Trying to keep Peter decent: a translation oddity

Reflecting on today’s gospel (John 21:1-19), I’ve been fascinated by what looks to me like a game of avoidance by some of the translations.

The verse I’m drawing attention to is v7. This is the NRSV.

That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes (τὸν ἐπενδύτην διεζώσατο), for he was naked (ἦν γὰρ γυμνός), and jumped into the sea. 

The NRSV has a word for word approach to the second phrase I’ve highlighted, although if it were to be consistent it would translate the first phrase something like “he belted up his cloak”. The same word for “belt up” is used later in Jesus’ prophecy of Peter’s death as the evangelist narrates it. 

I think the combination of these phrases leads many translators and certainly some older commentators (I’m afraid I don’t have a recent commentary on John to hand) astray. They end up sounding as though they’ve digested an anthropologist’s guide to the working clothes of a Galilean fisherman.

The supposedly “literal” ESV offers: “he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work”. The “conservative” NIV has “he wrapped his outer garment round him (for he had taken it off)”

But the “meaning for meaning” versions aren’t any better: “he put on the clothes that he had taken off while he was working” says the CEV. The Voice has “he threw on his shirt (which he would take off while he was working)” 

There seems a common desire to avoid the word “naked”.

But I wonder if that’s a rather important word. The whole story is cast as a theophany.  (if you talked about anyone other than God “showing himself” to people in any other context than a revelatory appearance, the language would more likely refer to a flasher.) Jesus after his resurrection initiates revelatory encounters with his disciples: they do not decide whether to see the risen Lord.

In that context, John, with his subtle and allusive use of language, may be inviting us to see another scriptural encounter behind the text, when a sinful Adam tries to hide his nakedness from the Lord.

Peter is not quite in the same position here: he both wants to hide himself from, and to be with the Lord. He covers up, and rushes forward. It is an ambivalence of response to God that many a subsequent disciple knows only too well.

The story begins as a clear theophany. It ends as a clear narrative of vocation. In the telling it passes through a story of challenge and forgiveness that is surely intended to call Peter’s threefold denial to mind.

In that context, it seems at least possible, and I would say probable, that we are meant to hear that echo of Adam in the garden. John is not particularly interested in exactly what Galilean fisherman wear or don’t wear to work. He is interested in telling the story of Peter, called in his ordinary working environment, called in his fallen humanity, and above all called by the one who has stayed faithful to his denier, and will lead Peter himself to become a faithful witness who will die rather than deny again.

If that is indeed part of what is going on in John’s story, then translating γυμνός by anything other than “naked” simply won’t do.

A catholic child-murderer, allegedly

I’m a bit baffled by the amount of fuss generated by plans to re-inter Richard iii’s exhumed remains. There’s something a little odd over Roman Catholics and Anglicans, or Leicester and York squabbling over the possession of the bones of a man widely alleged by many historians to have ordered the murder of his nephews. Child killing is not generally regarded as something to boast about in either Anglican or Roman traditions.

Leaving the actual squabble to one side, I do want to comment on the mistaken preconception which seems to lie at the heart of some of the “Roman Catholic or Anglican burial” bit of the debate. Although it mainly seems to be the coin peddled by conservative Roman Catholic bloggers, there’s also an example in today’s BBC report which seems to owe at least as much to the reporter as his interviewee:

Dr John Ashdown-Hill, from Colchester, has now entered the fray saying King Richard would want a Catholic burial. … according to Dr Ashdown-Hill, Richard was “a very religious man. There is a lot of evidence that Richard III had a very serious personal faith,” he said, though added it was impossible to know what Richard III would have made of plans for burial at a non-Catholic site at York or Leicester. If Richard III had not have died, maybe the Anglican church would never have existed,” he said.

The big “what if” in that final sentence is, like most such historical “what ifs”, pretty irrelevant to the “what is” of real history. In real history, the Catholic Church in England underwent a royally commanded, but academically and episcopally led and influenced, reformation in common with many places in Europe. All the first generation of “Anglicans” – a name not then in use – were Catholics who had hitherto owed obedience to the Pope. 

The change in loyalty of thousands of hitherto more-or-less papally obedient Catholics, in England and across Europe, created a division which was unknown in Richard’s day. Until the dust of the Reformation settled down there were no such thing as Catholics in contradistinction to Protestants, or Roman Catholics as they are now known by Anglicans quite insistent on taking the “catholic” adjective seriously when reciting the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

Richard was an English Catholic of the 15th century whether “a very religious man”, an ambitious child-killer, or even both. It is impossible to say whether he would have been a monarch on the side of evangelical reformation, or papalist continuity. Other English and European monarchs and princes took different stances. Because of that the claim that he should be regarded today as either Roman Catholic or Anglican is simply anachronistic, and bad history.

The precedent of the sailor from the Mary Rose seems regularly to get a mention in this context. That was done according to the Sarum rite (a local English variation of the pre-Tridentine Roman rite) but the requiem was celebrated by the Anglican Provost of Portsmouth, with participation from his Roman Catholic opposite number. That seems tacitly to acknowledge that Christians who later divided can co-operate rather than squabble over putting someone’s remains back in the earth when that someone predated the divisions that now exist. But perhaps when royalty is involved, there’s also been a long tradition of people losing their heads.

Inventing the mythical Jesus

Let’s say we want to reform a religion in a new direction. We look for a founder who we can claim fits the kind of profile everyone is expecting. This leader, this messiah, is most likely to be a successful warrior, a general who wins battles of God’s own side. We can’t find one, so we invent a purely imaginary figure instead. Then we explain how he was a total disaster, unable to raise an army, deserted by his followers, and executed by the enemy.

Now, having invented this Jesus guy out of whole cloth, let’s make him related to someone who’s quite well known and respected in our day. Let’s identify this man known to be a faithful and observant Jew as the brother of our messiah. Of course he won’t complain that we’re using his invented messiah brother to justify not observing the law. Even better, let’s tell stories about how this Jesus was at odds with his family while he was alive, but they’ve all come round to be his supporters now. They’ll never dare contradict that.

OK, next let’s root all our stories about him in the recent past, when there are plenty of other people around now who were still around then. People have such poor memories, they’ll all believe they met him anyway.

And of course, we all want to be trusted as the keepers of the flame, this new and super-truthful religion. Let’s portray ourselves as useless, imbecilic cowards who never ever got the point. 15 years ago he was a great teacher who couldn’t even teach his longest standing pupils to understand him. 15 years ago he trained us in his leadership skills so well that we ran away and he got killed. What, you were there and you don’t remember him? What a poor memory you’ve got. Oh you admit it! Good, I thought for a minute you were going to call me a liar.

If we portray ourselves as unlettered fishermen, and pretend to speak with thick Galilean accents, then no-one will guess that we’ve done loads of research on ancient myths of dying and rising gods, and decided to borrow the best bits for our invented superhero. That way we can get ourselves out of the hole we’ve dug by creating a failed messiah as our leader, a defeated warrior as our hero and an executed criminal as our moral exemplar.

Then let’s all die horribly without letting the cat out of the bag. I know that’s a pretty drastic way to persuade people we haven’t made it all up, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

That’s what I call a cunning plan. And I bet you no-one will spot that’s what we actually did for nearly 2,000 years. And then people will point and laugh and sneer at them and call them mythicists, ‘cos we are just so historically plausible.

Oh yes.

Blogging and the soul of wit

Brevity, according to Shakespeare’s prolix Polonius (never one to listen to his own advice) is the soul of wit.

If that’s true, then some of my posts have been witless, soulless or both. I confess, dear Reader, I have rambled.

I have decided, therefore, before this site grows to too many posts, to carry out a pruning of the past, and exercise greater self-disciple in the future. I wish to keep my posts short, and so perhaps, be able to post more often.

I have accompanied this pruning by selecting a new theme. Should you be interested, the header image was taken last autumn at High Leigh.

While dealing in clichés, I may as well use another: “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I hope, in this brief new world, to use more pictures and this spare you if not a thousand words, then at least some significant number.

Who knows, perhaps in being brief, I may occasionally manage to combine soul and wit.