“Another one rides the bus,” pt. 2; R.I.P. two mainstays

Success!

The bus took Samuel to school this morning for the first time.

I’m pleased that we got this sorted out within the month. The bussing in this district is not well thought of.

That said, the half-dozen dispatchers and drivers Karin & I talked to this week were all wonderfully helpful and kind.

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R.I.P. Nevin Longenecker, distinguished high school science teacher. (No, really. Distinguished.) I used to drink coffee with him in the Social Studies lounge before I’d go off to make photocopies for lesser pedagogues.

He ended up coming to my wedding. When it was discovered that his was the longest-lasting marriage in attendance, he was obliged to give a little speech.

I knew teachers in the school who had no idea how remarkable his record was. He didn’t toot his own horn – at least, not to me.

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R.I.P. the iconic Dame Maggie Smith.

“I believe I am past my prime” (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969).

No: Her prime was just beginning.

A NEW new revised standard version

Samuel is on my lap, reading Curious George. My bible is in another room. I reach for my portable electronic device and open a tab to access the Bible Gateway.

Halfway through today’s Numbers passage, it dawns on me: this is not the NRSV.

Where, oh where, is the NRSV? I scroll up and down the menu. It’s gone. In its place is the New Revised Standard Updated Edition (NRSVue).

Apparently, this change took place on May 1.

Here is the announcement, from the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, posted in the Bible Gateway.

And here is a report from the Religious News Service, which highlights the new version’s “consideration for ‘modern sensibilities’” (the term “enslaved woman” is preferred to “slave woman,” etc.).

All right. As Miss Brodie says, for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like. These changes may even be good. But I am in the middle of reading through the NRSV, and it is annoying not to have it in the Bible Gateway.

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I am making too much of this. The Bible Gateway still maintains these editions:

• New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA) (note the “s” in “anglicised” 😇);
• New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE);
• New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (NRSVCE).

So, if I want to, I can just read from one of them, if I am not reading from a paper bible. I can read from one of the “anglicised” editions if I want to pretend I’m a character in Midsomer Murders.

(When reading the Bible, as when doing other things, it is tempting to pretend.)

Of course, in Midsomer Murders, charcters always use the Authorized Edition.

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Thinking about it more, I am not sure the “modern sensibilities” are defensible – at least, not in certain cases. The Religious News Service tells us that in the new edition, various updates

reflect a decision to avoid identifying people based on their disabilities.

A verse in Matthew that previously referred to “demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics,” now reads “people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis.”

That demon possession is a medical disability, in the way that epilepsy and paralysis are medical disabilities – that it is not, in fact, a mark of spiritual identity – is too hefty an assumption for a translator to make.

Of course, the NRSVue doesn’t say that demon possession is a “disability.” Its language is neutral about that. (I haven’t tried to find out if the new phrasing is any more, or any less, faithful to the Greek.)

Again, what troubles me is the bluntness of the apparent motive for this change. The change itself – in this passage – may be all right.