Ephesians 2:10: live the good life?
Metacatholic Doug Chaplin writes On liking a bad translation, concerning the Jerusalem Bible rendering of Ephesians 2:10:
We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.He notes several problems with this, including that "work of art" and "live the good life" are very dubious renderings. Nevertheless, he writes,
I still find my imagination fired, my ethical vision stirred, and my heart excited by the Jerusalem Bible in a way the much more accurate NRSV simply fails to manage (along with every other translation I’ve looked at).I don't know what the Jerusalem Bible translators intended by "live the good life", but the way I would usually understand this expression is completely contrary to the meaning of the passage and the overall teaching of Jesus. Now clearly Doug's reason for liking this version is clearly not because it justifies hedonism. But I can understand why some people might be attracted to this rendering!
posted by Peter Kirk at 4:08 AM
1 Comments:
I don't know. When I teach ancient and medieval philosophy, one of the central questions of the course is "What is a good life?" I tend to use that formulation more often than "the good life", but I use both, and my students don't seem to be confused. Some of the theories are particularly hedonistic, but they don't seem confused when I bring up the claim of Plato and the Stoics that the good life is possible even if you suffer, the Stoics' claim that the good life involves seeking to rid yourself of emotions, or Epicurus' claim that the good life involves minimizing the intensity of your pleasures.
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