Reading the Text Carefully: A Zondervan Oops
One of the most important parts of preaching is to read the text carefully. Slowly. Eat the book, as Eugene Peterson says. Ingest it; live with it; be empowered by it.
That’s perhaps the main reason for reading a text in the original language. Rarely is there some sudden “Eureka!” because of a special meaning or tense. But often there is a discovery that comes just from reading slowly.
All right. So I’ve been reading my text all week. Slowly. Carefully.
But just now — as I read in the Raleigh-Durham airport! — did I apparently read it carefully enough!
“Shortly defore dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.”
I promise you: I typed that exactly as it reads in my Bible (TNIV).
How often do typos make it into the text of a major translation? Come on, Zondervan; that’s got to be embarrassing!
It’s also embarrassing for me. I’m clearly not reading s-l-o-w-l-y enough!
Yikes…took me four times to spot the problem! A good reminder to dwell in the Word!
it’s not d defore e
One of my friends from church has a typo in her Bible, too! In Romans 12, it reads, “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Practice hospitality.”
Have you seen the e-mail where they take all of the vowels out of the words? It’s the same principal, your eyes and brain make up for an awful lot.
That’s why most of us will have to read your post several times before we get it.
I hope you guys have a safe trip home.
My husband and I were just talking about how neither of us have ever caught a typo in a Bible, and we both are self-proclaimed proofreader masters (he will spot this typo faster than I did, though). Maybe I, too, should slow down — I think my Bible is a Zondervan!
You’re right, I read it 8 times before I saw it
Defore. The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it!
I’ve sent in corrections before. One of the perks (but not really) of OCD is that I notice this stuff constantly. It makes it in more often than you’d think — especially in the notes of the KJV version of the Life Application Bible that my dad got for me in 1996. In case you were curious.
Ok, Frank. That’s hilarious. Hang onto that conviction!
(Q, I’ve always had an editor’s eye. And, I have a touch of OC as well. Hmmm.)
That Romans 12 thing must be repetition for emphasis, Lacey.
Maybe we’re not practicing enough…?
This is not a typo. “Defore” is a real word.
Defore – Applying only to fully human and fully divine beings, this word refers to existing both in and not in the constraints of time and doing so simultaneously. So, when referring to this human/divine phnomenon, what happened occured niether before nor after anything, but rather it “occured” defore.
Philosophically, the meaning of “defore” follows neither Compte’s tradition of verification nor Popper’s tradition of falsification of the concept of time, but rather a transcendant social/divine linguistic construction…non-Chomskian.
Please, do not rush to judgment that Zondervan is not correctly translating the scripture from its original.
Mike,
How drilliant are the dumd editors? You’d think that they would practice a little dit of editing. Laura is sure enjoying her Dible class.
Dlessings.
Joel
Who knows maybe Neosho needs a new editor, it may be in your blood.
As a former teacher of English before I wandered into the greener pastures of the business schools, I am most vexed by how the apostles were walking on the lake. A typographical misspelling is nothing contrasted to an egregiously misplaced participial phrase which reverses the meaning of the Word of God.
The classic, however, among biblical misprints is in the so-called Wicked Bible, published in 1631. In the Ten Commandments, the typesetters accidentally left an adverb out of Exodus 20:14, which thus became “Thou shalt commit adultery” (sic). Both the king and the archbishop of Canterbury waxed furious. The publisher was fined £300. The editors were each obliged to forfeit a month’s pay. All but 11 surviving copies (now almost priceless) were burned.
Now all that happens to Zondervan is that the company gets written up on Mike Cope’s blog.
Let him who is without sic cast the first stone.
In which edition of the TNIV does that appear in Matthew 14:25? I have several copies of the TNIV and it appears in none of them. I’m a TNIV guy myself.
So much for biblical inerrancy…
2002 hardback NT.
Defore? Hmmm. Maybe Matthew was walking in deforest, thinking about future deforestation, and just had defore on his mind.
I can understand, I make mistakes like this all the time. It is just too easy for this stuff to happen.
http://www.matthewmorine.com
It may have well been an error in the printing machinery. I recently ordered “After the Baby Boomers, How twenty and thirty soemthings are shaping the future of Christianity in America” by Robert Wuthnow. It had several pages that had failed to print and were just blank.
I have a Zondervan copyright 2002 by The Zondervan Corporation, Italiah duo-tone, ISBN 0-310-93328-5. My typo is in the Book of Matthew chapter 17 verse 21 is totally omitted! It’s just not there.
I have several Zondervan NIV bibles a study bible, a student bible and a basic NIV. All printed in different decades and every single Zondervan NIV bible I have checked is missing John5:4 the number and the verse itself are missing. That verse is very important to understand Chapter 5! It is a rather lengthy verse. I was shocked when I noticed. I was also givng them the benifit of the doubt when I realized I was reading a printing from the 80′s I thought they must have fixed this. So I went into a study bible from 1995 and no they had not fixed it. My husband has an NIV that was printed last year and the problem still hasnt’ been fixed. This is more a message of shock than a gripe. It is up to me to make sure my reading comprehension skills are sharp and to read slowly and read several versions when meditating God’s word. However, I was and still am in shock that the problem hasn’t been fixed and it has been nearly 20 years. Sad.