For the next seventeen weekdays (starting tomorrow, June 15, 2005), we’ll be featuring answers to the questions asked by blogger Adrian Warnock of the ESV translators. Most answers feature a video of a member of the Translation Oversight Committee answering the question, as well as a transcript of the answer. The answers will also appear on Adrian’s site along with his commentary.
We have seventeen answers for ten questions because some questions have multiple parts, and in other cases different TOC members address the questions a little differently.
We won’t be taking comments on our posts, but we do want to encourage discussion of the answers. Therefore, if you leave a comment or trackback on one (or more) of Adrian’s posts that discusses the answers, you’ll be eligible to win any ESV Bible published by Crossway that has a list price of US$99.99 or less.
On July 11, 2005, we’ll randomly pick three comments from all Adrian’s posts about the questions. If the comments we pick have a way to contact the author (an email address or a link to a website that contains a contact mechanism), then we’ll email the author and let him or her choose to receive for free any ESV Bible that Crossway sells for less than $100. If we can’t figure out how to contact the author of the winning comment, we’ll choose another one.
This offer is void where prohibited. We’ll choose comments randomly, not based on content. Limit one winner per household. (If we pull your name more than once, you’ll only get one Bible. We’ll keep picking comments until we have three different winners.) If the author of a winning comment doesn’t respond within a week, we’ll pick another winner.
The more you comment, the higher your chance of winning. We hope that you’ll find the translators’ answers thought- and discussion-provoking.
Update: We should credit Adrian Warnock for hatching the idea for this contest.
We asked Crossway webmaster Stephen Smith to share his reflections on attending some of the recent Translation Oversight Committee meeting:
On Thursday, June 2, 2005, I had the unique opportunity to sit in on part of a Translation Oversight Committee meeting and observe the ESV translators at work. Afterward, at a dinner for the translators, I was able to share some of how we’re using the Internet to spread news about the ESV—and in particular how this blog is helping to forge new relationships worldwide on behalf of the Standard Bible Society (SBS).
My first reaction when I walked into the conference room where the translators were meeting was to marvel at the sheer number of books and papers arrayed about the conference table: commentaries, concordances, dictionaries (Greek, Hebrew, and English), and of course Bibles. That’s not even counting the reference works available on the notebook computers that most people had. (Four of the computers were Macintoshes, for those of you keeping track.)
It soon became apparent how the wealth of reference material facilitated the efficient operation of the committee. Each person intimately knew the reference books he had in front of him and often consulted them when the discussion turned, for example, on an obscure detail in the original Greek. (I was observing some of their New Testament deliberations.)
But at the same time, I couldn’t believe how much knowledge each of the translators could share without even having to consult anything written. The depth and breadth of their understanding of the issues they were discussing was amazing—evidence not just of extensive preparation for this meeting but also of their mastery of the Bible in both English and the original languages.
I’ll most remember not the specific translation issues the committee discussed but the camaraderie they shared and the love and respect they showed for the Word of God.
The meeting concluded at 5:30 with prayer and adjourned for an hour until dinner at a local café, where I had a presentation to make following the meal.
But first to dinner. (I had chicken.) Sitting next to some of the translators let me get to know them a little bit on a personal level. Did you know that Australia is home to many of the world’s deadliest creatures? That in England a car’s trunk is called a “boot?” That the meaning of maranatha is mildly in dispute? I do now.
After dinner we had two brief presentations from Standard Bible Society and Crossway executives. (Readers of this blog already know most of what was said, and what we haven’t shared with you yet will be forthcoming soon.)
The Crossway executive read an excerpt from this Christianos blog entry as an introduction for me, and then it was my turn. I talked mostly about this blog and how it presents us a way to communicate that was impossible only a few years ago. Having a blog on which we can be open and transparent also fits well with the ESV’s translation philosophy of trying to be transparent to the original text as much as good English will allow.
After I finished speaking and dinner had concluded, I talked with a couple of the translators about some exciting ideas for this blog. Watch for these ideas to come to fruition in the coming months.
In all, I expect that I will never again have a similar experience. I’m thankful to the SBS for letting me experience it in the first place and for allowing me to share my thoughts on this blog.
Thank you to everyone for your prayers for the Translation Oversight Committee (TOC) meeting that occurred last week. We look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming weeks, especially next week when we start to share the answers to Adrian Warnock’s ten questions for the TOC.
The meeting was a great success. The translators got a lot of work done and really appreciate all the prayers they received during this time. We promise to blog some more about the meeting soon.
Here’s a first look at the upcoming ESV Children’s Bible. It will contain over 200 full-color illustrations right where the stories appear in the Bible text. It also has a concordance, charts, diagrams, and features designed especially for kids. We’ll talk about these features more in the coming months.
In the meantime, here are three pictures from the inside of the Bible to give you an idea of what it looks like:
You can pre-order this edition from Crossway.
(This edition is different from the Kid’s Bible for Life, which will include more study helps and is coming in 2006.)
What does the term “revocalization” mean in footnotes to the ESV?
The term “revocalization” has to do with the fact that ancient Hebrew was written using consonants only. Of course, to pronounce a word you must have vowels as well; and a reader fluent in the language would know from the printed consonants and the tradition of oral reading how to pronounce the words.
As the Jewish people came to use Hebrew less and less, their scholars invented a system of writing the vowels so that readers could pronounce the Bible texts properly. The process of supplying these vowel symbols is called “vocalization,” and this is what we have in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament.
The scholars who carried out this vocalization project were so careful and dedicated that they produced a text that students of Hebrew widely regard as almost always accurate.
On occasion, however, the ESV translators believe that another set of vowels makes a more intelligible text. The process of providing another set of vowels is called “revocalization.” In some cases they conclude this because an ancient version seems to have presupposed these other vowels, and in some very rare cases they simply think the other vowels make more sense. In cases in which there is significant scholarly opinion in favor of the revocalization, but the Masoretic vowels are also defensible, the translators have provided a marginal note offering the revocalization as an alternative.
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