As I announced a few posts back, I will be switching from the TNIV to some other English Bible translation for the New Year.
But I still look forward to the NIV 2011 and suggestions are being welcomed until December 31st (see here). I’ve got five:
1. Translate doulos/oi “slave/s.” Mere “servant/s” wouldn’t do (Rom. 1:1; Phil. 1:1 and so on).
2. Translate kata sarka “according to flesh” or “physical descent” throughout the Pauline corpus (Rom. 1:3; 9:3, 5, 8).
3. Translate sarka “flesh” throughout the Pauline corpus (too numerous to mention). “Sinful nature” would not work. I’m not too sure that is what Paul had in mind.
In fact, according to Romans 7:14-20, what Paul means by sarka is not itself “sinful.” Rather, sarka refers to that tendency within us that has been weakened by the sin principle and therefore “sold into slavery under sin” (Rom. 7:14c).
4. Translate karpos “fruit” instead of “benefit” at Romans 6:21, 22, in anticipation of 7:4, 5.
5. Translate Romans 4:1 thus: “What shall we say, then? Have we found Abraham to be our ancestor according to the flesh?” (Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination, pp. 60-65). Paul is clearly arguing for his Jewish readers to understand that Gentiles are also descendants of Abraham but not kata sarka but dia pisteos (vv. 9-12) and are equally the people of God (3:27-31).
Most of these suggestions, esp. in Romans, are also reflected in Douglas Moo’s Romans, who, by the way, is on the NIV 2011 revision committee.
This has been beat to death on other blogs so my comments will be brief. With the issues “Sinful nature” creates, “flesh” feels to me just as ambiguous sometimes unless the context provides some support, which it often does. I don’t know if the TNIV does this throughout but it does often provided additional footnoting like “by the flesh”, “my flesh”, or footnotes indicating something regarding “flesh”. Now with that said, I once asked in a youth Bible study what flesh meant to a young Christian noob, he was being sarcastic, but he replied, Zombie food.
Bryon,
I don’t think everyone is going to understand every term when used. Besides, a little ambiguity is nice.
But “sinful nature” doesn’t cut, either.
I like “sinful nature” for it explains the resultant nature of being born in human flesh. But as you see right off the “flesh” is necessary to convey the inherant sinfulness of man in the flesh. The trouble seems to me that the understanding that being of flesh carries the fallen nature of sin with it, by definition, is rarely automaticly grasped by readers.
Would a note of explanation, such as…flesh that harbors our sinful nature (or similar)…be helpful?
Tom,
I do like where you’re going with this.
From my reading of Paul, yes, the flesh has been weakened by the Fall and yields to the sin principle or in your words, “flesh that harbors our sinful nature.”
Though this goes beyond the reasonable power of the everyday footnote, it really needs to be clarified that sexuality is not automatically the same as flesh. Through reading Genesis: the sarx manifests itself 1. Adam & Eve’s naivete and physical hunger (mostly naivete), 2. Cain’s jealousy/bitterness, then murder, 3. Cain-Lamech’s lust, pride, arrogance, 4. “Sons of God/daughters of men” lust and violence. It may be just me as a youth wanting to clarify this, but “the flesh, in its fallenness” [my preferred elaboration] refers to several things.
I fully expect that everyone here is already aware of this; I’m just saying that others need to be taught this fact, since in nontheological use “flesh” is generally a reference to sex. Dr. Joel Hoffman brought this up a while back, if I could point back to the debate.
I don’t know Romans well enough to comment specifics, but I would love to see the doulos taboo lifted, too. I think it’s about dang time.
Gary,
I believe whatever we decide on sarx further explanation is needed. But I believe of all the decisions that have been made “flesh” seems to be the the best. The ambiguity is also needed.
Yeah, that doulos taboo needs to be lifted (The NET and HCSB have taken it on).