[B-Greek] Generous and Stingy in Mt 6:22-23
Rizzo, James J.
JIMRI at grsnet.com
Sat Oct 4 13:47:43 EDT 2003
I am no expert - not even close - just a Bible Teacher at my church. I just
subscribed to this list. Here are emails I sent and received to those doing
the new HCSB translation. FIRST is my email to them. SECOND is their
response. Would any of you all care to respond to the substance of my
inquiry and their response?
FIRST
My first exposure to HCSB was not a good one. It has made me distrustful of
its faithfulness to the texts.
Our church subscribes to the LifeTruths (and other age-specific versions in
the series) for Sunday School. I am an adult teacher. The Fall issue
started out just fine. By the way, I have always liked the Sunday School
literature and helps you all develop -God helps you do a great job! Thanx.
But when I got to the September 21 Lesson on Kingdom Priorities, I was
shocked. Matt. 6:22-23 is translated in the HCSB (and quoted in the Learner
Guide and Leader Guide) as "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is
generous, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is stingy,
your whole body will be full of darkness....."
Generous and stingy? Where did that come from? The article by Sam Gantt
and Greg Webster in the Leader Guide and the material on your web site go to
great length to tell about how the HCSB is so true to the original texts.
"Where the Holman CSB deviates from a traditional translation, you can be
sure it provides a more literal rendering of the underlying text."
-Gantt/Webster.
1. Surely, your experts would not defend this as a true and
faithful translation of the relevant words in the underlying text. If so,
please help me understand.
2. If there is a particular translation philosophy that drives
this rendering, please advise me.
3. If your experts' response is that 'generous' and 'stingy'
are more consistent with the context, then please tell me if they have other
examples in which they chose to edit scripture to be more "consistent."
No, I'm not an expert in these matters. But this leaped out at me. It
seems Jesus had been speaking specifically of materialism and hoarding, but
stated vs. 22&23 to expand and make a generality before returning back to
the particular. It seems very deliberate. A translator should not act as
an Editor.
Would please arrange for a response to these 3 comments/requests above?
Thank you for your consideration. And may God bless and guide your work in
the Kingdom.
SECOND
Your letter to Dr. Jimmy Draper has been forwarded to us for our response,
and we regret that your first exposure to the HCSB was not a good one. We
hope that we can satisfy some of your concerns.
Matthew 6:22-23 is a very difficult text. Although the words used are
simple, interpreters and translators have struggled with this passage for a
long time. In the original edition of the HCSB, which was published and
called Experiencing the Word New Testament, the following footnotes occur at
this place:
6:22 Lit simple, or single, or clear, or healthy, or sincere 6:23 Lit evil,
or envious, or bad
The footnotes give the literal in each case plus alternate interpretations.
We realize that the Sunday School literature does not print the footnotes
and this is a problem. However, the Lifeway web site (www.lifeway.com
<www.lifeway.com> under "Holman CSB" and the "Passage Lookup" at the bottom
of the web page) has the entire HCSB text including the footnotes. As Bibles
are being published, many editions will have the full footnotes. This should
restore some of your confidence that where we are not literal, we have a
footnote.
The book of Matthew was first published in the Experiencing the Word New
Testament format in 1999. The translation team made its decision based on
the amount of research they were able to do at that time. The definitions of
"generous" and "stingy" are from the Louw & Nida Greek-English Lexicon of
the New Testament based on Semantic Domains, Vol. 1, p. 570. This is also
supported by the Moffatt translation and the New American Commentary on
Matthew by Craig Blomberg published by Broadman and Holman.
The translation team has been engaged in a review of the entire translation,
making refinements and adjustments. In the four Gospels, which were first
published in 1999, we have made 1200 changes. These changes will be in the
first printed text and should show up in the Lifeway online database as soon
as they update their online database. The current translation of these two
verses reads: "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, your
whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body
will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness<how deep is
that darkness!" This is in agreement with the NIV and the New King James
Version. It is a more prosaic translation and understandable without any
footnotes.
A recent translation, which you may not be aware of, is called the NET Bible
and is a fairly novel translation with approximately 57,000 notes done by
Dallas Seminary professors. It is available online (www.netbible.org
<www.netbible.org> ). On this passage, their translation reads "healthy" and
"diseased" for the terms in question. Their footnote includes a sentence
stating that "generous" is a legitimate translation option based on the
immediate context concerning money.
Again, we hope that this answers some of your concerns and restores your
confidence in our translation.
James J. Rizzo, ASA, MAAA
Senior Consultant and Actuary
Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company
301 East Las Olas Blvd., Suite 200
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
Telephone (954) 527-1616
Fax (954) 525-0083
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