At least, that's what I thought. Didn't that whole thing get settled in the fourth century?

Apparently I'm wrong. World Magazine has an article by Gene Veith that mentions a Bible version called The Inclusive Bible. Veith (who seems rightly horrified by the Inclusive Bible) writes:

The Inclusive Bible follows the higher critics in leaving out the Pastoral Epistles and Revelation, and it follows The Da Vinci Code in including instead the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. This translation is endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the evangelical leader Tony Campolo.

I guess the editors still view the canon debate as open. So why not drop out Hebrews too? I mean, we don't really know who wrote it. And while we're at it, let's drop Jude out too. I mean, c'mon, it quotes Enoch and it is really kind of weird to boot. Can't we just get rid of 'em?

Yes, folks, that is sarcasm. I guess it was just too hard to make the Pastoral Epistles "inclusive" so they figured they'd drop the whole lot. You can argue all you want about Pauline authorship; I'd contend that matter is certainly not at the point where removal from the canon should be considered. In the area of canon, with established books, doubt on the part of some should not lead to outright dismissal of the book. (This is inclusivity?)

Makes me wonder what they did with the shorter & longer endings of Mark. Or John 7.58-8.11. Or 1Jn 5.7-8. I mean, you know, stuff that is really uncertain from a bona-fide text-critical point of view. Did they drop those passages too? Or are they OK because they don't have any "inclusivity" issues?

How is it "inclusive" for this edition to remove books from the canon like this?

Update (2005-11-03): Thanks to prodding from a ricoblog reader and some curiosity of my own, I did a little searching for more information on this. I can't find any listing for something called The Inclusive Bible that fits Veith's description. The closest I can find (thanks for the pointer, John) is a listing at AltaMira Press. This seems to be equivalent with a translation by "Priests for Equality" mentioned earlier (and uncited by me) in Veith's article.

Is there such a translation as the one Veith describes? If so, and if you know the publisher and can point me to a page that describes the contents and philosophy of the translation, I'd be appreciative. Until then, I apologize for the noise. Thanks!

If you're curious about the busy-ness at the office that's kept me from blogging much, you should check out today's post on the Logos Bible Software Blog. Especially if your eyes light up when you think of things Greek, things having to do with syntax, or with exegesis.

This is the sort of thing I'll be talking about in my paper for the ETS meeting (I'll probably even use the example from the Logos blog) so if you're going to be at ETS make sure to hit the Bible Software presentation on Thursday November 17. The whole session runs from 2:10 to 4:30, all the presentations should be worth catching.

Two items. First, Jim West has already referred to his favorite of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. If you'd like, I've placed a PDF online of all of the theses for you to download. Read them all and see what was going on in Luther's head and heart on that day almost 500 years ago.

Second, check out this post that I wrote last year on what to read on All Hallow's Eve. I'll probably do the same this year.

It's been almost a week since I've blogged. I can sense busy-ness between now and the ETS and AAR/SBL meetings, so blogging will be sporadic.

That said, I do have a question.

I was looking at Mk 1.14-15 this morning. The pastor at the church I attend has commenced a series on Mark, and this was the text for this morning. So it made sense to look at it prior to going to church.

Here's the text in the ESV:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mk 1:14-15)

Here's the text in the NA27:

Μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην ἦλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν * κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ λέγων ὅτι πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ· μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ. (Mk 1:14-15)

I read the text, understood it, and even diagrammed it! Cool stuff is going on here. So I thought I'd check variants. Byzantine editions of v. 14 have a variant that makes "preaching the gospel of God" read as "preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God". This is also represented in Codex Bezae (D).

However, Codex Bezae (D) has another (potential) variant that isn't listed in either the NA27 apparatus or in Tischendorf. Here's the Greek of Codex Bezae (from Scrivener's transcription, which I picked up rather reasonably priced from Amazon):

                         και μετα το παραδοθηναι
τον ιωαννην· ηλθεν ο ΙΗΣ εις την γαλαλαιαν
κηρυσσων το ευαγγελιον της βασιλιεας του ΘΥ
λεγων οτι πεπληρωνται οι καιροι
και ηγγικεν η βαβασιλεια του ΘΥ
μετανοειτε και πιστευεται εν τω ευαγγελιω

Upper-case letters mark nomina sacra; Scrivener's transcription uses overlines for these.

If you compare this to NA27 above, you'll see several variants. But the one that isn't attested anywhere is βαβασιλεια (D) vs. βασιλεία (NA27). Curious, and knowing that a photographic facsimile of Bezae (D) was on the web, I looked it up. Here are the verses (line breaking is the same as above, starting in the middle of line two, if you're interested in tracking):

The sixth line is the line in question. This is really blurry, but there is something down there, illegible though it may be. But βαβασιλεια makes no sense to me. Please enlighten me if it is some attic reduplication or something else going on that I'm just not catching.

Would the actual Bezae be more legible than this photo? I'm guessing so, but how much more, really? The second blurry letter does appear to be consistent with the other alphas in proximity. The first blurry letter may really be a beta, but that only makes sense to me after considering Scrivener, not before. Are there any other possibilities here? Or is βαβασιλεια it? And if so, what does the prepended βα indicate? Or is it just a mistake in transcription (homoioarcton)?

Update (2005-10-31): Jim West responds with a note that he sees the area in question as (from what I can tell) as simply a smudge that shouldn't be read, and that Scrivener's transcription is therefore mistaken. I'm not so sure it's that easy; Scrivener is reconciling the smudge the best he can.

This also would bring up a question regarding transcription: Shouldn't the transcriber try to transcribe the document as best reflects the document, not what may or may not make sense? That is, if you look at the graphic again, you'll see lots of stuff of uneven quality (in the photo, anyway) that could be written off as difficult to read but that obviously represents real content. Shouldn't the transcriber try to encode that in the transcription instead of writing it off as a smudge, even if the smudge doesn't make sense?

For now I'm writing the variant off as homoioarcton of the first two letters of the word. If there are other options (in addition to smudge/error and homoioarcton) please comment, drop an email, or post on your own blog and let me know.

Update II (2005-11-01): Pete responds in the comments with more helpful info. You need to read the comment, but Pete's tentative conclusion is:

OK. Definitely BABASILEIA. Whole page does exhibit damage, so not quite confident that it is a correction by erasure, although that would be my hunch

I'll take Pete's word for it. So, I'm guessing error by homoioarcton (errant duplication of the first two letters of the word) with potential correction by erasure, thus resulting in smudgieness. The bottom line seems to be that this is an error and not witness to the underlying Bezan source; thus βασιλεία should be read here.

Thanks for the help, Pete!

I haven't read this, and I don't want to. I consider it my bloggerly duty to at least post concerning it.

God's Blogs by Lanny Donoho. Published by Multnomah Press.

I did check out the sample chapter. Let me just say, if you look at it ... you were warned. Keep a bucket nearby in case you can't stand the nausea.

I've written a rather lengthy post over on PastoralEpistles.com about 1Ti 4.10:

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. (1Ti 4.10, ESV)

I'm still thinking through it, but if you have ideas, thoughts or if you just want to tell me I'm wrong (please do the favor of explaining why you think I'm wrong) then hop over there and let me know what you think.

Also, a question: Does anyone else out there ever notice your writing takes on the dialect of the stuff you're reading? I just re-read the post I refer to above, and I can tell I've been reading books published in the UK. Stuff like "Saviour" and "criticises" sticks out. Anyone else notice such things?

I was looking into the word τιμάω (because I am working on 1Ti 5.3) and came across 2Cl 3.5:

For he also says in Isaiah, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far removed from me."

This, of course, is a quote of Is 23.19. I thought to myself, "Gee, it would be cool to compare that to the LXX of Is 23.19". So let's do it.

Note: It's late, and I'm doing this on the fly. Mistakes are very possible, if you catch something please leave a comment or drop me an email.

So, not a whole lot of difference. The LXX's plural demonstrative pronoun plus plural verb make sense and Second Clement's singular subject and verb each make sense in their particular context. The difference in verb in the fourth section, however, isn't easy to explain. No variants are listed in Ehrman. So, I checked Lightfoot's massive edition of Clement. He writes,

From Is 29.13, modified by the form in which it is quoted in the Gospels; see the note on the genuine Epistle of Clement section 15 [1Cl 15], where again it is quoted in almost exactly the same form as here.

The reference is 1Cl 15.2, which is as follows:

[{Οὗτος ὁ λαὸς} τοῖς χείλεσίν] [με τιμᾷ,] [ἡ δὲ καρδία αὐτῶν] [πόρρω ἄπεστιν] [ἀπ ̓ ἐμοῦ]

Almost the same, except for the italic portion in curved braces has a different word order in 2Cl 3.5. Of this citation, Lightfoot writes:

From Is 29.13, which is quoted also in Mt 15.8, Mk 7.6. Clement follows the Evangelists rather than the original text. ... Both Evangelists have ἀπέχει with the LXX, where Clement has ἄπεστιν. Clem. Alex. follows our Clement, modifying the form however to suit his context. (Lightfoot, Clement, vol. II p. 55)

Again, not much difference at all. Realizing that the MSS that 1 & 2 Clement is primarily based on dates to 1056 AD, and that we've got Gospel MSS that are far earlier than that whatever your perspective on MSS dating is. I'd guess the form of those MSS is better attestation of the LXX than a 10th century Clement MSS. I'd check the LXX but don't have the edition with the apparatus handy.

NA27 has a very short note on Mt 15.8 that seems somewhat misleading, noting that Bezae, 1424 all the Latin and Cl (Clement of Alexandria) have εστιν instead of ἀπέχει. That changes the saying, but I'm guessing that's why they're minority readings. So I checked Bezae, and that's what it has. Sounds like that's what Clement of Alexandria has to (cf. Lightfoot's note that Clem. Alex. modifies the form). I say "somewhat misleading" because the NA27 apparatus traditionally lists the MSS that support the text's reading; though I guess in this instance the support is so overwhelming it wasn't necessary.

On the whole, looking from Second Clement back to the LXX, the transmission of at least this verse didn't seem to get too messed up.

The NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint) provisional translation page has been updated. Everything is listed so one now knows where the holes are. Several new translations. Joshua, 1 Samuel ("Old Greek"), Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs ... the list goes on.

Unfortunately, no Sirach, which is what I was looking for tonight. Oh well. Thanks to the updates I now know that as of 10/10/2005, Sirach is "in review".

Check it out.

(Yes, I've read the "To the Reader" introduction ... )