"This the Word of God!"

Beloved,
 
A few weeks ago, as my son, Romey, was getting ready for bed, he picked up one of his children’s books (Little Toot), opened it up, and declared, “This the Word of God! This the Word of God!” I was a bit surprised. “Where’d you learn that?” As usual he was unable to offer any coherent explanations. I started asking his Church School teachers if he was learning about the “Word of God” in class. I asked his choir teacher, Diane Schaming, if she was teaching the kids any songs containing that phrase. She said no. “I can’t figure out where he learned it from!” “Uh,” she replied, “I think he may have picked that up from you!” OH YEAH! I suppose I am a likely suspect! Be aware, our kids are always paying attention!
 
Some of you are paying attention to the Word of God as well and have been asking questions about what the letters next to the scripture reading in the bulletin stand for—especially because they’ve changed recently. 

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​The letters next to the scripture reading in the bulletin refer to which translation of the text we’re using in a given week. The most common letters you’ve seen in our bulletin are NRSV, but lately we’ve been using NRSVue. What gives? 
 
NRSV stands for the New Revised Standard Version. The intention of the RSV (1946) and the NRSV (1989) were to update the King James Version of the Bible (1611). The updates focused on four things: looking at new (new to us, but chronologically older) original language manuscripts that had been discovered, employing translators with a better understanding of the original languages (especially Hebrew), updating words whose meaning had been lost or had changed over the centuries, and using gender neutral language where appropriate (replacing the terms “man” and “mankind” with “humanity,” for example.) While doing this, the translation attempts to keep as much of the “flavor” of the King James as possible, since it is so much a part of our tradition and culture. Like the KJV, the NRSV attempts, as much as possible, to be a word-for-word translation of the Bible, meaning that for every single Hebrew or Greek word in the original the translators attempt to translate it with a single English word—a discipline which helps the reader “feel” the presence of the original language and discourages too much editorializing on the part of the translators.
 
NRSVue stands for the New Revised Standard Version, updated edition. I suppose the New-New Revised Standard Version was just going too far for everyone. It was released this summer. It continues in the NRSV’s tradition of being as literal as possible and as free as necessary and updating the thirty-year-old translation with more recent manuscripts, scholarship, discoveries from digital tools (like artificial intelligence), and language updates.
 
The NRSV (and now the NRSVue) is usually the first translation I turn to when studying a piece of scripture in preparation for a sermon or Bible study. Next, I go back to the King James. Then I tackle the original Greek or Hebrew. After that, I have a few more favorites I turn to make sure I’m getting diverse, independent scholarship from many different traditions—the New International Version, the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), the Inclusive Bible, the Common English Bible, the Open English Bible, David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament, and every now and then, the Message Bible. If it’s a Psalm of another piece of poetry, I’ll try to read translations from actual poets, like Robert Alter or David Rosenberg.
 
After all this study, I may not be completely satisfied with the translation provided by the NRSV. That’s why sometimes you’ll see something like this in the bulletin: NRSV, alt. The “alt” means that I’ve primarily used the NRSV translation, but that I’ve altered it in some way. I commonly do this when the Jesus uses the enigmatic title “the Son of Man.” This is a very literal word-for-word translation from the Greek. But I prefer the translation from the Common English Bible for this phrase: “the Human One,” which translates another aspect of the meaning of the ancient Greek lost to our ears when it’s translated literally.
 
I also frequently alter the text when we’re reading from the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel often uses a word the NRSV translates as “the Jews.” This translation hews to the KJV’s language, but I find it to be less than literal and often deeply problematic. The Greek word being translated just meant “the Judeans” or the people from the province of Judea where the city of Jerusalem is and where Jesus did most of his ministry. Consider the difference between these two translations of John 5:16 and you’ll see what a big difference a translator’s word choice can make:

• Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus…
• Therefore the Judeans started persecuting Jesus…

Was John trying to say that the Jewish religion was persecuting the Christian Jesus? Or was he saying that the Judean authorities were persecuting the Jewish Jesus? I think the latter, but the former anti-Semitic interpretation has unfortunately come to dominate the way we hear these texts—with dire consequences throughout history for our Jewish neighbors.
 
Finally, this past week, you saw the letters NET—the New English Translation. The problem I ran into came in Luke 17:10 (So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'") I really wasn’t happy with the translation of the word “worthless.” First, it’s sounds so harsh that, in a liturgical setting, I think it’s very hard to actually understand the intention behind the word. And I wasn’t focusing on that line in the sermon, so there was no way for me to explain the original Greek meaning after it was read. The word being translated can be used to imply something that doesn’t have a lot of value. However, the word literally means “without need.” “Unneeded” has a very different emotional tone to it than “useless” or “worthless.” I went searching through translations far and wide and couldn’t find quite what I was looking for until I found the NET:
So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”
 
It’s far from word-for-word, and not a translation I would use as the primary translation in a Bible study, but I felt like this translation worked well to be read aloud in worship.
 
There you go—more than you ever wanted to know. If you have more questions about which translations are being used and when and why, I’d be happy to talk more.