Of the readings in the
Revised Common Lectionary for 21 January 2014 (Tuesday after the Second Sunday after Epiphany), I chose to reflect on Isaiah 53.
Why do translators try force the text to read a certain way⸮Because they can. Indeed, sometimes they must, but today's reading contains an example of where not only was a more literal reading possible, but the distortion was not needed to support the translator's intent.
But before I get to the specific verse I'm irritated about let me comment briefly about the passage. In the Christian interpretation, Isaiah 53 is held to refer to the Messiah, tho the text itself does not use that term. Of course. given the Christian view on who the Messiah is, that makes this section of Isaiah a prophecy of Jesus. Jewish views are somewhat more diverse. A number of Jewish commentators have held the view that Isaiah 53 refers to the Messiah without conceding that Jesus was the Messiah. Others have come up with alternate interpretations partly as a reaction to the Christian interpretation.
But now on to the specific verse I'm reflecting on:
Now I find no fault here with the KJV translation, but there are a few translations that I do find fault with. For example:
Now the Hebrew is quite clear in associating the Messiah with a rich man in death, but the term used refers to the state of death, not to a grave or tomb. It's fairly clear to me that the translators of the NET and other versions have made the change to strengthen the link in Christian interpretation with the Synoptic account of the rich man Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus in his own tomb. (John has a similar account, but does not specify that it was Joseph's own tomb.)
Now, what I find troubling about the change is that for a Christian the link will exist even without specifying a rich man's tomb and it denies what I see as a deeper sense of the Hebrew original. What goods do we have in death⸮ Do we not all end up equal in the riches of this world once we have passed on⸮ To be rich in death is not to have a abundance of physical riches but of spiritual riches. Tho buried as a criminal, the passage is stating that the Messiah has an abundance of those things that make one rich in death. No matter what the condition of our grave, it affects not at all the condition of our death. In their eagerness to make the passage be tied more strongly to the account of Joseph of Arimathea in the Gospels, the translators of the NET and other translations have sacrificed an important lesson.
There are also translations for this verse that assume that the term "rich man" is being used in a negative sense rather than a positive one.
The NRSV combines both the mention of a rich man's grave and that being rich is bad.
I don't find this interpretation compelling, tho at least it does fit the literal Hebrew text. The Hebrew Testament never equates being rich with being bad, tho it does often castigate the rich for taking advantage of their wealth in unrighteous ways. But combining the two notions as the NRSV does seems particularly odd since it would seem to imply that Joseph of Arimathea was an evil person.
Incidentally, I'd translate this verse as follows:
His grave was among the wicked,
Yet he was a rich man in death,
Because he had done no violence,
Nor was there deceit in his mouth.Possibly I'm forcing the words to fit my interpretation. I don't think so, but one must as vigilant for beams as for motes.
