The Heidelberg Catechism is very important to me, with its strong emphasis on belonging to God and gratitude as the theme of the Christian life. At the baptism of both my children and my ordination to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, I asked that the first question be read:
q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
a. That I belong--body and soul, in life and in death--not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ . . .
I remember clearly hearing this read by Ed Henegar at my ordination, a pastor who embodies for me faithful pastoral ministry. Ed, in a voice I had heard described as “God’s voice” when I was in college, read to me these powerful words of the past with real deep conviction. And then he came to the line, “he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head.” Ed paused, looked over the book at my somewhat shiny head, and intoned, “I guess God fell down on the job in your case.” I think he got in trouble from his wife for that one!
I remembered this story as I have been meeting the past couple of days with the Special Committee on Translating the Heidelberg Catechism. This is one of the best stories of national Presbyterian life the last few years. I know, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but this committee has done remarkable work. They began their work amidst great controversy over the decision to re-translate Heidelberg, but this remarkably diverse committee has come to a consensus on how to proceed, thanks be to God.
After thoroughly combing through the sixteenth-century German and Latin editions, the committee agreed to work with the Christian Reformed Church in North America and the Reformed Church in America on a common, contemporary English translation that made best use of the original sources. What a great result: a common, ecumenical, usable translation. It should be public soon.
Who would have thought that the harder part of the process was the accompanying biblical citations? We will share a common translation with the RCA and CRCNA. However, the biblical citations are not considered part of the text, so the PC(USA) is working independently on these references.
In the vast majority of cases, working out the references is relatively easy. But not always. It turns out that the German edition lists only chapter, while the Latin adds specific verses. Then there are a few places where the German and Latin editions have differing citations. What do you do when you look up the Scripture citation and find no connection to that section of the catechism? And in one place, even though the German and Latin agree on a nonsequiter citation to Matthew, the same chapter and verse from Luke is right on topic! Furthermore, in several cases the verse listings from the Psalms are perplexing, until you look at the Vulgate and discover that it has different versification from our current English translations, and the references work just fine with the Vulgate. Or what if the citation is to the parable of the Good Samaritan that only makes sense if one accepts the allegorical interpretations of the text that folks like Calvin completely rejected?
Through all this discussion the members of the committee are having a very spirited discussion on the role of scripture and catechism, and what the purpose of these citations is to begin with.
My hope is that all this technical work of combing through biblical references will encourage the church to delve deeply into the catechism itself, that its wisdom from centuries back will help the PC(USA) remember who we are, what we believe, and what we intend to do (G-2.0100a).
Thanks for lifting up the work of the translators. I remember listening with interest to the discussion of why a new translation was needed during the webcasting of the GA, and I am glad it is proceeding well! It sounds like interesting (if sometimes frustrating) work!
Here's a less thorny question regarding biblical citations: do you prefer the colon between chapter and verse number, or the period? Do academic publishers tend to use the period over the colon? Is there any stylistic consensus? I realize it's a totally superficial issue, but I've come to prefer the period myself...
Posted by: Mike Poteet | 03/09/2011 at 03:29 PM
Mike,
We had spirited discussions on commas, semicolons, and brackets, but I'm pretty sure there was a consensus on colons--sorry, no periods.
Charles
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/09/2011 at 03:31 PM
Charles,
Odd that the CRC did not insist on scripture citations, since all of theirs to date have included them (contra PCUSA and RCA). The Reformed Church in the US and the Canadian Reformed Churches have always had the scripture references with their editions, in continuity with the historical editions of the HC. Those might be helpful for the committee.
Posted by: Walter L. Taylor | 03/10/2011 at 10:53 AM
What citations one uses / allows is very important if, later on, you are going to try to find a way to interpret a portion of the catechism not to say what the scripture does say. Thus, it does not surprise me that there would be a lot of haggling in this area of your work.
Posted by: Matt Ferguson | 03/10/2011 at 11:09 AM
Walter,
The CRCNA and the RCA do include scripture references in their text. But these texts have evolved over time in their tradition, and they did not consider them to be part of the common translation we worked on together. Therefore, the PCUSA special committee went back to the original citations for our version. We had the CRCNA/RCA citations in front of us.
Charles
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/10/2011 at 11:55 AM
Matt,
There was absolutely no variation from the original German/Latin citation except in a handful of cases where there were obvious typographical errors. This was not an ideologically driven process. In fact, the committee valued the possibility that folks would wrestle with how particular texts were related to the question when it was not obvious.
Charles
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/10/2011 at 11:56 AM
@Mike Poteet-- re: the period vs colon- I think it might be a British/European vs American thing, although my UBS 4 uses a period (Jn 3.16), and was published and printed in Germany. My German Bible, and my NA 27 use commas (Jn 3,16). Go figure.
grace & peace,
dm
Posted by: Dave Moody | 03/10/2011 at 12:27 PM
Charles,
It is important for those outside the committee to realize that we did have to zoom in on the original German document, (the joke was to 800%), to help determine if a 1 was a 1 or a 2, or if a 1 was a 1 or a colon. An outside observer will understand if they look at the original German document. The committee even joked that people might say that our committee couldn't tell the difference between a 1 and a 2; HOWEVER, no one could be further from the truth. Rather we were VERY careful to ensure that the German and Latin citations were accurately identified in the original text and communicated in the citations for this translation, "identified" meaning (understanding Yes, that was suppose to be a colon, not a 1 - or vice versa). Fortunately this did not occur often.
I am proud to be a part of this committee and proud of the work that was accomplished, and proud that our members set aside their ideological differences to focus on preserving the historicity of the catechism.
Posted by: Todd Mulford | 03/10/2011 at 12:41 PM
Todd,
Rightly so. As I mentioned to the committee, they could have easily mailed this one in. I don't think anyone since the writing of the catechism has put more hard work into getting those original biblical references right. There was one place, for instance, where a reference to Matthew was Mat instead of Matt. It turns out the second t had been read by a typesetter as a 1 before the reference. Someone on this team figured this out, and so a biblical reference that didn't make sense suddenly made perfect sense.
Charles
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/10/2011 at 01:03 PM
Charles,
Thank you for the detective work that adds "perfect sense" to the references. That's helpful.
But I have a more basic question: Why the ferver to reclaim the exact "autograph" of the Heidelberg text? The text we now use is what we approved as our belief. In one sense, who cares about what was originally written in Heidelberg?
It's not that every other confession is the exact text originally written. Westminster has many changes. The Belhar now being voted on has a number of politically correct emendations in it.
If it's not a problem that these confessions are not the exact original text, why the big drive to remove a phrase about homosexual sin that the Heidelberg writers intended but delicately left implied rather than baldly written?
It seems that we aren't being consistent. Can you help me understand why?
Jim Berkley
Seattle, WA
Posted by: James D. Berkley | 03/10/2011 at 03:49 PM
Dear Jim,
Glad that you are engaging this conversation.
Permit me to answer your question:
"Why the ferver to reclaim the exact "autograph" of the Heidelberg text?"
1. The genesis of our work back in 2008 came from an overture of the Presbytery of Newark, written by a leader within the Presbyterian renewal movement, who read the Heidelberg in the original German, and who proceeded to suggest corrections to 5 sections, including correcting the current version of Q/A 87.
2. As you can read in the Report which we transmitted to the 219th General Assembly last year, their were so many other mistranslations, that a review of the entire Catechism warranted a re-translation. We cite 5 additional sections that had mistranslations. You can access our Report from last year here:
https://www.pc-biz.org/Explorer.aspx?id=3225&promoID=140
2. We join the 16th century Reformers in their method of ad fontes..back to the sources. Let history speak to us. In this case, let Zacharias Ursinus (and others of his contemporaries in Heidelberg) speak to us. The Reformers, as you know, held to the notion of going back to the sources (ad fontes) as a way to illumine truth (post tenebrux lux, "after darkness, light.")
3. The phrase "homosexual perversion" in the current version of Q87 in the Catechism is not at all a correct translation of the German and was not the intent of the Heidelberg writers, contrary to what you have stated. A more correct translation is "unchaste person," which is what we, together with the CRCNA and the RCA are proposing. There is unanimous, unambiguous and unassailable agreement on this point, from left-of-center, moderate, and right-of-center scholars, who have read the original texts.
4. You are correct in saying that the Westminster Confession of Faith that we have in our Book of Confessions has been amended over the years and which can be clearly seen in the two-columned version we have in the BoC. If you and others think that the WCF, too, should be re-translated to reflect historical accuracy of the original autographs, in line with the ad fontes methodology, you and your presbytery can advance an overture or commissioner's resolution to that effect and put it before the 220th General Assembly. In this case, the Heidelberg Catechism is before us.
5. The Heidelberg Catechism is the most translated and most used confessional document in the Reformed tradition. We should be faithful to its original intent and to the original language of what Ursinus and his contemporaries wrote it in.
Lastly, let me invite you to remain open to what the proposed re-translation is and the scripture references attached to them. In both the Catechism's text, and in the accompanying scripture references, we have meticulously and diligently stayed with the 1563 German (3rd ed.) and Latin editions of the Catechism. We believe, as I think you will find, that the re-translation will edify believers for many generations to come, both here and around the world.
Let's continue the conversation; I very much welcome it.
You can reach me at [email protected]
Neal D. Presa
Middlesex, NJ
Chair, General Assembly Special Cmte. on the Heidelberg Catechism
Posted by: Neal D. presa | 03/10/2011 at 09:12 PM
@Dave Moody - Thanks, although my "trim size" NRSV, published here in the States, uses periods in the running heads. I know we are way beyond adiaphora here and this is an incredibly geeky thing to notice, let alone care about -- but I really like the period. Oh, well, I guess I'm on the losing side!
And thanks to Neal for laying out the case for retranslating the Heidelberg. I'm looking forward to the new version since it is one of my favorites in the Book (I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but....!)
Posted by: Mike Poteet | 03/11/2011 at 01:57 PM
A simple question, really. Do you believe 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is being referenced by Q & A 87?
Posted by: Matt Ferguson | 03/12/2011 at 09:49 AM
I'm not sure who you are asking, Matt, but the scripture references for question 87 are:
1 Cor. 6:9-10; Eph. 5:5-6; 1 John 3:14
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/12/2011 at 11:23 AM
Charles,
Thanks. And the scripture references will remain?
Posted by: Matt Ferguson | 03/12/2011 at 09:59 PM
Matt,
The scripture references are not part of the current translation, but are a part of the proposed translation. So, yes, if this is approved, those scriptural citations will be there. No one suggested that I Cor 6:9-10 should be omitted.
News article: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2011/3/14/heidelberg-catechism-special-committee-reaches-una/
Charles
Posted by: Charles Wiley | 03/15/2011 at 01:14 PM
Charles,
Thanks. IMHO If the scriptural citations are there, I don't see an serious objections to the committee's work. If they are not . . . I don't think the revision would stand a chance to gain a 2/3 vote.
God's blessings to you,
Matt Ferguson
Posted by: Matt Ferguson | 03/19/2011 at 09:58 AM