Finding Theology in Mistranslations
If you’ve ever used a study Bible, complete with foot and margin notes and articles introducing each book, I hope you’ve had a chance to appreciate the incredible work done by the scholars who have compiled such resources over the course of our history. There are people who have taken each comparable Gospel story and lined them up alongside each other to better study the parallels. There are people who have tracked down every one of the passages quoted in the New Testament. There are people who have translated Greek originals back into Aramaic to see if the old manuscripts we have were originally written in the language of the common folk of Jesus’ time. Bible scholars have done a tremendous amount of work to help any Christian who wants to delve into the Bible.
In some cases, their work is particularly challenging. Take, for example, our second reading for this week. There is an Old Testament passage quoted in it, but I want to put the Ephesians quote and the original passage side by side. See if you would have been able to catch that Psalm 68 was the source.
Here is the passage in Ephesians (4:7-8): ‘But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”’
Here is what is being quoted from Psalm 68:17-18. “With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands, the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place. You ascended the high mount leading captives in your train and receiving gifts from people,
even from those who rebel against the Lord God’s abiding there.”
Well, is God giving gifts or receiving gifts from people? Is God taking captivity captive, or does God just have some captives? There are pretty stark differences between these two passages. Some people have offered explanations as to how these things got so far apart, mostly having to do with old translations. But maybe the means of differentiation are not as interesting as the fact that people somehow found the parallels and put these together. Even if I had the entire Old Testament memorized, I don’t know if my brain would flag these two disparate passages as so closely related. It almost seems like the author of Ephesians was making a mistake in this quotation. However, the very disparity between the passages carries so much theological potential that I wonder if this was not the plan all along.
According to Ephesians, the gifts that God bestows are not treasures. Rather, the gifts are the varied vocations to which God calls people. There are pastors, teachers, evangelists, and more. God equips the church with various people who serve in different ways. The full burden of tending to the life of the church doesn’t fall on any one person or group of people. There is no longer a familial priestly caste who gain social status above their peers by nature of their role and lineage. At the same time, no single person is saddled with all the pressure of keeping the faith alive. God bestows various gifts to various people. The entire body works together with different people working in different ways for the good of all. God’s gift is variety and diversity being held together in unity.
While Ephesians is speaking in metaphorical terms, Psalm 68 is not. God is portrayed as winning a military victory. The gifts God is receiving are to be seen as the spoils of war. The captives are actual military prisoners, not the abstract concept of captivity itself. However, I think this interpretation also works with the Ephesians passage.
As Christians, we hope to be conquered if God is doing the conquering. If left to our own devices, we would be hopelessly lost in sin. If God takes control of our lives, some good might come out of it. Maybe the imagery of God being a conqueror receiving gifts is exactly right, but what gifts could we possibly bestow upon God? What is there to give that God hasn’t given us? Isn’t God the one who ultimately bestows gifts? Well, yes, but it is complicated.
While it is certainly true that all our good work on behalf of our neighbor is fruit born out of the seeds of God’s saving grace and boundless love, in reality we do play a real role in helping our neighbors. We cannot work out our own salvation, that would be too great a task for us to attempt, but we can care for others, show sympathy for those in need, nurture the wounds of people broken by the world and all its evils.
God gives us gifts, and we use those gifts to give back to God through service to God’s beloved children. Salvation itself may be too challenging for us to participate in, but we are participants in God’s loving care for the world. God has taken us into captivity so that we might liberate the world. God destroys captivity through the power of God’s beloved captives, saved from the power of sin and freed to serve God. God gives us the gifts we need to share with others, so that ultimately God may receive in return the gifts of service entrusted to us.
The dissimilarity between these two passages makes it look like a mistake, but there is incredible artistry at work here. The claim made through this is that the Christian story is complicated. God captures and liberates. God gives and receives gifts. The mistake, if you can call it that, tears down the theologies that would make God’s love into something simple enough to put on a bumper sticker. God’s love is simultaneously comforting and overwhelming. God’s love is liberating and captivating. God’s love gives and receives. These pairs of opposites alone give us things to meditate upon. God’s love is so far beyond our comprehension that any simple statement of it will look like a mistake. At the same time, while we cannot say we fully comprehend how God loves us and how God works in the world, we can point to the cross as our biggest clue to understanding. While I don’t always know what God expects of me, I can say with confidence that God loves me enough to go to the cross for me, and that is more than enough.
