognize most of the words.

As for "They sit in Moses' seat," it isn't difficult in terms of vocabulary. The only hurdle is due to the figure of speech.

And even the figure of speech is not so difficult. The point I was making earlier is, I think "seat" is a rather universal symbol. The "seat" of a CEO may not be quite the same thing as the "seat" of Moses, but it's not such a big conceptual leap.

And isn't it a pleasure when the mind "gets" it, like solving a puzzle? How many people do sudoku for entertainment? I think you underestimate people's intelligence, and their desire to be challenged.

Every good teacher knows you have to strike a balance. On the one hand, you don't want to talk so far over people's heads that they feel hopelessly lost and they get discouraged. On the other hand, you don't want to dumb things down so much that they cease to be challenged and stimulated.

It disturbs me that you want to take a passage with readily understandable vocabulary -- "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news" -- and rewrite it because the cultural referent is strange to us.

Honestly, I think that's a terrible mistake.

[Wayne Leman]

Stephen asked:

Are you seriously proposing that teaching someone to understand a translation like the NRSV is equivalent to teaching them Greek, Hebrew, and a little Aramaic? Your suggestion involves not only learning some new vocabulary, but three entire languages, including two alphabets.

Stephen, I am serious in the principle I am trying to illustrate, namely, that Bible versions such as the NRSV require an English speaker to learn a new dialect of English. It is only a quantitative difference between that and teaching the biblical languages to people, not a qualitative difference.

I think you underestimate people's intelligence, and their desire to be challenged.

You may be right, Stephen, but my comments are based on extensive field testing with speakers of English. I'm guessing, with respect, of course, that yours are based on your own intuition, rather than empirical testing with people who do not understand Bible English as you do.

On the other hand, you don't want to dumb things down so much that they cease to be challenged and stimulated.

Very true, but we have to test to determine whether we are dumbing down or speaking over people's heads. We can't simply make blanket statements based on our own intuitions. Well, we can, but we don't have empirical support for our statements if we do.

It disturbs me that you want to take a passage with readily understandable vocabulary -- "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news" -- and rewrite it because the cultural referent is strange to us.

"readily understandable" to whom, Stephen. Have you tested to find out if your claim is accurate?

That beautiful Hebrew figure of speech was readily understandable to Hebrew speakers because it was part of their language. That figure is not part of the language of most English speakers. How do we enable English speakers to understand figures of speech from another language, when they are not part of our own?

We do it either by teaching (which obviates the need for translation, doesn't it?) or by translating so that the figurative meaning is accurately communicated in the translation itself?

[Lingamish]

John saith: Footnotes are necessary here. Why not preserve the metaphor and footnote 'seat of Moses,' too, just as, I assume, NLT footnotes 'prayer-boxes' and 'tassels'?

C'mon, I want an answer.

The NLT is infelicitous here. But based on their translation philosophy I would probably say something like they've said and footnote, "The Greek says 'Seat of Moses.'" As I've said before the seat/sit/sat stuff goes back to Matt. 22 and you will lose that connection if you lose the image. But so do "father" and "teacher" vocabulary. It's speculation on my part that this is being highlighted by Jesus.

We can argue about this for a long time (and I'm enjoying it, let me tell you) but in general I feel that those advocating a DE translation are concerned with common language translations for common people while FE advocates are interested in translation or in the original languages as ends in themselves. Now the person that wants to argue DE for academics and FE for ordinary people is going to have an uphill battle.

Even so, there are academic types like myself who prefer to read the Scriptures in clear, contemporary language. On Monday I was powerfully impacted by the CEV of Isaiah 40 as I read it out loud to my children. It wasn't the prosody or the "dignified language" but the image of God that I saw there in language I clearly understood.

Let me rephrase your dictum from your earlier post:

"DE first, FE after."

[ElShaddai Edwards]

I feel that those advocating a DE translation are concerned with common language translations for common people while FE advocates are interested in translation or in the original languages as ends in themselves.

Both sounds dangerously close to being an idol to me... we ought to be concerned with communicating the message of the Word, not which words are communicated.

Now the person that wants to argue DE for academics and FE for ordinary people is going to have an uphill battle.

Which makes the decision by so many churches to adopt the ESV so mind blowing. The hordes are buying Biblish Bibles that aren't written in their language.

[JohnFH]

Lingamish saith,

"DE first, FE after."

In a sense, I try that in my Jonah 1 post. I used the DE NLT as a base, then FE'd it, though in a DE kind of way. At least those were my intentions.

ElShaddai, I think the use of KJV, NKJV, NASB, and ESV, has to do, not with intelligibility or non-intelligibility, but an attempt to stay attached to a tradition in a world that washes away all tradition in the bat of an eye.

Most of us can think of traditions we would like to see preserved, and we just wring our hands in despair about preserving them.

The way to preserve tradition is to wrap it in an envelope which itself may be quite irrelevant. It may be funny clothes (like more orthodox Jews, or the Amish) or it may be a funny Bible (like the the 16th century translation of the Bible, the Diodati, that Italian pentecostals use).

The envelope is protecting something else. That's my point.

[ElShaddai Edwards]

Thanks, John. I've blogged separately on "the envelope of tradition" as one leg of the Biblical interpretation stool that you described elsewhere.

[JohnFH]

In the link you give, I like the work you've done classifying Bible translations, ElShaddai. Much food for thought.

[Lingamish]

Which makes the decision by so many churches to adopt the ESV so mind blowing. The hordes are buying Biblish Bibles that aren't written in their language.

That's not mind-blowing. It makes perfect sense when you see which leg of the stool they are leaning on.

[Peter Kirk]

Indeed, Lingamish, but only when you realise that the leg they are leaning on is not the one they claim to lean on. Move over, Sola Scriptura, make way for Sola Traditio. (I hope my Latin is up to scratch, John!)

[John Hobbins]

I think it's important for people to take note of the legs they stand on. Not to pretend to stand on one alone. It's possible and even necessary to favor one leg over the others, but that is not the same thing as subsuming one leg under another. In other words, a tradition that does not value the independent witness of scripture has become dead on the vine. Likewise, a tradition whose only real authority is experience as currently understood is also in danger of falling into the muck. It is also foolish to pretend that because scripture is supposed to be the ultimate arbiter in matters of faith and practice, it is so in fact, and that tradition and experience are irrelevant.