In anticipation of Rick Mansfield’s long ago promised review of the NET Bible, I thought I’d take a closer look at the translation. As such, I was recently reading a rather scathing review by Michael Marlowe that discusses the conscious decision of the translation team to translate specific Old Testament texts, e.g. Isaiah 7:14, Psalm 8 et al, without regard to New Testament writings and interpretation.
The underlying tone of the review seems to suggest that, as a result of the almost exclusive representation of Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) professors and other academics on the NET Bible translation team, the NET Bible’s approach to the Old Testament reflects the Seminary’s endorsement of dispensationalism, in that the discrete dispensation of Mosaic law is “not to be intermingled or confused [with later dispensations], as they are chronologically successive” (DTS Doctrinal Statement). That is, the New Testament authors’ understanding and interpretation of texts must not be read back into the Old Testament as they are incremental, not iterative, revelations of God’s Word.
Certainly there have been other translations that don’t “jump to Jesus” in the OT texts — the RSV and NRSV are significant examples from this past century. The RSV was reviled as a “liberal Bible” for similar textual decisions, though I haven’t read of charges of dispensationalist theology at work. Perhaps because dispensationalism is generally associated with conservative evangelicals, that is, those who were attacking the RSV. So what exactly is the difference between the RSV and NET Bible? Why can similar translation decisions in one Bible be attacked as dispensationalist, while in the other they are attacked by dispensationalists as a “liberal” Bible.
Certainly the issue of dispensationalism and the Bible is not new. The original Scofield Reference Bible (1909) overlaid Biblical text (KJV) with study notes that introduced the dispensationalist view. To Scofield’s credit, however, he kept the dispensational notes as an external apparatus to the actual scripture; this allowed his system to eventually be applied to many major Bible translations, including the NIV, ESV, HCSB, NASB and NKJV. The charges against the NET Bible are more serious, that the translators’ choices of the scripture itself have been determined by their theological bias.
Is this the first time that a translation has been “called out” for a dispensational bias? Is this an attack on the NET translation or an implicit attack on DTS? Not knowing much about the NET Bible and having spent but little time with it, I would be interested to hear more from anyone with insight into this issue.
Clearly because the translators of the former are known to be dispensationalist, and of the latter thought to be liberal. But it is neither dispensationalism nor liberalism to believe that the Old Testament should be translated as a work of Hebrew literature according to how it was understood by its original audience (as far as we can determine that), and not according to how it was understood by Greek-speaking readers of a translation of it many centuries later. Rather, this is just good practice in translation.
If it is not right to introduce theological bias into a Bible translation, that applies just as much to the bias of first century interpreters as to that of any modern theological tendency.
The lack of a Christological interpretation in translation of passages in the O.T. is a mark of objective biblical scholarship and has nothing to do with dispensationalism. In fact, many dispensationalists Christianized O.T. translation since they, like covenant theologians and many other Christian theological groups view many O.T. passages as being messianic. (And they are, at some level, but not the primary level at which we should translate, which should be the level of what did the original author intend to mean by what he wrote.)
The Hebrew Bible was, of course, written before the N.T. But in the N.T. we find its authors, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, finding Jesus to be the fulfillment of O.T. prophecies. Many of those O.T. passages originally were about someone else (such as “I have called my son out of Egypt” where “my son” refers to the Israelites coming out of Egypt during the exodus), but they get applied to Jesus as our Messiah in the N.T.
ElShaddai,
I sent this post along to the editors of the NET Bible as an FYI but if you have any specific questions you need from the NET Bible team let me know and I’ll make sure to get back to you. Personally, it seems to me that many of what used to be translational preferences yesterday are now major doctrinal issues today. That’s more my opinion than actual empirical evidence but the trend seems to show this. Today, your faith can be measured not by how you live your life but more by what translation you carry with you to church. I’ll save the rest of that rant for later…
Also, nice subtle hint to Rick Mansfield that he needs to get moving on that NET Bible review and quit playing Halo.
I’d respectfully disagree with Peter’s statement that “If it is not right to introduce theological bias into a Bible translation, that applies just as much to the bias of first century interpreters as to that of any modern theological tendency.” Surely there is a qualitative difference between an interpretation influenced by my own theological grid and an interpretation influenced by the inspired writers of New Testament scripture. To me, the best way of handling such texts is with footnotes that explain whichever possibility is not in the body of the translation text.
I think I’ve just been shamed for my tardiness.
Rick wrote:
No worries, Rick. That said, I *am* interested to know whether you think the translation stands by itself or whether the project primarily rests on the 60000+ notes. What I’ve looked at so far seems to be in the vein of the TNIV and HCSB approaches, but more verbose in some cases, almost Amplified in some cases.
Peter wrote:
Shouldn’t that extend back another few centuries to also include the Septuagint translators? Are there good reference materials for understanding the “theological bias” of the changes from the Hebrew text, since presumably the Greek-speaking translators had a different view of the scripture vis-a-vis their post-exilic community/culture than did the original Hebrew-speaking authors?
Has anyone done a parallel Hebrew Bible with English translations from the Masoretic text and the Septuagint text? And I am correct in understanding that no major Western Christian bible has used the Septuagint as its primary OT text?
Wayne wrote:
Other than the RSV, NRSV and NET… what other Christian Bible translations should be considered as giving “objective biblical scholarship” more importance than evangelical interpretation?
Mitch wrote:
I’ll need to use the NET Bible more to have more specific questions, but thanks for the offer, Mitch, I really do appreciate it.
Yes, the theological splintering of the church. I ranted myself out on this issue a while back, so please, feel free to rant away!
[...] the Bible an onion or a hologram? Wayne Leman commented in another post that: “The lack of a Christological interpretation in translation of passages [...]
Jim, there is indeed a qualitative difference. But in my opinion the Old Testament should still be translated for what it is, not according to first century interpretations of it. By all means put those interpretations in footnotes, if you can find a way to do so without implying that they are alternative translations of the Hebrew text.
ElShaddai, indeed my principle should apply also to the Septuagint. Its (non-inspired) translators are responsible for many of the less than literal NT interpretations of the OT.
Yes, if you are referring to anything from the last millennium and not including Ukraine, despite its on-and-off-and-on-again Orange Revolution, as Western. There have been a few English and other western language translations of the Septuagint, but none is in any way “major”.
TEV/GNT (Good News Bible) and CEV, and their equivalents in other major languages from the Bible Societies.
Mitch Guthrie pointed me to this post, for which I want to say thank you to him. I am the assistant project director for the NET Bible and have been involved with the project for many years. Without going into too much detail on the history of our discussions, the translators and editors decided early on that we would as a rule restrict the translation of OT passages to what the author of that passage would have understood. Practically speaking, for example, this means that when we considered Isaiah 7:14, for example, we thought only of what Isaiah would understand. Michael Marlowe’s review is not really concerned with dispensationalism as much as it is concerned with this translation decision. He would prefer that we take into account as well what the divine author meant as understood in how the NT translates various OT passages, and apparently he thinks our focus on the human author’s understanding is a refusal to accept what the divine author ultimately said in the NT. I would argue that this is not at all the case. Rather it acknowledges that as OT Scripture is considered by the NT author it will be clarified and in a sense be cast in a new context so it can be understood anew, but one cannot understood that this process has occurred unless the OT passage is translated as it was originally understood.
Let me bring up another example other than Isa 7:14 which helps illustrate the point. Psalm 2 opens with lines which speak of the futility of the nations in opposing the King of Israel. If the psalm is understood in light of the OT context, the nations in view clearly are Gentile nations around Israel. When this psalm is cited in Acts 4, though, the enemies in view are now Israel’s leaders, yet no one asks that the NET Bible translate Psalm 2:1 as “Why does Israel rage, and her rulers imagine vain things?”
Long and short, we felt it best to translate OT passages without being influenced by NT citations of those same passages. In this way the reader is best able to see what the OT meant in context and then see the theological understanding which the NT has brought to the table with these passages.
Michael,
Thank you so much for stopping by and helping clarify the background of the NET Bible project. I apologize for not being able to respond earlier – I was away from the computer most of the weekend with family activities.
One of my pet paranoias is seeing theological division determine translation practice so I apologize if I read too much into Michael Marlowe’s review. I realize that he never actually uses the word “dispensationalism” in his review, but the connection with DTS seemed to be brought up in excess (and my prior notion of DTS has strictly been with respect to dispensational thought), so I wondered if he was pursuing this angle. Thank you for clarifying his argument and for the thoughtful response on your position.
I actually have a great deal of sympathy for your position and approach on the OT texts; original context and audience was a mantra pounded into my head by one of my prior teachers, Trace James, for whom I have a great deal of respect. It does not seem to be a position shared by many translation teams, so I’m always interested to learn more about translations that take this approach to the OT texts. To that end, I’ve decided to get a copy of the NET Bible and will look forward to exploring it in more detail.
ElShaddai Edwards
I am the author of the review article referenced in this post.
Michael Burer is right when he says that “Michael Marlowe’s review is not really concerned with dispensationalism as much as it is concerned with” the editors’ decision that they “would as a rule restrict the translation of OT passages to what [in their opinion] the author of that passage would have understood.” DTS these days is not exactly a hotbed of dispensationalism, and there is not much of that in the NET Bible either. That was not my main concern.
My main objection is that the NET Bible editors ignore the New Testament in their translation of the Old. I do not think this approach can be justified theologically.
Burer says, “we felt it best to translate OT passages without being influenced by NT citations of those same passages.” But the heart of the issue is, did the NT writers correctly interpret the OT, or not? If we believe that they did correctly interpret the OT, I don’t see how we can ignore their interpretions, or pretend they don’t exist while we translate the OT. I think this represents a modernistic “history of religions” approach to biblical interpretation.
I do hope that people who comment here will read my review of the NET Bible, and also my critique of the NET Bible translation of Hosea on another page. The problems are many and serious. And I welcome any dialogue with the editors.
Grace and Peace.
Michael Marlowe
bible-researcher.com
Mr. Marlowe,
Thank you too for stopping by and adding your comments to this discussion. I have visited your website often and appreciate the resources that you have made available to the public. I apologize for reading too much into your review of the NET Bible and for coming to an extrapolated conclusion.
The interesting question to me is whether the NT authors would have written the interpretations that they did without the benefit of Christ’s post-resurrection scripture explanations, e.g. the road to Emmaus and later that night to the eleven disciples and friends.
If not, as is likely, then we are dealing with divine interpretation, i.e. God explaining His own Word, which surely is more likely to be acceptable than the explanations of mortal man?
ElShaddai Edwards
“The walk to Emmaus is the fountain-head of Scriptural exposition.”