Reflections

This category will consist of occasional “reflections” on translation or select issues pertaining to German New Testament scholarship

Marilynne Robinson, Jörg Frey, and the resurrection of the troubled one

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Not long ago I was struck by an unexpected intersection between my current translation of Jörg Frey’s essays on John and my nightly reading of Marilynne Robinson’s novel Lila. Indeed, I think it is quite possible that Robinson is consciously alluding to the Johannine passage that Frey discusses. Whether or not this is the case, however, I at least found the juxtaposition meaningful and am thus passing it along as something of an Easter meditation. I’ll start with the Robinson quotation so that I can include the German of the Frey quotation after the English translation. Finally, I’ve added a bonus resurrection allusion at the end of the post for all lovers of Sherlock Holmes.

Marilynne Robinson (Lila, p. 92): She meant to ask the old man sometime what would happen when they were all resurrected and he had two wives. He had preached about that, which probably meant he had been wondering, too—they won’t be male or female, they won’t marry or be given in marriage. Jesus said that. So the old man wouldn’t have a wife at all, not even one. This girl and her child, after so many years, would be like anyone else to him. He might be as young as he was when she left him. Lila could see sometimes what he’d been like when he was young. The girl would still be holding that baby he had hardly even had a chance to hold. And there would be no change in her, and no change in him, as if dying had never happened. It would be a strange kind of heaven, after all they’d been through, and all the waiting, if he did not feel a different peace when he stood beside them. Lily could watch them, and love them, because old Doll would be there to say, “It don’t matter.” Don’t want what you don’t need and you’ll be fine. Don’t want what you can’t have. Doll would be there, ugly with all the trouble of her life. Lila might not know her otherwise.

* For a recent discussion of Robinson on theology, see see Kathryn Heidelberger’s post at DET.

Jörg Frey (“Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John”; trans. W. Coppins and C. Heilig): As in the preceding scene with Mary it is recorded that the disciples saw “the Lord,” i.e. that they recognized the one who appeared to them as their familiar Lord. This is effected not through a demonstrative eating but through a personal experience of encounter that mediates the new assurance and Easter joy. This experience is also ignited here through the address by Jesus (in this case with the greeting of peace) and through the bodily form of the crucified one, which is characterized as unmistakable not through a reference to his hands and feet but—in correspondence with John 19.34—through the reference to the hands and the ‘side.’ The risen one is thus the one who is familiar to the disciples from the time of his activity and—decidedly—the crucified one, with his identity after Easter also being enduringly characterized by the signa crucifixi. The stigmata of the crucified one, the marks of the nails in his hands and the wound in his side, confirm the identity of the appearing one with the crucified one. In them it becomes clear whom the disciples see—namely, the previously crucified “Lord.” His appearance drives away fear, mediates Easter joy, and enables the disciples, in the power of the Spirit, to continue the work of this Lord in the post-Easter period (cf. 14.12).

* N.B. The ET contains a few additions/modifications in relation to the German version

“Leiblichkeit und Auferstehung im Johannesevangelium” (pp. 732-733 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten): Wie in der vorausgehenden Szene mit Maria wird festgestellt, daß die Jünger ‘den Herrn’ sahen, d.h. daß sie den ihnen Erscheinenden als den ihnen vertrauten Herrn wiedererkannten. Bewirkt wird dies nicht durch demonstratives Essen, sondern durch eine persönliche Erfahrung der Begegnung, die neue Gewißheit und österliche Freude vermittelt. Diese Erfahrung entzündet sich auch hier an der Anrede durch Jesus (hier mit dem Friedensgruß) und an der leiblichen Gestalt des Gekreuzigten, die nun nicht durch Hände und Füße, sondern in Entsprechung zu Joh 19,34 durch der Hinweis auf die ‘Seite’ als unverwechselbar gekennzeichnet ist. Der Auferstandene ist somit der den Jüngern aus der Zeit seines Wirkens Vertraute und – dezidiert – der Gekreuzigte, und auch seine Identität nach Ostern ist bleibend durch die signa crucifixi gekennzeichnet. Die stigmata des Gekreuzigten, die Hände und die Seitenwunde, lassen die Identität des Erscheinenden mit dem Gekreuzigten zur Gewißheit werden. An ihnen wird deutlich, wen die Jünger sehen, nämlich den zuvor gekreuzigten “Herrn”. Seine Erscheinung vertreibt die Furcht, vermittelt die österliche Freude und befähigt die Jünger, also Zeugen in der Kraft des Geistes das Werk dieses Herrn in der nachösterlichen Zeit fortzusetzen (cf. Joh 14,12).

Rather than concluding this email with an analysis, let me end it with another apparent allusion to the resurrection that I stumbled upon this year, which I found to be less profound but perhaps even more delightful. This time the connections to Luke 24:36-42 are especially evident, at least to my eye:

Sherlock Holmes (The Adventure of the Empty House, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, p. 485-486):

I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life. Certainly a gray mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his hand.

“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”

I gripped him by the arms. “Holmes!” I cried. “Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?”

“Wait a moment,” said he. “Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance.”

“I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes. Good heavens! to think that you – you of all men – should be standing in my study.” Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it. “Well, you’re not a spirit, anyhow,” said I. “My dear chap, I’m overjoyed to see you. Sit down, and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm.”

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Francis Watson, Jens Schröter, and the Sayings Collection Genre of the Gospel of Thomas

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I recently completed Francis Watson‘s impressive book Gospel Writing, which is rightly receiving much attention (see here). I profited much from this stimulating work, and I especially enjoyed seeing the many ways in which it converged with and diverged from Jens Schröter‘s perspectives in From Jesus to the New Testament and Christoph Markschies‘s perspectives in Christian Theology and its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire.

Against this background, I hope to devote two (or more?) blog posts to comparing Watson’s book with the aforementioned works, namely as examples of the “I’d like to see someone else write about this” genre. In other words, these posts will flag up areas of inquiry that I will probably not write on but that I hope someone else might be motivated to investigate in greater detail, i.e. in the form of a blog post, conference paper, or article.

This week’s post will focus on the the different ways that Jens Schröter and Francis Watson deal with the sayings tradition and its development with special reference to the place they assign to the Gospel of Thomas. I’ll begin with a quotation by Watson, follow it with a quotation by Schröter, and then add a few words of analysis.

Francis Watson (Gospel Writing, pp. 249-250): “A closely related issue has been less intensively discussed, and it concerns the format of GTh. This text consists of a series of sayings, whether shorter or longer, single or composite, normally introduced by the formula “Jesus said…” While Thomas is apparently dependent on Matthew and Luke for parts of its content, it is independent of them as regards its format. Nor does this format conform to the (now discredited) Q Gospel. … There is no basis for the common assumption that Thomas closely resembles Q, and that it thereby strengthens the case for Q. … In terms of format, Thomas is unique, the single surviving instance of a sayings collection to set alongside the narrative gospels. The question is whether GTh was always unique or whether it attests the existence of a Sayings Collection genre, a class of writing whose existence ran parallel to that of the narrative gospels and that might conceivably have predated them. That is not to say that GTh itself may be earlier than the narrative gospels. If it contains early elements at all, predating the canonical evangelists, these can be identified only tentatively; they cannot be assembled into an ‘original core’ to which a mid-first-century date may be assigned. Even within the more self-consciously literary genre of the narrative gospels, there is considerable fluidity as stories pass from unknown sources into Mark and from Mark into Matthew and Luke. Within an initially preliterary Sayings Collection genre, that fluidity is likely to have been greater still. It is therefore impossible to recover from GTh the text of a primitive sayings collection along the lines of reconstructions of Q. What may still be possible is to recover from GTh a primitive genre, one in which sayings of Jesus were simply listed one after the other with an introductory formula attached to each. This genre would be at least as old as the oldest written sayings in GTh. If Thomas preserves even a single saying or parable in a form that predates the synoptic versions, it most probably owes its preservation to an unbroken chain of written transmission. The links in the chain are beyond recovery—although, as we have seen, Clement of Alexandria’s Gospel according to the Hebrews may have been one of them. Yet, if the Sayings Collection genre can be traced back behind GTh into the presynoptic era, it is plausible to suppose that texts of this kind may have been available to the synoptic evangelists. Before as well as after the composition of their gospels, Jesus’ sayings were transmitted by way of Sayings Collections (SCs). To the L/M hypothesis, which replaces Q, a Thomas-based SC hypothesis may be added. the two hypotheses are independent yet mutually reinforcing. If there is a Sayings Collection genre that predates the narrative gospels, then there is no need to envisage an extended period of purely oral transmission of Jesus’ sayings. The writing of a saying would be an original rather than a secondary feature of the traditioning process.”

Jens Schröter (From Jesus to the New Testament, p. 110-111 + note 49): “The one-sided preference for Q and the Gospel of Thomas—which in the process are also incorrectly assigned to the same genre—in Jesus presentations such as that of John Dominic Crossan or the methodologically completely untenable plea for the historical preference for a supposedly oldest layer of Q by James M. Robinson are indebted to a perspective that disregards the historical concretion and is not adequate to the sources. By contrast, every historical presentation of the person of Jesus has to take its orientation from the fact that his sayings were spoken in concrete situations to concrete human beings, that they only present one aspect of his activity and stand alongside the others—such as the constitution of a circle of followers, his healings and meal-fellowships, and the controversy [123] with opponents, to name only a few—and that in the sources that are available, whole pictures of his activity and fate are provided and not collections of sayings.” Note 49: “This is not altered at all by the fact that with the Gospel of Thomas we have a writing concentrated on the presentation of isolated sayings and parables. Such a collection is an artificial product that already presupposes the narrative presentation of the activity of Jesus and takes this path in contrast to another path in order to explicate the significance of Jesus. The thesis of the ancient character of such a collection is refuted by observations pertaining to the secondary character of the Gospel of Thomas over against the Synoptic Gospels, as well as by the fact with the philosophical biographies of Diogenes Laertius and the Apophthegmata Patrum we have parallel works from about the same time or even later in which the collection character of the material has just as little to do with antiquity. On this cf. also Hezser 1996, 393.”

Analysis: As mentioned at the outset, this post belongs to what I am calling the “I’d like to see someone else write about this” form/genre. In other words, although (or because!) I don’t plan on researching this topic further myself, I would be delighted if my presentation of these two quotations would provoke some bright, industrious scholar to compare and contrast the ways in which Jens Schröter (e.g. in From Jesus to the New Testament, chapters 5-6, and 12) and Francis Watson (in Gospel Writing, perhaps esp. in chapters 5 and 7) discuss the character and development of the sayings tradition, which would obviously not be limited to their treatment of the Gospel of Thomas.

My impression is that both scholars have developed extremely impressive models for how to understand the overall development of the sayings tradition, which makes it all the more interesting to observe areas of sharp disagreement (e.g. placing the sayings collection genre reflected in the Gospel of Thomas at an earlier or later point in the development) alongside many notable agreements (e.g. their shared view that Q and the Gospel of Thomas do not belong to the same genre and that the Gospel of Thomas is familiar with the Synoptic Gospels). While this post obviously does not go very far in showing how such an investigation might prove fruitful, perhaps it will prove sufficient to motivate someone else to pursue the matter further. If so, Schröter’s multiple exchanges with James Dunn could also prove relevant for this task (see here and here), since it seems to me that there are some points in which Watson and Dunn stand over against Schröter (e.g. in placing the sayings tradition in the context of recollection about Jesus from the beginning rather than seeing it initially located in a paraenetic context that was not focused on biographical recollection) and others in which Dunn and Schröter stand over against Watson (e.g. in the fact that they are inclined to appeal to oral tradition to explain much of the material that Watson explains with reference to the Sayings Collection Genre).

If anyone does wish to develop this topic, I recommend beginning with chapter 5 of From Jesus to the New Testament and pages 249-285 and 347-355 of Gospel Writing.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! Unfortunately, I have found it increasingly difficult to write a new post each Monday, but I hope to be able to write at least one or two Monday blog posts each month. We’ll see. Best, Wayne.

 

Bob Dylan Career Path

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It’s Spring Break for me, so I figured it would be appropriate to depart from the regularly scheduled program.

This my attempt to sketch out a/my career in biblical studies via 14 Bob Dylan Songs (cf. The New Testament in Bob Dylan song titles)

The selection may seem a bit cynical at times, but for me some of these songs really have been a source of strength along the way.

Still, you may want to balance this sketch with my more constructive Roadmap for Aspiring New Testament scholars!

For ease of reference all songs are taken from “The Essential Bob Dylan” (see here)

1. On not losing the best of one’s beginnings

Forever Young (for full lyrics, see here)

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

2. On (re)reading the primary sources

Mr. Tambourine Man (for full lyrics, see here)

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you

3. On trying to find your niche

Subterranean Homesick Blues (for full lyrics, see here)

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handles

4. On trying to get into a PhD program

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (for full lyrics, see here)

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

5. On being ignored (or ignoring people) at conferences

Positively 4th Street (for full lyrics, see here)

You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning

You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning

6. On trying to publish one’s research

Rainy Day Woman # 12 & 35 (for full lyrics, see here)

They’ll stone ya when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll stone ya when you are young and able
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck”
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

7. On (trying to finish) the PhD

Maggie’s Farm (for full Lyrics, see here)

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

8. On realizing your PhD might not land you a job

Like a Rolling Stone (for complete lyrics, see here)

Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

9. On the unrelenting pressure to publish (what others say is important)

It Ain’t Me, Babe (for complete lyrics, see here).

Go melt back into the night, babe
Everything inside is made of stone
There’s nothing in here moving
An’ anyway I’m not alone
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who’ll pick you up each time you fall
To gather flowers constantly
An’ to come each time you call
A lover for your life an’ nothing more
But it ain’t me, babe
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe

10. On (contemplating the possibility of) not making tenure

Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright (for full lyrics, see here)

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

11. On (contemplating the possibility of) making tenure

Quin the Eskimo  (The Mighty Quinn) (for full lyrics, see here)

Ev’rybody’s building the big ships and the boats
Some are building monuments
Others, jotting down notes
Ev’rybody’s in despair
Ev’ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Ev’rybody’s gonna jump for joy
Come all without, come all within
You’ll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn

12. On trying to interpret the Bible for one’s time

The Times they Are a Changin’ (for full lyrics, see here)

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

13. On realizing that “every decent theology was, is, and will be a theology of liberation” (E. Käsemann).

Blowin’ in The Wind (for full lyrics, see here)

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

14. On remembering one’s teachers and mentors

If Not For You (for full lyrics, see here)

If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue
Anyway it wouldn’t ring true
If not for you

Rehabilitating F. C. Baur with Jens Schröter and Matthew Hopper

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While looking through my Mohr Siebeck catalogue, I was pleased to learn of a forthcoming volume entitled Ferdinand Christian Baur und die Geschichte des frühen Christentums (eds. Martin Bauspiess, Christof Landmesser, and David Lincicum). Sharing David Lincicum’s high estimation of Baur’s importance (see here; cf. here, here, and here), this post will attempt to prepare the way for this forthcoming volume by “rehabilitating” Baur in two respects, namely (1) in relation to his pioneering appropriation of historiographical insights and (b) in relation to his relationship to Hegel. To do so, I will take my initial orientation from two quotations from Jens Schröter’s book Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament / From Jesus to the New Testament.

1) Baur and Historiography

From Jesus to the New Testament (p. 320): “These exegetical-historical conclusions were obtained on the basis of the conviction that historical individual-appearances can only be understood by discovering their inner connection. As isolated individual phenomena, by contrast, they remain mute. In early Christianity, Baur saw such a connection in the opposition between Pauline and Petrine parties, whose views were then conciliated with each other. Even if this view was subsequently clearly differentiated with regard to the positions represented in early Christianity, the lasting significance of Baur lies in the thoroughgoing application of the principles of historical research to the beginnings of Christianity. He thereby laid the methodological foundations for all subsequent conceptions of a history of Christianity.” (cf. pp. 15-18, 27, 29, 31, 39, 319-21).

Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament ( p. 346): “Diese exegetisch-historischen Ergebnisse sind auf der Grundlage der Überzeugung gewonnen, das geschichtliche Einzelerscheinungen nur dadurch verstanden werden können, dass man ihren inneren Zusammenhang aufdeckt. Als isolierte Einzelphänomene bleiben sie dagegen stumm. Im Urchristentum sah Baur einen solchen Zusammenhang im Gegenüber der paulinischen und petrinischen Partei, deren Auffassungen dann miteinander vermittelt worden seien. Auch wenn diese Sicht im Blick auf die im Urchristentum vertretenen Positionenen später deutlich ausdifferenziert wurde, liegt die bleibende Bedeutung Baurs darin, die Prinzipien historischer Forschung konsequent auf die Anfänge des Christentums angewandt zu haben. Er hat damit die methodischen Grundlagen für alle späteren Entwürfe einer Geschichte des Urchristentum gelegt.”

2) Baur and Hegel

From Jesus to the New Testament (p. 320n6): “By contrast it is inappropriate, as unfortunately often occurs, to dismiss Baur’s contribution with the observation that he forced Hegel’s philosophy of history onto the history of early Christianity. The article on the Corinthian Letters, in which he submitted his view for the first time, was written before Baur became familiar with Hegel’s writings. Cf. Hodgson 1966, 22.”

Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament   (p. 346n6): “Dagegen ist es unangemessen, was leider oft geschieht, Baurs Beitrag mit dem Hinweis abzutun, er habe der Geschichte des Urchristentums Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie aufgezwungen. Der Aufsatz über die Korintherbriefe, in dem er seine Sicht zum ersten Mal vorlegte, wurde geschrieben, bevor Baur mit Hegels Schriften bekannt wurde. Vgl. Hodgson, Historical Theology, 22.”

3) Substantive Analysis

My purpose here is not to rehabilitate Baur at every point. On the contrary, I think that fundamental aspects of his project have rightly been called into question. I do, however, think that it is unhelpful when a towering figure like Baur is set aside with dismissive slogans rather than engaged with in a critical and constructive manner. Against this background, I was somewhat frustrated to read the following statement in David Wenham’s forward to the important work Earliest Christian History: History, Literature, and Theology: Essays from the Tyndale Fellowship in Honour of Martin Hengel (eds. M. Bird and J. Maston): “Baur’s Hegelian analysis of the history of early Christianity and of the New Testament as a conflict between the Jewish Christianity of Peter and others and the Hellenistic Christianity of Paul was very influential, very damaging to traditionally orthodox Christian faith, but deeply flawed, as has been almost universally recognized since” (my emphasis). And I experienced comparable disappointment upon reading the similar statement of Daniel B. Wallace in his otherwise enjoyable blog post in memory of Martin Hengel: “These 19th-century scholars, especially Baur, applied Hegelian dialectic to New Testament studies (i.e., thesis vs. antithesis, struggling with each other end up resulting in a synthesis of both). Baur had been one of Hegel’s students; he applied this dialectic to the authorship of the NT writings, resulting in seeing only four authentic letters by Paul and seeing John as written sometime after 160 CE” (my emphasis). The problem with these quotations is not that Baur is beyond reproach. He is not! The problem is that Baur’s contribution is too quickly sloganized and dismissed by means of a somewhat inaccurate – or at least grossly oversimplified – attribution of his views to the influence of Hegel, which inevitably prevents the productive aspects of his approach from being appreciated and appropriated, for example his appropriation of advances in historiography (cf. FJNT, p.16). In fact, it could be added that in this respect F. C. Baur and Martin Hengel could be compared rather than contrasted with each other (cf. Hengel, “Eye-Witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels”, pp. 93-95)! Let me conclude by noting that my own stance toward Baur was greatly shaped through my supervision of Matthew Hopper’s learned and spirited MA Thesis “Historical Theology as the Crossroads of Faith and Reason: The Contribution of Ferdinand Christian Baur”, which he completed in 2008. While my enthusiasm for Baur does not extend as far as my student’s, I remain indebted to Mathew Hopper for giving me a much greater appreciation for this Tübingen giant. Needless to say, I look forward to learning more about Baur’s achievements and shortcomings from the forthcoming volume Ferdinand Christian Baur und die Geschichte des frühen Christentums.

For some other posts on F. C. Baur in the blogosphere, see here.

For my other posts on Jens Schröter and historiography, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.

Always Choose the Stronger Word and Beware of False Friends: A Translator’s Memories of Martin Hengel (1926-2009) and John Bowden (1935-2010)

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Reflections

As a way of marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it seemed appropriate to attempt my first post in the category of “reflections”. For the most part, these will be related to German New Testament scholarship, though I may deviate from this plan now and then. In this post, I will simply share a few memories that I have of Martin Hengel and John Bowden, two of which bear directly on the task and challenges of translation.

Martin Hengel

Although I participated in one of Hengel’s block seminars during my studies in Tübingen, it was only later, during the time of my PhD, that I had the opportunity to speak with him at greater length. Two memories have stuck with me from these conversations.

As someone who struggled deeply to complete his PhD, I remember especially well the helpful advice that Hengel gave me about writing a PhD (even if I can’t remember if we were speaking in German or English or the extent to which my resulting memory reflects his words or my paraphrase of what he said):

1) Sit down and write your dissertation;

2) Make a selection of the most important works from the secondary literature, and give priority to the full range of relevant primary sources;

3) The real art of a scholar resides in the ability to improve what s/he has written.

(For further reflection on these points, see my discussion of them in the PhD section of my document “A Roadmap for Aspiring New Testament Scholars”.)

My second memory comes from a series of discussions that I had with Hengel concerning my translation of his contribution to Graham Stanton’s Festschrift, The Written Gospel, namely “Eye-Witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels.” I had dutifully completed my first draft translation, marking in workmanlike fashion the many passages and words for which I sought his advice. Coming to the first word in question, I tentatively asked him whether he thought this word or that word was more appropriate for his purposes. Leaning forward slightly, he said to me: “Always choose the stronger word; this, you see, is a polemical essay” (since I can’t remember if we were speaking in English or German, I remain very uncertain about the extent to which this represents an exact quotation of what was actually said). This exchange, I think, captured well one of the most striking features of Hengel’s character: he was a fighter, at least when it came to convictions that he held deeply. And I think that much good came from this polemical forcefulness, even if I also think that it sometimes became unwieldy and unhelpful. For me, however, it also shed some light on the task of translation. In short, the translator should make at least some attempt to capture the tone of a work, which may indeed mean “always choosing the stronger word”.

For further reflections on Martin Hengel’s life and work, see esp. my translation of his essay “A Young Theological Discipline in Crisis” in Earliest Christian History (cf. e.g., Larry Hurtado 1 and Michael Bird) and Roland Deines’ heavily documented essay in this same volume. See also e.g. Roland Deines, John Dickson, Larry Hurtado 2, David Neff, Daniel B. Wallace, and The Telegraph.

For my other blog posts on Martin Hengel, see here.

John Bowden

I remain uncertain of the exact occasion when I met John Bowden, but I believe that it was at the commemoration of Martin Hengel’s 80th birthday in Cambridge. Two points have stuck with me from our conversation, and I hope that I will succeed in passing them both along, especially the first!

At the outset of our conversation I said something like, “It’s a great honor for me to meet you Dr. Bowden”. Unfortunately, I pronounced the “Bow” in “Bowden” as if it rhymed with “Now” or “Cow”, whereas it actually rhymes with “Snow” or “Know”. And accordingly, he responded by saying something like “It’s Bowden not Bowden, but that’s ok, you get to say it wrong once, but only once.” And I have been correcting people’s pronunciation of his name ever since.

After this somewhat awkward start, we then had a very enjoyable conversation about translation. Among other things, he shared with me how he had begun by translating words as the unit of translation, and then moved on to sentences, and then to paragraphs (I am mostly still on words, I’m afraid). But it was another tip that made a deeper impression on me, namely his warning that “false friends” are the greatest danger to the translator, by which he meant that there are sometimes words that are the same (or similar) in two different languages but have rather different meanings. For example, the translator may make a slip and translate “Art” as “art” (instead of “kind/sort/type”) or “sensibel” as “sensible” (instead of “sensitive”). For it is one thing to say that your friend is sensibel (sensitive) and quite another to say s/he is sensible (vernünftig), though s/he may, of course, be both.

For further reflections on John Bowden’s life and work, see e.g., Robert Morgan, Robin Baird-Smith, Jim West, Mark Goodacre, and The Telegraph.

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For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.