Concordance in 2 Cor 3:5-6 (Monday with Mounce 47)

Having touched on the topic of concordance last week, it is interesting to be asked about the ESV’s lack of concordance in 2 Cor 3:5-6.

Not that we are sufficient (ικανοι) in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency (ικανοτης) is from God, who has made us competent (ικανωσεν) to be ministers of a new covenant,

The TNIV maintains the concordance of the three cognates using “competent, competence.”

 

This is a great example of why concordance is so important in the same context. We may not be able to translate the same Greek word with the same English word wherever it occurs in the Bible, but certainly in the same immediate context concordance is a good idea, again, as long as the same English word carries the meaning and nuances necessary in that context.

At first glance it looks like an oversight to me, but then I checked the RSV and saw that we changed its consistent use of “competent, competence” in v 5 to “sufficient, sufficiency.” That generally means there was a reason. And the footnote on v 6 says, “Or sufficient” (cf. similar footnote on 2 Cor 2:16), so the change was intentional.

 

Having said that, I cannot figure out what that reason was. I assume that for the committee, the idea of not being “competent in ourselves” struck a difficult cord. It is always amazing how different people can hear the same words with different meanings and connections of ideas. We all have different semantic registers formed by experience; we simply do not hear the same words the same way.

 

I know some of the ESV members read this blog, and if you can remember, please comment on it. Last week I talked about how any one passage can have a mixture of translation policies at play, and it is sometimes a balancing act to make a decision. My guess is this is the case here, but the lack of concordance seems to be a problem here and hopefully the ESV will reconsider its decision here.

 

This is why all Bible translations have ongoing translation committee meetings. Even the King James has been changed thousands of times since 1611. The ESV, NIV, TNIV, NLT, and NASB (among others) are no exception.

 

If you want to suggest changes for the NIV 2011 edition, see http://www.nivbible2011.com. I am sure you can contact Crossway with your suggestions as well, at http://www.esv.org/sbs.

 

 

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek (third edition coming in 2009!), and general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Learn more and visit Bill's blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.billmounce.com.  

Comments

[Phil Faris]

"Grammatical" concordance (or in this case, dissonance) seems to be another aspect. You have the adjective form, then the noun, then the verb form of the same root.

So I tentatively translated it: Not that we by ourselves are qualified..., our qualification is from God who qualifies us to be ministers of a new covenant.

I find that matching the grammatical form, when possible without being distracting, helps quite a bit when wrestling with the hermeneutics. Of course, I also chunk my translations and lay them out in an outline/diagram format that is often dictated by the parallel grammatical forms within compound/complex sentences. The sense of the text tends to be veiled when verbs are no longer verbs.

As far as translation "style" is concerned: The NASB is just the original languages written with English words. The NIV is a generic idiomatic interpretation that often hides the original. The ESV is just the NIV changed for the sake of change, regardless of how awkward it becomes. And The Message is a lucid streetcorner preacher getting the main point across to listeners otherwise unfamiliar with the Bible.

If I were Origen I would today put the original, the NIV and the Message in parallel columns, along with a German version based on Luther's but modernized. I anticipate that the NNIV 2011 will drop smoothly into the slot of its predecessor.

[Bill Mounce]

This is one of those Greek/English groups that have cognates that work together. That is nice. But some of your other comments are uncharitable and unnecessary.

"The ESV is just the NIV changed for the sake of change, regardless of how awkward it becomes." It is not the NIV; it is a changed RSV. And it is never right to critique motive as you do ("for the sake"). You don't know motives, and motives are irrelevant anyway.

"NIV is a generic idiomatic interpretation that often hides the original." In what sense "generic"? Generic compared to what?

[Phil Faris]

Agreed; I was jokingly quoting the man-on-the-street view of those translations. And the RSV has been off the radar for so long that I meant the ESV was possibly targeted at the NIV market. And by "generic" I meant the NIV's idioms reflected a non-geographic English "average" that crossed classes--not a cheap no-brand substitute. But if no one laughs, it isn't a joke. My apologies.

Oviously, my lexical grasp of "generic" English is lacking--or I would have avoided all those errors in my comment.

I was mostly wanting to hear your assessment of grammatical parrallels and other rhetorical devices that often indicate the relationship between semantic units and to what degree translation committees worry about those aspects. The convenient cluster of cognates in my example was only selected to remove the distraction of lexical issues.

In addition, I wondered if a parallel column, multi-version, multilingual layout might help derail bad hermeneutics before it gained much traction. At least, it might help if the committee reviewed the "new" translation with that data right before their eyes during the final vote.

Returning to your original blog concerning concordance in the translation process, both "sufficient" and "competent" are somewhat weak words in modern English--sort of like saying, "Well, I suppose that will be good enough..., maybe." The man who murdered the soldiers at Fort Hood yesterday was called "competent" in his job performance. Are we using authoritative but somewhat outdated Greek/English lexicons too much in our translation process?

And, thanks for your weekly blogs. They are excellent stimulation for pastors and other leaders to keep them engaged with the text.

[Tony Springer]

Bill,
You write: "Even the King James has been changed thousands of times since 1611." I know about the different revisions of the KJV, but Bill, are you given to hyperbolic exaggerations? :)
Anyway, that the KJV has changed is one of Christianity's best kept secrets, at least to those who think that Moses, David, and Paul wrote it.
As a non-text critic, your discussions about translating and translations are fun and helpful.