Thomas A. Wayment, "The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints" (BYU, 2019)

Suffering from dry, tired, irritated eyes, don't let dry eyes win, use Sistine Pro. It hydrates, restores, and protects dry eyes for up to 12 hours. Sistine Pro, triple action dry eye relief. Dr. Thomas A. Weimit, Professor of Classics at Brigham Young University, has done something remarkable. He has retranslated the New Testament. This new translation from the best available Greek manuscripts entitled The New Testament, A Translation for Latter-day Saints, renders the New Testament text into modern English and is sensitive to Latter-day Saint beliefs and practices. It is also readable and accessible for a wide range of readers. The original paragraph structure of the New Testament is restored and highlights features such as quotations, hymns, and poetic passages. New and extensive notes provide alternative translations, commentary on variant manuscript traditions, and historical insights. Where applicable, the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible has been included, and the notes contain the most complete list of cross references to New Testament passages and the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants that has ever been assembled. In our discussion, Dr. Weimit gives us exciting insights into how he translated the New Testament, along with his thoughts on Jesus Christ, the Pauline Epistles, the role of women in the early church, and more. It's a fun and fascinating conversation. I am Warren and welcome to the series on Mormonism for the New Books Network. I'm your host, Daniel Stone, and today we have an awesome guest. I'm here with Dr. Thomas Weimit from BYU and he has just published an amazing new translation of the New Testament, and it's entitled The New Testament, A Translation for Latter-day Saints, A Study Bible, and it's published by the RSC, the Religious Studies Center at BYU, in Unison with Deseret Book, and Tom, is it okay if I call you by your first name, Tom? Absolutely. Okay, thanks, Tom, for coming on, really appreciate it, and I just can't praise you enough for this awesome book. It's fantastic. Hey, well, thanks for having me on, Daniel. Thank you. So for our listeners who might be interested to know more about you, could you give us a little bit of background of who you are? And just kind of like where you went to school, what are you doing now, just so we can kind of understand why on earth did you retranslate the New Testament? Yeah, absolutely. My background started in classics, my undergrad work, and I, to be honest, I wasn't really thinking New Testament, but my most interesting class as an undergraduate was a Greek teacher who was a New Testament professor, and I was so fascinated by what he had to say, and I asked him after class one day, said, "Hey, you teach differently than my other Greek professors," and he said, "Well, I'm a New Testament professor. Here's what I do." And that's kind of where I really came into early Christianity and New Testament studies. I did a PhD at Claremont Graduate School. I did my undergraduate at University of California Riverside, and I've always really been fascinated by how communities come together, whether that's modern or ancient, but how kind of within, if you imagine, a city or a larger cultural environment, how this group of religious people begin to identify together, how they start to share beliefs and express themselves. So you might call my training on Christian origins or community origins, and that causes me to deal with a lot of documents that they left around. I'm always very fascinated in their letters, their their wills, their trust, all of these documents that tell us about how community came together. And I don't know if it's something that a lot of people have this feeling or not, I genuinely don't know, but for my earliest days of graduate school, I always thought, at some point, I'll translate the New Testament just for me, and I wouldn't, I didn't have any intention of making it public or publishing it, but that's my really first memory in my graduate work thinking, it'd be great to say, hey, I've translated this whole thing for for my understanding. And so that's really the first moment, I would say. Wow. So I guess, I guess I just want to ask you, why did you have that desire to translate the New Testament for yourself? Was it just so you could understand it through your, through your own eyes to kind of get a glimpse of it from your perspective to say, you know, what is, what's actually written in the Greek and kind of translate it for your mind? Yeah, one thing that's hard for a modern reader to understand is we all, you know, so we speak English and we read this Bible that's got a, we, in Latter-day Saints, typically read this 400-year-old translation in English. And it wasn't really a complaints about that, but English itself is not a very precise language and Greek is an incredibly precise language. And there's a lot of things that are said in a Greek sentence that are correctly translated into English, but English can mean one or two or three things and often the Greek can only mean one of those. And so I always wanted to say, gosh, is it saying this or that? And so I'd go back to the Greek and I'd read it and I translate out that sentence, but you really get a different perspective on it. And so it was personal. I wanted that perspective. I wanted to have a better feel. What are these things really saying, you know, in maybe a poor example, but in example, nonetheless, when Jesus says, you know, be there for perfect, that's a translation we've often heard. But he really didn't say that, you know, that's the word, those are the words that he said. But the actual Greek words are, you will be perfect. And and then even the word perfect is complicated. It doesn't necessarily mean flawless in any way. It means something, you know, I hear a lot of people say complete or whole. And so he's really saying, if you do the following, you will be whole. You will be complete, which is a very different thing than be perfect. Okay. And so that happens all over the place in a translation. Oh, that's fascinating. So you did your graduate work in in this and you you you studied Greek and now you now you teach at bring them young university. That's is that correct? Yeah, by teach Greek and go ahead. Oh, no, go ahead. I was going to ask if you were you were in the classics department. Yeah, I am in classics. I was in religion for 18 years and I moved over last year to teach Greek and Latin. Okay. So how long has this project been in the make? I started it officially about it's now about 11 years ago. The whole process was about 10 years. And I did a lot during the first five years that I started and stopped and started and stopped and thought, this is crazy. What am I doing? Then I'd come back to it and I didn't I didn't think I was publishing it, but I kept thinking, am I really doing all this work just for me? And that would cause me to question it. And so I would say the real bulk of the translation took place in about a six year period. And but really the start of it was was a 10 year process. Okay. So you were doing this while you were teaching at bring them young university. You were in the religion department. You said and then you switched over to classics just recently. Yeah. So so you're doing this all while you're teaching. I mean, how time extensive was this to retranslate the New Testament? Because I'm just fascinated by this because I would assume most scholars in classics or languages don't, you know, or early Christianity just don't go to say go off it from the beginning and say, I want to retranslate the New Testament. And it's interesting that you were having these thoughts and desires all the way all the way as early as grad school. And now you're doing it as you're a professor and you said you didn't even want to do it to publish it. You just wanted to do it for your own personal benefit. But I mean, I just can only imagine how time consuming this actually was for you. I would say for five years, I spent and I mean literally every day of the year. I was working on Christmas every day. I had to I set myself a number of, you know, verses and chapter I had to do every day. And for about a five to six year period, I would work two to four hours a day on this thing. And sometimes more, but but really never less than that. It it took quite a bit of time. I don't I've never calculated the amount of time. But it it was exhausting by the time I was hitting the book of Hebrews. I was pretty exhausted. And that was hard for me. A book of revelation isn't something I've I've had a lot of passion about in my career and still feel that way. So it was looming at the end. I did it from Matthew to to revelation in in first book, second book, third book order. I didn't skip around. Wow. That's terrific. I can only imagine what your family was thinking. Yeah. On vacation of a couple of times, you're like, Hey, Dad, can you can we have some can we go do this? And I'm like, well, I have to make it up tomorrow if I don't do it today. So when did you get the desire within yourself to say that you started to think, you know what, I would like to publish this publicly. And it wasn't just for you. Yeah. And it's hard to say this because it makes me feel a bit arrogant. But let me just be very honest. I was translating out the text and somewhere around Matthew 8 or Matthew 10. I started to realize I really need to add some notes. I need to tell the reader when there's like a double meaning here or when one of these words has Has something else going on that might help them or there's a parallel and all of these things that you know are going on And so I start writing notes and it was somewhere in the gospel of Matthew laid I I didn't note the exact moment but I realized the notes were pretty valuable and I started to fall in love with my notes And so my first interest to publish it was to say I'd like to get these notes out there So it has to accompany a translation and I even wondered early on Despite the fact I'm doing this translation. Maybe I put the notes with the King James texts and published that and And then later just because of some opportunities to publish I realized I could publish my English translation And so I put the two of them together. So it's a sense of I really like the notes and that that was my first window of Hey, I could do this thing Wow, yeah, I and I just got to say your notes in this new translation they're extensive and they're fascinating There's just so many sweet little pieces of information that I personally never knew and Just for the record for if any listener wants to know I do like reading the Bible just for my own personal spiritual time and This new translation is now my go-to for studying It's just I've never read the New Testament in such a beautiful way. It's so easy to understand I feel like I'm reading the test the New Testament for the first time over again It's it's unbelievable and just the notes. They're so easy to understand You know sometimes footnotes can be clunky and they can be a little a little confusing. Yours are just so simple to understand You see the verse. You see the letter you go down. It's just it's very user-friendly and I just can't thank you enough because Personally for me usually I don't get you know personal in these interviews But I just have to say personally for me. It's it's been very enriching and I just hope the listeners will get a copy of your book Because it's just so good. Well, thanks. I tried to write the notes in sentence form too rather than you know The really abbreviated here's a reference and don't tell them why the references there But try to say something about why do you want to look up this cross-reference or why do you want to know this and and so they were with the reader in mind You might be interested to know that a couple of student experiences really pushed me to want to publish as well I had some student experiences where I'm teaching religion courses at BYU and I'm teaching New Testament and And these students would convey the sense of man the New Testament's a drag. It's terrible It's hard to understand. I don't want to be here and and they started to feel that that wasn't so much about me But it's about how hard that text can be to understand You know, there's a there's a sense of excitement about the Book of Mormon often, but when we get to the Old Testament and the New Students are kind of like yeah, that's not really my thing and I felt like a translation could help make that better Yeah, because uh the most of the students that you're teaching they read out of the King James version Which is the old English it's clunky Right to very little translation exactly and it's it's hard to understand for a modern English speaker I think adults who typically are in administration in the church For Latter-day Saints. I think the real issue here is that they grew up. They speak that way. They understand it I don't think they realize how hard younger people have With this translation. I think they say, oh, I understand it, but Really younger folks do not understand it and that's that's something I wanted to help with That's great. Yeah, it's very easy to understand and I guess that's another question. I wanted to ask you So can you explain to us the translation process first? I guess I have two questions first How did you translate the New Testament just so our listeners can understand and even for me? So I can understand because I'm definitely not a classic scholar. I don't know Greek But also could you explain how people translate in the sense of see? I've heard the King James version is a very literal translation like it's word for word And that's why it's it's still a classic read that a lot of people like to use and I know that's why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints still uses the King James version the church I belong to still uses the King James version It's still you know, I wouldn't say you know canonize, but it really is in the sense that you know a lot of churches still use this as their go to Bible, but I guess I you see a lot of new translations that are out there that are more focused on I guess correct me if I'm wrong, but like meaning because I guess the King James version does get things wrong according to some scholars Could you elaborate more on that for us just so we can understand yeah The King James so starting with the King James translation It's done by a number of committees and it's done by quite a few scholars who take portions of it and as far as mistakes go There are a few That are legitimate mistakes particularly in the Hebrew there are Hebrew words that at the time they didn't know what they meant and we we now know what they mean And when we get to the Greek New Testament Their errors aren't the type of thing where they made an error as much as the the text that they were translating had errors in it And they translated those and for example First John five seven that in the epistle of John that versus a forgery and that that's not even an opinion anymore We know for a fact that's a forgery, but yet it really are Bible Yeah, and and so it's got a fascinating history and we know a lot about it and that doesn't ruin the King James Bible But it's it's in a sense it has some limitations, but it's very literal and like you said There's this sense of safety that I'm getting exactly what the Greek New Testament has but since they translated A lot has happened in Bible study we now have thousands Almost six thousand copies that are ancient of the Greek New Testament and by ancient We mean before the modern era going all the way back to within about 80 years of when Jesus and his disciples lived Maybe maybe 90 years from from the time he dies to the first manuscripts And as we assemble all those we get a much better picture of where the errors are where the corruptions have happened Where if you will time scribes have made errors and so today a modern translator We'll translate something called the Nestle-Alaund text and what that is is We over the course of of the last almost 200 plus years We scholars have assembled all of these manuscripts Line them up accounted for their differences and created a Greek text That we as scholars as a community we recognize this is the the pinnacle Greek text. It's the best we've got And if you picked up the NRSV or the NIV or a number of other RSV ESV all of these translations are translating the same Greek text And what's happening that's different in them is I'm saying I translated that but I also accounted for the notes at the bottom In my way, you know, I there are places where the manuscripts vary and people have to make a call is it that word or this word And so every modern translation Or the majority of modern translations Translate Nestle along 28 and they they try to tell you in the notes At first John 57 here's what I did at Luke 22, which is another major textual variant Here's what I did and so I tell you that in the notes. You'll see me in the notes saying There's another way this verse is written in ancient manuscripts And I think the one I've given you is better but in the note I give you the other one For the reader to have access to that So that's kind of a a little bit of an intro into translation theory. Does that kind of get to your question there? Yeah, thank you. So did you so did you focus more on So it sounds like to me like you're focusing more on the meaning of the words rather than the literal translation of the words Um, I would say no Um, I would I kind of if you line up Bibles and you put on one end the very literal ones like the King James And on the other end you put the NRSV which is one that really focuses on meaning or the CEB These are the what we call dynamic equivalent Bibles. So they get you close to the what the literal words are but they focus on meaning And I try really hard to be closer to the the literal side Okay, the Bible that most closely. I felt like aligns with me is the ESV or the RSV And those are King James corrected correction translation I just didn't go in James Bible in mind the language of it But I wanted that sense of it being really close as possible to being To being exactly, you know If you will represent, you know, not adding if you will to explain things Gotcha. All right. Thanks for clarifying that time. I appreciate it. Yeah, this is this is all new and exciting for me So it's just fun to learn So what did you so what did you use to translate like is there like a collection of doc? I know you said there you said there's like over six thousand of the original Greek that they have Is this all compiled into into several volumes of something or one volume And pretty much it's one volume and then there's some additional kind of hand books that help make sense of that volume, if you will, kind of explanatory things. So my process was I sat down with the Greek text and no additional English text. And I translated it out, trying to draw upon me, and I was trying early on to find my translator's voice, how I could represent this. And then what I would do is I decided early on that the RSV was my target language. I wanted to be in that family. And so I would read it against the RSV, and then I would read it against the NRSV. And then my last stage was I would read it aloud. I wanted my translation to capture some of the early churches experience, and they would read their texts aloud, like perform it in church services so that it wasn't like our modern thing where we go and we talk about a verse and we compare it to another thing. They would perform Gospel of Mark. So I wanted mine to be incredibly legible, if you will, readable, for that part of that experience to recapture early Christianity. Okay. Interesting. Now, so you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Larry Day Saints. Is that correct? I am. Okay, so now you, as far as I know, are you the first LDS scholar that has retranslated the New Testament? To my knowledge, yes. I haven't come across another translator of the entire New Testament. Okay. So really, this is the first LDS translation of the New Testament specifically geared for that, for that tradition. Is that correct? Yes. Wow. So, why is, so from your perspective, why is the New Testament an important text for the LDS to understand? Yeah. Up to me, I mean, this is something I could feel like I could talk about all night. So stop me if I, if I go long, but the thing coming, you know, you open up this door for me and I'm thinking about a community forming within Judaism. And I, and I'm watching as a scholar for years, I've been working on this issue of how does the early community both form and then break from, from Judaism? How does it become its own? And then how do they deal with things like whose voice is authoritative? How do we handle people who don't behave like we had anticipated? What do we do about the old laws while we're also having new laws? And so you have this wonderfully rich community that has moments of real excellence and moments where there's infighting and moments where they're, where they're struggling. Another thing for a New Testament scholar is we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke that tell the same story and that's the kind of surface level answer. But when we get down and compare them side by side, they have all these subtle wording changes between them. And so I was just looking at one on Thursday and Luke and Matthew are talking about can a tax collector become a disciple of Jesus, and it appears that they're struggling with, with that very issue. What do you do if a tax collector wants to follow Jesus? And that, that's really fascinating, you know, for a New Testament person. So anybody that's part of a faith community today, I think would be really, they would benefit from seeing this dynamic tension evolve. Yeah, now all religions evolve, but I know within the Latter-day Saint tradition, especially within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there's this belief in continuing revelation and things can change. So from what it sounds like what you're saying, the New Testament kind of offers almost like a roadmap to say that this has happened before in the past and that we can learn from this for the future. I would agree completely. In fact, we learned that it didn't go smoothly half the time. I think that's fascinating to me, you know, Peter and Paul really kind of come to words in Galatians too, they're pretty, I don't, I suppose we don't know exactly how Peter felt but we sure know how Paul felt and he was not happy about it. And that's really interesting to me. Yeah, okay, so I'm going to hold off on that because like you said, you're opening up a big door here that I, I'm having a lot of questions not to ask you, but actually you know what, I'll just ask you right now so this sounds good. So within the Latter-day Saint tradition, you know, Israel is a big topic and I'm assuming Israel was a big topic in the New Testament as we all know. So and obviously there's parallels with that, but specifically for the New Testament, how important was Israel because, you know, Jesus was Jewish, right? So was, I mean, and he was a, you know, from, from what I had studied early on in my studies, you know, some people considered him a Jewish radical prophet. Now is Jesus, in your mind, a Jewish radical prophet? Does he see himself as that or does he actually see himself as creating a new religion or, or is he just fulfilling the Jewish law? I mean, what is your sense looking at the lane, like the pure language and starting from there and, you know, translating it? Did you, did you gain any new insights about that? Yeah, certainly the word church is used only twice in all of the gospels. And so we have to acknowledge that there's really not a church as the end goal of the Jesus movement when they, when they start out. And I know modern folks will want there to be a church and want that to be the intent. But I think when we get back to Jesus, I think there's a couple of things that are really insightful here. I think one, he's trying to recover a personal experience within Judaism and what I mean by that, we put a lot of stock into Son of Man. And we think of that as a capital S, capital M, Son of Man. But I think what a lot of what Jesus is doing is, is saying Israel or if you will, Judaism in particular has gotten to be corporately controlled. And it's gotten to be, if you will, to, to rigid, he's very critical of some of the elites. And I think he's trying to cover the human experience in Judaism. So in another way of saying that, I think Jesus is a reform Jew. That's too loaded up of term in the modern world. But I think he's trying to reform his own religion rather than say, I'm creating Christianity. Wow. That's okay. So that's really interesting. So then I guess my question is, what else did you, so you're saying that Jesus is trying to reform Judaism, not necessarily create a church, I'm just trying to just kind of recap here. So I can understand, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure at the end of the day if you had asked Jesus, hey, did you know there was this church now that's totally divorced from Judaism? I wonder if he would be like, I was really hoping that Judaism would reform. But yeah, we would come together, not, not, not fracture Judaism. Okay. And maybe that's what Jesus was referring to when he says, I've come to fulfill the law? Yeah. And fulfill to us means end, but I don't think that's, and that's not what the word really means. It's fill up like a glass that's half empty or half full and he's come to put more water in that glass. Oh, wow. Okay. So that's, so if Jesus is doing this, does the story or does the meaning of what Jesus ministry is, does that change later on in the New Testament, especially within the, I guess from the, from like in the book of Acts or in the Paulian epistles? I guess, I guess my question to you is, is there an evolution of Jesus as the, as the New Testament goes on? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. They're grappling now with his sayings and they're trying to understand the things he said, and just like you're asking me today, I think they were asking these various types of questions, and they really hone in on a couple moments in his life, you know, they're very interested in the last supper, cross and resurrection sequence. And they're trying to find meaning in that. Paul comes to what I think is a really insightful way. He sees Jesus as example. So when we talk about atonement or redemption, I think Paul saw joint suffering, joint experience as the way Jesus redeems us. So he finds this great meaning in all of his trials. And, and then later in New Testament, we see this particularly in, in book of Hebrews, Christ becomes a sacrifice for us, that he's the new lamb. He's the new sacrifice on the altar. And so, yeah, they're, they're really grappling, trying to make sense of his death, and that's where you get the creativity, inspiration, process. Okay. All right. So, I guess, I guess what I'm interested in is some of the things you're saying. I think some conservative Christians or evangelicals, they might, their minds might be blown to hear a scholar of, you know, of your caliber saying these things that has really spent their almost their whole life, deeply looking at this text. But within the Latter-day Saint tradition, does this form of Jesus that you've kind of come to understand, does that fit well? well within the Lotterdy St. tradition? - I don't know. I find myself a lot of times on the periphery because I think there's a lot of nervousness that Jesus didn't see day one and the end of his life equally clearly. That I really believe, this is my personal belief, I'm not trying to foist it on anyone, that I'm not sure that he wasn't a bit surprised by the cross and that he wasn't a bit surprised in Gethsemane and I've heard my fellow Latter-day saints tell me, man, that really blew my mind, that's shocking and I don't, when you think about the way the gospel authors have told this story, I don't think they're telling you, Jesus knew everything that was happening, what he really seems to be grappling with and this is the language of those stories, he's grappling with his own will and he's trying to conform it to God's will. And so to me, that sounds not foreknowing as much as clients or willing to offer his own kind of desires on the altar. And yeah, I spend my time explaining a lot of these things Latter-day saints as well and I think I receive a fairly good reaction, but no, it's gonna take me some time. - That's, you know, it's actually refreshing to hear a scholar like you even say that you're still working through it through from a spiritual perspective. It's, 'cause it's nice, 'cause your translation has done and at least it's done for me, I can speak for myself, is that it's made Jesus more human and I really appreciate that. You can see the struggle within your translation of Jesus and you're just kind of taught your whole life 'cause I was raised in the church of Jesus Christ or what, you know, the Latter-day Saint tradition knows as the bigger tonight movement. But you're taught your whole life that Jesus was divine, that everything was preordained, he knew what he was doing, but when you read your translation and I'm not saying that it's different than the King James Version or anything like that, like it's not saying something different. It's the same story, but just the language that's used, it's so much easier to understand that you see the rawness of Jesus' ministry and he becomes more human. And it sounds like to me, when you were translating that you were kind of seeing that as well and you're kind of even struggling with the divinity or the redemption of Jesus and how that evolves over time. - Yeah, and I exist in an academic world too, where you mentioned, you know, it was Jesus and apocalyptic prophet who was disappointed and those are things scholars talk about. So as a trans, as me personally, I exist in this space where I have a Sunday experience where I hear those type of things that you're saying. As a translator, I'm seeing something a little bit different in the text and then in my academic experience, I'm seeing another and I suppose a long time ago I decided, I wanna exist in all three of those, but not keep them totally separate, that I don't believe the narrative that people are really out there to tear down faith. I don't think that scholars are the bad people trying to ruin the faith of a few. What we're all really trying to do is, why was Jesus so compelling? Why did people follow him? Why did people give up their careers or lives, their ordinary lives and commit themselves to him? And that's a really fascinating question that still needs an answer today. - Yeah, that's fascinating. So with Paul, I know, I keep saying it's fascinating. I don't know what other word to use. It's just so interesting. So you had mentioned Paul. Now Paul's kind of considered, some people call him like the first real Christian, right? You know, he's this great missionary. He's proselytizing all around Asia and parts of Europe. But when Paul, when you read the Pauline epistels, for somebody, I always hear that, you know, you always hear kind of whispers that maybe some of these epistels weren't written by Paul. What was your take on it when you're reading the Greek and when you're translating it? What do you, I guess my first question is, is how do you see Paul, how does he transform Christianity? And second of all, are these epistels actually written by Paul? - Yeah, I had a, that was one of the really surprising things of the translation. I've heard this academic theories about which letters Paul wrote and which he didn't. And I could talk about them, but in translating, I really came away with a strong opinion that some of the letters attributed to Paul are not written by the same person that wrote the other letters. And to be more explicit, I'm confident that one person wrote collotions and Ephesians, but that same person did not write Romans in first Corinthians and Paul's letters. That is such a different Greek. It's so incredibly different. And then another person still wrote first, second, Timothy and Titus. And let's not to say Paul couldn't have been involved in some other way, whether scribes or things. I don't know that I have an opinion about that. What bothersome to me is that if these letters are, somehow if Paul didn't write them, they don't have meaning or as much meaning. And that seems really silly to me. I think somebody could have gathered Paul's thoughts. I think they could have gathered things they heard, put it together in his name. And it's still a very meaningful text, even if Paul didn't author it like he did first Corinthians or second. But there's a body of letters that one individual almost certainly wrote and they should have a really consistent style and approach. So I wasn't expecting that. If you had asked me before I started this project, I would have told you, yeah, some scholars think he didn't write Ephesians or collotions, but I don't know if I have an opinion, but I really do now. The second part of your question, what does Paul bring to Christianity? I think as having translated, I, again, and maybe something I'd never fully appreciate it, is how much passion he brings to the message. And maybe calling him the first Christian is close to accurate or accurate. He's the first one for whom the Jesus legacy really, really matters. And he is trying to exist as a person who is faithful to the law of Moses. And now he wants to be equally faithful to Jesus. And he's wonderfully open about him trying to make sense of it. He's trying to find allegory in Galatians. He's trying to find ways that the words of Jesus will guide his thoughts in first Corinthians. He's trying to understand grace and Romans. And you're watching Paul basically be educated in Jesus by reading his letters. - Okay, now I've always wanted to ask a scholar of your calibre this. When I read the epistles of Paul, I sometimes get the sense of that, that he has a guilt complex in the sense of, you know, he was a persecutor of the early Christian movement or the followers of Jesus, but then when he becomes a convert himself, every once in a while, you see, I would say, I would say within every one of the epistles, you almost kind of see this reflection of something that he once was, but now he's reborn or he's renewed. Do you see that at all, even in the Greek? - You do. A couple of times you see him say something quite rude. And he'll even say that. He kind of mocks Peter in Galatians. And then strangely, you watch him kind of work through then, okay, I was being pretty harsh. When you said a guilt complex, I would tend to agree. You know, I see him being very rude in second Corinthians. And then he, and then he has this moment, okay, maybe that was a little over the top. But yeah, I think if we've met Paul as a person, my best bet having spent this time with him is we would find him having said extreme things and that it later bothered him that he said those things. That the cutting, if you will, almost ironic, bordering sometimes on sarcastic language. - Okay, all right, see, that's interesting, 'cause I always get the sense sometimes if I would like Paul in real life, 'cause he does seem very sharp and critical at times where I'm going, but I like how you're saying he's very self-reflective even afterwards and you see a real human element that I guess you don't really see often in other translations, so that's fascinating stuff. - Yeah, I think so. I've wondered if Paul would like me, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. I'm not quite that biting of a person. But he's got a great view. I love reading his analysis because it, he cares about the consequence of what he's saying. That's fascinating to me. - Yeah, so where are they getting this information? So I'm just trying to pick up pick out things that you're saying that are really interesting to me So the gospels for instance You're saying that there were some similarities, but there's differences within the Pauline pistols You're saying that some of them in your opinion aren't even written by Paul But yet they could still contain the teachings of Paul where are these Teachings or sayings of Jesus or teachings and sayings of Paul does I mean I'm sure they're just theories I'm assuming but do scholars In your field have theories as to where these sayings and teachings are coming from I mean are there like central texts that people are just referencing but they're not saying where they're referencing? Yeah, I absolutely It's pretty clear that Mark is the first of the gospels to be written and then Matthew and Luke Come along and try to if you will make sense of what he wrote and One of the current theories which really makes a lot of sense To me nowadays is that Mark really wasn't an intentionally published text. It's a notes of Jesus It's a it's a kind of skeletal approach to the Jesus story. You know, there's no birth story in Mark There's no, you know Beth Bethlehem type stuff from his early life and and then it ends abruptly the the gospel ends at chapter 16 verse 8 and scribes added endings to it that we have we use now and Why that's important is It's probably Increasingly the scholarly opinion and it really works for me this idea that Mark takes a stab at it He gathers the stories that are floating around and Mark Matthew and Luke's job is to write it into a professional form a Form that could be circulated published if you will and and made use of by the church and I think the same thing is going to be true with Paul I'm we only have a very small group of letters, but there's very little doubt that he wrote numerous letters that maybe didn't have if you will the larger church in mind, but Hey meet me at my lead us. I'm going to be there bring Luke with you and I'm planning to be there this day and then there's a personal note and you think of your life my life We have all of this documentation that Supports it. I assume that the Pauline Corpus that these people to add letters in Paul's name are basing it off things they heard about him local traditions local communities who remembered him Okay, well a lot what you're I just can keep talking about this with you forever a lot what you're saying is I'm learning how Scripture was actually made or how Scripture making was done in the in the in the in the early centuries Of the Christian church and that in itself. I'm sure is another topic, but it's it's really interesting stuff to see I mean because it's not I guess you know nowadays you'd have to have references you'd have to have footnotes But back then it didn't seem to be that way and it seems like they're writing these documents for different purposes Absolutely and you can actually watch in Greek you can watch Matthew and Mark and Luke you can watch those three quoting the exact same thing and then you see them try to make sense of it Matthew will always almost always add a Scripture to make sense of what Mark said where Luke will try to add a different saying of Jesus to make sense of it It's I mean you really can see this happening on the level of Greek. Wow. That's interesting So what about the book of John? I mean, I'll be honest when I read the gospels That's always my favorite book to read because it seems to be like a more spiritual side of Jesus But I you haven't mentioned the book of John. So what's your take on the book of John in the Greek? Um, have you gained any new insights about that? I did my dissertation on John so John was a if you will a first love for me Okay, I've always felt compelled by it and I I don't know I hear these things the spiritual gospel or whatnot And I don't I don't know that I have an opinion on that so strongly As much as I think that that the gospel of John is trying to deal with the eyewitness tradition There's this disciple that follows Jesus Throughout his life and he's having a very personal experience We call him John the beloved, but he's not named and it could be John But it could be someone else and he's at these moments of witnessing and then you hear him at the very end of the gospel Testify and it's also the gospel that has Jesus's brothers in it who don't believe that happens in gospel of John Chapter seven and I I think for the modern reader What John is really trying to do is ask the question Big picture if you had known Jesus Would you have believed him? And and the author is trying to put I think every person into this witnessing experience And ask if you had seen this Does that make you believe He doesn't call them miracles miracles. He calls them signs So you see seven of them and this first one calls you to believe in the second and so forth So he's written in a very fascinating Style if you will that that gives you a different perspective Okay, is that what you argued in your dissertation? No, I argued that the very opening verses of the gospel of John were composed by followers of John the Baptist And then they're that that initials point is just being quoted in the gospel of John to reach out to The followers of John the Baptist and say hey We're supposed to come over to follow Jesus now. Wow. Okay. That's interesting Now, why do you why do you argue that? I'm a couple reasons the opening 18 verses have a very different style than John Then the gospel of John There's a verse verse 19 that says this is the record of John which is technically this is the writing slash book of John And that can refer either to John First John John one 19 versus 19 through 20 or it can refer to those earlier 18 verses And the the gospel of John has the most detailed account of the followers of John the Baptist Early on so I I argue that there was a big interest in reaching out to them. Oh, okay. Well, that's great stuff All right, so are you giving us a lot? You're giving us a lot to get us excited But I want to talk you mentioned the book of Revelation how when you got to the end of the New Testament That that was kind of like okay, you know, and you said that wasn't one of your first loves But I am curious you know the book of Revelation especially for people that are interested in millennialism or you know prophecy that is the go-to Text did you learn anything new about the book of Revelation? Could you let us listeners know like it almost kind of seems like now, you know from a you know From a modern day perspective it kind of makes sense why the by the canonized Bible Christian Bible has revelation at the end Because it's supposed to prophesy things, you know, that are supposed to be in the future It kind of seems like a nice way to close the Bible But sometimes I've heard that I've gotten the sense that the revelation wasn't even It almost didn't make it in the canon. I don't know if that's true or not But I thought maybe I could ask you and I just wanted to see What's your sense on the book of Revelation? Did you gain any insights about that while you were translating? Yeah, I I have to admit For everyone I'm not you know very inclined toward Millenarianism or kind of into the world teleological type things but I saved it till the end intentionally I just thought okay, that's the one that's gonna break the camel's back and I you know, it's a very simple Greek and so I knew that and I was hoping that would help me get through it But one of the things I really feel I came to appreciate is that the book maybe isn't predictive in any sense of the word But more descriptive of triumph and I I don't think I'd fully seen this quite as compellingly That the book start it's it's almost two books It has the initial initial letters that are written in one style And in ten and these are two to seven churches and they have these kind of individual messages But those first which chapters one through three have almost nothing to do with the rest of the book Which starts with the white horseman and the book ends with the white horseman and the the kind of if you will Marriage of of Christ and and his kingdom And I wonder I wonder if the message of the book of revelation is that there's no sense to immediate triumph But there's an eventual triumph for all of us And I think so much creative energy has been looked trying to look at this book as Is it predicting our day is it predicting these things that are happening And I I think it becomes more of a book that says Don't worry we'll win this thing and if we win it through death we still win this thing And okay, that was a very different way of seeing it Yeah, that's interesting Tom because Apocalypse in the Greek it doesn't mean what we often think it means in the modern day language Because when we hear apocalypse we think of like destruction, you know the last great judgment, you know chaos But doesn't it mean just like revealing or or even like revelation, or it's kind of like it's a happier connotation. Yeah, it doesn't have to be. So if you will cataclysmic, Paul describes his conversion on the road to Damascus in Galatians 115 as an apocalypse. There's no death in dying there. There's a change, a kind of a visionary experience, and profits in the Old Testament when it's translated into Greek. Sometimes their visionary experiences are called apocalypses. So in a sense, it's a, it's Christ speaking to the author, or Christ speaking to his prophet. However, we want to characterize that. And that's the content of what they were told, not doom and gloom prediction. That's not what the word means. It means, hey, you converted, if you will, you, you turned towards me and I showed you these things. Okay. So, and while translating the revelation for yourself, you kind of got that same sense that revelation isn't this cataclysmic prediction of the future. It's more or less a redemption for Christianity in general, saying no matter what happens if you believe in Jesus, it's an explanation of we're going to win. I feel that way, absolutely. I feel if it's going to have any meaning for me, I think it's that eventual triumph is God's triumph. Okay. You're blowing my mind behind here, Tom. This is great stuff. So, what about, okay, so I'm going to throw another one at you, just for fun. What about the role of women in the early church? You know, this is a controversial topic. You know, we're definitely part, we're in the Me Too movement now. You know, it's, you know, the talk of women and the power of women and the women generation, you know, that's, that's a, that's a big movement now. And it has been for quite a while. But even within the Christian movement and the Christian churches, you're really starting to see this push. And I'm just curious to kind of get your sense of where did women fit within the New Testament writings? Because oftentimes, to people, it can seem very patriarchal. But, you know, you do see glimmers of female leadership. When I read the New Testament personally, what did you see in the Greek? And can you tell us any new insights about women in general within the early Christian church? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I tried to make my translation gender inclusive. There was a trend starting in the, even in the mid 20th century to make the New Testament and the Old Testament as much as possible, gender inclusive. And as a translator, that is not a sacrifice of the Greek. The Greek is gender inclusive. And so we've grown up thinking, wow, the Bible's a story about men, but it's really about men and women. So that was kind of first thing I wanted to do in mine with this topic. But second, you really come to some difficult moments where Paul has said some things about women. You see this in Timothy. You see this in Corinthians and other things. And so I originally thought, I'll tackle that with my notes. And so two things I can share here. One, I believe that Paul's view of women, which is very hard to digest for a modern person, where he's telling women don't talk in the church. You know, I don't, basically, you know, don't make a show here. Just let the men run the show. And I think the modern reader has to acknowledge that Paul's informed by the culture of his day. And he really believes in a concept of harmony that the church, if you will, if we divorce, if we allow, you know, women lead, it will rupture this sense of harmony. And I think it's important, although it might be hard for a lot of people to hear. When Paul goes and when Paul goes out on a limb and says those things, he does not draw upon scripture or the sayings of Jesus to advocate for that. He's speaking as a culturally informed individual. And I think it's okay in our day to be critical of that to say, okay, Paul gave us what he thought would work in his day. But I'm not sure it's necessarily the same message for our day. The second thing I think that's really more profound is that when Jesus speaks of service in the church, he develops a model of the deacon, of deaconia. And deaconia, which is can be translated from terms like deacon in our modern church structure, but it also can be translated as service and care for others is primarily modeled on what early Christian women did and early women did even in Jesus's day. What I mean by that is when Jesus idealizes service in the church, he makes it an inherently feminine foundation. And then he calls his men to do that. And so I think a lot of us could learn from that that there's this sense of Jesus saying, man, I want you to serve like women do in our culture. And that will become a model for us, the deacon. And I try to restore that in the notes. I will point out quite a few times. Here's an example of Jesus saying, be like a deacon. And here's what it means. That's interesting. So then when the Apostles and the Book of Acts do come up with the office of a deacon, they're pulling that from Jesus's teachings. Yes. Yes. Okay. Interesting. So it's not now, what about a deaconess? I mean, are there instances of that in the New Testament? Did you find? There is. There's a woman called a deaconess in Roman 16. And I have a note on her as well. And the, you know, the reality is, yes, they, I don't think they saw the rigid boundary of this, the word deacon that we do today. I think men would have said, you're calling you a deacon. That's what my wife did. And I hope that doesn't come across to sexist. But I think people have to feel today that when an early Christian man was called a deacon, he would have realized you're asking me to serve like a female servant. And that would be a real social change for him. Interesting. Now, was Jesus a deacon in a sense? Absolutely. In the sense of service, the probably the moment we see it the most is in the gospel of John, where he washes the feed of the disciples. Okay. That's fascinating stuff. Okay. So now is a deacon and ministerial position in the early church? It may be by the time Ephesians and later letters are written, but it's not very clear. They do start to think in terms of if you will, almost offices are officers. And so at that time, it is possible that we have teachers and deacons and bishops and elders. Okay. Wow. So that that's very fascinating stuff. So and so really women and men in this this this office of service, it's a it's a it's a holy office. It's an office that both men and women can hold in the early church. Yes. As far as we know, the term is used of both. I mean, you think about how few women's names we know. And one of those few that we know is called a deacon deaconess. And then we do learn in Luke eight three that several women physically cared for Jesus that's also making them deaconesses. And that they do not call that in Luke eight three, but the description of their service makes them that. Okay. So that's really interesting to me because I've always wondered why in the in the gospels, the women women were always the first ones to kind of see Jesus when he when he rises from the dead. It almost seems like that they they held a prominent position. But I will admit in the in the English translation, it almost seems it almost seems like they're that it's kind of just like, oh, and they were there and they saw Jesus, but then the apostles came and then it almost kind of like picks up when the apostles come but in the Greek, do you see more of the meaning behind what they're doing and that it actually is something very important and significant just as much as what the apostles are doing? Yeah, absolutely. They're coming to care for the physical body of Jesus. And in that act again are acting like a deacon. They're performing an act of service. And so they're they're exemplifying the model of of what the Christian should be. Wow. You're making me want to learn Greek. This is really great stuff, Tom. Okay. So I want to keep picking your brain because you're a scholar on so many other things. So you're a lot of day Saint yourself while translating the New Testament. Did you learn anything new about the Book of Mormon? Did you see any intertextuality between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon? Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Yeah, I was fortunate to have access to some people who had great skills on computer to be able to dump in the text of the Book of Mormon and have it compared to the King James translation and then be able to find out all the places where echoes of the King James Bible appear in the Book of Mormon. Those are all in the notes. I do believe that my translation notes have the largest assemblage of intertextuality from the Book of Mormon and the New Testament that have ever been assembled. And I hope Latter-day Saints will realize these aren't just footnotes that, hey, this is an interesting thing that you should look at, what the footnotes are really telling you. And I try to use the language of alludes to adacos, it interprets, and it quotes so that the reader will realize that language from the New Testament is informing Book of Mormon discourse. And some later-day Saints might be bothered, later-day Saints of my tradition might be bothered by the fact that the Book of Mormon uses it. I think the reality is Joseph Smith, as he translates this language as part of his vocabulary, and it comes through him, he's using Paul's words when he's quoting Nephi or whoever. And I think it's really important to see how the language of the New Testament is both shaped and engaged and altered and expanded in the Book of Mormon. And we really, once we start to tie these discourses together a little bit more, we find out how much more depth of topic is available to us in our discussion. I don't think people realize in the modern church how deeply Paul appears in the Book of Mormon or at least his language, and I think that's helpful to us to uncover that. Yeah, absolutely, I never realized that. That's interesting stuff. Why would that be important? Why would that be an interesting thing to have for discussion? One of the really fascinating ones to me is first Corinthians 1550 and 51 and it's quoted as a strong term, but the language from that appears in the Book of Mormon in three places. And each time you get this sense of engaging, what does it mean to have a body and how is that body acted upon for good or bad? And I think if you were being very, if you were traditional in this, we would say that Paul had this discourse on the body and he talked about types of bodies and the Book of Mormon authors had their own kind of discourse and they're not connected. But the reality is they share a lot of language and I think you're seeing that if you were reading Paul, Paul's very aware that humans are a dual being. He says this in Romans 8 that we are both acted upon by our desires, our physical appetites which are often wicked and then we're acted upon by the Spirit of Christ which guides us into good and so he sees us as this kind of dual being that's being pulled by two different forces. And the Book of Mormon is grappling with a very similar thing and so I think it gives you a lot more to think about when you see these discourses as connected. Okay, all right, that's, that is interesting stuff. So to kind of put the, not to put the Book of Mormon aside for a second but I also want to ask this because you're a scholar of the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. And I'm just curious to know, I guess for our listeners who may not, since it's on the New Books Network, other people do listen to this other than Linerity Saints. So could you real quick explain to them what is the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible? And while you were translating the New Testament, did you learn anything new about Joseph Smith's translation? Yeah, Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible was a revision that he did with a group of scribes from 1830 to 1833 and to be very clear, he translated from English into English. There were no ancient texts involved and he offered quite a few changes to the Book of Genesis, to the Book of Isaiah, to the Book of Matthew, and to the Book of Revelation. And then there are sporadic changes throughout the rest of the Bible and one of the things that becomes really clear when you sit down and compare what he did to the Bible in, and I hope this comes across well, is that he's really trying to grapple with what the Bible means, probably, I don't know, 70 to 80% of what he does to the Bible is trying to make it more legible, trying to clarify where things seem ambiguous. He's trying to, if you will, smooth out the language. He's very skeptical of italicized words in the Bible and in the King James version, and italicized words means that the translators put them there to tell you that that word isn't in the Greek or the Hebrew and they're trying to be honest saying we added this word. And Joseph gets rid of tons of those, he just doesn't seem to like those. And so I guess what I really came away, if I could boil it down to a simple perspective, is that I think what Joseph is doing is having a Bible education when also editing the Bible as he goes to conform to his own experiences. I think he's trying to make the Bible make sense in his day. Okay, fascinating stuff. So I just want to reiterate to everybody, I'm talking with Dr. Thomas Wayman. He's a professor of classics at Brigham Young University. He's published a great new book called The New Testament, A Translation for Latter-day Saints, A Study Bible. It's a really wonderful New Testament translation. I wanted to ask you, Tom, it's published by the Religious Study Center at BYU and it's in Unison with Deseret Book, which is the publishing arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So it seems like you've got a lot of support, both from the publishing arm of the church and from the university that you work at. Are you still there? Now, and it seems like it's been well received within your tradition, but a lot of the things that you're saying are really, they're very expanding within the faith tradition. They definitely open your mind to a lot of new ideas. Are you seeing that within people that are reading the text? And it seems like your church is very supportive of it and the university, which is fantastic. Yeah, I'll have to say I've had great reception both by the publisher and by audiences. I think there's a real sense of making the New Testament come alive again. And a lot of that, I mean, to be honest, I would love it to be only my translation, but a lot of it is being wedded for so long to this 400-year translation. It's 400-years-old and it's kind of like making a lot of faith traditions have made steps along the way, and we're now making a massive step and it seems so fresh and new. And I hope that's in part because of what I've done, but the reality is I think we've always as Latter-day Saints traditions been excited about the New Testament, and now to have it readable. One thing people don't realize, just reading it in paragraph form, which this Bible is in paragraph form, you're reading large pieces of information quickly. Whereas you think about your Bible reading before this, you're reading a lot of things in a verse, one verse at a time, two verses at a time, and now you're putting a lot of information into you so you get a sense of the story, you get a sense of connectedness and things that way that really change your perspective immediately. Almost every reader will have that experience. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that was my experience with it, and I'm still reading it. It's wonderful. I just can't praise it enough. I don't mean to keep you, Tom, but I've really been enjoying talking with you just even for my own personal benefit. I've learned quite a bit during our discussion, but what else can we expect from you in the near future? Are you working on anything else? Because I mean, this is great stuff, and I'm curious to see what else you're going to be putting out. Yeah, I have said this in a number of places, so I'll have to stand by it. I am currently translating the Old Testament. I figure I'll be 10 years from now. I finished three books, and I just keep plugging away at that. I hope to have bring that same level of quality to that. And I'm also working on a monograph on the Joseph Smith translation. I am actively writing on that in the days and working on translation work at night. So I'm staying busy. Wow. All while teaching and being a family man and going to church and doing all the other things. That's fantastic. Do you sleep? Yes. I do. I love to sleep. That's great. Well, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing your translation of the Old Testament. And if you'll like, please come back on because I'd love to pick your brain on that as well. Oh, well, thanks. I appreciate that. All right. Thanks, Tom. Again, I'll reiterate again. Dr. Thomas Weyman, he published the New Testament, a translation for Lurady Saints, a study Bible. It's published by BYU and Deseret Book. It's a fantastic book. If I hope you've enjoyed this discussion as much as I have, and please buy his book, it's definitely worth the money. Are you coming in a hard back because the one I have is a paperback. It is available in hard back right now. I know that Amazon has just announced that they have some copies of the hard back and Deseret Book as well as hard back. So yes, there are hard backs now available. Okay. Great. And I just got to give a compliment to the Church of Jesus Christ of Lurady Saints. The fact that the publishing arm published this in unison with BYU, it's very progressive of the church. And I think it's very progressive of you. And I just can't thank both of you. enough for putting this out, because I think a lot of people within your tradition and people outside the tradition are gonna be very fortunate to read it. I know I have been. - Hey, well thanks, Daniel, I appreciate it. And thanks for having me on tonight. - All right, thank you, Tom. You have a great one. - Okay, hey, take care. Thanks again. (gentle music) (gentle music) Suffering from dry, tired, irritated eyes? Don't let dry eyes win. Use Sistine Pro. It hydrates, restores and protects dry eyes for up to 12 hours. Sustained pro, triple action, dry eye relief.