Hi, sorry it's been a while, things have been busy! I'm almost ready for my exciting trip to the biennial translation conference hosted by Wycliffe, 6 days until I fly, and I'll confess it's exciting (not least because I still don't know where I'll be staying).
Anyway, one thing I've been thinking about doing for a while is getting a bit more deeply rooted into Peterson's method and approach, rather than simply analysing how he translated Yahweh and kyrios. So I have invested in his full translation in the devotional edition, which is brilliantly done frankly. You can see why it took him a decade, such a gift. In my reading today I was guided to Jeremiah 5 where I read the following:
Why did our GOD do all this to us? (MSG, Jer 5:18)
Compare this to ESV: Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?
Something similar is afoot in verse 24 of the same chapter:
MSG: How can we honor our GOD?
ESV: Let us fear the LORD our God
So you can see what he's doing here. Peterson is solving one of the hurdles I described as "divine combos", which I assessed in a post last year here. The conclusion there was that "GOD" is sufficient to render most divine title combinations involving Yahweh, Adonai, El and Sabaoth. Jeremiah 5:18, 24, however poses the problem of a possessive, namely the LORD our God. I am keen to condense where possible to GOD, since like anarthrous kyrios, the Greek translation of Yahweh, it preserves both name and title characteristics. Unfortunately, however, our GOD might legitimately be accusable of failing to meet this demand. As we have pointed out on more than one occasion, the concept of "our Yahweh" (and therefore "our LORD") is not a Biblical one (I challenge you to find one outside of the Message!)
What is really strange, and I am afraid a little inconsistent on the part of Peterson, is that we also have assessed what to do in this instance, right here. Thanks to Peterson, we saw how important the placement of the commas was around "GOD, our God,". So why doesn't he do it here? The only reason I can imagine is that he felt that Deuteronomy 5:27 represented his fuller version, but that this might be too heavy to repeat systematically. We are now a year after he sadly left this world, so we can't ask him, but I would love to know if he was aware of the compromise to his own method he seems to make in doing this.
OK, so what if "GOD, our God," and the other possessives are overburdensome? Remember I estimated these at around 420 (approximately 6% of the Yahweh instances), so I would not automatically assume that to be true, but what if I did? How could we "mix it up a bit" and when would we do that?
Well this actually reminds me of another idea I have regarding the kyrios drumbeat around Jesus, particularly in Acts. The Lord this, the Lord that. How would we actually express that idea of deference to authority in English today to a superior? Would we call them by their hierarchical title all the time? It depends on the culture, right? In the USA, I hear that first name terms is almost par for the course, even for a CEO. But deference is alive and kicking in English-speaking cultures, so how would we consistently refer to that authority? Director this? The boss said that? Sir...
In fact, we would maybe do some of these things, but we would appeal to a wider range of signals to affirm that we are on-board with the pecking order. Sociolinguists point to a variety of signals that can come into play for politeness for example, such as tone of voice, regret, modesty, hesitancy, eye-contact... to be honest (and I think this may be the first time I'm saying this), I think we need to start thinking more in terms of a deferential attitude. Sometimes that attitude needs authenticating via a "so" or a "really", which is why we see increasingly that "I'm sorry" is no longer as authentic as "I'm so sorry".
With this problem of possessive on the "God" and the name GOD, if we do accept that it may be too much to go for the full Deuteronomy 5 option on every occurrence, then why not consider the full option—GOD, our God,—for the first instance in the passage, and a simple "our God" on the second? I think that's what I might do. Or express the deference in the second instance in the Jeremiah 5 passage via a "really", maybe with no reference needed in the following line to "God" at all:
Since he's our God, how can we really honor him, he's the one who gives us rain in both spring and autumn...
Just some ideas I deferentially submit to you ;)
Anyway, one thing I've been thinking about doing for a while is getting a bit more deeply rooted into Peterson's method and approach, rather than simply analysing how he translated Yahweh and kyrios. So I have invested in his full translation in the devotional edition, which is brilliantly done frankly. You can see why it took him a decade, such a gift. In my reading today I was guided to Jeremiah 5 where I read the following:
Why did our GOD do all this to us? (MSG, Jer 5:18)
Compare this to ESV: Why has the LORD our God done all these things to us?
Something similar is afoot in verse 24 of the same chapter:
MSG: How can we honor our GOD?
ESV: Let us fear the LORD our God
So you can see what he's doing here. Peterson is solving one of the hurdles I described as "divine combos", which I assessed in a post last year here. The conclusion there was that "GOD" is sufficient to render most divine title combinations involving Yahweh, Adonai, El and Sabaoth. Jeremiah 5:18, 24, however poses the problem of a possessive, namely the LORD our God. I am keen to condense where possible to GOD, since like anarthrous kyrios, the Greek translation of Yahweh, it preserves both name and title characteristics. Unfortunately, however, our GOD might legitimately be accusable of failing to meet this demand. As we have pointed out on more than one occasion, the concept of "our Yahweh" (and therefore "our LORD") is not a Biblical one (I challenge you to find one outside of the Message!)
What is really strange, and I am afraid a little inconsistent on the part of Peterson, is that we also have assessed what to do in this instance, right here. Thanks to Peterson, we saw how important the placement of the commas was around "GOD, our God,". So why doesn't he do it here? The only reason I can imagine is that he felt that Deuteronomy 5:27 represented his fuller version, but that this might be too heavy to repeat systematically. We are now a year after he sadly left this world, so we can't ask him, but I would love to know if he was aware of the compromise to his own method he seems to make in doing this.
OK, so what if "GOD, our God," and the other possessives are overburdensome? Remember I estimated these at around 420 (approximately 6% of the Yahweh instances), so I would not automatically assume that to be true, but what if I did? How could we "mix it up a bit" and when would we do that?
Well this actually reminds me of another idea I have regarding the kyrios drumbeat around Jesus, particularly in Acts. The Lord this, the Lord that. How would we actually express that idea of deference to authority in English today to a superior? Would we call them by their hierarchical title all the time? It depends on the culture, right? In the USA, I hear that first name terms is almost par for the course, even for a CEO. But deference is alive and kicking in English-speaking cultures, so how would we consistently refer to that authority? Director this? The boss said that? Sir...
In fact, we would maybe do some of these things, but we would appeal to a wider range of signals to affirm that we are on-board with the pecking order. Sociolinguists point to a variety of signals that can come into play for politeness for example, such as tone of voice, regret, modesty, hesitancy, eye-contact... to be honest (and I think this may be the first time I'm saying this), I think we need to start thinking more in terms of a deferential attitude. Sometimes that attitude needs authenticating via a "so" or a "really", which is why we see increasingly that "I'm sorry" is no longer as authentic as "I'm so sorry".
With this problem of possessive on the "God" and the name GOD, if we do accept that it may be too much to go for the full Deuteronomy 5 option on every occurrence, then why not consider the full option—GOD, our God,—for the first instance in the passage, and a simple "our God" on the second? I think that's what I might do. Or express the deference in the second instance in the Jeremiah 5 passage via a "really", maybe with no reference needed in the following line to "God" at all:
Since he's our God, how can we really honor him, he's the one who gives us rain in both spring and autumn...
Just some ideas I deferentially submit to you ;)
