Friday, January 14, 2011

As If SWNID Required Corroboration

Today's WSJ includes a fine column by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach discussing the history of the term "blood libel." Gentle readers will hear the echo of a familiar voice when they read it.

Boteach's false choice on who killed Jesus notwithstanding, we encourage reading of his discussion.

And we repeat here something that our real self often says in person: Christians should stop saying "The Jews killed Jesus." Some did instigate his death; Gentiles carried it out. Some of both groups resisted the move. All kinds of people became his followers after his death and that other thing he did. The main spiritual heroes of Christians are all Jews who didn't stop being Jews when they became Christians.

For those who want to figure out how 1 Thessalonians 2: 14-15 fits into all this, there's a book that we can recommend.

7 comments:

JB in CA said...

I looked up your link to the 2010 NIV translation of 1 Thessalonians 2:14–15 and found something interesting. The translation (in part) goes like this: "You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out." In the pre-2010 NIV translations, there is a comma between the words "Jews" and "who", indicating that the translators understood the "who" clause to be nonrestrictive. Interpreted in that way, the verse (prima facie) implicates the Jews in general for the death of Jesus. In the 2010 NIV translation, however, the comma is missing, which indicates that the translators now understand the "who" clause to be restrictive, implicating only those Jews that actually put Jesus to death. That's a big difference. Any thoughts on whether the NIV translators are being more or less faithful to the Greek text?

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Excellent find; thanks for the tip!

Given the fact that at the time "Jews" has a geographical reference ("people from Judea") as much as an ethnic reference, and inasmuch as the syntax obviously indicates that the objects of persecution by Jews were themselves Jews, this is unequivocally a better translation.

JB in CA said...

I like your point about the objects of persecution being Jews themselves. Obviously Paul wasn't including himself in the group of people that were persecuting him. (Only I do that sort of thing.) But that leaves me still wondering whether the Greek syntax requires the modifying clause to be restrictive or nonrestrictive.

Translated literally (without the anachronistic commas), the Greek says something like "as also [your own people have suffered] from the Jews the [ones] killing both the lord Jesus and the prophets and chasing us out ...".

To my ears, this passage sounds ambiguous between the two readings we've been discussing. Is there a grammatical rule that favors one of the readings over the other or is the context alone the determining factor?

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

In short, no. In English, one can indicate a restrictive clause with "that" as opposed to "which," which happens to be more ambiguous. Not so in Greek.

But even in English, its semantics that really decides the restrictive/nonrestrictive issue. That's how we understand people who use the syntax poorly, for example.

JB in CA said...

Thanks, that's good to know.

Also, your point about the "which" vs. "that" distinction is instructive. I think the same (or almost the same) point can be made in regard to "who" vs. "that". I was a little surprised that the new NIV translation had kept "who" after dispensing with the comma. The following strikes me as a much better way to render the clause restrictive: "You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews that killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out." But I guess you can't have everything.

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Some stylists object to the relative pronoun "that" with personal antecedents. If we can be counted as a stylist, what with our overweening use of the first-person plural and consequent coining of barbarisms like "ourself," then count us as one who confines "that" to impersonal antecedents. Hence, though "that" would be clearly restrictive, it is heinously misplaced with any antecedent referring to people.

JB in CA said...

Even to bad people?