IOKOBOS to JAMES

James Ernest jdelists at earthlink.net
Thu Aug 8 15:57:30 EDT 2002


How the NRSV almost had a Letter of Judas--

This is from Bruce Metzger, *Reminiscences of an Octogenarian* (Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997), 91-92:

"Occasionally a change was adopted that at a later session appeared to be
ill-advised.  Such was the proposal that I made in
the interest of uniformity, namely that the Greek name *Ioudas* should be
rendered throughout the New Testament by "Judas,"
including its occurrence in the title and in the first verse of the Letter
of Jude.  That night, however, I began to consider  how perplexed readers
would be to find in their New Testament a letter of Judas!  The next
morning, therefore, I reopened the discussion and was able to persuade a
majority of the Committee that the wisest course was to retain the
traditional rendering for the Letter of Jude and to use a footnote
indicating that the Greek reads *Judas*."

This chapter on the NRSV includes an account of deliberations as to whether
the best English for Hebrew *miknas* would be "drawers," "shorts," or
"skivvies" and whether perhaps 1 Macc 6:46 should be rendered "he snuck
under the elephant" but nothing about "James."

Jacobus Minimus

________________________________________________________
James D. Ernest, Ph.D.
Associate Editorial Director
Hendrickson Publishers
140 Summit Street
P. O. Box 3473
Peabody, MA 01961-3473 USA

978/573-2243 (phone and voicemail)
978/573-8243 (fax)
jernest at hendrickson.com
http://www.hendrickson.com/
________________________________________________________






----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric S. Weiss" <eweiss at gte.net>
To: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 10:19 AM
Subject: [b-greek] Re: IOKOBOS to JAMES


>
> > Should we not take into consideration that what we here is an indication
of how
> > shameful the name Judas had become,  given that this was the name born
by "the
> > traitor"? We have a similar phenomenon -- the origin of which is known
only now to
> > those who are interested in historical trivia -- in the expression "your
name will be
> > Mudd".
> >
> > Yours,
> >
> > Jeffrey Gibson
>
> I didn't mention or suggest it in my original post, because I thought this
> reason for the book being called "Jude" instead of "Judas" would likely
> suggest itself to everyone. I for one do not doubt that one reason, if not
> THE reason, the book is called "Jude" is for precisely the reason Jeffrey
> has stated. But ... it would be nice to know if there are other legitimate
> reasons for the name change/diminution/corruption. Though, as Carl has
> said, this is maybe far afield of now of B-Greek (Welch?!?!)
>
> > --
> > Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
> > 1500 W. Pratt Blvd.
> >           Floor 1
> > Chicago, Illinois 60626
> > e-mail jgibson000 at attbi.com
> >           jgibson000 at hotmail.com
>
> ---
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