Monday, November 15, 2010

my comment on the translation forum

Update: I am profoundly shocked that this comment did not pass moderation. I felt that I went to extreme lengths to include only information from traditional and complementarian sources, and checked to make sure that each item was factual. The only revision that was needed, and I made this revision on the Translation forum, was that the Wycliff translation has "have lordship on the husband" rather than "be the lord of."

Otherwise, this comment includes only relevant facts. I will attempt to contact someone at Biblegateway.

__________________


Here is the comment I made on the translation forum. It is currenlty awaiting the moderator's approval. -

The history of interpretation can be traced easily from the time of the Vulgate. The Vulgate used dominari which had a negative overtone, as it was the verb also used in 1 Peter 5:3 when the author desribed how not to lead in church. From the Vulgate, the Wycliff version and Luther translated "be the Lord of" and the Douay Rheims 1610 "to have dominion over."

Erasmus translated authenteo into Latin as autoritatem usurpare, with a note added for cogere "to compel." This was the foundation for two divergent traditions, "usurp authority" and "use/have/exercise authority." The editor of the KJV, Lancelot Andrewes, in his many sermons, used the term "usurper" to describe a person guilty of a capital crime, an act of treason. There is no reason to suppose that "usurp authority" in the KJV did not have a very negative overtone.

Calvin translated authenteo as auctoritatem sumere, which lead to the French translation assumer autorité, and the English "assume authority," which is found in the 1855 Calvin Bible.

In the absence of any lexical evidence that the word had a positive overtone, the NIV does well to stand in the majority tradition.

Dr. Kostenberger has offered a syntactic argument that didaskein and authentein must have the same force, either positive or negative, and many agree with him. However, some believe that didaskein can have a negative force in certain circumstances as is found in Titus 1.

The most compelling argument for a negative overtone, is the notable lack of any occurences of authenteo with a positive connotation within several centuries of the writing of the NT.

However, given Calvin's commentary on this verse, I do not believe that "assume authority" was ever intended to be an egalitarian interpretation of this passage. It is, at least, ambiguous and so that leads to the question of whether this scripture can, in fact, be interpreted in such a way that women can be treated as men would wish to be treated.

15 comments:

Donald Johnson said...

Good for you!

G said...

Thumbs up!

Rod said...

I am still waiting for them to allow your comment.

But nice job.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

I thought I saw my comment this morning but now it has been removed. I am profoundly shocked that facts are being suppressed.

rashid1891 said...

This blog might not make sense. I'm still trying to make sense of it all. Just going on adventures, trying new things, meeting new people, being out, saying yes to everything, closing the gap between my thoughts and my actions.

Donald Johnson said...

I did see 2 posts from you at one time yesterday, did they remove them?

Anonymous said...

Suzanne, How is taking down the comments on the Piper thread here any different than being censored at Burke's blog or biblegateway?

I don't get it.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

How is taking down the comments on the Piper thread

I am not aware of what you are mentioning here? Have I removed comments on some thread on this blog?

There is one post on which I hid all comments some time ago because of a certain type of repeating spam on that one post.

But I was not aware of removing comments on a Piper thread.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

I see 22 comments on the Piper thread. What do you see?

believer333 said...

I do not think they are letting very many comments through. Mine didn't come through. It also appears that anything really knowledgeable and informatively questioning or disagreeing with their 'experts' views is not being allowed. This has usually been the tactic of gender hierarchalists, so it's not surprising. However, I think it is imperative that information be made available to the body in general that these guys are not the final authority (something like the POPE's team) on these issues.

Charis said...

They have the need to control that little kingdom, apparently.

Thank God for the internet, Suzanne!

I think your response is really informative, educational, and interesting and you will be heard even if they use their admin authority over their little forum to silence your input there (did you really expect anything else from that author?)

rashid1891 said...

Thanks, Annette! I forgot about Lisa See's book. I'll add it to my read alike. :)

SvetlanaK said...

Relly looking forward to getting my hands on that book as well :)

Alizo Writero said...

The failure to consciously reflect upon past acts of theological translation leads them to unreflectively import much from the history of that translation. For instance, the Protestant Paul tends to be read through an Augustinian become Protestant become modern prism. What we have in actuality is a Paul translated into a fourth-century Latin Christian idiom translated into a sixteenth-century Protestant Christian idiom translated again for the 20th or 21st century. It is this Paul with which the New Perspective tends to engage. Perhaps the question then becomes not "Who today reads Paul best?" but rather "What do modern New Testament scholars need to do with the Augustinian heritage? the Lutheran? the Calvinist? the 19th-century liberal Protestant tradition that most immediately birthed modern New Testament scholarship?" Übersetzungsbüro Essen

Alizo Writero said...

Übersetzungsbüro
Such A Nice Blog i am your Regulare Visitor