What Now Shall I Read? A Case for the NRSV

A very special thank you to Rodney Thomas Jr., the founder of PoliticalJesus.com, for  joining us in this project, “What now Shall I Read?” You can read the first post on my search for a new Bible translation here. The case for the NIV can be found here. But now, let’s give Rod, our founder, a very warm political Jesus welcome as he tells me why he chose the NRSV version.

-    What Shall I Now Read: A Case for the NRSV

Like almost every black evangelical Christian as a child, I was nurtured in the Christian faith with the King James Version Bible.  The funny thing I remember about my mother’s KJV was that it actually had an Apocrypha.  I remember the KJV Bible was my only friend when I had the chicken pox, and I read over and over the stories of King David, Samuel, and Elijah until those pox went away.  The language was so (here comes the cliché terms for the KJV) poetic and beautiful. As I matured into middle school (around sixth grade), I received a small brown New International Version Bible.  The change in the English translation was quite obvious, and I felt an attachment to the NIV after a while. So much so that my first “unofficial” sermon that I gave out of the book of Jeremiah, chapter 8, was from that same NIV bible. Throughout undergrad, I used a blue NIV Bible I was given as a graduation present from one of my high school teachers.  That NIV now can be found on a metal cabinet behind my desk at work.  Why? Because, even though it used to be, it is not longer my personal devotional time Bible translation. I may use it occasionally at work when I need some Jesus-time but it is not my primary Bible.

What Bible do I use now, you ask?  It is the New Revised Standard Version.

I first was compelled to read the NRSV, or what Mark Stevens called, the worst Bible translation of he had ever owned, known as the Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible as a freshman religion major.  I never minded it any attention then, but as I was taking biblical Greek in seminary, I came back, compared the New Testaments of the NIV and the NRSV, and preferred the NRSV far much better for its precision.

I have to disagree with Reverend Stevens on a few points.  The reason why the NRSV sounds “wooden” and  has “poor readability” is because the care that the translators take in their precision to translate the original text.  For some, translating the Bible’s texts is like writing a sermon or composing a systematic theology.  This is not the purpose of the NRSV.   It is, by nature, ecumenical and not tribal.  Although it is used by many mainline Protestant churches, because it carries the Apocrypha (even in its smaller versions), can be used in evangelical and Catholic circles as well.  That being said, the weakness of the NRSV lies in its appeal to a consensus, and that consensus being grown-up adults over the age of 18, with a reading level more than 6^th grade (the average).  That’s why, as a director of Children’s ministry at a local church, I would NOT recommend the NRSV to be used for children or youth.  The NRSV is used in theological education institutions, which is fine; it is also my choice for person use.  A funny story behind the purchase of my personal NRSV.  I intentionally went to the bastion of white evangelicalism Mardel’s Christian bookstore to search for an NRSV I could carry (since the Study bible was way too heavy). I did find, to my surprise [sarcasm], the last remaining NRSV in the store on sale, and I made the purchase.

Now to the nitty gritty: Why I came to reject the NIV outright!

One of many problematic passages in the NIV: Psalm 68:31- “Envoys will come from Egypt; Cush will submit herself to God.”  There is nothing wrong with submission to God, but there is something wrong with this translation. First, how does Cush get to become a woman (women as nation-states=s sexist, obvious to me at least) and why would the NIV not use similar translations like other English renderings? The NRSV passage has “Ethiopia STRETCHES out ITS hands” The ESV, the KJV all have stretches out her hands, but the point is, the stretching of the hands are more about worship than the language of submission/obedience, etc.  My postcolonial hermeneutic of suspicion leads me to see that the NIV translators needed to keep viewing Africa as a submissive slave continent that was always in need of the West’s aid, and here is the passage to keep that myth going. Sure, but it’s all one little word, right? Purely objective……..

These problems kept on showing up, especially when I got to the New Testament, and since I knew Greek, it was hard for me to accept the NIV’s version of some passages in the Gospels as well as the Letters.  One example can be found in Revelation 13:9-10a (NIV)

“ ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.

¹⁰ “If anyone is to go into captivity,
into captivity they will go.
If anyone is to be killed with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”

In the NRSV,

9 Let anyone who has an ear listen:
¹⁰ If you are to be taken captive,
into captivity you go;
if you kill with the sword,
with the sword you must be killed.

There is a significant difference in the renderings of the Greek in this verse. The phrase “if you kill with the sword” is relegated to a footnote in the NIV to lend itself to a certain, say, pre-tribulation, dispensationalist, pro-Holy War reading of Revelation.  The NRSV could be used by pre-millenialists, post-mills, a-mills because it is ecumenical and not tribal, like I said before.  Accuracy far more importance than readability, especially when we are talking about God’s word.

Lastly, a word about the beleaguered term “gender-inclusiveness” in white  conservative evangelical circles. Next to belief in inerrancy and the Trinity, gender exclusive language has become part and parcel to U.S. American orthodoxy.  I get it, but really, if gender difference is real, as complementarians say it is (biological/spiritual/whatever), then would it not be nice to have a translation that recognized the differences between men and women by referring to the general populace or the congregation as men and women/ brothers and sisters?  Set aside the ordination and gender roles within marriage debate for a second.  Would it not be more  reasonable to show that women and men are not the same by using a translation that treated them as such rather than cling to some notion of “mankind in general”?

I’m just sayin’!

Truth and Peace

Rod

Optimistic Chad

Chad really really hopes things are going to turn out ok. He loves his wife - with the passion of 1000 exploding suns, and is a diligent, but surely mediocre father to his brilliant and subversive children. He likes Chinese food.

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