Dissident Dispatches

by Andrew Fraser

  Postscript

  My lecturer in early church history, Associate Professor William Emilsen, awarded this paper a Distinction grade and made the following comment:

  Drew, as I said in class there is no doubt that the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 becomes part of the versus Judaios tradition in the early centuries; as you say it was seen as a judgement of God. However, the evidence that the fall of Jerusalem marks the beginning of a new covenant is not so strong and there is no reason to think, at least in the first three centuries, why Christians might have hoped that Judaism would simply disappear. I’d be inclined to investigate Eusebius’ philosophy/theology of history a little more before you draw too many conclusions from him. You will recall from our class debate on Nicaea how he eulogised Constantine, portraying him as the thirteenth apostle. Eusebius is interested in creating a Gentile identity out of Judaism.

  Have you wondered why the most “realised” of the Gospels — John’s Gospel — does not mention or even hint at the fall of Jerusalem? Also, in that same Gospel, salvation is “now” — in the period of Christ’s coming, not after some later cataclysmic event.

  Thanks for drawing my attention to the preterists; I can see why some people are attracted to it.

  8. A Warning Shot across the Bow

  At the end of the first semester, on 20 June 2011, I received a letter from Associate Professor Clive Pearson, the Principal of United Theological College directing me to make an appointment to meet with him. The letter informed me that he had received complaints from students and faculty “concerning comments that you have made while on-site and in class on the Parramatta campus” and ideas contained in assignments circulated to others.

  He added that the complaints had to do with the following matters:

  Holocaust denial;

  Anti-Semitism;

  Race and ethnicity;

  The status of women.

  Upon receipt of this letter, I arranged and attended a meeting with Professor Pearson at his office on 30 June 2011. Immediately after the meeting I went home to compose the following memorandum:

  Clive Pearson, the Principal, greeted me, asked me to sit, and, after a few pleasantries, we got down to the matter at hand; namely, the complaints which had been the subject of his letter. I asked how many complaints he had received and he replied: six (actually “sex” since he’s a Kiwi). I asked how many staff, how many students? Three of each, one of the student complaints having come from the Student Association (which is a bit off, considering that I’m a student and no one from the SA spoke to me of their concerns, whatever they were/are).

  Pearson answered in the affirmative when asked whether the complaints were in writing. But he declined to produce them when asked whether I could see them. At that point, he said he wanted to explain the nature of our meeting from his perspective as someone wearing two hats. One is his position as Principal of UTC where he is beholden to the Uniting Church which owns the UTC property; the other is his position as head of the multi-campus School of Theology in Charles Sturt University. In the latter capacity, he has already been in contact with the Ombudsman for CSU, Miriam Dayhew, down in Wagga [Wagga].

  I gather that this meeting came about at her suggestion.

  It was as principal of UTC that he was concerned with allegations of holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, racism, and sexism since all these thought crimes violate Uniting Church policies in favour of multiculturalism, refashioning the relationship between Christians and Jews (i.e. anti-supersessionism) and a special sensitivity to the religious significance of the “Shoah”. And, of course, he was bound to be especially vigilant in combating “racism”. He appeared surprised and annoyed when I suggested that one student in my classes was particularly vocal in her use of the term “racist” as a code word for “white”. He was especially evasive when I asked him how Uniting Church resolutions could be binding on me as student in a public university and someone who is not a member of the Uniting Church.

  I asked him how the allegation of holocaust denial came up. He referenced the Old Testament class taught by Dr Jione Havea. I replied that the only time I mentioned the holocaust was in the context of a discussion in class, very upsetting to one woman, in which Dr Havea insisted there was no archaeological evidence to support the biblical story of Joshua causing the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down. I mentioned that this problem suggests an interesting parallel to the historical criticism of the Jewish religious narrative which centres on the homicidal gas chambers allegedly used at the Auschwitz concentration camp. I cited a recent article by the editor of Der Spiegel acknowledging the absence of any archaeological evidence for homicidal gas chambers in the camp proper (and which also drops the estimated Jewish death toll at Auschwitz from the 4 million victims asserted by the Nuremberg tribunal to around half a million, 365,000 were allegedly gassed in Birkenau).88

  I pointed out that I always had a special interest in historiographical disputes generally while a student of history; accordingly, the high stakes involved (go to jail if you take the wrong side of the argument in Canada, Germany etc.) makes the revisionist challenges to the received holocaust narrative not just of considerable interest to me personally but also highly relevant to classroom discussions of historical criticism aimed at biblical narratives central to the Christian faith — what is sauce for the geese should be sauce for the ganders upset by historical criticism of the official holocaust narrative underpinning contemporary “Judeo-Christianity”. It became clear in this part of our discussion that my orthodox views on Christian supersessionism were the basis for allegations of anti-Semitism.

  But Pearson was not at all interested in discussing the substance of my alleged thought crimes. He wanted to find a way forward. He asked, hopefully, whether I might not prefer to drop out of the course when I remarked that UTC was the most intolerant and bullying academic environment I had ever experienced. I mentioned several instances of bullying and harassment by staff members in class and at a seminar featuring the black liberation theologian Anthony Reddie. I suggested that I had good grounds to file a complaint of my own. He then suggested that I should do the course online. I declined saying that the whole point of the course for me was to see what makes mainstream Christianity tick, even if it meant being exposed to bullying and harassment from the staff and some other students at UTC. On the latter issue, I formally requested an investigation by the Ombudsman into the reaction to my conduct among all the students in my classes including those who had not complained. I mentioned one student who had complained to Dr Ben Myers over my exclusion from tutorials in his Introduction to Theology unit on the ground that my participation made Dr Steve Wright’s class interesting.

  I had already asked Person whether any of the complaints had made specific allegations against me concerning lack of respect and tolerance for others, that I had bullied or harassed students because of their race or ethnicity, that I had interfered with anyone’s right to pursue academic goals without fear or intimidation, or that I had damaged the dignity or self-respect of any student or employee? He said that the complaints did not make such allegations in specific terms (except that one student was said to “feel intimidated” by my “too forthright” manner of speaking) but their “general tenor” suggested that my conduct may have infringed CSU policies.

  About three weeks later Professor Pearson and the CSU Ombudsman held a public meeting to discuss “harassment and racism in the classroom”. About fifteen or so students attended, including a Tongan woman, Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, with whom I regularly crossed swords in classroom discussions.

  My name did not come up perhaps because I was present and assiduously taking notes.

  I heard no more about the complaints until close to the end of the second semester in October 2011. Until then I supposed (naïvely) the matter was closed and that there was no question of any further official action against me.

  I therefore turned my attention to the two courses I took in se
cond semester 2011; namely, Introduction to the New Testament and an ecclesiology subject called Being the Church.

  9. New Testament Translation Essay: Galatians 3:23–28

  Translations: New King James Version (NKJV); New Revised Standard Version (NRSV); New International Version (NIV); New English Bible (NEB); Good News Bible (GNB).

  Analysis

  Every biblical translator must choose between fidelity to the original source language and communicability to the target audience of the text in its translated form. No doubt many translations seek ways of accommodating or negotiating a compromise between both goals. But a translator determined to uphold the “principle of complete equivalence” aim “to preserve all of the information” in the source text. Such a methodology is known as the “formal correspondence” school of translation. On the other hand, some translators need to be sensitive to cultural and social factors affecting the reception by its target audience of the translated text. If that concern is uppermost, the result may be a free translation or even a paraphrase. The goal is to reproduces in a different language the mood or impression conveyed by the original text to those to whom it was first addressed. This methodology, in short, seeks, not word-for-word equivalence but a more “dynamic” or “functional” equivalence between sentences or even passages as a whole.89

  The original King James Bible (KJB) adopted an English translation characterized by both a highly formal correspondence between the source texts and the finished product in English and a legendary literary reputation. The NKJV seeks to retain both qualities while accommodating modern usage. The NRSV, too, continues “in the tradition of the King James Bible” and, accordingly, bills itself as “essentially a literal translation” in which paraphrase has been kept to a minimum.90 Not surprisingly, then, the NRSV rendition of Galatians 3:23–28 gives the slightly more literal NKJV a politically correct spin while retaining a formal air. As one moves through the NIV, NEB, and GNB translations of the passage the English expression of the translation becomes progressively freer and more demotic.

  Verse 23. But the differences between the selected translations should not be over-emphasized. In verse 23 only the GNB departs significantly from the formal precedent laid down by the NKJV. The GNB reference to “the time for faith” and “this coming faith” lend a much more predestinarian mood to the passage than the other four translations. By capitalizing the “Law,” the GNB best captures the implicitly Jewish character of the word nomos in the original Greek.91 The NEB, too, is more willing to exploit the flexibility inherent in the concision of the original verbs meaning “to lock up” and “to imprison.”

  Verse 24. In this passage, the NKJV reveals the scholarly bent of its intended audience by italicizing words “or expressions in the original language which require clarification by additional English words.”92 It also sticks to the literal denotation of the Greek word for “tutor” from which the English word pedagogy is derived. The NRSV uses the word “disciplinarian” instead, underlining, perhaps, their use of the double-barrelled phrase “imprisoned and guarded” in the previous verse. The NIV avoids both the pedagogic and disciplinarian implications of the original text by opting for the more neutral, administrative term “put in charge.” The NEB, however, puts a “tutor” back “in charge,” while the GNB places the “Law” in charge of us. The GNB also eschews the formal theological references to justification by faith found in the first four versions in favour of putting its readers “right with God through faith.”

  Verse 25. Each of the five translations of this verse extends the logic of its rendition of verse 24 into this verse as the role of the tutor, disciplinarian, supervisor, or the Law, as the case may be, comes to an end.

  Verse 26. In this verse, both the formal equivalence and the dynamic equivalence schools split on the question of how one should render the Greek word, υίοι. The Greek original clearly refers to sons rather than to gender neutral children. But the NRSV and GNB bow to political correctness by opting for the latter while the formalist NKJV joins with the middle-of-the-road NIV and the free-thinkers of the NEB to uphold traditional usage, ie “sons of God.” Noteworthy, too, is the replacement of the Greek word for “faith” by “union” with or in Christ in both the NEB and the GNB.

  Verse 27. Here the NKJV sticks with a minimalist formal translation, stating simply that those who “were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Judging from the other translations, the majority view is that the original Greek verb typically connoted the act of getting dressed; hence they speak of being “clothed” or putting on Christ “as a garment” in order to enhance the intelligibility of the text to an English-speaking audience. The NEB and GNB also take the opportunity to reiterate the idea of a “union” with Christ that, strictly speaking, is not to be found in the original text which uses the Greek word for “faith.” The most didactic translation in the GNB equates that “union” with the experience of being “clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself.”

  Verse 28. In this verse the NKJV, the NRSV, and NIV offer very similar formal translations, the with the NRSV preferring “no longer” to the “neither…nor” formulation employed by the other two. The NEB and GNB use more colloquial language: “no such thing as” and, “there is no difference,” respectively. The idea of being “one in Christ” also receives a built-in expression in both translations. The NEB speaks of being “all one person in Christ Jesus” while the GNB once again invokes the phrase “in union with Christ Jesus.”

  There remains the question of whether a particular theological bias is evident within any or all of these translations. It may well be that the choice between the formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence schools of translation is related to competing preferences for a high church versus low church brand of theology. The word-for-word equivalence important to advocates of formal correspondence gives greater weight and reverence to the source of the translated text in the received Word of God than those who aim instead to modernize the style and enhance the accessibility of their translation for a contemporary audience.

  From that perspective, it seems clear that the NRSV and the NKJV are addressed to a more scholarly audience than either the NEB or the GNB, both of which appear more attentive to the needs of less-educated readers. The NIV is often used for public readings; it, therefore, stands somewhere in the middle. While it offers relative accessibility to popular audiences, it also retains something of the greater dignity attached to formal translations.

  New King James Version:

  23. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.

  24. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

  25. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

  26. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

  27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

  28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

  New Revised Standard Version:

  23. Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.

  24. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.

  25. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,

  26. for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

  27. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

  28. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

  New International Version:

  23. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

  24. So the law was put in charge to lead us
to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

  25. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

  26. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,

  27. for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

  28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

  New English Bible:

  23. Before this faith came, we were close prisoners in the custody of law, pending the revelation of faith.

  24. Thus the law was a kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come, when we should be justified through faith;

  25. and now that faith has come, the tutor’s charge is at an end.

  26. For through faith you are all sons of God in union with Christ Jesus.

  27. Baptized into union with him, you have all put on Christ as a garment.

  28. There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.

  Good News Bible: