In the Details

00:01
Dr. Jeff Kloha
I still come across passages. It’s like I actually don’t remember reading that before. It just kind of unlocks another door, you know, there’s another level of understanding and another insight. 

00:20
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. I’m rich Friedowski. 

00:25
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. 

00:26
Rich Rudowske
Today we are going to have a conversation about the museum of the Bible and about the Bible text itself, going kind of a deep dive. Our guest is Dr. Jeff Kloa, who is the chief curatorial officer of the Museum of the Bible and formerly provost at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, was one of my professors, and we had the opportunity when he was here this past summer at the Concordia Mission Institute summer conference to have him come and sit down and talk with us. It’s a pretty engaging, in depth conversation. 

00:58
Emily Wilson
I can honestly say I studied theology in my undergrad program but never got into text criticism in quite that way. And just my mind was blown in this episode. So I hope it’s equally engaging for you all. 

01:16
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, so we’re going to talk with him some about the Museum of the Bible itself in Washington, DC, which you can learn more about by going to museumofthebible.org. And then we’re going to talk some about text criticism. So we hope you enjoy the conversation. We are with Dr. Jeff Kloyle. He is the chief curatorial officer of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D. C. Thanks for being with us today. 

01:42
Emily Wilson
Welcome. 

01:43
Dr. Jeff Kloha
All right. Thanks for having me to Concordia, Missouri for the first time. 

01:46
Emily Wilson
Woo. 

01:47
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, now you get lots of lutheran credibility. You can share that for a while. So that’s good. So tell us a little bit of background about the museum of the Bible for folks that haven’t maybe heard of it yet, where it is and what the purpose and objective of the museum is. 

02:02
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Sure, we opened to the public in November of 2017 in Washington, DC, just a couple of blocks from the air and Space museum right by the mall there. And the organization got started about 2009 or so. Green family in Oklahoma city began collecting some artifacts and had some people talking to them about a museum, decided to take it up on their own and looked for some locations and decided that either New York or Washington would be the best place to go to have a good number of visitors, people who are interested in museums and end up with the property in Washington. So, yeah, we opened in November 2017 and the mission, if you want to put it that way, is to invite all people to engage with the transformative power of the Bible. 

02:43
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And we focus on the history of the Bible, sort of the history of the ancient eastern backgrounds all the way to modern translations. We talk about the impact of the Bible in America and around the world culturally, historically. And then we have a lot of interactive media kind of things on the stories of the Bible. So it’s the basic story of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, basic story of the New Testament. And to help people learn about the Gospels, a kind of reconstruction of Nazareth, the village walk into. And it’s pretty know the challenge we had, or the goal was to really present the Bible in a very appealing way. It’s pretty cool, it’s beautiful. There’s sound and video and really cool artifacts everywhere. So we really enjoy people going through the museum and get great response from people. 

03:34
Emily Wilson
I have not yet been to the museum of the Bible, but every time I hear someone who has gone through the exhibits, they’re just in awe. And it just brings a three dimensional nature to a lot of the need, but also our own personal experience and the history and what that looks like. But how did you get involved personally in the museum of the Bible? 

03:58
Dr. Jeff Kloha
That’s a pretty long story, really. They were doing educational programs with greek and manuscripts and things like that for several years before the museum opened. And I had two or three students do some of the programs. They would work on some greek manuscripts and I’d incorporated it into the class. And so I knew that was going on. I really didn’t know they were doing a museum per se, but a really good friend of mine, a colleague in the academic world, was connected with the museum on their research side and knew that I had been, what’s the word? Pulled into academic administration. And so they kind of called me up and said, hey, would you be interested in joining the museum? And I said, no, honesty is the best policy. 

04:42
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So after about four or five months of conversation trying to figure out what they’re doing and how I might fit into that, decided to give it a jump. I mean, what was really appealing to me was the goal of getting into the public space, presenting the Bible in a public way for all people, something that people hadn’t done before. It’s kind of an experiment, right? So that was kind of appealing to go out there into the public square and give it a shot. So, yeah, it’s been fun. 

05:11
Emily Wilson
It really seems like an evangelistic tool that as it’s advertised, because now it’s one of the museums that you can visit in DC. 

05:20
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Well, it’s an interesting space because we don’t actually evangelize in the museum. 

05:25
Emily Wilson
Okay. 

05:26
Dr. Jeff Kloha
We don’t proselytize. We don’t present any theological views. 

05:30
Emily Wilson
Okay. 

05:32
Dr. Jeff Kloha
If you’re catholic, protestant, any background, even jewish, we treat jewish faith and traditions and their way of handling the text very appropriately and accurately. So we have a great response from the jewish community. It’s really focused on the Bible itself. 

05:49
Emily Wilson
Right. 

05:49
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And Bible is the Bible. So we hope people spend three, 4 hours at the museum and want to learn more. 

05:56
Emily Wilson
Right. 

05:57
Dr. Jeff Kloha
We’re not going to change everything in one visit, but hopefully get people excited, want to learn more, maybe be reminded of some things, and encourage people to follow up on their own. 

06:08
Rich Rudowske
So you mentioned three or 4 hours. Is that like if somebody’s planning to go to the museum, is that what you recommend for time? 

06:14
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, for a lot of people. I’ve had a lot of times where somebody will come and I’m asked to give a tour, and they’re like, yeah, I got like an hour and a half kind of thing. They’re thinking, boring museum thing. And once you get going, there’s so much to see. And again, so interactive and it’s not just kind of staring at cases. 

06:35
Emily Wilson
Right. 

06:36
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So routinely people will spend three, four or more hours and still not have enough time to see everything. 

06:42
Rich Rudowske
Okay. 

06:43
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So come on back. 

06:44
Emily Wilson
Right, so first time visitors, what do you tell them? Usually? Like, you need to stop by and visit. 

06:50
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So what I’d like to do is just by way of explanation, we have six floors of exhibits. You have about 200,000 exhibit space, very large. And so the three main galleries are those three that I mentioned, the history of the Bible, the stories of the Bible, and the impact of the Bible. On the fifth floor, top floor, we have special exhibit space, one of which is an exhibit from the Israel Antiquities authority of about 700 artifacts from Israel from the canaanite period and the roman period. Nothing like it outside Jerusalem. It’s pretty cool. So that’s a great place to start to kind of get that archaeological background. And it’s more of a traditional exhibit, things and cases. So you kind of get that out of the way while you’re still fresh in the morning. 

07:33
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And then you go down to the fourth floor, history floor, amazing manuscripts, interactivity, and then down to the third floor. And that’s where you get all the fun stuff. So the Hebrew Bible experience and Nazareth village and kind of breaks it up a little bit, then go down to second floor, impact of the Bible. And then kind of the fun way to end is we have a, it’s called the Washington revelations. It’s hard to describe. It’s kind of a virtual reality ride. You stand about 30 people at a time. You stand on a platform, you kind of lean into a device, and you fly through Washington, DC. The platform moves as you fly along. There’s wind and cherry blossom smells, all kinds of things. And it just shows places in Washington, DC where there’s Bible passages or biblical figures portrayed. 

08:23
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And it’s all over the Capitol. Right. So it’s just a way to show people that the Bible’s always been there. It’s kind of hidden in plain sight and inspire to learn more about it. 

08:33
Emily Wilson
Right. They won’t be able to pass by those monuments and those facets without noticing that. Yeah, that’s awesome. So just thinking about two of Lutheran Bible translators has contributions to the illuminations room, I believe. Could you share a little bit about that? 

08:52
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah. So that’s on our history of the Bible floor, and it talks about the ongoing work of Bible translation. So one of themes in our history of the Bible floor is the geographic spread of the Bible and the spread across languages. So it starts in Hebrew and Aramaic, Greek gets translated. Right. And then it keeps going. And so at the conclusion or at the end, modern day, there’s translational work still ongoing. So you have one room, kind of a large oval shape, where we show languages where they have both the Old and New Testament already translated, and we show those and then languages where they have just the New Testament or other portions translated. And then we have kind of going around the room sections that show with kind of clear books. It’s a book that looks empty, which is the point. 

09:39
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Languages listed that don’t have parts of the Bible translated yet, but it’s underway. And then the last area is languages that have not yet been started. And so it just gives people a visual representation of the past work and ongoing work of Bible translation. And it’s really representing the work of ten Bible translation organizations in America that have grouped together under the every tribe, every nation umbrella and are collaborating and coordinating to complete all these translations over the next, what, 13 years? 1213 years. 

10:10
Rich Rudowske
It is twelve years now. 

10:12
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Twelve years. 

10:12
Rich Rudowske
A little bit of pressure on a little pressure. 

10:15
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Good to have a goal. Ambitious goal. 

10:16
Rich Rudowske
Right. 

10:17
Dr. Jeff Kloha
But it’s pretty cool. People walk in and we have videos, people, when they get a translation, they’re very excited, obviously. So it’s really cool to show the. It’s not just a past thing. 

10:28
Emily Wilson
Right. 

10:29
Dr. Jeff Kloha
But this work continues. And so it’s great to have Lutheran Bible translators a part of the museum there and had events at the museum so it’s great to kind of be a support to that as well. 

10:38
Emily Wilson
So I am a little curious for people that you’ve encountered maybe who are less familiar with the Bible and Christianity when they encounter the illuminations room, what’s usually the emotional sort of reaction to that? 

10:54
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah. I mean, the first reaction from just about everybody is I didn’t know there were so many languages. 

10:59
Emily Wilson
Right. 

11:00
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So over 6000 languages. So that’s just a remarkable thing in and of itself. And then the visual impact of having all those empty books is pretty striking. And that’s the point. Right. You’re trying to convey that message that this work needs to continue and there’s people working on it. So that’s the overwhelming response is the number of languages and how much there is still to do. 

11:24
Emily Wilson
Right. Yeah. So the reason why I’m asking that is because as it’s not an evangelistic tool of what kind of reaction if there’s a positive, if there’s a negative, if you have gotten any questions, should it be translated and just how that might be? 

11:42
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah. Well, that’s part of being a public institution in the public space. And there are people who simply do not like museum of the Bible. 

11:52
Emily Wilson
Sure. 

11:53
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And that we are too positive about the Bible, that we don’t represent, say, critical perspectives or scholarly work on origins of the Bible or things like that. Sure. And at some point you make choices. If you want to do a museum of the history of the study of the Bible, that’s a different thing than a museum of the history of the Bible. Right. So we took our choices in what we’re trying to convey, and I think those are fair. And no matter what you do, some people are not going to like it. 

12:22
Rich Rudowske
Sure. 

12:23
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And we also get not near as often, but some criticism from people who think we should be more overtly evangelistic. Right. That we should try to convert people at the museum. But if you think about it, why would anybody who isn’t already a believer come to the museum if they know they’re going to be proselytized? Sure. So it’s that inviting approach that we’re just here to show you what there is and in and of itself, it’s pretty amazing. 

12:51
Emily Wilson
Right. 

12:51
Rich Rudowske
And it’s not all, if I’m remembering correctly, not all like just the rosy side, because I think you had an exhibit like the slave Bible. 

12:58
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah. We talk about, in fact, we have a permanent exhibit on how really in the history of America there were different approaches taken using the Bible to encourage slavery and to encourage, you know, people used it both ways. So we’re pretty clear about that. But of know the abolitionist movement, people like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, I mean, they were so immersed in the scriptures and exodus accounts and so of course we portray that as well. But yeah, there are, of course, places where people have used the Bible in ways that are not helpful and correct. It’s important to point that out, too. 

13:36
Rich Rudowske
Exactly. To keep it honest and real so folks can’t say you’re trying to hide something, right? Yeah. So what are you most excited about with your work in the museum? What aspect of your work do you enjoy the most? 

13:48
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Wow. Well, truth be told, most of what I do is meetings and emails. That’s kind of how it works. But what’s been really fun and a little bit of a surprise is we are intentionally an internationally focused organization. So we show the impact of the Bible around the world. And so it’s been really a great opportunity, I think, for us to help an american audience understand how broad the history of the Bible is and communities today who are long standing, christian communities, jewish communities, but under very desperate pressure, politically persecution. We’ve been working on a project with the armenian government and church for a couple of years now and are planning exhibit for next spring. But if you saw the news, there was a conflict in the region just in the fall and some churches were attacked. 

14:47
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And so we worked with our partners and a group of scholars to put together a website documenting the churches in this region and people connected to them. So some videos and just to help Americans understand that these are important, there’s a history here and we should really pay attention and try to be supportive, encouraging. And these places of worship have been there for 900 years and people still use them. Right. So just the opportunity to help encourage and support people who use the Bible around the world, it’s pretty cool. 

15:21
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. 

15:22
Emily Wilson
So going along with all of the awareness building of the challenges around the world that are being faced by those who engage with scripture, bringing it into a perspective of the museum of the Bible, what challenges are you guys facing? How might people be more aware of that? Lutheran Bible translators, essentially translatable podcast listeners, be more aware of that? 

15:47
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Well, the obvious challenge is the same for everyone is Covid. Right. And the huge impact. We are a tourist based entity. We’re a business, really. And so the lack of tourists to DC has a huge impact on the museum. And it’s been a tough year. Grateful for the support we’ve had and we’ve been able to kind of keep things moving and keep the core of our staff on board, and we’ve closed down a few days a week and those kinds of things. And the predictions from the DC tourism bureau, whatever they’re called, is that really. It’s going to be next spring before we see those numbers back. We’re in good shape and have a plan to get ready for welcoming everybody back to Washington in the spring. Right now we’re seeing about 60% of the attendance we had two years ago. 

16:37
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So it’s not terrible, but it’s a tough business to put it that way. 

16:42
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. 

16:42
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So that’s a big challenge. And so come to Washington. 

16:46
Emily Wilson
Right. 

16:48
Dr. Jeff Kloha
The other thing I’ll encourage, we do have, and partly because of COVID we just had to do stuff online. And so we have a phenomenal creative team and video, all that kind of stuff. And we have a whole ton of resources online. Some are kind of fun. We get these lonesome curators. And Bible is so very informative. Little four, five, six minute clips, but they’re engaging. Right. You can just kind of watch a few on YouTube. We’ve got kind of academic style lectures that we’ve placed online, archaeologists and some really good stuff. So a lot of fantastic resources on our website. And for those who are connected to schools, it’s a great place to bring school kids. I mean, if you got a school group that does a trip to Washington. 

17:35
Emily Wilson
DC, definitely put it on the itinerary. 

17:39
Dr. Jeff Kloha
It’s great reaction from kids, from middle school, high school. Just fantastic. Really, the thing that would be most helpful is just come visit, encourage people to visit. And we’re happy to highlight the work of, like we talked about earlier, the work of Bible translation and its ongoing work in the world today. So I think it’s a great partnership. 

18:04
Rich Rudowske
How does the scholarly community and the wider church interact with the museum? Is there research that’s done through the museum? 

18:11
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah. So pretty much everything we do has academic advisors to it. We have a formal academic advisory group that’s been really with the museum since the original exhibits were developed. It’s a group of about 22 or 24 scholars and all kinds of educational affiliations, everything from Duke and Fuller to University of Maryland. I mean, it’s across the board. So really world class scholars and phenomenal people. They all have their own interests and goals and things, but they really want to see the Bible represented accurately. So. So that’s their interest. And they might not like everything we do exactly, but we’re trying to make it as widely available as possible. We also, when we do lectures and conferences, those are always really top scholars. That’s been pretty cool to be able to interact with names you would recognize as fantastic people. 

19:12
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Archaeologists, Bible in America scholars. Wonderful, wonderful speakers. And then every time we do a new exhibit, we always have external advisors who are like this project with Armenia. Again, we had scholars, just an online exhibit, which looks like it’s nothing in some ways. It’s just a few web pages, but it took about six months to develop. And we had scholars from Oxford, from Tufts University, from Yaravan University, I mean, all over the world, vetting everything, making sure everything, obviously sensitive topic. So we want to make sure we do it in a way that cannot have criticism, because we don’t want it to be about the museum. We want it to be about the Bible. 

19:54
Rich Rudowske
Correct. 

19:54
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So that’s been a very important part of our work, and we’ll continue to do that. 

20:00
Emily Wilson
So I am told that you have some expertise in New Testament text criticism. For me, who’s just an undergrad theology major, and for our listeners who might not know what that means, can you share a little bit about that background and what we should know about text criticism? 

20:19
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Sure. So it’s a former life in some ways, but, yeah, it’s a fancy word, a technical word. New Testament textual criticism really is simply the study of the manuscripts of the New Testament from as early as the second century down through the invention of the printing press. And another word, maybe a word that doesn’t get people nervous because you hear the word criticism and it sounds like you’re criticizing. It really just means evaluating. So you’re evaluating manuscripts. You’re evaluating when there’s differences among manuscripts and determining as best possible which manuscript is more accurate and which is less accurate. So the old term would be something like philology, which is like a lover of words. Right. Which is really what it is. It’s a concern to have the exact, precise wording as it was passed down through the history of the church. 

21:15
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And it is pretty technical. It involves the study of Greek, Latin, Syriac, coptic, those early languages, and early translations. And I’ll just say a lot of what’s the word? Sitting down and staring at things for hours and hours, and then you get one little article out of it. Right. So it’s a lot of work. And for the average person, we got some kids who love text criticism. Fantastic. They’re getting excited. 

21:46
Rich Rudowske
That’s right. About to break the door down, I think. Give us more text. 

21:51
Dr. Jeff Kloha
For the average person, the only time you’d even notice, really, is when you’re going through your Bible, and it’ll be a footnote, and it’ll say something like, some ancient manuscripts say this, or the earliest and best manuscripts say this, and it’ll be like an alternative word, or in some cases, a couple of verses. And so it’s really a minor impact on modern Bible readers. But I think it’s very important to apply all the skill, all the abilities, all the tools that we have in order to get as precise a wording as possible. If we had the original autograph of, say, galatians, right, as Paul sent it to the church in Galatia, we’d be done great. But we don’t have that. We have 1200 or 1500 copies, and they don’t all agree. 

22:41
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So it’s just a matter of sorting out which are the best copies, and let’s get that wording as precise as possible. And in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases, there’s really no question. And even where there is question, it almost never affects the sense of the text, the meaning of the text. And you could pretty easily see why they would accidentally or maybe intentionally make that change or clarification. You got to keep in mind they’re copying, say, the greek text over a period of 1500 years. So I think it’s only natural that there would be, hey, the grammar is a little smoother here. There’s an easier way to say that word back in 200 meant this, and in 1300, it means this. So you think about 1500 years, just compare Shakespeare or even read Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson. 

23:31
Dr. Jeff Kloha
It’s going to be a very different kind of English than what we read and speak today. So that’s really what we’re trying to figure out, is how has the tradition developed and how do we get back to the earliest possible. 

23:42
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. So then, of course, throughout church history, there’s always these debates that they arise periodically or questions about. So you mentioned autographs. We don’t have autographs, which would be the original actual written text by the authors. There’s just copies. So how do we know we have the right version of the Bible? Like, how does text criticism help to answer that? How can Bible be authoritative if you. 

24:05
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Well, in some ways, text criticism can’t answer that question. All it can do is look at the manuscripts and make decisions among the manuscripts. But at the same time, we don’t have multiple different versions of Galatians. Right? There’s pretty clearly one version of Galatians, and we have a bunch of copies. There’s one version of first corinthians, and we have a bunch of copies. Right. So going back all the way to the year 200 and even earlier. These manuscripts are all consistent, they agree with each other, and there really isn’t any evidence whatsoever in the manuscripts that there was mass revision or alterations. You can look at quotes from early church fathers as early as, say, 90 Ad, just within a couple of decades of the writing of the gospels, and they’re quoting what looks like the gospels. Right? 

24:56
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So that consistency in the manuscripts, the consistency of use in pastors and theologians throughout the history of the church, really, there’s not a whole lot of question about, do we have a reliable New Testament text? 

25:11
Rich Rudowske
Right. So, like, it’s almost ten years ago now, there’s a new critical edition of the Greek New Testament that came out, and it’s a little different than the one like I used when I was in seminary. So how did these changes get made? And what’s the prognosis for further change? I mean, is there, like, a large volume of text to look at yet, or how does that all work? 

25:31
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, good question. This is the remarkable thing, is there are new manuscripts discovered fairly regularly every year. There’s maybe three or four papyrus documents which date maybe to the fifth century or earlier. They tend to be pretty fragmentary, the size of a credit card or an index card. But when these are discovered, they all kind of fit the rest of the manuscripts. In other words, they’re not showing crazy new things or vastly different things. They look like the rest of the manuscript tradition. So the fact that we have now somewhere around 5500 or 6000 greek manuscripts, wow. All that does is show how consistent it is. And the more they find, the more it just kind of continues to emphasize that consistency. Now, having said that, there are new tools available. 

26:24
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Reading them for my dissertation on first corinthians, I think I read through about 70 manuscripts of first corinthians. That’s why it took six years. Now, with teams of scholars and students working on these digitally, they’re all being entered into databases. They can be compared instantly. And so these digital tools are allowing this work to happen in a much more detailed, refined way as a result, with new discoveries, with refined methodologies, with more information, you’re going from, say, hd to super hd, right? I don’t know, is it 720 to 1080 or 1080 to. Don’t know what those are, but you’re getting the same movie, but you’re getting blacker blacks and whiter whites or whatever. It pops a little bit more, is all. And so that’s just the ongoing work of this kind of detailed scholarship. There’s a new edition, actually, of the Gospel of Mark. 

27:21
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And then there’ll be some slight changes in the text of the Gospel of Mark. I could probably tell you the five or six that would affect translation. Not going to be a surprise. And they’ve been known about by scholars and others for decades, but these refined tools and methodologies just allow that extra precision. I think it’s pretty exciting, actually. The more work you do, the more confident you can be. 

27:45
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And you mentioned 5000, 506,000 manuscripts. So with any other document that’s out there right now besides the Bible, is there anything close to that in terms of. 

27:56
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. You hear that comparison a lot. Obviously, there’s reasons there’s 6000 greek manuscripts because it was used that long. You had church and monastic system through the byzantine empire for 1500 years. So they’re copying these for use liturgically and in devotional life. So it makes sense that you got that many copies despite wars and everything that’s happened for 2000 years. There are other forms of literature, for example, the Iliad and Odyssey, Aristotle, some of those classic, especially like Aristotle. There’s some pretty early works of Aristotle, papyrus manuscripts, even within 100 years of authorship. 

28:37
Rich Rudowske
Wow. 

28:39
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So it’s not like it’s far different for the New Testament. It’s just a different way of preserving. 

28:46
Rich Rudowske
Sure. 

28:46
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Right. What is interesting is that for texts like Aristotle, which are kind know they’re philosophical and political and legal texts, in some ways, there is more revision and adaptation pretty early on for those texts just because of the way they were used, whereas with the New Testament manuscripts, there’s definitely more of a concern for just making a copy. 

29:09
Rich Rudowske
Right. 

29:10
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Just kind of passing down what was received. So it’s handled a little bit differently, and it’s partly because of theological perspective, but also the way that they’re using them. They’re using them for worship, they’re using them for devotion. They’re not using them for legal purposes or teaching purposes in the way that a philosophical text would be. 

29:31
Emily Wilson
Right. So we are very soon approaching the 500th anniversary of Luther’s translation of the New Testament. So just wanted to ask you to comment on the impact of this 500th anniversary that we’re coming up on, but also the impact that we had from Luther translating the New Testament. 

29:54
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, it’s a great anniversary, and we’re at that time where everything has a 500th anniversary. But this one is worth noting significantly, because it’s September 1522, Luther’s 1 September Testament is released, and the impact is electrifying. Right. Everybody remembers Gutenberg. Right? The invention of the printing press is this revolutionary event in 1454, and that’s important. But Gutenberg could make 60 bibles in the time it took to make one manuscript. So it’s faster, it’s more efficient, but it’s not like the Internet, where everything is everywhere at the same time 60 years later. When you get to Luther, they’ve figured out how to make paper more cheaply. They’ve figured out how to make ink that sticks better. They’ve refined the printing process. And so really, Luther hits it exactly the right time for mass. So that’s really the revolution. 

30:53
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So the impact of Luther, and he had been popular already because of his arguments with the pope, a controversial figure. And so when Luther’s Bible comes out, that really has a huge impact, not only among german speakers, but William Tyndale in, well, he’s English, but he’s in exile because he’s a Protestant. He’s on the continent. Tyndale, essentially his first translation in 1525 of the New Testament is in many ways kind of a revision of Luther. 

31:25
Rich Rudowske
Okay? 

31:26
Dr. Jeff Kloha
He works from the Greek and he works with Luther. He even follows Luther’s sequence of the New Testament writings, which Luther kind of reorganized in his own special way. So Tyndale was criticized for being essentially a Lutheran and wasn’t really theologically, but he was profoundly impacted by Luther and Tyndale’s translation. We think of the king James as the know all. Our language comes from that, but it really goes back to Tyndale. Tyndale became the basis for the Coverdale Bible, Matthew’s Bible, the great Bible, all these pre king James English Bibles. The Geneva Bible is really the Bible of Shakespeare, and some of that is reflected in the king James. But in large measure, really, Tyndale is still the Bible that we read in the english speaking world, and he’s pretty reliant on Luther. 

32:19
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So it’s pretty interesting how that anniversary is not just, okay, they got a Bible in Germany, who cares? But the desire to have the Bible broadly available, to translate it in a way that communicates to the average person. His translation style is not ponderous. He doesn’t use fancy words. He wants it to be readable and understandable to everybody. That foundation was picked up by Tyndall, and that really has influenced Bible translation ever. So really, the impact cannot be overstated. And of course, that went on to impact the german language, the english language, other languages. So it really is a pretty pivotal cultural moment when Luther releases that first translation of 1522 yeah. 

33:06
Rich Rudowske
Thinking of the ongoing work in vernacular languages of the world, how does that possibly influence our understanding of the text of scripture? How does it have an influence, or could it be influenced by the field of text criticism, sir? 

33:20
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Well, of course, translators are aware of, if they’re working from the Greek, they’re aware of the differences in the manuscripts, and every edition of the Greek New Testament will have these notes that indicate where they’re in the history of the church. There’s been some differences in the manuscripts or where they’re important enough to make a note about. I have to admit, I’m not entirely up on whether or not those are reflected in vernacular translations the way you would see, like in, say, esv Bible or an Niv, where they have those footnotes. Personally, I’m of the opinion, really, that I’d rather not have any footnotes. There’s scholars who’ve done this work over centuries and centuries. There’s not a whole lot of question anymore, really. And I don’t really see the value in putting a little footnote without explaining why it’s there. 

34:08
Dr. Jeff Kloha
So my preference would be simply just translate what’s in the text and go with it and be confident in it, because you really can. Now, if you’re doing a study Bible or an academic version of the Bible. Yeah. Then that’s where you talk about those kinds of things. And when you’re working with translators in the field or others, they should be aware of these kinds of things and understand how the language works, how textual copying happens, and why these things would occur. But at the end of the day, I think the last thing we want is everybody producing their own version of the Bible. That just would make no sense, and there’s really no need to kind of redo all that work again. 

34:48
Emily Wilson
So, in light of this upcoming anniversary of Luther’s New Testament and your passion for God’s word, the Bible being understood and accessible to not only christians, but the public, and to better understand the history, what makes you passionate about having scripture in your own language and having it available to people in the language that they understand best? 

35:13
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, I would just read it. I think the best thing we could do is to encourage each other, encourage our kids to read the scriptures and read them together, just to be immersed in them, to let them speak. What’s been interesting to me, I mean, I’m getting kind of old and read the Bible in many times in many different forms, Greek, English, devotionally, academically, all these things, and I still come across passages. It’s like I actually don’t remember reading that before, or I never realized it said it that way. And it’s not like it changes everything, but it just kind of unlocks another door and there’s another level of understanding and another insight. Right. So I think that the worst thing that could happen is we get complacent and think we know. 

36:06
Emily Wilson
I read it once. 

36:07
Rich Rudowske
I already read that parable of the. 

36:09
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Sheep and the goats. I know that the encouragement, that’s what I like about the museum is just to get people excited about the Bible, just to read it. 

36:18
Emily Wilson
Right. 

36:19
Dr. Jeff Kloha
And it’s done these amazing things over the centuries, and it still does. And so that’s what really gets me excited, the opportunity to make other people excited about it. 

36:29
Emily Wilson
Right. We have had the pleasure of interacting with international partners who are reading the text for the first time in a language that speaks deeply to them and how it’s like a new revelation in a way of, oh, for them, they’re hearing it with new ears or new eyes as it’s being dramatized, or for signed languages. And just how beautiful that is of this new understanding of God speaking to them in a language that they. 

37:00
Dr. Jeff Kloha
Yeah, yeah. That’s a great privilege and opportunity that you guys have and fantastically important. 

37:06
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, absolutely. We’re thankful for the partnership with the Museum of the Bible and appreciate your time with us today. We’ve been talking with Dr. Jeff Claude from the Museum of the Bible. Thanks for being with us. 

37:15
Dr. Jeff Kloha
All right. Thanks for having me. 

37:21
Rich Rudowske
Well, as promised, deep dive into text criticism, but just a great, I think, accessible explanation of how ultimately, this very technical, detailed piece of work that is a specialized role that people engage in, really gives us confidence in the Bible that we have. 

37:42
Emily Wilson
I was just kind of in awe, as were in the conference, in this interview, of how thankful I am to have God’s word in its entirety in my own language, and that it was not just, oh, here it magically appeared. It was years and years of careful study and copying, and all of the work that went into it that we are able to build off of the church has its foundation in the word and that it was no small task. 

38:18
Rich Rudowske
So true. We think in the book of Hebrews, we hear about this great cloud of witnesses that we are running our race with and we’re part of yet again, at certain times, this copying, and in certain eras of church history, just a very few people doing this copying and preserving so that it’s not lost and we’re the beneficiaries today. And again, you can see more of that history and just how the Bible has been used and what it looks like in other contexts and how it’s changed societies and so forth, by visiting the Museum of the Bible, museumofthebible.org. 

38:53
Rich Rudowske
And of course, one of those key historical events is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s translation of the New Testament into the german language as a real launching point for the Reformation to take hold and to change society 500 years ago and really affect how we practice Christianity and understand the importance of God’s word today. 

39:12
Emily Wilson
And in just a couple of weeks, we’re going to be kicking off over a year long celebration of Luther’s New Testament. And the publishing officially was in 1522. So we’re continuing the rest of 2021 and into 2022 celebrating Luther’s New Testament translation and how that really continued the Reformation. It wasn’t just the 95 theses in 1517, but rather people having God’s word in their vernacular, in their hands, and in their hearts. 

39:47
Rich Rudowske
Absolutely. And we know, as the scripture says, these things are written that we may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing we may have life in his name. And again, just what we talked about today and thinking about the anniversary of the translation just gives a new appreciation for how God has used people to continue to spread his word. And we get to be part of that heritage today through the work that we’re partnering with all over the world. Thank you for listening to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast@lbt.org slash podcast or subscribe on audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible translators social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. 

40:33
Rich Rudowske
Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s word in their hands. This episode of essentially translatable was produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. The podcast artwork was designed by Sarah alliance. Music written and performed by Rob Weit. I’m Rich Radowski. So long for now.