How Your Bible Changed, and Why | No. 4. So What? Explaining the Data

Last post, we made tools for analyzing changes between various editions of a number of Bible translations. These tools are called critical apparati (singular, apparatus). They concisely list and locate all the variations between two or more editions, as in this example comparing the English Standard Version (ESV) from the years 2011 and 2016:

Now, let’s take a more careful look at what these lists reveal about our Bibles. The next step is to find ways to better handle the enormous amount of data. We’ll do this by classifying and arranging the variations into related groups. All the variations can be sorted by both form and by content.

Formal variations are those kinds of changes made to the words and letters of the text. There are only five possible formal variations:

1. Additions—words added in the later edition,
2. Omissions—words removed,
3. Transpositions—words that change place between editions,
4. Substitutions—words in the later edition that replace those in the older, and
5. Emendations, which is a catch-all phrase for rewritten text.

The content variations indicate what kind of formal variation is occurring and gives a reason for that variation and how it affects the translation. Such changes include:

1. modernized or simplified spelling,
2. inclusive language,
3. smoother reading or paraphrase, or
4. conforming to Greek or Hebrew forms,
5. improved clarity,
6. punctuation, etc.

Let’s take the above example:

Gn 3:16 for ] contrary to

Now, let’s show the verse in context:

“To [Eve, God] said, ‘I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you.” (Gn 3.16, ESV 2011)

In the 2016 edition, the word “for” in the phrase “Your desire shall be for your husband” is emended to read “contrary to”—”Your desire shall be contrary to your husband.” The formal variation is classified as an emendation, but the change was made to improve the clarity of the passage. So improved clarity is the kind of content variation.

How did the ESV translation committee’s decision to change the text here make the passage more clear? The word “for” fits the form of the original Hebrew better than the words “contrary to”, but the meaning is not as obvious. We are left asking how Eve’s (and by extension, every wife’s) desire will be “for” her husband. Surely, this can’t refer to sexual desire; in light of humanity’s commission in Genesis 1.28 (“Be fruitful and multiply …”), this might seem more of a blessing than a curse!

In fact, the same Hebrew construction can be found in the following chapter, Genesis 4.7, where God warns Cain to do well, because “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” Now we know this kind of desire is not sexual, but a different kind altogether. It is a desire to frustrate its object. This better fits the curse found in Gn 3.16 with the second half of its couplet, “[your husband] shall rule over you.” This is why the translation committee chose to render both passages with the words “contrary to”, which better reflects the context and clarifies the meaning.

How does this revised revision influence your reading of the passage? Let me know in the comments below.