I am not a scholar of the Bible; I merely read it. And my view is that if all translators translate a verse in a certain way, then that must be the evident meaning in the original language.
But in this case I can’t help but think there might be a layer of meaning that isn’t coming through. This morning I was reading Wisdom 17, and I came across something interesting in verse 12 (verse 11 in older translations). Here is the verse in some modern translations:
- For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason; (NABRE < NAB < Confraternity)
- Fear indeed is nothing but the abandonment of reason’s help; (RNJB)
- Fear, indeed, is nothing other than the failure of the aids offered by reason; (NJB)
- Fear, indeed, is nothing other than the abandonment of the supports offered by reason; (JB)
Compare the modern translations in the KJV tradition to the KJV itself:
- For fear is nothing but surrender of the helps that come from reason; (RSV-CE, RSV-2CE, and ESV-CE)
- For fear is nothing but a giving up of the helps that come from reason; (NRSV-CE)
- For feare is nothing else, but a betraying of the succours which reason offereth. (KJV, 1611)
The modern translations all have some version of giving up, surrender, abandonment. These words are used to render the Greek word προδοσία. In Liddell and Scott, προδοσία is defined as a giving up, betrayal, treachery, treason. And the KJV stuck closest to that meaning by translating it “a betraying.”
Honestly, I’m not a Bible scholar and no one should listen to me. But are there two different meanings of “giving up” being mixed up here? It seems like if Liddell and Scott are putting “giving up” next to words like “treachery” and “betrayal,” then it seems “giving up” here means “handing over someone to the enemy” or “surrendering something to the enemy”.
But the modern translations could also be read another way, by understanding “giving up” as “not doing it anymore” or “leaving it behind.” Using the word surrender is ambiguous, but when the RNJB says “abandonment of reason’s help” and the NRSV says “a giving up of the helps”, it seems like that sense of betrayal or treason is lost.
The Vulgate translated προδοσία as proditio, which also means betrayal or treason.
- Nihil enim est timor nisi proditio cogitationis auxiliorum. (Clementine Vulgate, 1st ed., 1592)
- nihil enim est timor nisi praesumptionis adiutorium proditio cogitationis auxiliorum (Stuttgart Vulgate, 3rd ed., 1983)
- Nihil enim est timor nisi proditio auxiliorum, quae sunt a cogitatione; (Nova Vulgata, 2nd ed., 1986)
English translations based on the Clementine Vulgate:
- For fear is nought but the surrender of the helps that come from reason; (Confraternity, kept in modern NABRE)
- What else is timorousness, but a betrayal of the vantage-ground reason gives us? (Knox, 1949)
- For fear is nothing else but a yielding up of the succours from thought. (Douay-Rheims-Challoner, 1752)
- For feare is nothing els but a bewraying of the aydes of cogitation. (Douay, 1610)
But that raises the question, if we are committing treason by fearing, then who or what are we committing treason against?
Betrayal of whom? Treason against whom?
Here I am on less firm ground, but I can’t help myself but to charge out onto it.
Let’s look at the Greek:
οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστιν φόβος εἰ μὴ προδοσία τῶν ἀπὸ λογισμοῦ βοηθημάτων,
Wisdom 17:11, LXX (Rahlfs-Hanhart, 2006)
That last word, βοηθημάτων, is translated as aids, supports, succours, helps. When I first read the verse, in the Jerusalem Bible (“the abandonment of the supports offered by reason”), I understood it in inert, impersonal terms, like the supports holding up a structure. But maybe βοηθημάτων is referring to something personal, like the assistance granted by an individual?
This is something I will want to think more about, and read Wisdom again with this in mind. But I wonder if the λογισμός mentioned in this verse (reasoning, reflection, thought) can be understood here as another name for personified wisdom.
If that is true, then fear is not so much discarding the structural support provided by reasoning, but more an act of treason against Wisdom herself, or a betrayal of the endowment (of hope?) that Christ has bestowed on his followers. So Christ is in the role of a benefactor or patron who has granted a boon to someone, and then that person rejects the boon, thus betraying the patron.
This thought was prompted by the definition of βοήθημα found in Wiktionary, which is not exactly the same as in the LSJ.
That’s where I’ve gotten with it so far. Still more reading and thinking to do on the subject before I figure it out.