Ethics, the Apostles and the Old Testament

When we do Bible translation, we have an ethical obligation to the apostles. We should try to interpret the OT Scriptures as they did, as best we can. When we claim to translate the Bible, using the singular, we claim the apostolic point of view that these disparate documents come from God and focus on Jesus. It is unethical not to seek to show this as we translate or to minimize it. They saw the Scriptures pointing to Jesus. They understood and announced Jesus’ story, in the light of those Scriptures. Our translations should reflect respect for this apostolic understanding.

But how does our obligation to the apostles and their view of OT Scripture show up in our translating? We might simply say that they preached “the right doctrine from the wrong texts”, as the title of one book puts it. But we can do better than that. One way we can learn from and reflect their approach is using Biblical theology in the tradition of Gerhardus Vos. More recently the NT commentary edited by Carson and Beale is an example of this approach and an essential tool for Bible translators.

This paper uses the opening chapters of Matthew’s gospel to highlight the apostle’s OT interconnections and suggest ways of reflecting these in translation. It is much more than explicit fulfillment language. An ethic of attentive obligation to the apostle’s use of Scripture can shape vocabulary choice, format, notes and other helps.