Gentle Wisdom has moved!

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I have just moved Gentle Wisdom, this blog, to a new URL (and a new hosting provider):

http://gentlewisdom.org/

Please update all your links and bookmarks.

However, old links should continue to work through redirection to the new site. Please let me know of any problems with this, by comments on this post or by e-mail to peter AT gentlewisdom DOT org DOT uk (my e-mail address only for traffic related to this blog).

Now to work on a new look, including updating my own links and adding a couple of new logos I can now display.

UPDATE: New look completed, at least for now, and I have added the Biblioblog logo and Rachel’s award to my sidebar.

Bishop Michael Reid arrested on suspicion of rape

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Last year I reported on the fall of Bishop Michael Reid. He had been the controversial pastor of Peniel Church in Brentwood, Essex – a highly controlling leader who ruled over his flock in a way which was a complete antithesis to how Jesus taught church leaders to behave. But Reid resigned when it was revealed that he had for eight years been having an affair with the music director of the church.

Since then, I understand that Peniel Church has been putting its house in order. But apparently Bishop Reid has not. It has been reported today, as the lead item in the Brentwood Gazette (sister newspaper to the Essex Chronicle which last week made its lead item the resignation of another church leader), that

THE founder and former leader of the Peniel Church, Bishop Michael Reid, has been arrested on suspicion of rape.

It is understood that the controversial Bishop, 66 – who split from the Peniel Church after admitting to adultery – was arrested in the early hours of Thursday August 27 following an allegation of rape.

I have no information beyond what is in this newspaper article.

Zondervan wants to hire a blogger

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Zondervan, the Christian publisher which has recently been in the news, and on this blog, for its announcement of the NIV 2011 update, is looking to hire a blogger, to work as a managing editor in its Bible group. Among the required personal characteristics in the job description is

• Active blogger

This is a requirement apparently because a major part of the job is “Managing new Zondervan digital Bible projects”.

Thanks to Rich Tatum, a lapsed blogger (so he wouldn’t qualify for the job) who himself works for Zondervan, for this tip which is apparently on his Twitter feed.

If this job was in the UK I might apply for it myself. But I doubt if Zondervan could get me a US work permit for it.

Work in progress

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I am working on moving this blog to a new hosting service and a new URL (but in such a way that old links continue to work, I hope).

c11Meanwhile I apologise for any disruption to service on this blog. At times I may have to disable comments, and unexpected or temporary URLs may appear in your browser bar.

Should I apply to become a biblioblogger?

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Should I ask to have Gentle Wisdom, this blog, included in the list of the top 50 biblioblogs? I am currently in these people’s list of “Related Blogs: 1. Christian Spiritual, Theological, or Homiletic”, but I think I should qualify for their main list, at least according to the criteria just in clayboy’s latest post – at the moment. I accept that in the past there have been times when the focus of this blog has been a bit different, more on church issues than on the Bible. However, recently even when I have discussed matters relating more to the church they have been linked with biblical interpretation. I think I would also qualify according to the top 50 biblioblogs blog’s own criteria:

A blog is included in the rankings if it contains substantial content related to biblical studies or closely related fields, evidences a scholarly approach to biblical studies (not requiring academic qualifications, but excluding blogs with mainly homiletic or devotional content, unscholarly approaches, or a primarily theological focus), and is currently active and posting.

Also my current Alexa ranking of 1,226,422 is high enough for Gentle Wisdom to go straight into the top 50.

I know their current focus is on adding more women bibliobloggers. I don’t want to detract from that laudable aim. But maybe they would like to add this blog as well. I would ask them straight away, except that I have plans in hand to move Gentle Wisdom to a new domain of its own, and it would make more sense to wait until I have done that before looking for more publicity.

Did Jesus live in Nazareth according to the Sermon on the Mount?

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Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and elsewhere, is very hard for anyone to live up to. I certainly don’t do so myself, although I do make it my aim.

This is so hard that some Christians teach that the Sermon was never intended to be lived up to, but only to provide an unattainable standard of excellence to show us humans how sinful we are. This is the Unconditional Divine Will View or the Repentance View, numbers 10 and 11 of the 12 interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount listed in this Wikipedia article. The implication of these views, and indeed of several of the other views in this list, including the dispensationalist view, is that the Sermon should not be understood as practical instructions for Christians living normal lives in this world.

This view is challenged by the implications of what I read today at Bill Heroman’s NT/History Blog. In the latest instalment of his long series on Jesus’ life in Nazareth, Bill writes:

In Matthew 6:16-18, Jesus tells us that God rewards those who fast secretly, who put oil on their heads and wash their face, so that no one will know they are fasting. If rewarding such behavior means God likes that behavior, then Matthew must be implying this behavior was characteristic of Jesus before his baptism. …

If this is not valid, we would have to assume that Matthew thought Jesus was inventing new strategies for fasting which he’d never practiced himself. That certainly doesn’t seem to fit Matthew’s high opinion of Jesus and would actually place him closer to the showy hypocrites just decried in the same series of statements. …

Therefore, if we take the original passage as an historical teaching of Jesus, according to Matthew, then we may also take the inversion of it as a historical aspect of Jesus’ life in Nazareth.

If Bill’s line of argument is valid, then Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere must be based on his own practice.

There is a step which I don’t think Bill has actually proved, that Jesus’ teaching reflects his practice before he began his public ministry, and not just during this ministry. But the alternative would have to be that his baptism marked a radical change not just in his way of life but also in his basic attitudes. This would be inconsistent with the Christian teaching that Jesus was the sinless Son of God not just from his baptism but also from his birth. Also in this case, given that the Sermon on the Mount occurs early in Jesus’ ministry and doubtless some of his hearers near Capernaum would have known him from his time in Nazareth, one would expect some references more like “Don’t do as I used to do” alongside those of “Don’t do what the hypocrites do”.

The implication of this is that during the “hidden years” of his life at Nazareth, working as a carpenter (Mark 6:3) in Joseph’s workshop and living with his mother, brothers and sisters, he was leading his life according to the standards which he later taught in the Sermon on the Mount. This further implies that it is possible to live according to these standards, not only while living apart from the world but also while living a normal family live and doing a normal job.

I note also that at this time Jesus was not filled with the Holy Spirit in the same way that he was after his baptism. So it is hard to argue that being filled with the Holy Spirit is a prerequisite for living according to the Sermon on the Mount. Anyway, this is no excuse for Christians, who are already filled with the Holy Spirit even if this is not always evident in their lives.

So why are so many of us Christians quick to find reasons why we don’t have to obey Jesus’ teaching? Could it be just a little bit too uncomfortable and demanding? Does living according to the Sermon on the Mount sound a little too likely to lead us to rejection and even death, as eventually it did for Jesus? But isn’t that what we are called to as Christians? Isn’t that what Jesus meant with these words?:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Matthew 16:24-25 (TNIV)

NIV profits go to Bible translation worldwide

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Eddie Arthur, David Keen and Tim Chesterton, among others, have criticised the NIV 2011 update project in ways which I consider unfair. I commented on Eddie’s post and he replied in a further post which I was much happier with. But in view of Tim’s post the point I made needs wider publicity.

I entirely agree with Eddie, David and Tim that translation of the Bible into languages which do not yet have it is a top priority. This is the work that I gave 15 years of my life to.

But this is not the only issue in Bible translation. There are probably more speakers of English than of all the world’s Bibleless minority languages put together. These English speakers also need good translations, and sadly the ones they have so far are not completely satisfactory. There are various reasons for this, but not the least is that one of the most widely used of them, NIV, is 25 years old. I know that even within the world of minority language Bible translation a 25 year old version is often recognised as obsolescent and in need of revision. Why is a similar revision of an English translation so looked down on?

However, that is not my main point here. Rather, that relates to Tim‘s interesting suggestion:

Let all English language Bible publishers agree that they will collect a $1 translation tax on top of the price of every Bible sold. Let that money be collected and given to organisation such as the United Bible Societies and Wycliffe Bible Translators to be used to support translation projects in languages which have yet to see their first translation of the Scriptures.

But when Tim wrote this he was obviously not aware of what I wrote in a comment, although he has now acknowledged it in an update to his post:

This is indeed a great idea – such a great one that IBS/Biblica and Zondervan had it more than 30 years ago and have been collecting that “tax” for all that time on the 300 million copies of NIV they have sold. Yes, IBS has for many years been collecting significant royalties on every copy of NIV and TNIV, and using the bulk of this to support Bible translation into other languages. They have in the past given large amounts to Wycliffe/SIL to fund printing of minority language Scriptures. I don’t know the details of what they have done, but see for example this list of current translation projects, probably funded to a large extent from NIV and TNIV profits although of course they also welcome donations.

Biblica is not trying to hide what they are doing. This is from their Page Two magazine, Summer 2009:

Most of us would be at a loss to read the Bible in its original Aramaic and Greek languages. We take for granted our contemporary English translations. But many people throughout the world lack the privilege we have—to read God’s Word in their own language.

From the very beginning, this was a concern of the International Bible Society. In 1810, we gave $1,000—a huge sum at the time—to help fund William Carey’s translation of the Bible into India’s Bengali language. To date, we have printed and distributed Bibles in nearly 70 languages.

However, our best-known Bible translation is in English! In 1978, we completed the New International Version® (NIV) Bible. The contemporary-language Bible has become the most widely read and trusted translation in the world.

This year, we plan to launch four new translations, three in African languages and one in Hindi.

Then later, with some hyperbole (I for one trust TNIV far more!):

Today the NIV remains the world’s most-read and trusted contemporary English translation. Over the years, NIV royalty income enabled IBS to expand its Scripture distribution worldwide and has provided millions of people with free or highly subsidized Scriptures.

For better or for worse, money from sales of English Bibles provides highly significant funding for Bible translation into all kinds of other languages. When those sales fall, as they currently are for NIV, so does that income. When a new edition of an English translation boosts sales, there is more money for other translations. As Tim pointed out, if English speakers didn’t buy new Bibles, they “probably wouldn’t give the money saved to foreign language Bible translation projects anyway”. And if the biblical scholars on the CBT lost their jobs they probably wouldn’t be available or suitable for work overseas.

So let’s stop knocking this new initiative, and instead welcome the prospect of increased distribution of improved Bibles, not just in English but in languages from all over the world.

Jesus does speak about Christian leaders

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My recent posts Leading or Lording and Is it wrong to refer to someone as “pastor”? have generated quite a lot of interest and comment, especially about A. Amos Love’s rather long-winded contributions.

Amos certainly makes some good points. But he also goes too far. For example, in an extract I quoted before, he wrote:

Jesus told His disciples not to be called master/leader …

He also wrote in a recent comment

“the tradition of men” declares we “must” have “overseers/elders/leaders.” …

Jesus told his disciples “not” to be called “leader”

But actually that is not quite correct. What he actually said in Matthew 23:8-10 was that his disciples are not to be called “Rabbi”, or “Father”, or “Teacher/Master”. The last of these words is difficult: kathēgētēs, a word used in the New Testament only in 23:10 – not the usual Greek word for “teacher”, didaskalos, as in Ephesians 4:11, but also not the word for “master” or “lord”, kurios, in Ephesians 6:5. The word is related to English “hegemony” but also to “exegete”, and I guess that illustrates its ambiguity in Greek. But D.A. Carson, writing on this verse in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, says:

it seems wiser to take kathēgētēs as a synonym for didaskalos.

In other words, one of the world’s top exegetes agrees that this word means not “master” but “teacher”, as rendered in NIV and TNIV, cf. NRSV “instructor”.

(By the way, I think that NIV and TNIV are wrong to translate didaskalos as “Master” in 23:8, and I have submitted a suggestion of a change to “Teacher” through Wayne Leman’s NIV revision suggestion website, as promoted at Better Bibles Blog.)

So I don’t think we have any real evidence that “Jesus told His disciples not to be called master/leader”. But even if we do accept the KJV and RSV rendering “master” this does not imply that Jesus was rejecting all leadership. After all, this passage in Matthew seems to me to be about accepting titles, not about executing functions. I’m sure he didn’t intend to forbid teaching in the church or the secular world, still less to forbid fatherhood! So, even if he did forbid the use of titles like “master” or even “leader”, his point was not to forbid people from exercising leadership functions.

This is made clear from Jesus’ teaching elsewhere. For example, in Luke 22:26 (TNIV) he teaches

the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

“The one who rules” in Greek is ho hēgoumenos, rendered “he that is chief” in KJV and “the leader” in RSV and NRSV. In Matthew’s parallel, 20:27, and in Mark’s, 10:44, Jesus’ words (perhaps spoken on a different occasion) are presented as “whoever wants to be first”.

The Greek words ho hēgoumenos are again related to the English “hegemony”. But it is significant that this is not the noun hēgemōn “ruler”, used for example of secular governors in Luke 21:12. Rather, it is the participle of the verb hēgeomai “rule”, and so is correctly rendered “the one who rules”, suggesting a role which might be temporary rather than a permanent position of authority. But since the word “rule” is used in current English mainly of secular authority, perhaps “the one who leads” would be better in context.

The same participle form is used in Hebrews 13:7,17,24, rendered “your leaders” in TNIV, but perhaps I should suggest a change to “those who lead you”. Acts 14:12 (TNIV “chief”) and 15:22 (TNIV “leaders”) appear to be the only other uses in the New Testament of the hēgeomai word group relating to Christian leadership.

So Jesus clearly spoke here about his disciples ruling, or at least exercising leadership. He also gave strict instructions about how that leadership was to be exercised. But he did not have in mind what my commented Amos seems to promote, leaderless congregations.

Controversial rector resigns over 'theological differences'

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The front page of today’s Essex Chronicle, my local newspaper, and the front page of its website, carries the following story:

GREAT BADDOW: Controversial rector resigns over ‘theological differences’

Thursday, September 03, 2009, 09:39

A VILLAGE rector at the centre of a row over his controversial opinions on homosexuality has resigned.

Alan Comfort, 44, cited “theological differences” with his congregation as the reason for leaving his post at St Mary’s Church, Great Baddow.

The former professional footballer angered members of his congregation with comments on same-sex relationships in July. …

Read the full story.

I commented on what Alan Comfort said about homosexuality in this post. In fact the announcement of his departure was made in the church on 9th August, but has only reached the newspaper today. But Alan’s departure from his parish was noted some weeks ago by my fellow bloggers MadPriest and John Richardson, who have little in common except that they are both blogging Anglican priests.

Alan Comfort had been the Team Rector of the parish including my church for just over four months. I used to attend the parish church, St Mary’s, where he had his main responsibilities – and that is where I will be married in October. But I had never met Alan personally.

I do not intend discuss this matter publicly.

What will the updated NIV look like?

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The world of watchers of English Bible translations was rocked yesterday by the news that the NIV Bible is to be updated in 2011. Straight away I reported on this, with little comment, in a post at Better Bibles Blog. Today, in the freedom of my own blog, I would like to make some reflections on this announcement.

In a comment on my BBB post I noted that

I now have confirmation from Zondervan that

Following the release of the 2011 NIV, we will cease to produce new 1984 NIV and TNIV products.

This certainly seems to go against the promise which IBS (now Biblica) allegedly made in 1997 that “it would in the future continue to publish the NIV of 1984 unchanged”. But there is not necessarily a contradiction here. This new announcement is from Zondervan, not from Biblica who publish their own editions of NIV. Also, Zondervan has not now promised to stop selling all existing editions of NIV and TNIV.

So does this mean the end of the road for TNIV as well as for the 1984 edition of NIV? TC Robinson seems to think so, as do some of the contributors to the discussion at This Lamp. I disagree. I expect the 2011 NIV to look very like the current TNIV, with at most a few minor concessions to those who have persistently condemned its gender related language. There will of course also be some small improvements of the kind one might expect when updating a translation a few years old. But I am expecting the new version to be much more like TNIV than the current NIV.

Why do I say that? An important issue here is the independence of the Committee on Bible Translation, which was reemphasised by Stan Gundry, Executive Vice President of Publishing and Editorial Operations at Zondervan, as recently as March this year in a post at BBB:

The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) is an independent body of OT and NT scholars …

By contract with IBS, the CBT controls the text of the NIV and the TNIV. This means that no one can revise, correct, update, or otherwise change these texts other than the CBT itself. …

The publishers must publish the text exactly as delivered by the CBT, including all footnotes, paragraph headings, etc. …

The CBT is jealous of its scholarly independence and it protects itself from pressure groups who have an agenda. …

Even though I work for Zondervan, a commercial publisher, I strongly believe that the model that exists between the CBT, IBS, and the commercial publishers is the best way to protect the integrity of any translation.

The way in which the announcement of the 2011 NIV update was made reassures me that this model, as described in such glowing terms less than six months ago, will continue to be the basis on which the CBT, Biblica and Zondervan (and presumably Hodder here in the UK) operate, the basis on which they will produce the updated NIV.

So the revised text of the NIV will be produced by the same CBT which produced the TNIV. Yes, there have been some recent changes to its membership, but the new members have probably strengthened the committee’s commitment to the translation principles behind TNIV, including its renderings of gender related language. So if the CBT is indeed independent of the publishers and “protects itself from pressure groups who have an agenda”, there is no reason for it to change the direction in which it has been going for more than a decade. That implies that in 2011 the updated NIV will look rather like the current TNIV, which will then be 6 years old, and much less like the 27 year old 1984 NIV.

So what of CBT chairman Douglas Moo’s words, as reported by USA Today?

I can’t predict what will happen with gender usage. My guess would be we made a lot of the right decisions for the T-NIV but every one of those is open for consideration. We may even be returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV.

It seems to me that with these final words Moo is trying to stop the updated NIV being condemned out of hand before it has even been completed. I’m sure it is genuinely true that every decision made in the past is “open for consideration”, and that, as Moo said in the main press release,

Every suggestion presented in writing to the CBT before the end of this calendar year will be considered for the 2011 edition of the NIV Bible

– even if suggestions from “pressure groups who have an agenda” will not be given any preferential attention. Nevertheless Moo clearly believes that CBT “made a lot of the right decisions for the T-NIV“, and probably the rest of the CBT agrees. So really what Moo is hinting at is that the update is unlikely to be “returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV” and much more likely to be a further step forward in the same direction as TNIV.

So what of the reaction of the “pressure groups who have an agenda”, specifically those who have consistently opposed TNIV because of its gender related language? Yesterday’s announcement is certainly not going to win them over to be friends of Biblica and Zondervan, or to endorse in advance the update. But they have been given no grounds on which to oppose it, as yet. Anyway the NIV consortium can hardly expect, whatever they do, to win back the support of critics many of whom are closely identified with a commercial rival translation, ESV. So I expect that behind the scenes Zondervan and Biblica have agreed to ride the inevitable storm, trusting that in the long term this will be for their commercial advantage as well as for the benefit of their readers.

I have a suggestion to make which may make their ride calmer – but they may already have something like this in mind. I suggest that Zondervan and its partners produce in 2010 a limited number of new editions of the 1984 NIV text branded (perhaps just on a new cover) something like “NIV Classic”. This will help to protect their sales during the inevitable slump before the update comes out. They will also be able to continue to sell these “classic” editions after 2011, in a low key way, to anyone who objects to the updated NIV. In this way they can also keep their promise not to change or withdraw the 1984 NIV.

However, I trust that from 2011 onwards Zondervan and Biblica will put their publishing and marketing efforts into the updated NIV, and that this will look rather like TNIV.

So I must disagree with those who see this announcement as the end of the road for TNIV. I see it as more like a prediction of its resurrection, in the new body of the updated NIV. On that basis I welcome the announcement of the NIV Bible 2011.