Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the ESV

I saw this the other day when Samuel Perry posted about it on Twitter. A preprint copy is available from his academia.edu page if you don't have access to the published version. It's sort of the classic translation question of do you use an existing English word (slave) that doesn't have a perfectly overlapping semantic domain with doulos, or do you use a Biblish word (bondservant) that doesn't really trigger any concepts in English speakers and aspire to fill it with the meaning of the NT context. I tend to believe that there was indeed an agenda on the part of the translation committee to minimize slavery texts, since many egalitarian arguments rely on some sort of trajectory hermeneutic and the parallels between slavery and patriarchy as social institutions that need to be transformed.  Perry also wrote on gender ideology in the ESV from a sociological perspective: https://www.academia.edu/39937246/The_Bible_as_a_Product_of_Cultural_Power_The_Case_of_Gender_Ideology_in_the_English_Standard_Version

The gender ideology article that Christy links to above is also available here, in its final published form, complete with tables: https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srz022.

This a great article to get a feel for (1) Perry's perspective and audience; and (2) Perry's acumen as a commentator on how translation works. My favorite line: "the ESV translators actually inserted a word" (it's a pronoun, and the KJV, NET, NEB, NLT, NIV84, and GNT all add it too). Read the whole thing.

Looks like Perry is working on a book about Bible translation and the evangelical movement.

This is part of the linked article, I was just agreeing with it. The arguments and changes to passages are found in the sections "Israelite Instructions Regarding the ‘ebedim in the Old Testament"  and "From “Slaves” to “Bondservants.”" 

The contentions is that if slavery was really just a relatively benign form of servanthood, then there is no reason to reevaluate the household codes that have instructions to slave and instructions to wives as part of the social context that perhaps reflected a less than moral system. Employees should obey their bosses and wives should submit to their husbands today. But as you see in arguments for trajectory hermeneutics (the idea that God's revelation put people on a trajectory toward greater shalom, and biblical mandates for one time should not necessarily be considered moral imperatives for all time), slavery in the OT and NT and the fact that we now consider slavery morally abhorrent is used to argue against interpretations that subordinate women and enforce patriarchy. William Webb is often cited as an example of this approach which is outlined in his book, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals (2001). If the translated passages make it clear to readers that slavery in OT and NT is not something we allow morally in the church today, it makes it harder to argue that surrounding verses about the subordination of women do apply today. Obscuring references to slavery by using words like servant instead is seen as a form of "rescuing" the biblical text from modern critique and avoiding the idea that gender attitudes from the NT cultural context also need to be morally reevaluated.

I read the article on Whitewashing. Interestingly, I just submitted an article about the New Dutch Bible (NBV), which covers similar ground. I did not have Perry's sociological terminology at my disposal, but I can certainly relate to several claims he makes. In my paper I focus on the contribution of cognitive linguistics to modern translation practice. Seen in that light, placing footnotes to explain concepts that have changed (such as slavery) makes sense as "modifying the cognitive environment." Perry may want to rephrase some of his claims in the light of cognitive linguistics. I hope he is willing to do that. For he seems to be relishing a suggestive writing style. (At least, that is what I sense, admittedly as a non-native speaker of English.) Involving linguistics would force him to become much more nuanced and to abandon his libellious posture towards religious subgroups which he seems to be enjoying.

I'd recommend watching this response to the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS99tjsBO4

After a first quick read-through, I'm working slowly through Perry's "Whitewashing" piece, and I'd like to offer a few comments that might provoke discussion or reflection. (These comments reach to the end of the slavery sections, top of p.632.)

Slavery: What the ESV Did (per Perry)

1. They "modified their preface" to include a discussion of the translation of 'ebed and doulos, "assert[ing] that such terms might need to be translated differently (slave, bondservant, or servant) depending on context."
   Comment: One can imagine giving paratextual nuance and admitting the difficulties of translation could be a good thing, too.
2. They "made immediate and unannounced changes to roughly one-quarter of the Old Testament slave references in the 1971 RSV."
   Comment: Out of 802 [Cline's count] instances of 'ebed in the OT, the RSV translates 62 as 'slave(s)' (not 80, as Perry says). ESV reduces that number t

I think it's good that Christy bring up hermeneutics, since our hermeneutical approach is inseparable from what we do as translators (and English translation committees across the spectrum should be more self-reflective and open about this).

The claim seems to be that the ESV translators (consciously?) changed their translation of selected slave passages, not because they think the context of the passages demands it but because the change serves to undermine a hermeneutic they find distasteful. I hope that's not true.

As I try to say in my long post further below, the focus on hidden motives in Perry seems mostly unhelpful, and reminiscent of long-ago conservative attacks on the RSV ("they want to hide Christ's divinity") or the GNT ("they don't believe in the Blood!"). My impression is that Evangelical scholars have mostly moved on from this sort of thing, and christoltelic and trinitarian hermeneutics as practiced for the last 20 years work equally well with the RSV or GNT as they do with the ESV or NASB. We still see this sort of thing in World Magazine (Stealth Bibles, and so on), but not so much in serious Evangelical discourse, and I think that's a really good thing. If a hermeneutic depends on a handful of very specific translation decisions, our hermeneutic needs a doctor. This was certainly true of early and mid-twentieth century "biblicist" hermeneutics, and what's good for one goose is good for all the geese.

Reflecting on these questions might also temper our criticisms of translation decisions in translations we don't personally care for. The ESV makes quite a lot of choices that I disagree with, on various grounds. But isn't it more productive to focus on why those are bad decisions, and not to construct a totalizing narrative that depends on Wayne Moriarty's hidden hand nefariously guiding the translators' decisions?

Antisemitism and the Jews

There's not much in this section. The ESV doesn't change anything, except for "strategically" attaching footnotes to the word "Jews" in 13 verses (by my count; Perry found 12), saying things like "Or Judeans; Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time."

We don't have to speculate why the ESV made the change from slave to bondservant. There's a video on YouTube from nine years ago with actual footage of the ESV committee debating and voting on the change.

https://youtu.be/Mx06mtApu8k