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Anybody know the background to NET's translation of Gen 15:6, esp. in light of Rom 4:3? They match in the LXX but not in NET!

I love the NET concept with the academic notes, but many translation choices appear artifically altered to sound different from traditional renderings. Then I check the notes and find a more accurate translation provided there.

I also get the sneaky suspicion sometimes (alliteration!) that the NET is consistently "off" a little, and I'm not thinking about reasonable dynamic-equivalence.

Interestingly, the comments in "Translation Feedback" for Gen 15:6 have been pending for 2 years now.

I'm more interested in the philosophy behind the Gen 15:6 translation than in trying to convince anybody to change it

Ingo Sorke

Genesis 15:6 6 Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord considered his response of faith as proof of genuine loyalty. Context (NET)

Romans 4:3 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Context (NET)

I'm beginning to really dislike the NET old testament. Is it trying to be a paraphrase? It's funny though, the New Testament seems fine...

The following are a few I have come across in my time on the forums, are there other weird ones out there?

Gen 1:27 27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. Context (NET)

Gen 2:24 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become a new family. Context (NET)

Gen 3:16 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.” Context (NET)

Gen 5:1 1 This is the record of the family line of Adam. When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God. Context (NET)

Gen 18:12 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, “After I am worn out will I have pleasure, especially when my husband is old too?” Context (NET)

Most of these suggest an egalitarian/feminist bent, perhaps that is part of the NET philosophy?

Dale

_________________
Its all greek to me...

Yes, there is an egalitarian tilt in the NET. In many cases I don't see a problem with that, but it can come across as trying too hard, esp. when the source languages come from a non-egalitarian context (regardless of one's position on this issue).

And yes, the use of "family" in Gen 2:24 is odd, esp. since it loses the connection to the same Hebrew word used in 2:23.

I think Ps 1:1 had a man in mind, not a generic "one" or plural "those" (see TNIV). Again, in many cases universalising male language seems appropriate, but not here.

So I agree, the NT is more on target IMHO than the OT.

Ingo

First let me state that I find the concept of the NET Bible to be very awesome. I think that more Bible publishers should have "Ministry First" copyrights and I think the ability to freely download a Bible electronically is a great gift from the Bible publisher.

I also greatly enjoy the NET Bible's Translators' notes for the most part and am excited to use it in my studies.

Now, on to my second point regarding the translation of Gen 15:6...

I agree with the above posts that it doesn't quite make sense when the reference from the NT is "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" yet the OT reads something completely different (yet provides the literal rendering in the study notes).

Now, when reading the introduction to the NET Bible I discovered that they basically followed more of a dynamic equivalence in the text but provided the formal equivalent in the study notes. This may account for the inconsistencies in the text.

I'm editing my own post. What followed was a little more inflammatory than I wanted it to be and so in the spirit of being more irenic I've decided to remove it.

Ingo Sorke wrote Hi, I'm the sponsor of the NET Bible. I joined the forum tonight after first discovering your 2 year unanswered question! Ouch, that was too long to wait. I'll act as a go between and get all the answers that the forum raises from the translators and scholars - and can perhaps help to inject some of the personalities, motivations, and behind the scenes reasons why you see what you see in the NET Bible text. As a professional pew sitter rather than a scholar myself, I've shared the need to guess what translators were thinking as I've studied with the NASB and NIV for years - since Bible readers can't usually call the translators up on the phone and ask what they were thinking. (In fact that was why I asked the team to invent the concept of Translators' Notes. Its impossible for a person to be a Berean believer and "check if these things are so" if they can't translate the Greek and Hebrew for themselves. The original concept of the Translators' Notes is so I could read what they were thinking and learn from them.)

In defense of the team and our lack of interaction in this forum so far...they simply haven't had time. Our team of about 25 scholars has done the work normally done by teams of about 100 scholars. The NIV and NLT teams took about a decade each as well, so our folks were working with about 25% the manpower. When you consider the Translator's notes, the NET Bible's text plus footnotes has about 5x the words of the other translations, so the team shouldered about 20x the hours and words produced compared to the other translations. Since the NET First Edition was completed, we have produced several other NET Bible projects which will be announced shortly.

I'll try for a short answer tonight based on a quick conversation with the team. (I guess it isn't that short. I started at 1:30 AM and have an early meeting tomorrow, but ended up typing till 3 AM! Hope it doesn't take that long to read...)

I read your question and found the premise of it and the supporting argument to be fair and convincing - to paraphrase your question "since Gen 15:6 and Rom 4:3 are way different in the NET Bible, why is that?" The issue is one of assumptions and translation philosophy.

Let me first assert a few principles:
1. Sloppy translation is not acceptable.
2. Change for no reason is to treat God's word with disrespect.
3. Questions of orthodoxy and agenda require that we address the agenda and the definitions and desires of being true to orthodoxy.
4. Parallel passages with the same Greek or Hebrew should almost always be translated exactly the same each time they are parallel.
5. Parallel passages with different Greek or Hebrew should almost never be translated into exactly the same English because to do so is to hide precious nuances of the original text from the Bible student.

You may not have read the summaries of our time, but the NET Bible team spent more time looking at the Synoptic Parallels than other translation teams spend on editing the whole NT. Likewise, the team spent almost 8 years editing and considering parallel passages between the OT and NT. We believe it is the first translation in history to fully resolve all of the parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels - such that all parallel passages read precisely the same when the Greek is the same. To do otherwise is to be unfaithful to the task of translation.

On the other hand, to falsely munge two passages with different Greek texts into identical English translations is to be unfaithful to the original texts. Thus you'll find that when the parallel passages add omitted nuances, the translation team labored for thousands of hours to ensure that the resultant richness of the Greek texts were faithfully transmitted to the English reader by the combination of the NET Text and translators' notes. We've even spent countless hours on stuff you wouldn't believe such as: One star trek fan noticed that in the "literal" Greek that Paul was let down in a basket through the wall in one synoptic parallel, while he was let down through an opening in the wall in another parallel. The trekie asked if that didn't open the door to star trek style teleportation through solid matter! While this is an obvious dumb assertion on the text, a faithful reader of the original is supposed to live "by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Mt 4:4 Rightly divided, every nuance of the original Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Ugaritic, etc passage in the Bible texts has a very high value to us all.

Thus, your comments were insightful. When you see words that are way different, you should wonder why that should be.

In the history of Bible translation, each generation stands on the shoulders of those who have done previous work. When Erasmus compiled the TR text for the KJV translation team, he had precious few NT Greek documents. We now have many more manuscripts than were available in 1970 when the NIV was done. We also have the reflection on 400 years of English translations as well as advances in the understanding of both grammar and word usages not known to previous generations.

At the heart of your question is something I didn't understand till our scholars started showing me examples of the types of tradeoffs made by previous translators. This is the value of being faithful to the original texts and letting the translation be more faithful to the Hebrew and Greek than to any traditions of false harmonization either. The team feels that to translate two identical passages differently is unfaithful to the text. Likewise, to translate two clearly different texts identically is to bury important nuances - which is equally unfaithful to the text. More importantly, to do so is to hide valuable insights and richnesses clearly included in the texts.

The translators of the LXX as well as the KJV did not always let the original text speak clearly and completely - by harmonizing divergent texts. That the LXX agrees with Romans but not Genesis shows that they harmonized the Greek OT translation to agree word for word with the NT Greek, reflecting a slight loss in the richness of the Hebrew text. It is important to put full disclosure here - but with a warning. When we compare translations, I do not mean to imply lack of inspiration or faithfulness. Jesus in fact read from the LXX and declared it to be the Word of God, so showing that inspired words translated with not perfect precision are still true. When the KJV team translated the passages affirming the Virgin Birth of Jesus, they were being truthful. When they back translated Is 7:14 to say that this was a prediction of Jesus's birth to a young virgin, that was also true - but it was not faithful to the original text. The Hebrew meant "young woman" but not "virgin". There were OT "young women" who were married and had kids and were not virgins, and there were "young women" who were virgins - all using this same Hebrew word from Is 7:14. Thus the Is 7:14 passage is not contradicted by the New Testament, but expanded upon. Thus the notion of progressive revelation allows for one prophet to see part of the picture - and later prophets to add more detail to the picture. None contradict each other, but instead complete the picture.

Unfortunately, both liberals and conservatives have been guilty of modifying the texts to falsely harmonize them - and to serve pet nuances of doctrines and other traditions. You won't believe me till you can see tons of examples and affirmation from original language folks - but our goal is to be mercilessly faithful to the full meaning of the original texts. I am a conservative Evangelical, but since our task was to translate the Bible for the world to use for free - we felt the extra pressure of being faithful to the text. We were not making the NET Bible for North American evangelicals only - but for the world. And we also felt the necessity to show that being obsessively faithful to the text was not a "liberal" thing done to destroy long held beliefs - but instead something that is a necessity for conservatives who choose to hold the Bible in high regard. We don't have to twist the text to conform to tradition, but instead felt the need to simply be faithful to the original and be transparent. By approaching the translation from a standpoint of faithfulness to the original (not to the LXX or KJV or NIV, etc.), we were pleasantly surprised that we got less heat from all fronts than if we had done a more traditional work which preserved traditional renderings at the expense of letting the original shine through more. Many folks who come from extreme opposites within the pale of orthodoxy have endorsed the NET Bible simply because they see a fair treatment of the original.

So now for the short answer to your question from one of our translators:

"My short answer would be, Gen 15:6 is a nuanced translation of the Hebrew text (not the LXX, which has no bearing here) while the translation of Rom 4:3 is a translation of the Greek text (which happens to agree with the LXX but is still not the Hebrew).

I don't think it has anything to do with "philosophy behind the translation" any more than any other verse anywhere in the NET Bible does. It just represents an attempt to express the meaning behind Gen 15:6 for the modern reader (without making it so easy to read Paul's take on it in Romans backwards into the OT). Most other English versions bow to tradition here because the verse is quoted in the NT and well-known, and make it sound the same regardless.

If you read the NET note on Gen 15:6 you can see how the translation was arrived at, and there should not really be any need for further questions; it's a legitimate rendering of the Hebrew backed up by usage in cognate languages. Are there other ways to render the Hebrew? Yes, as our notes indicate, but not with the same nuancing."

{end of translator's quote}

Thus an important principle is the avoidance of "back translation", which is defined as infusing nuances of a later passage back into earlier chapters or books. This passage is a good example of that notion. To be blunt, this is not a case where the NET Bible is not being faithful to the New Testament in the Genesis 15:6 rendering, but instead a case where some of the English translations have chosen harmonization and back translation of the better known New Testament verse over a fully nuanced rendering of the Genesis passage using the best available knowledge of the Hebrew text.

Please don't take my defense of this translation as a trend. Our goal is to continually improve the translation. We are grateful and happy to discover translation improvements in the NET Bible. From the 2nd Beta Edition to the 1st Edition, we made over 20,000 changes to the Old Testament - many of them from comments just like yours. The team did review and use your comment. In fact we have complete records of every comment made - and a senior team member's sign-off on the resolution of each one.

We plan to find hundreds of further improvements in the NET Bible over the next 5 years which will be included in the 2nd Edition. Please accept the apologies of the team for our lack of feedback on this item.

The goal of adding this forum was to elicit comments just like yours that would allow us to interact with the global community. This year, we'll have 20-34 million Bible.org users. Pray for our ability to properly answer necessary questions like yours with our small but faithful volunteer staff.

Next time I'll attempt to address the list of example verses listed by the thread below. Hopefully, there will be a new find in one of them that forces a new footnote or a translation improvement.

Best regards in Christ,

Joe

PS. Let me know if this level of detail is what you expected and if you'd like to see a different format for future questions and answers. I'll also get the scholars to critique my response and offer corrections and insights I missed.

Joe:

Appreciate the thorough response.

(If this is your short answer, I'm almost afraid to see the long version.) (':D')

Just a couple of things I noticed:



There is no Ugaritic material in the Bible.



You also say that Jesus quoted from the LXX, which raises the question for me of how the LXX translators could have harmonized their work with an epistle of Paul if Jesus was quoting from their translation. Are you suggesting that the LXX was subsequently modified by Christian redactors who changed its readings to agree with NT citations?

I think one of the wider issues raised here is the lack of response as seen from the perspective of us general "users" when we check the translation feedback tool. I personally have offered around 5 feedbacks on various different verses, but none of those comments have had any feedback posted. That leaves us in doubt as to whether our input is really valued.

From what you are saying above, our comments are looked at, but the web feedback tool isn't always updated. Perhaps a project for someone to update all the comments in this tool on behalf of the translators?

All of Joe's post and the above quote in particular are extremely encouraging to me. Thank you for sponsoring this project and providing these tools to the global church.

I just found the NET Bible project today -- after having spent months exploring the sets of categorically related words used to translate each of about half of the Greek words identified by Strong's numbers. For example, the set 'positive emotions' includes exultation <21>, joy <5479 from 5463 rejoicing>, gladness <2167>, pleasure <2237>, etc. As part of my formal education was training in the psychological aspects of word meaning and categories, I am intensely frustrated with some of the inconsistencies I find in translations even when they claim to be literal.

For example, Young's Literal translates the two occurrences of <4018> peribolaion differently when the word "mantle" would do for both.


A woman's long hair signifies her mantle in two ways: (1) it covers her shoulders as would a cloth mantle; and (2) it signifies spiritual authority [to command angels and fallen angels (i.e., demons)] as indicated by verse 10 of 1Cor 11 "For this reason a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. (NET) The term "robe", which NET Bible uses in Heb 1:12 would work, but I hope the term used in the NT would be consistent with the term used in the OT (e.g., 2Ki 2:14 "He took the cloak that had fallen off Elijah, hit the water with it, and said, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" When he hit the water, it divided and Elisha crossed over." NET)

Joe's post gives me hope that I can provide input for consideration that will be taken seriously if it is true to the Greek even when it does not conform to the traditional mental models used for previous translations.

May our Lord increase His blessings on you,
Martha

I very much appreciated the response. I still think - apart from the LXX and harmonization issues - that Gen 15:6 in the NET is quite the paraphrase. May be I need to brush up on my Hebrew, but the LXX seems to be quite faithful to the Hebrew, harmonization with Romans aside. But I do appreciate the genuine response.

After a long journey through "literal" and "dynamic-equivalent" I'm back in the literal camp and wished the NET would use their literal notes as translation and their interpretative paraphrase as notes, but in their translation transparency they stand unrivaled.

So I'm still ambivalent; what a rich resource for study and research - but in a church ministry context the liberal (let's not get hung up on the term) renderings make it difficult to adopt for daily public usage.

I will follow the project with interest.

Thanks again,

Ingo Sorke

I am told the exact words of Gen 15:6 in the LXX are:

kai episteusen abram tw qew kai elogisqh autw
and believed Abraham the Theos and blessed him

But this sounds like "Abram believed the Thos and blessed Him", or to paraphrase, "Abram believed the Theos would fulfill the promises given to Abram in Gen 15:5 and blessed (or praised) God for His righteousness to Abram, (His obedient servant).

Thus it seems that Abram could have been praising God in a manner that was consistent with many other verses in the OT, especially the words of David in the Psalms where David continually praised God for His righteousness.

Is there something in the grammar that renders Gen 15:6 to mean that Abram is praising God for His righteousness or the reverse, that God is praisng Abram for his righteousness?

Psa 7:17 17 I will thank the Lord for his justice; I will sing praises to the sovereign Lord! Context (NET)

KJV Psa 7:17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.

KJV Psa 35:28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness [and] of thy praise all the day long.

More examples of David and others praising God for His righteousness:

Psa 36:6
Psa 50:6
Psa 51:14
Psa 71:15
Psa 71:16
Psa 71:19
Psa 71:24
Psa 72:1
Psa 88:12
Psa 89:16
Psa 97:6
Psa 103:17
Psa 111:3
Psa 112:3
Psa 119:137
Psa 119:142
Psa 119:144
Psa 119:160
Psa 119:164
Psa 119:172
Psa 129:4
Psa 143:1
Psa 143:11
Psa 145:7
Psa 145:17
Ezr 9:15
Zec 8:8
Mat 6:33

Tom:

Your transcription of LXX Genesis 15:6 is correct (except that it omits the final phrase, eis dikaiosunhn, 'for righteousness').

But your translation is incorrect. The form elogisqh does not mean 'he blessed' but 'it was accounted to him.' It's not an aorist active of eulogew, 'bless,' but an aorist passive of logizomai, 'account, attribute, impute.' So the sense is "Abram believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness." (I don't know why you transliterate Greek qeos as 'the Theos' instead of translating it 'God'.) The Hebrew is active, "and He accounted it to him righteousness;" not sure if LXX has a slightly different reading or (more likely) just felt the passive was more idiomatic in Greek.

A Greek lady friend of mine had given me the text that included the term 'Theos'. But my main concern is with the grammar; how do we know it is God who is imputing righteousness to Abram rather than the reverse - Abram imputing righteousness to God for faithfully promising to fulfill the blessings of Gen 15:5. (In later books of the bible it was quite common for David and others to praise God for His righteousness.)

So far I have been told by some Hebrew experts that the verse could be read either way, but I wish to seek further and broader professional input on this.

Tom:

Syntactically, I would agree both analyses of Genesis 15:6 are possible: taking God as subject and Abraham as indirect object or taking Abraham as subject and God as indirect object.

In Paul's citation of this text in Romans 4:9, though, there is no ambiguity. Paul says that "Faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness." There Paul not only indicates the identity of subject and indirect object, he also defines the antecedent of the direct object pronoun "it" -- Abraham's belief. Similarly, James understands that "Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (2:23) in the context of Abraham's justification -- not God's.

Further, the only other occurrence of a similar expression is in Psalm 106:31, where Phinehas is rewarded for his actions: "and it was accounted to him for righteousness." There's no doubt here that God is recognizing Phinehas and not the other way around.

So, while taking it as Abraham acknowledging or recognizing righteousness in God is syntactically permissible in Genesis 15:6, it doesn't work elsewhere.

_______________________________________________________

But isn't citing Paul what NET Bible Sponsor Joe has called "back translation" earlier in this thread?




Do you know the word for word Hebrew rendition of Psalms 106:31-32?

The NET translation seems to be a paraphrase.

Psalms 106:30-31 30 Phinehas took a stand and intervened, and the plague subsided. 31 This brought him a reward, an eternal gift. Context (NET)

Can we compare the word for word Hebrew from the Psalms with the Word for word of Gen 15:6?

Tom:

What we have in Genesis 15:6 is a text that can be understood in either of two ways.

What we have in Romans 4 and James 2 is a Holy Spirit-inspired interpretation of which of those two alternatives was originally meant.

Paul and James believed that God imputed righteousness to Abraham in response to his faith. I choose to believe what these two inspired NT authors believed.

It isn't an issue of 'back translation'. The sense understood by Paul and James is a perfectly accurate understanding of the Hebrew text of Genesis. You'll note that I pointed out above that Joe's concept of 'back translation' is internally inconsistent (to which I never received a response).

Certainly some NT citations of the OT redirect the OT material, majoring on the verbal correspondence to make a point entirely different from that of the original. Matthew's citation of Hosea 11:1 is a classic example of this. But such midrashic redirection is obvious. Paul and James, despite deriving very different theological applications from their use of Genesis 15:6, both cite the original text in a straighforward manner. There's no need to read Genesis 15:6 in the opposite direction of both NT citations.

On Psalm 106:31b, the NET is absurdly paraphrastic. It barely resembles the original Hebrew. A more literal rendering of the text of vv.30-31: