Matthew

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NASB	Matthew 1:19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
AMPLIFIED 2015 2015	Matthew 1:19 And Joseph her [promised] husband, being a just and righteous man and not wanting to expose her publicly to shame, planned to send her away and divorce her quietly.

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Subject: What does "send her away" refer to?

Bible Note: Ed responded:

"Doesn't the fact you ask the question say you also know the answer?"

Oh, absolutely not, Ed. We often ask questions when we don't know the answer. That is the function of polls and surveys, to try to discover what people think.

"In all modern translations (except the NASB) they have been rewritten to make them more understandable. The NASB in it�s pursuit of excellence must have realized the word divorce would also be incorrect since the actual marriage had not yet be consummated."

Actually, the word "divorce" is correct and accurate because Jewish betrothal was just as binding as marriage. A kind of divorce decree was required to break the betrothal. Jewish betrothal was not the same as our being engaged to be married.

"Therefore they choose the word set they used with the asterisk for further clarification."

I'm glad they included the footnote. That helps. My field test tries to determine if speakers of standard dialects of English will get the meaning given in the footnote. It is an important principle of Bible translation that the most accurate meanings should be in the text itself.

"This would be called leading and is known to corrupt surveys. By supplying the obvious answer it effects people two ways."

Yes, you are right, Ed. The problem is that I am limited to multiple-choice questions when I use the particular Internet survey service that I do. I started out using a service which has a fill-in-the-blank format, a format I prefer because it doesn't ask leading questions, which have the problem you correctly point out. But so many people responded that it took them longer than they wanted to take to complete the fill-in-the-blank format (which does not ask leading questions, but simply asks someone what something means to them) that I found the multiple-choice format. I also offer the fill-in-the-blank service right next to the multiple-choice service for those people who wish to explain their answers more fully.

Can you come up with a multiple choice question and answer options for Matt. 1:19 for me which would remove the problem of the leading question?

"In one case, people like me �devious� say it must have a more than the obvious meaning therefore I would use B. For the less devious they see an answer that makes sense and use A. Therefore both cases would be wrong because in truth neither knew the right answer."

So true. It is difficult to design good test questions. I've been a teacher and I know how difficult it is. We have to be patient and keep revising and being willing to improve the questions as we get helpful feedback like yours.

"Example �What does this phrase to send her away� away mean to you?
A. It means he was going to send her to some other place
B. Something else.
C. I don�t know
Your survey if even needed would be better to supply either no answer or both the correct and the incorrect interpretation."

But we also don't want to lead the questioner to an answer that they would not have thought of on their own. We are attempting to get an objective response through the surveys. My question, as worded, was my best attempt. I have been revising my questions as I have gotten feedback such as yours.

"If I'm being a pain just say so and I'll shut up."

Not at all, Ed. You're being helpful, and I appreciate that. I need help like this to make the surveys better. I want them to be as fair and objective as possible.

Keep up the good work,
blessings,
Wayne
http://committed.to/fieldtesting

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Matthew

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