16 September 2010
Befuddled...
...today's reading from 2 Chronicles 35:5,7 in Treasury. The ESV quite inexplicably uses the term "lay people." Huh? Where is that in the Hebrew or LXX? In either of them we find "sons of the people." Why on earth would the ESV introduce an alien and tautological concept (after all, lay just means people!) into the text???
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I wondered about that, too, but didn't have time to look it up. Hmmm...
Peace
+ Herb
Yeah!!! A first vice president who prays and reads the TREASURY!!! Sweet!
Where's the "like" button, 'cause I like that a LOT! Sweet to the max!
I don't read the Treasury at all, but I do read St Jerome. He gives the passage as Et ministrate in sanctuario per familias turmasque Leviticas".
It's the folks who ain't Levites -- lay people. Turma originally designated a cavalry unit of thirty men, 1/10 of an ala, and came to mean any large group of people in general.
Herb is at it again... being awesome.
He needs to give the rest of us a chance.
Yeah, and he reads Weedon's blog too. No end to his awesomeness. ;o)
I was too busy noticing I'm just like Josiah - putting my nose into business it doesn't belong in (though I usually don't get Egyptian pharoahs quoting God to me.)
It is strange, as you say there's really no ambiguity in either the LXX or BHS. Even the RSV doesn't render it this way. The NIV however uses the same tautology. Could it be a nod to PC, i.e., lay-person rather than layman?
I doubt this is a PC nod since that seems not to be a concern of the ESV.
Why not write to the general editor, JI Packer, and ask? You can reach him at: St. John's Vancouver Anglican Church, 1490 Nanton Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 2E2.
Or Wayne Grudem, who was on the committee that oversaw the translation, may have an answer. (He's written quite about about language and the need for conservative translations). Can't find an email for him but the number for Phoenix Seminary is 888-443-1020.
I tossed the ball into Gene Veith's corner and hope he can run with it for me... :)
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