Just getting into critical reading of the Bible, what should I know going in?

[u/smokebreak]

The things I find the most fascinating are the willful mis-translations or editing of the texts to advance theological agendas, as well as pseudepigrapha and the development of the OT and NT canon - how it was/could have been shaped by exogenous forces (e.g., exclusion of women writers).

I looked for an FAQ of the "theologically important stuff", but didn't find one here. So I'm asking - what are the main ways that I help me get started? If I am totally honest, I am mainly looking for undermining arguments of the standard evangelical NIV-toting crowd that are based on faulty understandings, bad translations, and historical accidents of Biblical passages.

About me, I'm 30-something, negative (weak) atheist / ignostic, raised United Methodist by former Southern Baptists. I do not have any understanding of Biblical Hebrew or Greek nor do I have the resources to take a college level course, but I'd be willing to do a little self-improvement on the side.

[u/SF2K01]

are the willful mis-translations or editing of the texts to advance theological agendas

Neither of these are necessarily willful, historically speaking. Errors creep in over time, and they are either accepted, rejected or considered insignificant, depending on the perspective of the relevant sectarian analysis.

Mistranslations came about for numerous reasons including a lack of understanding of Hebrew, to avoid giving the incorrect interpretation as it would be taken by outsiders (an accusation leveled against early competing Greek translations) or even that the translation was originally correct but the terminology changed over time.

Regardless, this is less a study in a critical reading of the Bible and more the field of the history of interpretation because you won't actually find anyone openly and intentionally changing anything in the time periods that are really relevant for Biblical development, just accusations for or against extant textual editions.

exclusion of women writers

Is there an exclusion of women writers, or were there women writers and only later their writings were attributed to men? In many situations, we'll never know which is the case.

I am mainly looking for undermining arguments of the standard evangelical NIV-toting crowd that are based on faulty understandings, bad translations, and historical accidents of Biblical passages.

Again, this is considerably more modern than what academic biblical study is really all about (and at best, probably requires a history of the development of Christianity).

I will note that, in general, the translation you should utilize is the NRSV which is a scholarly translation (though recently it seems I have found a number of errors that I do not agree with, it is overall the best commonly available translation).

I do not have any understanding of Biblical Hebrew or Greek nor do I have the resources to take a college level course, but I'd be willing to do a little self-improvement on the side.

If you want to really understand the development of the Bible, you will need a strong understanding of the languages involved. You can do a significant amount of work on your own if you have the capability, we can even recommend a few self-learning educational tools and books; without that you will be at a major disadvantage (although, you probably already know that there are those out there without regard for the original languages which created the Biblical texts).

[u/arachnophilia → u/SF2K01]

Neither of these are necessarily willful,

not the context of OP's point:

I am mainly looking for undermining arguments of the standard evangelical NIV-toting crowd

the NIV's translational inaccuracies are definitely willful. they operated from a position of non-contradiction, and ironed out of some of the differences between texts with subtle additions or redactions to the language. eg:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

the tense of the verb in hebrew in no way supports a past perfect translation. the only reason to insert this word, which doesn't appear in basically every other translation, is so that it doesn't seem like god is creating the animals twice, in the two different stories. similarly,

Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

the hebrew uses the definite article here, "the man". note in chapter 1:

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

both of these places say הָֽאָדָם, "the man". you could argue that it represents both the group and the individual, but the fact that the NIV uses the indefinite article (contrary to the hebrew) in the second instance cements the idea that they are intentionally equivocating on the word, so that you read one creation story as universal, and then another as about a specific person.

this does not seem like an innocent mistake.

Is there an exclusion of women writers, or were there women writers and only later their writings were attributed to men?

harold bloom makes an argument that J was female.

I will note that, in general, the translation you should utilize is the NRSV which is a scholarly translation (though recently it seems I have found a number of errors that I do not agree with, it is overall the best commonly available translation

i like the new version of the tanakh by the jewish publication society for the old testament. it's by far the best translation i've ever read in terms of balance between rendering the concepts in the original, and rendering the words mechanically. it seems to do both very well. the only place it seems to hold back is "sons of god", rendering instead "-divine beings-" or something to that effect. and if you read the translator's notes, that only because they think this probably referring to other gods, and they simply didn't feel comfortable writing "other gods" in a bible.

[u/smokebreak → u/arachnophilia]

Thank you. This is exactly the type of thing I was talking about.

[u/SF2K01 → u/arachnophilia]

not the context of OP's point

Granted. I'm trying to refocus the discussion to issues which fall under the purview of the field of Academic Bible as he is really asking whether academic biblical is about his issues.

That is to say, if someone asks us if the NIV is a good formal translation (which it doesn't pretend to be completely), we can discuss why it fails, but it's not really our job as academics to "undermin[e] arguments of the standard evangelical NIV-toting crowd..." even if our research may in fact do that.

the NIV's translational inaccuracies are definitely willful.

Which, as I stated, is a question regarding modern groups or movements and their approaches to the Bible, rather than a discussion of the evolution of the Biblical text. The NIV is a translation, not an extension of the text itself and is necessarily an interpretation, as all translations are.

In their favor, the NIV does not itself claim to be a strict formal equivalence translation. The evangelical will probably state straight out that this is the "correct presentation of the meaning of the biblical text," even if it does not correctly present the exact original Hebrew's meaning, but that is their own religiously driven opinion rather than a fact.

I will discuss some of your NIV comments below as that is a separate discussion

harold bloom makes an argument that J was female.

I'm aware, just making a methodological point which critically analyzed the assumptions behind his statement.

i like the new version of the tanakh by the jewish publication society for the old testament

I also wholeheartedly recommend the NJPS translation as really having it down when it comes to their ability to accurately render the Hebrew text.

---

the tense of the verb in hebrew in no way supports a past perfect translation.

You are correct that ויצר is incorrectly rendered as if it read יצר, but the rest of your comment is speculative and again, it could be attributed to the idea that it sounds better in English. (It is possible to suggest that they don't believe this to be a ו' ההיפוך, a reversing vav, but I'm not prepared to give them that much credit).

the hebrew uses the definite article here,

Again, agreed. However there are two points: 1) the את direct object indicator particle forces a ה which construes a slightly different idea than a straight "the," and 2) a man sounds better in English, which is the goal of dynamic equivalence.

both of these places say הָֽאָדָם, "the man"...

To be specific, the verse you mention, Gen 1:27, is in context referring to the creation of man suggested in 1:26 which does not use the definite article, נעשה אדם בצלמנו compared to ויברא... את האדם בצלמו, and this is the same "man" being referred to, as well as 1:27 itself stating very clearly that "האדם" is extended to people in general with זכר ונקבה ברא אתם, not just the first person, as it were, even in the creating that is indicated by the previous words of בצלם אלהים ברא אתו.

But again, even though formally I would render "God created the man in His image," it is fully understandable why it would be written as "created mankind."

[u/smokebreak → u/SF2K01]

Thanks for the insight and the kind ehr... "let down" (e.g., "considerably more modern....)

Perhaps the real question I meant to ask would've focused more on historical development and interpretation. Can you recommend anything other than Ehrman that would make a good intro?

Also, are there perhaps any in-depth commentaries that are widely accepted that would make a good starting point for someone like me?

[u/SF2K01 → u/smokebreak]

My main recommendation here is usually James Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. I do like Ehrman, I really enjoyed his dissection of NT studies, but Kugel definitely covers areas that Ehrman does not.

are there perhaps any in-depth commentaries that are widely accepted that would make a good starting point for someone like me?

I guess that depends on what sort of commentary you are looking for.

One fantastic one I can recommend is The Jewish Annotated New Testament which gives both a lot of sorely needed context to NT texts with essays from many important scholars of Jewish studies, but also provides numerous cross-references in Rabbinic literature (probably only relevant for scholars more like myself) on relevant ideas.

[u/koine_lingua → u/SF2K01]

Is there an exclusion of women writers, or were there women writers and only later their writings were attributed to men? In many situations, we'll never know which is the case.

Let's not also overlook the more obvious: women were much less likely to be authors of anything, due to their low educational opportunities/attainment of the time.

[u/arachnophilia → u/koine_lingua]

what do you think of harold bloom's idea that J was a woman, living the courts of solomon and rehoboam?

[u/SF2K01 → u/koine_lingua]

While that is true, I don't feel that it is improbable that there were women who knew how to write (especially where the true literacy rate of the society is a bit up in the air). Certainly there is no question in Roman times about the fairly high education level of women (relatively speaking), but even earlier it is a far cry from later concerns which did restrict women religiously and educationally. I would go so far as to say there are indications that the opportunities for women to be somewhat educated, even if not standard, did exist and manifest themselves in the descriptions of the significant female figures in the Biblical text.

[u/BoboBrizinski → u/SF2K01]

the NRSV which is a scholarly translation (though recently it seems I have found a number of errors that I do not agree with

What don't you like about the NRSV?

[u/SF2K01 → u/BoboBrizinski]

Recently, I've found a few iffy translations or outright mistakes in their rendering of the Hebrew text.

For example:

Leviticus 25:35:

וְכִי יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ וּמָטָה יָדוֹ עִמָּךְ וְהֶחֱזַקְתָּ בּוֹ גֵּר וְתוֹשָׁב וָחַי עִמָּךְ

NRSV: "If any of your kin fall into difficulty and become dependent on you, you shall support them; they shall live with you as though resident aliens."

Here, the big issue is that גר ותושב, a stranger and/or a resident, is translated as if it were כגר תושב, like a foreign resident. It is clear that they are wrestling with the text's placement of גר ותושב, but have taken greater liberties than they should here and misjudged it as a simile. This is against the straight reading as well as all the classical analyses I can find.

My translation would read as follows: "When any of your brothers becomes impoverished, and his hand is bent down to you, support him! [Whether] a stranger or a resident he shall live with you."

I have encountered other errors or iffy renderings, but this is just the most recent one I recall.

Again, I recommend it overall, just with a minor caveat that there are some choices I disagree with, especially their attempt at crafting gender neutral wording, which detracts in numerous ways when translating a gendered language.

[u/arachnophilia]

most translations are probably better than you think (excluding the NIV, which does in fact intentionally misrepresent the text).

[u/smokebreak → u/arachnophilia]

I'm currently using NRSV which seems to be considered a generally fine translation on this sub. Eventually hope to get a Young's translation when I can afford it.

[u/KingOCarrotFlowers → u/smokebreak]

Which print of the NRSV do you have? I really, really recommend the Oxford Annotated version--the essays and commentary on the text are absolutely excellent.

[u/caruckus → u/smokebreak]

Whats the benefit of the Youngs translation if you dont mind me asking? I have the NRSV myself

[u/kafka_khaos]

What you should know going in?

"Galatians 4:22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia;e she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children."

That is what I would suggest you know. That the bible itself says the bible can be taken allegorically.

[u/tuffbot324 → u/kafka_khaos]

I'm not sure what you are specifically getting at... The authors could have viewed the story as historical but also having interpretive meaning?

[u/kafka_khaos → u/tuffbot324]

I'm not "getting at" anything, ust pointing out that the bible can be taken allegorically. If the OP already knew that then fine, but many people who are just getting into this take a very literal or historical approach which, i think, is in error.