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161 To respond adequately (I hope) to the chapters in this volume has been a fascinating and sometimes frustrating challenge. It proved simplest to respond to each essay/chapter in turn. Leonard Greenspoon’s chapter takes us into the intriguing issue of what constitutes a legitimate or appropriate translation. And the central issue he elaborates is very important, for it is certainly the case that the rendering of Jewish names by later equivalents has tended to obscure their Jewishness. But while empathizing with this concern, we must remember the “what”and “why” of translation. It is a basic fact that the same name is regularly rendered differently in a different language. For example, as the entry “James (name)” in Wikipedia clearly indicates, my own first name, “James,” is rendered in a bewildering variety of forms in different languages—for example, Jacobus, Jakob, Iago, Diego, Jacques, Seamus, Hamish. And the equivalent of the English “Jesus” includes Isa, Josue, Yeshua, and Gesu. In such circumstances, translation which retains the original language form is not actually translation. It may help jolt a reader with a reminder of the original language form, and such a jolt will often be valuable, especially when original identity, in this case the Jewish identity of Jesus and his first followers, is concerned. But we should not forget the purpose of translation—to translate foreign terms and idioms into the common language and idiom of the readers, that is, to show that what the terms and idioms communicate can be communicated in their own language, can be part of their own language world. To translate Yeshua as CHAPTER TEN The Importance of JewishChristian Dialogue on Jesus James D. G. Dunn sOuNDINGs IN THE RELIGION OF JEsus 162 “Jesus” is a way of saying, “This person is not hidden from you by language but is accessible to you through your own language.” If the original Aramaic is translated into Greek, and the Greek into English, then there is no reason why Yeshua should not be translated into “Jesus.” To claim that such and similar rendering presents all those named in effect as Christians over against (evil) Jews is rather facile, since the New Testament itself makes clear that the title “Christian” did not emerge for some time after Jesus’execution (Acts 11:26).Most Christians may have forgotten that the first followers of Jesus were all Jews, or may never have had it pointed out to them, but it is obvious to any inquiry on the point and is usually accepted without question when pointed out. And to render “scribes and Pharisees”as “Scripture scholars and religious experts”is no solution, obscuring as it does why scribes were called “scribes”(a learned minority who could write!), and that there was a significant body called “Pharisees”(an appropriate English rendering of perushim) who were not the only “religious experts.” A more serious critique highlights the unwillingness of translators to render Luke 3:29 appropriately—though one might well ask whether the KJV’s rendering of Joshua as “Jesus” in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8 was more responsible. But Greenspoon goes on to the more challenging case of the appropriate rendering of hoi Ioudaioi particularly in John’s Gospel. Here again we have to accept that the translation “the Jews” has contributed to Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism over the centuries (particularly John 8:31-44). But is the answer to translate other than “the Jews”? It is a question over which I have agonized in the past, in dialogue with Irvin Borowsky and Howard Kee. And, somewhat regretfully, I have had to conclude with Joseph Blenkinsopp that the primary task of a translation is to translate what the original text actually says. We may well wish that the text had expressed itself differently, or with greater precision. And any translation carries with it a degree of interpretation (sense equivalence and not just simple word equivalence). But the fact that “the Jews” in at least many cases in John refers to Jewish leaders (individual Jews fear “the Jews”) is a matter for exposition and not translation. The real responsibility (and guilt) lies with those who have failed to point out such features, that “the Jews” are as often used in John’s Gospel of the crowd who have still to make up their minds regarding Jesus, and that various Gospel passages should not be read in church or preached on without the historical circumstances which occasioned such wording being...

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