Some time ago, I took a survey which indicated that the Jewish Publication Society Bible was the best fit given my translation preferences. A friend commented on that post and noted an “interesting” non-translation of Isaiah 9:6.
“For a child is born unto us, A son is given unto us; And the government is upon his shoulder; And his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom;” (Isaiah 9:5, Jewish Publication Society)
He has expanded on that comment here.
Todd – That’s scary stuff. Obviously I’m not the final judge, but it sure looks shady to me. Does the JPS translation have footnotes where an English-only reader can see what the phrase means? Not that that makes everything OK, but it would be a bit better.
This quote is from the 1917 edition, which doesn’t have many defenders. In the 1985 edition (and the 1999 edition, which you seem to be referring to in this blog post) translates this verse as: For a child has been born to us, A son has been given us. And authority has settled on his shoulders. He has been named “The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler”. I can only wonder why the translation version was not mentioned in the original comment or a previous post.
Mr. Tygar,
First, thanks for your contribution to this issue. You have demonstrated one of the things that I appreciate about the Internet and blogging: multiple sources of information.
After correctly pointing out that the source of the quote offered in both my original comment and my expanded thoughts was the 1917 edition [republished in 1945 and 1955], you wrote, “I can only wonder why the translation version was not mentioned in the original comment or a previous post.”
Let ‘s see if I can unwind it for you and any others watching this discussion.
The primary reason I didn ‘t make a notation that the quote was from the 1917 edition [republished in 1945 and 1955] was that I was not aware of the “New Jewish Publication Society Tanakh [1985/1999].” Obviously then, I wasn ‘t aware of a revision at this particular verse (Isaiah 9:5) or that a date of publication would be necessary to distinguish between “contradictory translations.” It ‘s really that simple. I am now aware of the “NJPS Tanakh” and will update my blog essay to reflect that fact.
More importantly though, and what you didn ‘t address, is the question of why the [1917, 1945 and 1955] editors made their editorial decision to transliterate and NOT translate. That was the main point of my blog entry. Pointing out that later editors made a change indicates that my suspicions may have been correct. Do you think the original editorial decision was coincidental or calculated? Do you think my observations of how Isaiah 9:5 was translated in the [1917, 1945, 1955] JPS Tanakh were unfair or misleading? If so, how?
While you suggest that few people currently defend the “JPS 1917 edition,” it is interesting that The Jerusalem Bible (Koren Publishers Jerusalem LTD., Jerusalem, Israel ©1992, Hebrew/English version, p. 487) maintains a similar transliteration policy at this particular passage. Why would they do that? Do you think that is a legitimate translation principle?
Let me respond a bit to Craig Dunning’s remarks. First, I want to apologize for the tone of criticism in my first remark — after reading Mr. Dunning’s remarks, I can understand how this was an honest mistake regarding translations. Howewver, since the photo in this post is of the 1999 volume, it was easy to get confused. I also was surprised because Todd Bolen implied in a previous post that this was one of his preferred translations, and I would have thought he would have checked.
Now, I’d like to briefly recap the history of the JPS translations. Mr. Dunning does not correctly identify the history of the translations when he refers to them as a “revision[s]” — they were actually independent translations. The 1917 translation was a revision of the RV/ASV, and to a large degree it shares the strengths and weaknesses of that translation. The translators tried to remove what they perceived as Christian bias in the translation.
The 1985 translation was an independent, new translation, and that is perhaps why it is highly regarded (at least in some circles.) The later editors did not “change” the translation, they translated it anew.
Now, if I were preparing a bible based on the 1917 passage, I probably would have included a footnote explaining the meaning of the phrase.
Now, as to why the translators chose that translation, I think it is pretty clear. In the KJV, the name is translated as “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” In ASV, the nme is translated as “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Now, I don’t believe these are accurate translations and they certainly go directly against a long tradition of rabbinic interpretation — the Jewish view is that the Messiah is not God. I think that the 1985 NJPS translation is far more accurate, for reasons explained in the next paragraph: “The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler.” Nonetheless, I must concede that a non-contextual reading of the Hebrew here is ambiguous and can be interpreted in more than one way. I suspect that the 1917 translators decided to leave the decision of how to interpret that name to the reader. It was not the decision I would have made, but I think it is a defensible decision.
In this regard, I find Professor Benjamin Sommer’s annotation on this verse in the Oxford Jewish Study Bible illuminating:
” ‘The Might God … ruler’: This long sentence is the throne name of the royal child. Semitic names often consist of sentences that describe God; thus the name Isaiah in Hebrew means ‘The Lord Saves’; Hezekiah, ‘The Lord strengthens’; in Akkadian, the name of the Babylonian king Merodach-baladan (Isa 39.1) means ‘the god Marduk has provided an heir.’ These names do not describe that person who holds them but the god whom the parents worship. Similarly, the name given to the cind in this v. does not describe that child or attributed divinity to him, contrary to the classical Christian readings of this messianic verse.”
As to your comments about the Koren translation — I am not sufficiently familiar with this translation (and I don’t own a copy of it) so I cannot address your comments. I am not aware that this is considered a major Jewish translation.
Mr. Tryger,
Thanks for your additional contribution to this topic and your apology.
Regarding Todd ‘s comments about the JPS, they were only reflecting that the automated survey results suggested that the JPS would/should be high on his list of preferred translations. I haven ‘t verified it with him, but I feel confident that without knowing the difference (like me!) he simply pulled a JPS publicity photo to highlight the automated results he was reporting.
I didn ‘t refer to the 1985/1999 work as a whole as a revision. Rather, I was speaking solely of the revision of one verse, Isaiah 9:5. It isn ‘t necessary to debate the difference between our understandings of “new translation” vs “revision” in the case of this one verse and I do appreciate your expanding on the history of the 1985/1999 edition.
You wrote, “Now, if I were preparing a bible based on the 1917 passage, I probably would have included a footnote explaining the meaning of the phrase.”
While I don ‘t agree with what it seems that you would include in such a footnote, I think this is a fair approach – IF you actually translate the verse. What the 1917 project did was much different – they didn ‘t translate!
You suggest that, “a non-contextual reading of the Hebrew here is ambiguous and can be interpreted in more than one way. I suspect that the 1917 translators decided to leave the decision of how to interpret that name to the reader.”
And this gets near the point of my blog essay: readers can not interpret that which is incomprehensible to them. The 1917 translators chose to leave their target audience, English readers, in the dark with a string of letters that mean nothing in English. And they did this when translating the particular Hebrew words into English is not difficult, and in the case of El Gibor (Mighty God), was done in the very next chapter.
Though it isn ‘t a decision you would have made, you believe their decision to transliterate rather than translate is a defensible decision. I don ‘t believe it is defensible because it, in my opinion, isn ‘t honest or fair to the reader. And my guess is that we are at odds at this point because we have very different understandings of how readers should approach and appropriate the Bible.
Again, I appreciate your contribution.
This is such an interesting discussion that I can’t resist the temptation to add another comment.
Speaking solely for myself, it seems to me that translations that are done from scratch are superior to translations that are revisions of previous translations. I would rank Tyndale superior to the Authorized Version, for example, and the Authorized Version was better than all of its successors: the RV, ASV, RSV, and NRSV, ESV, etc. Even now, when I read Tyndale, I sense a freshness and a strong sense of translation in his words. And I would argue that the AV was superior to the entire lineage of translations that followed it — both in the quality of the English and its fidelity to the original Hebrew (I don’t read Greek, so I can’t address that portion that was translated from the Greek.) One of the standard arguments against the AV is that it uses too much archaic language, but even as a child, I thought that the language of the AV was not a significant hurdle — understanding the deeper meaning of the Scriptural words was a far greater challenge.
In this way, I think that several attempts at new translation in the late 20th century were especially interesting: including the NJPS (1985) and the New English Bible. While we can debate the merits and demerits of these translations, they brough a fresh perspective on the issues dealt with in the original text. As a reader of Bibles in translation, I learn more from theese translations than I learn from revisions.
I also must say that I am disturbed by the explicit agendas of the plethora of modern translations we are now seeing. It seems to me that they approach the task of translation as justifying a certain set of assumptions — in some cases liberal (thus it seems that most recent Bible translations brag about some view that they take with respect to grammatical gender, or attempt to support a certain liberal or conservative theological view, etc.) Instead of asking the question: what does this text mean and how can we best express it in English, the translations seem to be addressing some other point. Now Bible interpretation is certainly fair game (and edifying) but I would prefer that it be put in the footnotes — and instead for the translators to ask themselves, honestly, what does this text say?
For these reasons, I enjoy the text of the NJPS, which is a true, fresh translation, and I don’t like the 1917 JPS, which is only a “Jewish” revision of the RV and ASV. It seems to me that if we are asking “what does this text mean” then we shouldn’t have adjectives like “Jewish” in front of different versions.
I would, however, like to point out that both the 1917 JPS and the 1985 NJPS differ in their interpretation of this verse from the traditional Jewish understanding. Traditional Jewish interpretation was largely defined by Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (usually called by a Hebrew acronym of his name: Rashi) in the 11th century in his commentary on the Hebrew Bible. Even today, Rashi is the one commentary that is most important to print with Jewish Bibles.
The Judaica Press translation of the Bible includes a translation into English of Rashi and is available online at http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=63255
In this translation, Rashi comments on the verse in question:
For a child has been born to us:
Although Ahaz is wicked, his son who was born to him many years ago [nine years prior to his assuming the throne] to be our king in his stead, shall be a righteous man, and the authority of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His yoke shall be on his shoulder, for he shall engage in the Torah and observe the commandments, and he shall bend his shoulder to bear the burden of the Holy One, blessed be He.
and . . . called his name:
The Holy One, blessed be He, Who gives wondrous counsel, is a mighty God and an everlasting Father, called Hezekiah ‘s name, “the prince of peace,” since peace and truth will be in his days.
Thus, the Judaica Press translation translates the verse as follows:
For a child has been born to us, a son given to us, and the authority is upon his shoulder, and the wondrous adviser, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, called his name, “the prince of peace.”
Given that both the 1917 JPS and the 1985 NJPS broke with the traditional Jewish interpretation in their translation is remarkable — and indicates to me (especially in the case of the 1985 translation) that at least some of the translators approached their task with a fresh, open mind.
In any case, I’ve enjoyed this exchange and I hope Mr. Dunning has as well — and I wish him continued success in his Scriptural studies.
Mr. Tygar and Mr. Dunning – thank you for your good insights. I have enjoyed the discussion and know that the other readers have as well.
Just to clarify two things: I own the JPS Tanakh but do not often use it. That it was a preferred translation was simply something suggested by an online survey based on my translation preferences. I also was unaware of the translation’s history and simply used an online graphic to illustrate the entry. I obviously chose the wrong graphic. I am sorry for that, but happy with the informative discussion. I thank you both again for helping to clarify the issues.