(originally posted at wycliffe.ca on 2015-11-11)
In August, I had the opportunity to serve two translation teams by checking their drafts of Genesis 1-5. It's amazing the issues that come up when people from different cultures try to express the meaning of these familiar stories in their own languages.
One issue I'd never considered before came up when discussing the translation of Genesis 3:14. The NET Bible translates God's words to the serpent this way:
Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl land dust you will eat all the days of your life.
The issue that came up was how to interpret the word which the NET translated 'above': cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field.
The New Living Translation (NLT) says "more than": ... you are cursed more than all animals ...
New Jewish Publication Society Tanakh (NJPS) is similar: ... more cursed shall you be than all cattle ...
The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) says "among": ... cursed are you among all animals ...
Good News Bible/Today's English Version (TEV) says "You alone of all the animals ..."
A translation like "above" seems to me to mean the same thing as "more than", so NET, NLT, NIV, ESV, and NJPS (among others) all interpret this the same way. These translation seem to me to imply that all animals are cursed, and the serpent is cursed even more than the others. Do you read their English any differently than I do?
The other option is represented by NRSV and TEV (among others): only the serpent is cursed; the other animals are not.
So, the question is, are all animals cursed?
How would we know?
In biblical thinking, the world is not as it should be, and one way God will set it right. Romans 8:20-22 (NET) says,
For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God's children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.
And the setting right is described in Isaiah 11:1-9 (including changes to the animals, vv. 6-7), Isaiah 65:17ff (animals are mentioned in v. 25), and, of course, Revelation 21-22:
[God himself] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more – or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist. (Rev 21:4 NET)
This theme of new creation is one of my favourites, and it runs all the way through the Bible. It's often just under the surface, and you notice it if you're looking for it, and you may read right past it if you're unfamiliar with this theme. Consider Jesus' words to his disciples in Matthew 19:28 (NET):
I tell you the truth: In the age when all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones ...
I don't know how many times I read "the age when all things are renewed", mentally replaced it with "heaven", and didn't think any more about it. But "heaven" isn't really an adequate word for the new creation; "the new heavens and new earth" captures it better. (I recently read Richard Middleton's A new heaven and a new earth: Reclaiming biblical eschatology, which explains the issues nicely. N.T. Wright has written a lot about this too; see Surprised by hope for the treatment that got me hooked on his writing.)
I could go on and on about the new creation theme, but let's save that for another time. Coming back to the question at hand: one of my favourite biblical themes might push us towards concluding that all animals are cursed. But doesn't that seem like a bit of a stretch?
It's one thing to "let Scripture interpret Scripture", i.e., to bring in ideas from some parts of the Bible to help us understand other parts. But it's another thing altogether to bring ideas foreign to a text into that text. (Or is it? That's a big question that I'm not ready to tackle today. Leave your thoughts in the Comments below.)
As much of a fan of the new creation theme as I am, I'm even more a fan of letting the stories at the beginning of Genesis mean what they meant to their original audience(s).
Looking at the immediate context, the Garden of Eden story itself, the only indication I can see that all animals might be cursed comes indirectly in Genesis 3:17-18, when God curses the ground. There, it's the ground that's cursed, not the animals. In the entire Garden of Eden story, the other animals don't do anything wrong, and the curses at the end of chapter 3 are clearly responses to the wrong things that the serpent, the woman, and the man did. (I'm not calling them Adam and Eve here because the text doesn't, except possibly in 3:17, and even that's debatable. I'll write about that in a separate post soon.)
My conclusion is that the other animals are not cursed, and so a translation like "above" or "more than" is not justified. Obviously there are other opinions out there, and I'd love to know how so many standard translations came to the conclusion that the other animals are cursed. Any ideas?
I recommended to the translation teams to express something like TEV's "You alone of all the animals ..."
The standard translation helps, UBS's Translator's handbook and SIL's Translator's notes both make this recommendation as well:
UBS: "above in English carries the meaning that the other animals are also cursed, but that the snake is cursed even more, to a greater extent. This is the wrong meaning."
SIL: "It means that among all the animals, the snake is the one who is cursed. It does not mean that God cursed all the animals, and the snake most of all."
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