Finally, I think that the distinction between negation and clarification is semantic. If the end result is a Biblical law that cannot be put into practise, what difference does it make? Jews negated undesirable laws by reinterpreting them in such a way that they either meant something else, or that they could no longer be put into effect; Christians negated the same laws by applying a particular theological hermeneutic that informed them of the text’s obsolete status. Both are very different approaches that reflect on very different attitudes to the same corpus of literature, but the end result of both of them is not so different as you might like to suppose.

Another favourite is the commandment to kill a child who strikes his parent/s. Rabbi Akiva interpreted “strike” in such a severe way as to make it impossible for a child to inflict one.

As you say at the end, I would call this clarification rather than negation. It appears that Paul was very much into negation, even though Jesus can be said to have been the first advocate of mivtza’im – encouraging fellow Jews to keep the Biblical ordinances, but to carry out the message of the prophets: be nice to each other.

Religious Jews also hold to the inerrancy of scripture, yet forgo many of its precepts. They either do this by reinterpreting them (cf: the monetary value of an eye for an eye, etc) or by dismissing them altogether (eg: a rebellious city never existed and never will). For a religious Christian, scripture also includes the writings of Paul, according to which, God subjected himself to human law in order that subsequent generations of people need not do so. I imagine that I may now get a lot of people telling me that I’m wrong but, as I see it, Judaism modifies or abrogates the law on the basis of the Mishna, Tosefta and Talmudic literature, while Christianity does the same, on the basis of the Gospels, Pauline epistles, and the writings of the church fathers.

That Judaism retains more of the Biblical law than does Christianity is a matter best left to historical anthropologists to explain but, for my part, I’m pleased that both religions found a means of sifting out or “clarifying” the really nasty bits! Kashrut, Shabbat and Tzitzit, I can live with.

Re the Catholic hold on Biblical inerrancy: Why then don’t they hold its instructions? For if they did, they would not eat certain animals, they would not extinguish or ignite a flame on the Sabbath (Saturday, not Sunday) and they would wear fringes on their four-cornered garments, etc. just like their messiah did and advocated (I suspect this is a topic for another day, though…)

1) There are other editions out there of the JB, including a newly released CTS New Catholic Bible which is published in Britain and includes the Jerusalem Bible translation, minus the JB Psalms which is the Grail Translation, and the lack of the use of YHWH. It comes in various editions: http://www.cts-online.org.uk/acatalog/info_SC103.html

2) Also, the Catholic Church does hold to Biblical innerancy. It is a bit more layered but the most recent statement about it comes from the Second Vatican Council document Dei Verbum 11: “Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scripture. ” There has been a debate as to how far that goes, but that is the basic statement from the Catholic Chuch.

For those who, like myself, ultimately prefer to be reading the Bible in Hebrew, but who also enjoy having an English translation on side as a commentary to the text, a less dynamic equivalence is preferable. I like to know how the translators have rendered individual words into English and, even though I think that a measure of dynamism is crucial for translating collocations, I prefer my translations, if they have to err, to do so on the side of formalism.