Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I’ve just discovered a way to find a lot of interesting things at Archive.org. In the search try things like this:
Loads of copies of works, albeit not always clearly identified, often in other languages besides English. Marvellous.
[ 273 ] In the 11th year of the reign of Heraclius died the Prophet (Mohammad), so-called, on Monday, when two nights of the month of Rabi` I. had passed, in the eleventh year of the Higra. He was buried in the house where he had died. This was the house of `Aisha. His illness lasted13 days. He died at the age of 63 and left no children, with the exception of Fatima, who died 40 days after him; it is also said: after 70 days.
[ 274 ] In the 11th year of the reign of Heraclius, (H)Onorios became Patriarch in Rome. He lasted 18 years and died.
[ 275 ] When Kesra (A)Brawez came into his city and saw, what murder and devastation Heraclius had wrought, he was attacked by great sorrow; but he did not change his cruel behaviour in any way. His days (government) became ever heavier for the people, and these were with their patience at and end (and said): He is a messenger of misfortune! In his time the Persians were killed and their countries devastated. They put him aside, after 38 years, and placed in his place his son Qabad, who called himself Sirawayh. He was the son of Mariam, the daughter of Maurice, the king of the Romans. He preferred justice and showed it to those who had suffered injury until then. He killed 18 of the children of his father, who had set themselves against him because of his mother. All his remaining relatives fled. Then he said: I will abolish the tax, so that all the people may experience my justice and my benevolence. Some time thereafter cholera attacked the inhabitants of his realm and the majority died. (Qabab) also died and his father Kesra with him. His rule lasted 8 months.
(From Eutychius / Sa`id ibn Bitriq, ca. 940 AD. The numbers are the years of the era of Diocletian)
Just to let you know that Homily on Ezechiel 7 has been done and paid for. I’ve also seen the draft of homily 8, which will be done soon I think. The “Tammuz” fragment has been revised and is paid for also. So some very good progress.
The chap who agreed to translate the recently discovered 60% of Chrysostom’s Oration 2 against the Jews has written to tell me that he has broken his ankle and can’t get around much.
No progress on any of the Arabic since last time. The lady who knows about the Coptic Eusebius has told me that she’s very busy, as is no doubt the case.
I’ve spent today wondering if the blog had a virus. Fortunately not; it just had a bad plugin installed (phew!).
The New International Version of the bible is pretty much the standard translation used by more Christians than any other, although probably still less than 50%. The standing of the translation was badly damaged by an attempt to produce a version revised in accordance with political correctness. Known as the TNIV, this version caused immense offence.
I learn today that the copyright owners intend to produce a new revision of the NIV itself, in 2011. Suggestions for the new version can be sent to nivbible2011.com, apparently. The press release is here. It makes no reference to the TNIV debacle.
A USA Today report here gives more details, and Crosswalk.com gives more again. Various comments were made during the press conference, in response to a question and answer session:
“Whatever its strengths were, the TNIV divided the evangelical Christian community,” Moe Girkins, Zondervan’s president, said. “As we launch this new NIV in 2011, we will discontinue putting out new products with the TNIV.”
The silence in the press release, and in the speeches given, this all suggests to me that the TNIV is being abandoned because it failed, not because the owners think they did wrong. This means, of course, that they may try again. I doubt the NIV will survive further attempts to corrupt it.
When I think about the NIV, and the idea of revising it, I frankly feel nervous. I find that emotionally I don’t trust the revisers not to try to sneak an extra-biblical ideology into the text. I suspect a lot of people feel the same.
So what is to be done? If the owners of the text are serious about abandoning this enterprise, they need to take some serious steps. First they need to acknowledge publicly that what was done was wrong; and I see no signs of this. Next they need to change the composition of the board that oversees what happens, because those who did wrong once (wittingly or otherwise) will do it again. Until we see change, how can we have confidence in the board? Thirdly, they might consider simply leaving the NIV alone. There is no pressing need to tinker, tinker, tinker. In fact such tinkering damages the translation. It would be better – far better – to leave the translation alone for 15 or 20 years, and get the text established.
The whole business is very, very sad. I grieve for what has happened, for how it has allowed the unbelievers to triumph over Zion.
To me, the whole business and the way it has worked out smells strongly of the Pit. Who benefits from destroying the credibility of what was fast becoming the standard English translation? The Body of Christ does not benefit. No man seeking salvation benefits. But perhaps Hell does. Those who seek the ruin of us all do seem to benefit. Their cause is advanced. The dissention among previously close friends, the creation of mistrust and anger, the perception that the gospel is whatever people say it is… surely these are things that must be dear to the heart of the Enemy of us all?
It is easy to write as if those who chose to do this evil thing did so intentionally and open-eyed. But I see no signs of this. I think that it is most unlikely that they had any such intention, or intended to produce a “politically correct” bible at all! On the contrary, I suspect they were led, step by step, believing that they were really doing the right thing, that God would be pleased and the gospel served, as if by an angel of light. They probably never realised that a line had been crossed. They probably never intentionally crossed it, but were led on from one thing to another, softly, gently, without ill-will.
Satan loves to do this to us. He loves to draw us on, to seduce us, without allowing us to ever quite realise that all these harmless little steps really amount to a massive change of direction which takes us out of our accustomed orbit around the Son and into the darkness. Those approaching a cliff may do so by sleepy little steps. But one of those harmless little steps will not be so harmless. Suddenly the cliff-edge gives way. Waking, we find, to our horror, that we are falling, falling towards the rocks, into sin and death. Above us, as we fall in fear and misery, with certainty of pain ahead, there is demonic laughter at us.
This, I think, is what may have happened to the NIV team. If so they weren’t the first, and won’t be the last. But the first need is to recognise that they have been led into a serious sin, to repent, and take measures to deal with it. Just going on, as if nothing had happened, will not serve, and will make things worse.
I’ve mentioned before that the Coptic catena on the gospels in the Bohairic dialect published by Delagarde contains fragments attributed to Eusebius.
Six months ago I commissioned a translation of these into English. The lady who agreed to do it refused payment, indicating that they would be done as part of a small group teaching exercise. Unfortunately she did part of the first fragment and then went silent.
Some months later I commissioned someone else to have a go, who did fragments 2-6, although I wasn’t sure the results were as fit for publication as I would have liked.
Then the other day, suddenly, I got an email from the other lady, attaching a file with the extension .doc but clearly not in any normal format, containing the second half of the fragments; done to quite a high standard, but because of the formatting very difficult to disentangle. Apparently the rest have been done as well, and will be sent to me (which was some weeks ago).
Last night I went through all the material, to see what was done and what not. I’m still missing translations of a few of them. I really need a reliable Copticist of professional standard to pull all this together — wonder where I could find one?
The notes from the lady tell me that the catena is lacunose; in translating they came across obvious unsignalled areas where the text is missing, perhaps pages missing.
Much of the material is very banal, consisting of a few words, then a sentence of scripture, another few words, another sentence, and so on. It is easy to see that working through the catenas is 90% dross and 10% excitement. It does urgently need doing, tho.
One phrase in the 6th fragment did catch my eye, and I will share it with you:
Our enemies are the devil and also his demons; they who hate our life and they seek our destruction every moment.
A useful reminder that our lives are not as banal as they seem, and small decisions may be twisted by our enemies for our destruction.
If I’m going to get the Selecta in Ezechielem of Origen translated from the Migne edition (PG13), I need to work out a price. I’ve already agreed a price per page of the Sources Chrétiennes text; how does this relate to a column of Migne?
It turns out that a full column of Migne is about twice the size of the same full page of an SC edition, which was a surprise. It shows just how much stuff the good Abbé was able to cram into his not inconsiderable volumes.
The Selecta are cols. 767-825 in PG13; but of course alternate columns are the Latin translation, so there’s only 29 columns of text. The online Google books edition of the PG13 is damaged at this point; several pages are unreadable, clearly because the copyist lifted the volume before the page was copied. Fortunately I have a better copy. I wonder how I can report the book and get the Google books errors fixed?
The Origen project translator has kindly translated the bit from the Selecta in Ezechielem about Tammuz:
On Ezek. 8.14
Mourning for Tammuz. It is said that the one called Adonis among the Greeks is named Tammuz among the Hebrews and Syrians. So then, in terms of the literal reading, the women were seen sitting “on the front porch of the north-facing gate of the Lord’s house” [i.e., the temple] and “mourning for Tammuz” in keeping with a certain Gentile practice belonging to those who are outside [true] religion †of the doors†. For they seem to perform certain mystic rites [τελεταί] yearly: first, they mourn for him as [though he is] dead; second, they rejoice over him as though he has risen from the dead. And those who are skilled in the symbolic interpretation [αναγωγή] of Greek myths and in the practice of “mythical theology” say that Adonis is a symbol of the fruits of the earth, which are lamented [as dead] when they are sown, but [afterwards] rise again and for this reason cause the farmers to rejoice as they grow. Thus, I think that those women who mourn for Tammuz are a symbol of those who yearn after the things of the world that are considered good, and bodily fruits / profits / rewards, but known nothing beyond material and perceptible things—they are pained by deprivation from these things, and pleased by their presence and the acquisition of such things. But all such people would rightly be considered to be womanish in soul.
He’s also taken a look at De la Rue’s introduction, which I partly translated last time, and adds:
To your account of PG 12:9 at the blog, note also that he says (regarding method of editing), that even if the catenae were unanimous in attributing something to Origen, if he found the comment in the published commentaries of other Fathers, he omitted it here. If there was disagreement on the attribution between different catenae, he omitted (perhaps, unless it was confirmed by agreement with the Latin translations of Rufinus or Jerome) — and that (unsurprisingly!) the fragments are often incomplete (interruptus) and sometimes corrupt (one would almost have to be an Oedipus to arrive at a conjecture!): hence bear with him if there are mistakes in his Latin translation of them…
He adds:
What still puzzles me is that Baehrens quotes a fair amount of text as “Sel. in Ezech.” which is *not* printed in the separate section of PG 13 but in footnotes to the text–which appear in PG, and in Lommatzsch are attributed to Delarue (“Ruaeus”).
No doubt some note somewhere explains this, but I have yet to find it. It might be worth going direct to De la Rue’s edition, rather than the reprint.