August 16, 2002
Answer: Appoint a new agency director who’s the author of an essay, “The Christian World View of the Family,” which explains that “Biblical spanking” that causes bruises or welts isn’t child abuse.
Says the Miami Herald:
The essay also said Christians should not marry non-Christians, that divorce is acceptable only when there is adultery or desertion and that wives should view working outside the home as “bondage.” The “radical feminist movement,” the essay adds, “has damaged the morale of many women and convinced men to relinquish their biblical authority in the home.”Via Max Sawicky, who got it from Atrios. As Max asks: “Is Florida ready for self-government?” [12:25 PM]
The essay also said ... that wives should view working outside the home as "bondage."
What, they get safewords to stop their bosses and clients from acting like assholes? Cool!
Patrick: Thanks so much for posting this. I have a large number of friends w/children in Florida, some of who are child advocates and some of whom are connected to DCF. I've forwarded the links all over the place.
I don't suppose there's any use to pointing out that the Bible (1.) doesn't contain any passages about spanking; (2.) sternly forbids the mistreatment of small children; and (3.) includes, as part of its single longest and most coherent commentary on what constitutes a virtuous woman, the fact that she engages in commercial activity outside the home?
Didn't think so. But you'd think people who are so insistent about reading the Bible would be more familiar with its contents.
Proverbs - which ends with a paean to a capable wife with her own business - has several lines about keeping a son in line by beating him:
19:18 Chastise your son while there is hope in him, but be careful not to flog him to death.
22:15 Folly is deep-rooted in the heart of a boy; a good beating will drive it right out of him.
It's a very mixed bag.
Say what? It's not that mixed (she said, starting to pull translations off the bookshelf).
Mr. Sweeney, the New English Bible, which is what you're quoting there, is, to put it tactfully, a very odd choice of translations. (For even more tactful comments on it, see bible-researcher.com: "The unusual translation prompted many questions from scholars about the text upon which it was based85") I will not go so far as to say it was a willful mistranslation, but let me show you how strikingly it diverges from other translations:
Here's the familiar King James Version, 1611:
19:18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.The Darby translation, 1890, by an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher associated with the Plymouth Brethren:
22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
19:18 Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope; but set not thy soul upon killing him.Young's Literal Translation (YLT) 1898, an extremely literal translation that attempts to preserve the tense and word usages of the original Greek and Hebrew sources:
22:15 Folly is bound in the heart of a child; the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
19:18 Chastise thy son, for there is hope, And to put him to death lift not up thy soul.The American Standard Version (ASV) 1901, another attempt at a good literal translation, incorporating American scholarly preferences of the time:
22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a youth, The rod of chastisement putteth it far from him.
19:18 Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope; and set not thy heart on his destruction.The Amplified Bible (AMP), 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987, which copes with the distortions of translation by giving explanatory alternate readings and amplifications where they exist:
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
19:18 Discipline your son while there is hope, but do not [indulge your angry resentments by undue chastisements and] set yourself to his ruin.The New American Standard Bible (NASB), 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, which is the ASV with its grammar smoothed out, its archaisms updated, and assorted bits of new scholarship incorporated:
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
19:18 Discipline your son while there is hope, And do not desire his death.The Anchor Bible, 1965, 1983, a great and scholarly multi-volume undertaking:
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
19:18 Discipline your son while there is still hope for him, and do not indulge him to his own destruction.The New International Version (NIV), 1973, 1978, 1984, another massive scholarly undertaking:
22:15 Willful ignorance is ingrained in the mind of a boy, [only] the teacher's cane will rid him of it.
19:18 Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.The New King James Version (NKJV), 1975, an attempt at a completely new translation combining modern scholarship with the literary virtues of the KJV:
22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
19:18 Chasten your son while there is hope, And do not set your heart on his destruction.The 21st Century King James Version (KJ21) 1994, which is the old KJV with obsolete words retranslated and the spelling, punctuation, and capitalization updated:
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him.
19:18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare him for his crying.The New Living Translation, 1996, which tries to translate entire thoughts contextually rather than concentrating on word-by-word literal meaning:
22:15 Foolishness is bound into the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
19:18 Discipline your children while there is hope. If you don't, you will ruin their lives.The New Revised Standard Version, 1989, yet another revised and updated descendant of the ASV:
22:15 A youngster's heart is filled with foolishness, but discipline will drive it away.
19:18 Discipline your children while there is hope; do not set your heart on their destruction.The Hebrew Bible in English, 2001, based on both the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 edition and the Masoretic Text:
22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a boy, but the rod of discipline drives it far away.
19:18 Chasten thy son, for there is hope; but set not thy heart on his destruction.I'm not sure anything short of divine intervention could more clearly demonstrate the peculiarity of the New English Bible's translation of those two verses from Proverbs. There's no good reason to use the NEB in preference to better editions; just the bad one of preferring its mistranslations because they give more justification on an issue than the accurate versions do. And that's rather a misuse of scripture, don't you think? Not everyone who cries "Lord, Lord" shall enter the gates of heaven.
22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
I have two more points, fortunately smaller than the one that precedes them. Here's the smallest of the lot: I notice that in the more literal translations, Proverbs 22:15 is specifically talking about boys. I wonder whether the hardliners who're so quick to seize every bit of scripture that can be bent to fit their arguments against the ordination of women are conscientiously taking note of Proverbs 22:15 and beating their daughters less than they beat their sons.
Finally, why is it that the hardline Protestants and fundamentalists, who hold that the New Testament supersedes the Old in all matters theological, make a beeline for the OT the minute they want justification for some repressive social policy? All that wimpy NT stuff about being kind, gentle, tolerant, and forgiving goes right out the window.
Consider Colossians 3:21; you can take your pick of translations:
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. (KJV)
Fathers, do not vex your children, to the end that they be not disheartened. (Darby)
Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart. (NASB)
Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (NIV)
Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or fret your children [do not be hard on them or harass them], lest they become discouraged and sullen and morose and feel inferior and frustrated. [Do not break their spirit.] (AMP)Or Ephesians 6:4:
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (KJV)
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (NIV)
Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord. (AMP)Take that in combination with Matthew 18:3-10, Mark 9:42, and Luke 17:1-2, and you have a fairly unambiguous set of teachings. Are these advocates of "Biblical spanking" spending a lot of time worrying about that one, do you think?
To amplify Miss Teresa's comments a bit (these are from the Douay-Rheims Bible):
Matthew:
18:2. And Jesus, calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them.
18:3. And said: amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
18:4. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven.
18:5. And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.
18:6. But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Shall scandalize. . .That is, shall put a stumblingblock in their way, and cause them to fall into sin.
18:7. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.
It must needs be, etc. . .Viz., considering the wickedness and corruption of the world.
18:8. And if thy hand, or thy foot, scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire.
Scandalize thee. . .That is, cause thee to offend.
18:9. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
18:10. See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
Mark:
9:41. And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me: it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.
Luke:
17:1. And he said to his disciples: It is impossible that scandals should not come. But woe to him through whom they come!
17:2. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.
I'm just in prostrate awe of Teresa's bible collection. I need to bookmark these comments so I can refer to them when I have the wherewithal to take up finding some new ones.
There seem to be two very different readings of the second half of 19:18. The KJV and some of its derivatives roughly say "don't stop just because he's crying", while the others say "don't try to do serious harm". Am I misreading the KJV language, or is there an explanation for the difference?
Geez Teresa I had no idea you were a Biblical scholar. And some of those translations sound really interesting. The updated King James for example. I had no idea such a thing existed. I wonder if I can find one without having to go into one of the hideously upbeat Christian bookstores. I just can't take that much positive thinking. But thanks for alerting me to the fact that such existed.
MKK
I'm sorry, I've inadvertently been misleading. I only own five or six different translations. Many of the rest are courtesy of that truly excellent resource, BibleGateway.com. I'm especially fond of their advanced search page, where you can type in the book, chapter, and verses you want to see, and have it show you that text in up to eleven different editions.
Todd, I don't know why the second half of that verse gets such diverse translations, aside from the universal and perennial problem of ambiguous human communications.
You should see the amount of scholarly ink that's been spilled over interpretations of the last two lines of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn". They don't look like they should be that troublesome, but they are. And that poem's in a language we speak, and was written in a known context by an author whose other work is available to us.
Also, consider that the verse in question is a proverb. Plenty of English proverbs are susceptible to multiple (and sometimes conflicting) interpretations, depending on who you ask.
An exact meaning for that verse may simply not be ascertainable. What I think we can say is that "but be careful not to flog him to death" is an overdetermined meaning, and has more of the translator in it than perhaps it should.
Sorry to be so slow to respond, but only a few of the postings seem to have been emailed, and I hadn't seen Teresa's response.
The New English Bible is what I have at my desk, and I'm not particularly qualified to comment on the quality of its translation. I find its footnotes helpful.
My point was simply that there is a good deal of brutality in Proverbs (and elsewhere in the Bible, for that matter).
The variety of meanings yielded by the different translations underlines the difficulties which should confront anyone relying on biblical literalism. Which text? Which translation? My impression is that American fundamentalists treat the KJV as sacred, and I don't think this is a good thing.
Hey, if everyone were this much of a bug about Bible texts, life would look like the background scenes in Monty Python's Life of Brian.
My point wasn't that there's no brutality in the Bible, but rather that there's less brutality in the Bible than there is in the NEB translation of the Bible.
A secondary point was that there's considerably less brutality in the New Testament than there is in the Old; and that while this may not matter if you hold them to be of equal value, it's odd that those who believe in the supersession of the OT by the NT should so habitually have recourse to the OT in defense of a certain range of issues.
If I turn up with an extra copy of one of the other translations, would you want it? Books are easy to mail.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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