Perhaps you might consider this reply worthy of a post to your blog.
>from a Comment on my blog: If you the [sic] TNIV is all for accuracy then they missed it in Psalm 34:20. "He protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken." It should rightly state "his bones", since this is a reference to Christ, which is totally lost in the TNIV. So much for accuracy!
>My response: No, the TNIV did not miss it here. Check the Hebrew (not English translations of it) and you can see that "their bones" is accurate within its context of referring to how God protects righteous people. The New Testament quote adapts Ps. 34:20 to have application to a single person, Christ. Dr. Grudem misleads millions of people who heard his broadcast when he called this a TNIV inaccuracy.
HH: I have to agree with Wayne Grudem here. The referent is a single
righteous person in Ps. 34:19. It is not talking about a gang of
righteous people but the righteous person as an individual, though of
course the singular speaks of a category of persons. When
translations change the number like this, they are tampering with the
text needlessly. By the way, there is no emphasis put on masculinity
in the Hebrew, though the masculine adjectival form is used. HCSB
considered this type of word as fair game for rendering in a more
gender neutral way. The HCSB translated in verse 19: "the one who is
righteous," and used the generic "his," which seems quite similar to
the Hebrew structure. Here is the TNIV for the two verses:
The righteous may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers them from them all;
20 he protects all their bones,
not one of them will be broken.
HH: But, you see, it is not plural but singular in the Hebrew. There
are parts of Psalm 34 that speak of a plurality of people and parts
that speak about the individual. It is good to preserve the style and
expression of the author. Who knows, he may have meant the
individual. I am being facetious.
HH: Beyond that, an issue raised about this verse is the fact that
the words are quoted in the NT of Jesus (John 19:36). So putting them
in the plural here makes it harder for the NT quotation, which is in
the singular, to be referred back to this passage. The TNIV editors
say that the quote might be from other passages (Ex 12:46; 9:12), but
that if it is from here, the connection is clear anyway. That is
certainly debatable if you change the number. The form of John 19:46
is closer to the form of the Ex 12:46 and Num 9:12 passages, but
there is reason to consider that Ps 34:20 could draw on these
passages. Therefore, it helps to keep the number singular to obtain a
clearer linkage.
Here, is a comment by Delitzsch on the righteous person of Ps 34:19-20:
He is under the most special providence, "He keepeth all his bones,
not one of them (NE UNUM QUIDEM) is broken"--a pictorial
representation of the thought that God does not suffer the righteous
to come to the extremity, that He does not suffer him to be severed
from His almighty protecting love, nor to become the sport of
oppressors. Nevertheless we call to mind the literal fulfilment which
these words of the psalmist received in the Crucified One; for the
Old Testament prophecy, which is quoted in John 19:33-37, may be just
as well referred to our psalm as to Exod 12:46. Not only the Paschal
lamb, but in a comparative sense even every affliction of the
righteous, is a type.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
- -, BibleTranslation discussion list, [], 5 nov 2005 Peter Kirk: Well spotted, Wayne. I want to clarify that this is not a case of
"singular they", but a real plural "their bones" (`etzmotayw, 34:21) in
the Hebrew text - although the righteous person of v.19 (Hebrew v.20) is
singular but also indefinite.
These verses, indeed the whole psalm, are clearly a promise intended not
just for Jesus Christ, but for all righteous people who trust God for
their protection. The promise was of course partly fulfilled in Jesus on
the cross, but that by no means exhausts its fulfilment. Therefore this
psalm is rightly used in Christian worship and teaching.
- Harold Holmyard: You are making a mistake. The suffix on "bones" is singular. It
is "his" bones. The form is the normal third person masculine
singular suffix for plural nouns.
- Peter Kirk: Yes, Harold, you are right. My mistake, sorry.
But this does not change the fact that this psalm refers generally to
all righteous people, and not only to Jesus Christ. This is clear from
the indefinite noun forms, contrast with the specific "this poor man" in
v.6 which of course refers to the author David. If Grudem indeed claims
that this "A righteous man" refers specifically to Christ, he is wrong.
I note that Delitzsch does not think this, for he interprets this as
"God does not suffer the righteous to come to the extremity", with "the
righteous" as a plural with a small "r" so not referring specifically to
Christ.
The problem for the TNIV translators is that they are translating into a
form of English (that of their explicitly defined target audience) which
does not have a gender generic third person pronoun. When you say that
"there is no emphasis put on masculinity in the Hebrew", I presume that
you are recognising that the original text has a gender generic sense,
i.e. that the promises in this psalm apply to both men and women. It
would therefore be a mistranslation to use a male specific pronoun like
"his" when the meaning is gender generic. Now I can understand that "He
protects all of his or her bones" would be in some ways a more precise
translation than changing this to the plural. But presumably this was
ruled out as stylistically unacceptable. So the choice was between
gender inaccuracy and number "inaccuracy". But I think the translators
realised that here, as in many other places, there is no real inaccuracy
introduced by changing to the plural, although there are some slight
changes in connotation. However, to use a male specific pronoun where
the original is gender generic is to introduce a real change of meaning,
that this promise is for males only and not for females. Therefore, I
presume, the Committee chose the alternative which compromised the
meaning less. This is of course precisely the same choice as they have
made in countless other places in the NT and the OT. (Well, maybe not
countless as Grudem et al have attempted to count them - was it 904
choices of this kind that they found?)
The issue with this verse is slightly confused by the allegation that it
refers specifically to Jesus. It does not, although it was correctly
applied to Christ in John 19:36 because Jesus was one of those righteous
people to whom the original promise referred. Well, yes, he was THE
righteous person par excellence, but different degrees of righteousness
are irrelevant if we can agree that the psalm applies to all righteous
people.