Attendees to last year’s ETS meeting were given nicely bound copies of the new Christian Standard Bible (CSB) translation which releases in March of this year. The CSB is basically a revision of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), now without the “H.” I have always thought of the HCSB as basically “the Southern Baptist Bible.” I think others did too and the CSB looks to be an attempt to move the translation away from that identification.
The website explains that the Holman Christian Standard Bible was updated “with the goals of increased fidelity to the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts and increased clarity for today’s readers.” Specific changes mentioned are the non-capitalization of pronouns referring to God, the use of “tongues” rather than “languages” to translate λαλειν γλωσσα, The use of “LORD” rather than “Yahweh,” etc.
Given our earlier discussion about what translators will do with the NA28/UBS5 changes, I should point out that the “pastoral FAQ” page says:
The textual base for the New Testament is the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th edition, and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, 5th corrected edition.... Where there are significant differences among Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek manuscripts, the translators follow what they believe is the original reading and indicate the main alternative(s) in footnotes.
Given this, I wondered what the translators did at 2 Peter 3.10 where the NA28 has changed quite noticeably. In particular, I wondered if they followed the NA28’s conjecture. The answer? No, they did not. The CSB text is exactly the same as it was in the HCSB (my emphasis):
But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.
So the new editors have not been bound to the NA28 text just as the website says. But this does not mean they have ignored the NA28’s change altogether. It’s just that you have to look at the footnotes to see the change. Whereas the HCSB includes a single note saying, “Other mss read will be burned up,” the new CSB adds a second footnote immediately after this which reads, “Or will not be found.” This is almost certainly a reference to the conjecture found in NA28: ουχ ευρεθησεται.
What I find unhelpful is the sequence of notes in the CSB. Since both notes are given back-to-back, I think most people will naturally read them together as “some manuscripts read ‘will be burned up’ and some manuscripts read ‘will not be found.’” This is not what the second note explicitly says, of course, but how else are people expected to read it?
The problem is that the two alternate readings are here presented to the English reader as if they are on par with one another when they really aren’t. The reading of NA28 is attest by a few Syriac and Coptic witnesses which means this note breaks the translation’s own policy that “the Christian Standard Bible uses textual footnotes to show important differences among Hebrew manuscripts and other texts such as the Septuagint and the Vulgate for the Old Testament and between various Greek manuscripts for the New Testament.”
Don’t misunderstand me. I do not expect translation footnotes to do full justice to the external evidence. They can’t; that’s what critical editions are for. But I don’t see how the CSB’s current note can do anything other than mislead its readers here. It either needs to be revised to something like “some Coptic and Syriac manuscripts read...” or be taken out altogether. As it is, it’s counterproductive.
One other new reading in the CSB was pointed out to me by Maurice Robinson. John 1.18 reads:
No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
Notice anything odd?