# CSB - "spirit" in Ephesians 2:18



## Taylor (Aug 28, 2018)

Greetings, all.

So, the Christian Standard Bible has been pushing a lot of corrections to their translation—all excellent edits to an already excellent translation (e.g., the corrected incomplete sentence in Isa. 64:3). The committee has been very receptive to the public eye. I was even in email correspondence with Dorian Coover-Cox for a bit, in which she graciously asked me to send her any renderings that looked odd or were clearly a typo. Most, maybe all, of these have been fixed in the electronic edition such as Logos and Accordance.

However, there is one rendering that the committee has seemingly yet to be address, and it is found in Eph. 2:18. The HCSB has "Spirit" (capitalized), while the CSB has "spirit" (lowercase). I thought that maybe this could be a deliberate change. However, no other major translation of which I am aware has this rendering. Surely such a unique rendering would require a footnote, yet it has not even been addressed.

I guess what I am asking is this: Is anyone aware of any commentators that take πνεύματι in Eph. 2:18 to be anything but the Holy Spirit? Perhaps our good brother Dr. @iainduguid could help us, even though he is on the Old Testament side of the committee.

Thank you all!

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion (Aug 29, 2018)

The CSB seems to be the only translation to render it with the lower case:

https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Ephesians 2:18

Per the definitive statement here...
"Nouns referring to members of the Trinity, however, are still capitalized, which is the universal approach in Bible translation."​
...the conclusion is that Eph. 2:18 in the CSB rendering is not referring to the Holy Spirit.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## iainduguid (Aug 29, 2018)

Taylor Sexton said:


> Greetings, all.
> 
> So, the Christian Standard Bible has been pushing a lot of corrections to their translation—all excellent edits to an already excellent translation (e.g., the corrected incomplete sentence in Isa. 64:3). The committee has been very receptive to the public eye. I was even in email correspondence with Dorian Coover-Cox for a bit, in which she graciously asked me to send her any renderings that looked odd or were clearly a typo. Most, maybe all, of these have been fixed in the electronic edition such as Logos and Accordance.
> 
> ...


As you note, I'm not part of the NT committee, so wasn't part of this discussion. It does surprise me a little that there isn't a footnote giving the alternative. I think both are probably defensible. The phrase "in one spirit/Spirit" occurs also in 1 Cor 12:13, where it is clearly Spirit, and Phil 1:27, where most (except NIV) take it as spirit. The cross references for Eph 2:18 cite John 4:34, which may give a hint as to their thinking. But it also cites 1 Cor 12:13, which doesn't really fit as a cross reference with this rendering. I'll send it along to Tom Schreiner for reconsideration this summer.

Reactions: Like 3


----------



## iainduguid (Aug 29, 2018)

iainduguid said:


> As you note, I'm not part of the NT committee, so wasn't part of this discussion. It does surprise me a little that there isn't a footnote giving the alternative. I think both are probably defensible. The phrase "in one spirit/Spirit" occurs also in 1 Cor 12:13, where it is clearly Spirit, and Phil 1:27, where most (except NIV) take it as spirit. The cross references for Eph 2:18 cite John 4:34, which may give a hint as to their thinking. But it also cites 1 Cor 12:13, which doesn't really fit as a cross reference with this rendering. I'll send it along to Tom Schreiner for reconsideration this summer.


I'm told that this is likely a mistake, and it will be fixed soon. Thanks for flagging it for us. 

The committees will be meeting again this summer, so if you have other issues you would like us to look at, let me know.

Reactions: Like 2 | Informative 1


----------



## RamistThomist (Aug 30, 2018)

is pneuma actually capitalized in the earliest papyri?


----------



## Jake (Aug 30, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> is pneuma actually capitalized in the earliest papyri?



Is this a trick question?

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## RamistThomist (Aug 30, 2018)

Jake said:


> Is this a trick question?



No. It's been about fifteen years since I've studied the history of textual criticism, but I am fairly certain that there was neither capital now lowercase.


----------



## SolaScriptura (Aug 30, 2018)

What the folks in charge of the CSB need to do is get that version incorporated into curriculum and literature for more than just LifeWay products.

Reactions: Amen 1


----------



## C. M. Sheffield (Aug 30, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> is pneuma actually capitalized in the earliest papyri?



Everything is!

Reactions: Like 1 | Funny 1


----------



## Jake (Aug 30, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> No. It's been about fifteen years since I've studied the history of textual criticism, but I am fairly certain that there was neither capital now lowercase.



That's why I was confused.  Everything was uppercase.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## RamistThomist (Aug 30, 2018)

In any case, it wasn't capitalized in the sense of specialing it out.


----------



## Taylor (Aug 31, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> In any case, it wasn't capitalized in the sense of specialing it out.


​That's not necessarily true. While there may not have been capitalization of proper nouns in the earliest papyri, there was a way to "special out" certain names and nouns: _nomina sacra_. I went to the website for The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, and it just so happens that I found a 2nd-3rd century papyrus that contained Eph. 2:18, and "πνεύματι" is condensed to a_ nomen sacrum_, effectively "capitalizing" it. See the image below. The_ nomen sacrum_ is ΠΝΙ (short for ΠΝ-εύματ-Ι) with a line over it.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1


----------



## Jack K (Aug 31, 2018)

SolaScriptura said:


> What the folks in charge of the CSB need to do is get that version incorporated into curriculum and literature for more than just LifeWay products.



I recently edited a book for a publisher other than LifeWay. The author (who is baptistic but not Southern Baptist) wanted to use the CSB, so that's what we used. I suspect this will happen more often as more churches discover the CSB. It's a conservative-pedigree alternative to the NIV, and some churches have become uncomfortable with the NIV's 2011 revision.

In books, the choice of translation is usually up to the author, especially if the publisher has no proprietary translation. So other than being patient and letting the translation grow on people, there's not a whole lot LifeWay can do to get it used in other books. The CSB's appeal does seem to be limited (though surely also helped) by its reputation as a Southern Baptist thing.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1


----------

