Caring for the Words and the Text of the New Testament.

We all have our idiosyncracies. From food preferences to the clothes we wear, from the TV programmes that do it for us, to those that we have never watched  - and could conceive of no circumstances that might persuade us ever to watch them. Idiosyncracies make our world an interesting, colourful diverse and exciting place to be. It's those infinitely variable human differences that make us who we are, those personal interests and odd enthusiasms, that story that is only and can only be ours, and that only we can tell, the characteristics and quirks that give us our individiuality, uniqueness and definition as the specific, different person we are.

So if I say I am fascinated by the history of New Testament research, I am referring to one of my idiosyncracies. An enthusiasm limited in its clientele, a minority interest group even in the rarefied world of New Testament scholarship, but for me one of the most exciting areas of study I've lived in for decades. It goes back to one book; The History of the Interpretation of the New Testament, by Stepehn Neil. I spent a summer holiday in 1984 reading that book from cover to cover along with Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October and the biography of Temple Gairdner of Cairo. Who he? That will be another post.

Stephen Neil's book reads like a novel, a biography and a history all in one. It was updated in a Second Edition by N T Wright, and now covers the history of New Testament scholarship up to 1986. Recently a mammoth 3 volume History of New Testament Research from the 18th to the end of the 20th Century was completed by William Baird, and I've just started to read it. Baird is yet another example of scholars who go to heroic lengths in their quest for understanding of the text, and the history, interpretation, reception and influence of the New Testament over 2000 years of reflection, study, understanding and misunderstanding. These volumes trace the fascinating mixture of literary detective work, historical synthesis, biography, textual analysis, academic politics, and colliding theological presuppositions, philosophical assumptions and scientific theorising of around 300 years of intense study. All to make sense of 28 documents the length of a medium sized paperback, written around 2000 years ago by a variety of people and communities of no great moment then, but of vast significance for subsequent human history.

If you want to know what's so fascinating about this stuff let me recommend Sisters of Sinai, by Janet Martin Soskice as a good place to start. It tells of two sisters from Kilbarchan ( In Victorian times a wee Scottish village with weaving mills) who had ambitions to learn and travel. They visited Mount Sinai monastery, discovered ancient New Testament manuscripts and codices, learned several Oriental languages in order to translate them, and contributed significantly to the science of textual criticism and the search for the earliest witnesses to the biblical text.In doing all this they had to take on the male bastions of academia who had little patience and less respect for the accomplishments of these women.

How scholars establish the reliability of the text of the New testament is a mixture of tedium and inspiration, it requires disciplined sifting of textual minutiae and instinctive genius for language, demands a scrupulous weighing evidence and imaginative but historically plausible reconstructing of context and provenance. During this period of Lent when I'm thinking about words, how they are used, the search for a responsible stewardship of words, and why we should care for words like conservators and curators of meaning. I reflect on the countless scholars, the millions of hours of study, the adventures and the heartache, the passion of the quest and the disciplines of intellectual integrity and humility before a text that no scholar can own, possess or control. And I'm grateful for such holy industry. At least in this sense, of careful attention to words that are life changing, Lent is a time to re-read the New Testament, wth a care for what it says.

 

Comments

[Poetreehugger]

I picked up the Soskice book a while back, to add to my book collection. I will now move it to the top of my to-read stack.

[Bob MacDonald]

Lovely to see Sisters of Sinai get a plug - a great book. In the days at the end of our John Albert Hall lectures here (they still happen but not with the intensity of a week with a scholar visitor) Janet Soskice presented this work to us. Such a good read.

[Jim Gordon]

Yes you're right Bob. I heard Janet Soskice at Glasgow. I've read her other work on philosophical theology and admire her cross disciplinary skills in writing history and biography with such verve and cogency. Have you read the Stephen Neill / N T Wright book. It too is a great read - just been reading again the chapter on W M Ramsay's archaeological work. Good to hear from you Bob, hope you are well and your studies flourishing.

[Bob MacDonald]

Jim, I have not read the Neill/Wright second edition but I do have the first on the shelves right behind me. I am currently rereading Schmemann, For the Life of the World, so I will add Neill to my list of rereadable books (it's not too big). My current reading has been in a thousand page book by Jacobson, Chanting the Hebrew Bible, The Complete Guide to the art of Cantillation. (whew) - It's good but not exactly 'complete'. Completeness is a key concept in the Psalms so maybe we shouldn't exaggerate (e.g. Psalm 19:14). I have compared traditional cantillation and the theory of Suzanne Haik-Vantoura in a few blog posts. (e.g. the pdf here on Zephaniah 3:8).

I am scanning through Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction and I occasionally take solace in lighter novels like Catherine Fox's Acts and Omissions which my daughter just sent me as a distraction.

The study of cantillation is one of three concepts underlying my translation of the whole of the Hebrew canon. I have drafted about 20% of the OT. I can't say completed, but I do run each draft through a concordance test, a test of semantic domains, and the shape of the music. Fortunately, I was able to automate both concordance testing and the creation of the music from the text. Over the next two years I will so some thinking of how to automate the domain problem. Automation aside, translation is an endless art-form and I do it first because it forces me to read slowly and converse with the foundational texts of our traditions. But it is fun and it opens up meaning for me as nothing else can. For instance, looking at 1 Kings 3:1 just yesterday, would I ever have noted Solomon's act of affinity with Pharaoh? I doubt it.

I will probably report on my progress occasionally. Recently I have been reworking Lamentations and thinking about Syria, and other troubles of the world.

[Jim Gordon]

Thanks for the update on your studies Bob! And yes, 'completed' is always provisional when the work is translation - no translation is unimprovable in the sense of new knowledge, discoveries and insights further informing translational choices. Glad you do some light reading too - I am about to start some of Chaim Potok's novels again - I assume you've read him? Blessings from Scotland,