Thursday Theology: “Living by Faith(fulness)”?

Co-missioners,

This coming Sunday, pew-sitters and preachers in lectionary-hearing congregations may hear something a little unfamiliar in the language of the Old Testament reading assigned for this day. In the NRSVUE translation, the revision of the NRSV which has been newly recommended by Augsburg Fortress publications like Sundays and Seasons, Habakkuk 2:4 now says that “the righteous live by their faithfulness.” 

That last word—“faithfulness”—caught my attention, and not in a good way. It replaces the more traditional translation found in the original NRSV, as well as in the ESV, NASB, KJV, NIV, NET, and others: “faith.” The difference may seem minor, but it carries significant theological implications. 

Below I share some of my thoughts emerging from some social media conversations I’ve had about the upcoming Sunday’s text. I hope you find them helpful – and even if you don’t, please tell us so! I am aware that I am coming at this not as a professional biblical scholar, but just as a bread-and-butter parish preacher. So, if any of you out there have better insight on this than I, do tell!

Peace & grace, 
Co-editor Robin Lütjohann 
for the Crossings Community

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“Living by Faith(fulness)”?  
Habakkuk 2:4 and its Implication for our Understanding of Faith and Christian Approaches to Translating the Hebrew Bible

by Robin Lütjohann

Robin Lütjohann

There’s a new translation in town: The NRSVUE, an “updated edition” of the NRSV that my church and many others have been using since the late 80s. I quite like it, as it uses up-to-date scholarship and replaces language that has become outdated, even within this millennial’s still short lifespan. The differences between it and its predecessor are minor overall, and so far I have found some of the changes that have been made quite refreshing and helpful. 

Rather importantly for ELCA-ers like me, the NRSVUE is also the translation used for Augsburg Fortress’ liturgical resources, including but not limited to Sundays and Seasons as well as the new edition of the “Lutheran Study Bible” I just ordered for this year’s confirmands. 

Hence I was taken aback when looking at the OT reading for this upcoming Sunday and seeing that Habakkuk 2:4 is now rendered: “the righteous live by their faithfulness” – not by their “faith”!  

So, what’s my problem? Mainly, that the word “faithfulness” in today’s English usage places the emphasis on what the subject does, whereas “faith” can refer to a posture of trusting reception.  

Such a change is particularly significant since this particular verse is quoted three times (!) in the New Testament—in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews 10:38 – and rather significantly so: In Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11, Paul references Hab. 2:4 in order to contrast the righteousness of works with the gift of faith. And in Hebrews 10:38, the verse is used as an exhortation to persevere in the face of suffering, to trust God and not “shrink back”.  

Not surprisingly, this short verse and its NT echoes became  foundational for Christians grounded in the Gospel. E.g. by his own account, it was this part of Romans that led Martin Luther to his personal breakthrough, about which he later wrote: “Da riss ich herdurch” – “It broke me open!” In these words, Luther found the discrimen (differentiation) between the Law and the Gospel that would define his ministry and recenter the Church’s witness on grace. 

The Hebrew word in question is emunah (אֱמוּנָה)—a word with a rich semantic range that includes the sort of concepts and experiences we call “faith” or “faithfulness,” but also “steadfastness,” “trustworthiness” et al. Lexically speaking, “faithfulness” is certainly an option!  

Similarly, the Greek pistis (πίστις), which the New Testament uses when quoting this verse, can also mean either “faith” or “faithfulness.”  

Interestingly, though, the NRSVUE renders the word pistis (the Greek equivalent of emunah) as “faith” – not “faithfulness” – in all three of the aforementioned NT appearances, tacitly acknowledging that this word more closely translates what the apostolic authors thought Hab. 2:4 meant when they quoted it.  

Yet, in Habakkuk, the NRSVUE goes with “faithfulness” instead. Why? I imagine the translators thought that the immediate context of the passage demanded this adjustment. Here the prophet, stationed at his “watchpost” (2:1), receives a message of doom addressed to his unfaithful and idolatrous people, yet there is a hint of grace in verse 4. God says: “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faithfulness.” (2:4) If translated this way, we get a very familiar warning, found throughout the prophets, to repent and turn around – to turn back in faithfulness to the conditional covenant struck with Moses and obey the commandments, thereby potentially averting disaster. 

From Canva

However, a close reading of Habakkuk shows that his is not a message of warning in order to prevent punishment. Unlike Amos or Joel or Zephaniah, for instance, Habakkuk does not call for national repentance. He does not hold out the possibility that Judah’s destruction can be avoided. It’s too late. The Chaldean (Babylonian) invasion is decreed and will happen. Instead of saying, for instance, as Amos (5:14, 15) does, “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live . . . Remember justice in the gate, and it may be that the Lord of hosts will be gracious,” Habakkuk tells us that judgment is definitely coming! BUT… there is a glimmer of hope for those who will trust God through the time of judgment: “the righteous will live by their faith.” 

I have an inkling that it was this radical trust in the face of certain disaster, this bold holding fast in the midst of judgment, fearless and believing in God’s promise, that caught the attention of the first Christians and accounts for why (by my count) Hab. 2:4 is in the top 10 quoted OT verses in the NT.  

What they saw here was a seed of the Gospel, finally fulfilled in Christ and claimed gratefully by the faith they were peddling. It is precisely NOT our “faithfulness” (as in loyality, obedience etc) that spares us from punishment by a wrathful God. It is our trust in the promise of God’s gracious salvation in Christ that makes us new and causes us to live, even in the face of death. 

To state it plainly: I do not believe I am made righteous by my faithfulness—but I do believe I am justified by faith in Christ. This is not just a linguistic preference; it is the theological center of the Gospel. From a Lutheran standpoint, this distinction (discrimen) is everything. 

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A concluding word and summons to conversation: 

I was made aware of this translation issue by some discussion I witnessed unfolding on social media. To my surprise, most folks did not seem to have a problem with the new translation of Hab. 2:4 at all and were actually quite happy with it. 

The reasons I heard for this positive appreciation was twofold:  

(1) Some folks felt that the word “faith” placed too much emphasis on “belief” and “doctrine” – as if we are saved by holding the right propositional truths. As a result, they thought that “faithfulness” painted a more sumptuous and lively picture of the gift that the Spirit births in us.  

Of course, I agree that equating faith with “right belief” is bunk! But this is not what New Testament Christians or the Reformers or the Lutheran tradition at its best have ever meant by “faith” anyway! As Luther wrote and my outgoing Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton used to quote frequently: “Faith, however, is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different people, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O, it is a living, busy, active thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. … And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown them this grace” (Luther’s Works, 35:370-1). 

I don’t think, however, that translating the rich and lively gift, which the Bible calls pistis/emunah, as “faithfulness” solves this problem at all. It overcorrects onto the other edge of the semantic range – the side that tends towards legalism. Much better, I think, would be to go with “trust”! But, alas, I won’t ever win that fight. 

(2) The second thing I observed in online discussions is an increasingly prevalent belief among “mainline” Christians (including in the ELCA) that we should treat, interpret, and translate the Hebrew Bible as an entirely separate document from the New Testament, without the latter’s interpretation impacting our reading of the former. 

I was basically taught this in my seminary formation: The text of the Hebrew Bible must be interpreted in its own integrity, apart from any interpretation imposed on it by later authors, such as those in the New Testament. Part of the (I think highly laudable!) motivation here is to respect our Jewish neighbors and their reception of these texts as a valid tradition in its own right, apart from making it our “Old Testament”. This is why increasingly more liberal-leaning scholars and pastors will say “Hebrew Bible” or even the somewhat awkward “First Testament” instead of the pejorative-sounding “Old Testament”.  

However, I think this kind of separation is unnecessary and actually damaging, both to the Christian Church’s witness but also to our relationship with our Jewish friends.  

I get that in academic settings, a scholar will sometimes want to look at a text purely in its own historical setting. And we who want to learn about these texts as people of faith benefit greatly from such disciplined endeavors. I say, Deo gratias for that! However, when we come to the text as believers (Jewish or Christian) we are allowed, compelled even, to read them through the lens of our traditions. Failing to do so would be dishonest, first of all, but also harmful to the integrity and beauty of both Judaism and Christianity.  

In fact, I would argue that the “Hebrew Bible” and the “Tanakh” (the text in its Jewish context) and “the Old Testament” (the text in its Christian context) are in actual fact separate yet related texts. (Not for nothing, they actually arrange the books in different orders and use different wordings, versions, and languages – they are literally not the same texts!) They are not the same text for which you have to choose one interpretation. They are three texts emerging from the same root and demanding three separate approaches for reading.  

To say otherwise risks imposing a supposedly neutral or objective lens and dismissing deeply held theological interpretations in either of those traditions. Just like I wouldn’t tell a Jewish person that they are “wrong” for reading the Tanakh Jewishly (through the lens of the intervening 2000+ years of Jewish theology and halakhic interpretation), even though the original manuscripts were written to very different people a long time ago – in the same way, I also think it is valid for Christians to view their “Old Testament” through the lens of Christian theology as prophetically pointing to Christ. In fact, this is the view most of the Church has read the Bible for most of its history.  

I believe that one approach does not negate the other. You can do multiple things at the same time. In fact, a good teacher or preacher would have to! And yet I would say that exclusively focusing on or even necessarily prioritizing the “historical” view over a Christological interpretation has done some damage to scriptural interpretation and preaching in mainline churches. Both the texts and their interpretation have layers of interpretation that are worth paying attention to.  

So, when a text like Hab 2:4 is ensconced in an explicitly Christian Bible (which the NRSVUE is, despite its diverse team of translators), I think it is okay to translate Old Testament text in line with New Testament interpretation, especially if, as in this case, the translation choices are ambiguous and multiple options are possible – and when the intertextuality of the Bible itself gives us an idea of how to read it through the translation preferences of the very Apostles themselves! 

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In the end, this little translation question about Habakkuk 2:4 points to at least two issues requiring further teaching and discussion in the church: (1) a narrowed and impoverished understanding of the gift of faith, and (2) a marginalization of the Christological interpretation of the Old Testament. 

Let’s talk! 

Thursday Theology: that the benefits of Christ be put to use
A publication of the Crossings Community