the phone hacking scandal and the NIV

At least twenty News journalists will face trial for phone hacking and/or corruption and could well face jail. While further focus centres upon the ethics of the News Corp Murdoch empire as the phone hacking scandal reignites, it is worthwhile pondering the NIV connection. Zondervan markets itself as the world's biggest publisher of bibles and the NIV is to this publishing company what News of the World was to News International (at least before it closed) - a cash cow, greedily milked for the past 23 years into Murdoch's billions. Did I mention that besides the immorality of his newspapers his empire comprises many pornographic TV channels? Harper Collins markets the Satanic Bible and books promoting sodomite immorality. It may also be worth mentioning that his empire controls exactly how much of the NIV and other versions you are allowed to quote. Would you buy a bible from Murdoch? Well, there are over 300 different types to choose from including Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing. What about the horrible histories theme 2:52™ Boys Bible ("Discover gross and gory Bible stuff")? NIV Faithgirlz! Bible ("Every girl wants to know she’s totally unique and special. This Bible says that with Faithgirlz!™ sparkle!") is another option. Of course they are printed in China, controversially given the degree of persecution of Christians there. 

Can anyone recall that it was this kind of profiteering out of religion that drove Luther to protest as he did on 31 October 1517? 

The Bible Industry. From Geez magazine, Fall 2009. Credit: Darryl Brown and Aiden Enns.

The hyperinflation of Scripture

Yet more Bible versions - the Common English Bible(New) and the NIV 2011(New) take up their position in a crowded market place with aggressive marketing ($3M marketing budgets). This secular newspaper article entitled "How many versions of the Bible do we need?" lifts the lid on the hypocrisy. (I didn't believe that there was a "Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing Edition" until I googled it).

“Bibles are in many ways a cash cow,” said Phyllis Tickle, a former longtime religion editor at Publishers Weekly. “The Bible is the mainstay of many a publishing program.”

“I think we are drifting more and more to a diverse Babel of translations,” said David Lyle Jeffrey, former provost of Baylor University and an expert on biblical translations. Jeffrey thinks Americans need a “common Bible” — a role the King James version played for centuries — to communicate the grandeur of Scripture without reducing it to “shopping-center-level” discourse.

“When we have so much diversity, we lose our common voice,” he said. “It is in effect moving away from a common membership in the body of Christ into disparate, confusing misrepresentations of the rich wisdom of Scripture, which ought to unify us.”

These comments make the implicit claim of the Common English Bible publishers ludicrous.

Leland Ryken, an English professor at Wheaton College, was more blunt.

“When there is wide divergence among Bible translations, readers have no way of knowing what the original text really says,” Ryken said. “It’s like being given four different scores for the same football game or three contradictory directions for getting to a town in the middle of the state.”

In the process “the Bible loses its identity as the authoritative word of God and becomes something trivial, on par with shoes for hikers or luggage for the international set.”

What has happened? Hyperinflation. This vicious circle occurs in an economy when the currency plummets in value while more and more inflation is created with each iteration of the ever increasing money printing cycle. Wikipedia tells us that it "Hyperinflation becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply usually accompanied by a widespread unwillingness on the part of the local population to hold the hypebecomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply usually accompanied by a widespread unwillingness on the part of the local population to hold the hyperinflationary money for more than the time needed to trade it for something non-monetary to avoid further loss of real value". "The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money that is not supported by a corresponding growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run".

This is what is happening with the overprinting of versions of the Bible resulting in a loss of confidence in the value of Scripture.

1611 and 2011

Has any other Bible version been the subject of an early day motion in the House of Commons? And a debate(9 Dec 2009 : Column 97WH)? Or the subject of a BBC documentary?

See here for a secular national initiative to mark the anniversary of the AV but here for a more appropriate series of events.

NIV revision

In their ultimate consumer marketing campaign the publishers and
translators of the New International Version have decided to do their
best to upstage the Authorised (King James) Version by publishing a
new revision in 2011 see website www.nivbible2011.com. "It is fitting
that the new edition of the NIV Bible will be coming out in 2011, the
year which marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Version,"
said Douglas Moo. "Our goal in the NIV Bible translation mirrors that
of the 17th Century translators themselves: to produce a Bible that
removes all unnecessary obstacles to comprehension by drawing on the
best available scholarship". This is of course marketing speak; the
principles adopted by the AV translators and those of the NIV could
hardly be greater. Gerald Hammond pointed out that "while the
Renaissance Bible translator saw half of his task as reshaping English
so that it could adapt itself to Hebraic idiom, the modern translator
wants to make no demands on the language he translates into".

The attempt to chase the mirage of contemporary idiom and the need for
publishers to profit from new products has meant the frequent revision
of translations such as the NIV. Keith Danby, Global President and CEO
of Biblica said: "we are recommitting ourselves today to the original
NIV charter, complete with its charge to monitor and reflect
developments in English usage and Biblical scholarship by periodically
updating the NIV Bible text. As time passes and English changes, the
NIV we have at present is becoming increasingly dated. If we want a
Bible that English speakers around the world can understand, we have
to listen to, and respect, the vocabulary they are using today."

Moo gives an example of the changes that are required. "In the 1984
NIV when Paul says (in 2 Corinthians 11:25) 'I was stoned,' we changed
it to 'pelted with stones' to avoid the laughter in the junior high
row of the church." The assumption is that (as Gerald Hammond puts
it), "a modern Bible should aim not to tax its readers' linguistic or
interpretative abilities one bit. If this aim is to be achieved then
it seems likely that a new Bible will have to be produced for every
generation - each one probably moving us further away from the
original text, now that the initial break has been made". On cue the
NIV is now being revised 25 years after the 1984 edition.

One of the NIV's best kept secrets is that it is actually full of
archaic and difficult vocabulary as the list at the following site
shows http://www.biblebelievers.com/Vance2.html. A comparison of
these words in context will show that the AV has actually in many
cases used a less difficult word such as Eph 6:4 "provoke" rather than
"exasperate" (NIV). See also the list at the bottom of this post.

The new edition will replace both the 1984 NIV and the 2005
gender-neutral TNIV. There is a bit of obfuscation in the official
position as to whether the new edition will be gender neutral or not
and if so to what extent. For the 2011 edition, more than a dozen
scholars will "review every single gender-related decision we have
made and make sure we are putting God's unchanging word into English
people are actually using," says Douglas Moo, chairman of the
Committee on Bible Translation. "I can't predict what will happen with
gender usage. My guess would be we made a lot of the right decisions
for the T-NIV but every one of those is open for consideration. We may
even be returning to what we had in the 1984 NIV". Noone really
believes that this will be the case, however, they are simply trying
to keep their market appeal to those who might be swayed towards
either the NRSV or NLT on the one hand and the ESV, NASB on the other.

Moo notes that marketing the bible for profit isn't always easy, you
have to launch a revision at the right time: "We recognize at the same
time that people often will buy a Bible, they will use it as their
Bible, they'll memorize it, churches will buy Bibles to put in their
pews, and I think we have to balance very carefully the need to keep
the Bible up to date in terms of where English is with the reality
that people don't want to have to be buying new Bibles every two or
three years".

Fresh from last year's 30th anniversary marketing campaign Zondervan
are keen to maintain their market dominance as their President
enthuses. "We are tremendously excited about this initiative and we
wholeheartedly support our colleagues from Biblica and the CBT as they
work again with the same recipe that made the NIV the most popular
Bible translation in the world," said Zondervan President Moe Girkins.
"Since its first publication in 1978, more than 300 million copies of
the NIV have found their way into the hands and heart of people
worldwide...We are going to take great care to prepare our customers
for this new edition."

Ironically the NIV marketers are using the anniversary of a bible
version which has stood the test of 400 years to launch a revision of
a bible version that has hardly lasted 25. Never mind its popularity
or whether it needs updating - to use Richard Bacon's article title -
the NIV is still simply a bad translation.

NIV Difficult vocabulary list
abashed, abominable, abutted, acclaim, adder, adhere, admonishing,
advocate, alcove, algum, allocate, allots, ally, aloes, appease,
ardent, armlets, arrayed, astir, atonement, awl, banishment,
battlements, behemoth, belial, bereaves, betrothed, bier, blighted,
booty, brayed, breaching, breakers, buffeted, burnished, calamus,
capital (not a city), carnelian, carrion, centurions, chasm, chronic,
chrysolite, cistern, citadel, citron, clefts, cohorts, colonnades,
complacency, coney, concession, congealed, conjure, contrite,
convocations, crest, cors, curds, dandled, dappled, debauchery,
decimated, deluged, denarii, depose, derides, despoil,
dire,dispossess, disrepute, dissipation, distill, dissuade,
divination, dragnet, dropsy, duplicity, earthenware, ebony,
emasculate, emission, encroach, enmity, enthralled, entreaty, ephod,
epicurean, ewe, excrement, exodus, factions, felled, festal, fettered,
figurehead, filigree, flagstaff, fomenting, forded, fowler, gadfly,
galled, gird, gauntness, gecko, gloating, goiim, harrowing, haunt,
hearld, henna, homers, hoopoe, ignoble, impaled, implore, incur,
indignant, insatiable, insolence, intact, invoked, jambs, joists,
jowls, lairs, lamentation, leviathan, libations, loins, magi,
manifold, maritime, mattocks, maxims, mina, misdemeanor,
mother-of-pearl, mustering, myrtles, naive, naught, Negev, Nephilim,
nettles, nocturnal, nomad, notorious, Nubians, oblivion, obsolete,
odious, offal, omer, oracles, overweening, parapet, parchments,
pavilion, peals (noun, not the verb), perjurers, perpetuate,
pestilence, pinions, phylacteries, plumage, pomp, porphyry, portent,
potsherd, proconsul, propriety, poultice, Praetorium, pretext,
profligate, promiscuity, provincial, providence, qualm, quarries,
quivers (noun, not verb), ramparts, ransacked, ratified, ravish,
rabble, rawboned, relish (not for hotdogs), recoils, recount, refrain,
relent, rend, reposes, reprimanded, reputed, retinue, retorted,
retribution, rifts, roebucks, rue, sachet, satraps, sated,
shipwrights, siegeworks, sinews, sistrums, sledges, smelted, somber,
soothsayer, sovereignty, spelt, stadia, stench, stipulation, sullen,
tamarisk, tanner, temperate, tether, tetrarch, terebinth, thresher,
throes, thronged, tiaras, tinder, tracts, transcends, tresses,
turbulent, tyrannical, unscathed, unrelenting, usury, vassal, vaunts,
vehemently, verdant, vexed, wadi, wanton, warranted, wield, winnowing
and wrenched.

the case for a contemporary bible in English

What makes a contemporary English Bible? It is widely presumed that this is an easy and straightforward question to answer: a contemporary version can only mean the Bible put into modern idiom. The great variety of modern idiom versions that exists, however, tells us that even this conclusion is not that uncomplicated since there is significant difference of opinion over what modern English idiom is. Does it for instance, include “gender neutral” terms? Kenneth Barker, secretary of the NIV Committee aimed to justify the 'gender-neutral' revision of that version in terms of “shifts in English idiom”.

Another problem is the common assumption that contemporary idiom means that “a modern Bible should aim not to tax its readers’ linguistic or interpretative abilities on bit. If this aim is to be achieved then it seems likely that a new Bible will have to be produced for every generation - each one probably moving us further away from the original text, now that the initial break has been made”. (Gerald Hammond). Indeed some publishers of the modern versions have estimated that translation will need to be revised in the light of modern language every 25-50 years.

There is yet another problem. What constitutes contemporary idiom? Where is it best found? Many modern versions have selected one contemporary idiom above all others and forced the Bible to speak in a journalistic voice. Billy Graham's high praise for the Good News Bible was that it read like the newspaper. Yet this a problem in that: "Unlike the modern newspaper, the Bible was never meant to yield the fullness of its message to those who are only willing to expend the absolute minimum of effort necessary” (Robert P. Martin).

From the perspective of language study this obsession with the journalistic voice is very strange since it is clear that different varieties of English exist in different situations. These are called registers and they vary according to the setting and purpose of the interaction, the relationship of those speaking together, and whether the language is spoken or written. Prof. WH Stevenson explains: ‘…at any given time, there is more than one “English” in use. The language of the corner shop is not the language of the most “popular” journalist, and the language of the pulpit, even with the most modern of preachers installed, is different from either’. What is ‘the language of today’ that we hear so much glib reference to in Bible version discussion? The very concept makes very little sense in this context. Instead of speaking of contemporary English we need to be more accurate and to define the register of the English language that is in question.

Definitions of contemporary idiom can be remarkably elastic and subjective. One of the principal translators of the New English Bible, Prof. Kenneth Grayston said: ‘Modern English, it seems to me, is slack instead of taut, verbose and not concise, infested with this month’s cliché…it seems to me a repository for the bad habits of foreigners speaking English. This is how we must speak if people are to listen and grasp what we say’. The translators of the New English Bible believed they were reproducing modern idiom, but in fact it was coloured by their ‘preponderantly Anglican’ and ‘Oxford’ background. The translators often found themselves proposing some ‘very 1930ish upper middle class English idiom’: the translation was made in the 1960s.

Dr Anthony H Nichols has researched problems in contemporary cross-cultural translation. In some versions Western principles and thought forms seem to dominate. This making the Scriptures to be Westernised rather than reflective of biblical language and culture. Dr. Nichols’ highly important research investigates the influence of dynamic equivalence in several Far Eastern translations. The results are alarming: “ what emerged was the immense influence of the GNB [Good News Bible] on three important no-western versions”. It was concluded that “the renderings of the more traditional ‘formal-correspondence’ Indonesian versions were regularly more culturally appropriate [in comparison with the dynamic equivalent versions]”.

What is more culturally appropriate in our own society may likewise be far different than the manufacturers of the modern versions assume. Like the “traditional” formally equivalent Far Eastern versions we believe that the Authorised Version is actually more culturally appropriate than its recent rivals. It is the most accurate and the faithfulness of the Authorised Version is the very thing that has contributed to its character of being perennially contemporary and appropriate. It is worth reflecting upon the fact that it was no more accessible to the large number of working class converts in the 1920’s and 1930’s who loved it, than it is to us.

The AV, contrary to much misleading prejudice, is ‘clearly a form of Modern English’ (WH Stevenson). Its language is still part of English as currently used, indeed the English Bible has shaped the language. Granted that it is an early form of modern English but it is clear that it is as removed from Medieval English (Chaucer and Wycliffe) as 20th century English. What is required in a translation is that it should be accurate and faithful and that it should be in English. The AV has not only shaped the English language as a whole, it is the most significant influence upon ‘religious English’, the register appropriate for worship.

God’s Word through the AV still maintains a place in our society.In fact it is more contemporary than the so-called contemporary English versions. This is because we must properly define the term “contemporary” in relation to accurately and faithfully rendering the Scriptures and presenting them adequately. There are broader dimensions to the position, place and influence that a translation of the Bible holds and should hold. Contrary to the popular fallacy that there is no present point of contact with the idiom of the AV, it is firmly embedded in everday speech, especially in our proverbialisms. A website which investigates the origin and meaning of proverbial sayings notes: 'What raises that version above other versions of the Bible in terms of its linguistic impact is the fact that the language used has persisted into the present-day. Many of the phrase used are still commonplace. Here are some of the many phrases that originated in the Bible...' (go here for the list, which is only a selection).

There is a Bible that contains the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm as the man in the street knows them only. There is a Bible that carries a weight of authority and stirs a wealth of association for a significant proportion of our population. A Bible too exists that is quoted whenever the bible is quoted or alluded to, whether in popular books; academic seminars and conference papers; tabloids; broadsheets; and high, low, or middle-brow culture.

Think of a local church with a building that is situated prominently within a community, town, or village: a building with which all sections of the community are readily familiar and into which the majority have been at least once or so. Should that church abandon that building and commission plush, new premises right out in the middle of nowhere, remote from any houses whatsoever? The analogy with the Authorised Version and our community is very appropriate.

We are surely justified in concluding that rumours of the death of the Authorised Version have been greatly exaggerated and that it still deserves its justified title - The English Bible.

The world's oldest known Bible?

BBC don't often get into matters of textual criticism but here is their rather lame attempt at describing Codex Sinaiticus. There are various factual errors in this article, which are identified here by Dirk Jongkind. The most serious error is surely the description of it as the "world's oldest surviving Bible". It can only be described as such in that it contains in one place the New Testament text. It does not, however, contain it all. There are many serious omissions - the crucial verses of the end of Mark's Gospel are missing from this manuscript. It is not a complete Bible. We also have the huge problem that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus (the two preferred manuscripts) disagree with each other (and this is not counting simple errors such as spelling) more than 34 times per chapter in the gospels. In the prison epistles they disagree more times than they agree. Sinaiticus also contains books that noone thinks are part of the canon, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. There is no way to know whether the manuscript originally ended with Hermas or contained other works. These scribes were far astray in their view of what was Scripture. Why should we trust it? The textual critic Kirsopp Lake states.

"The Codex Sinaiticus has been corrected by so many hands that it affords a most interesting and intricate problem to the palaeographer who wishes to disentangle the various stages by which it has reached its present condition…." (Codex Sinaiticus - New Testament volume; page xvii of the introduction). The man who discovered it, Tischendorf said that he "counted 14,800 alterations and corrections in Sinaiticus." It was corrected into the twelfth century, so how do we know which is original and old in the manuscript?

The BBC article shows how the unbelieving approach to textual criticism that prefers the critical text and manuscripts such as Sinaiticus engenders unbelief in those such as Bart Ehrman. Maurice Robinson is right to say of the current state of textual criticism that it is at sea and driving upon the rocks of liberal unbelief without the Byzantine-priority position which identifies the true text as having been preserved by the Byzantine Church rather than in the West. The most consistent Byzantine-priority position is to identify the Textus Receptus as the true text. We ought to remember that Dean Burgon and Edward F Hills have demonstrated that the writings of the Early Fathers and papyri which are far earlier than Sinaiticus witness to the early date of the Byzantine text.
'Current eclectic speculation involves heterodox scribes who are claimed to have preserved a more genuine text than the orthodox, as well as a general uncertainty whether the original text can be recovered, or whether any concept of an "original" text can be maintained. The Byzantine-priority position offers a clear theoretical and practical alternative to the pessimistic suppositions of postmodern eclectic subjectivity. The various eclectic schools continue to flounder without an underlying history of transmission to explain and anchor the hypothetically "best attainable" NT text which they have constructed out of bits and pieces of scattered readings'.

Israel knows what to do with lite Bible versions

Israel’s Education Ministry has banned a lite version of the Bible as
reported at Haaretz. "The Education Ministry is to ban Bible aid booklets that help elementary and junior high school students by “translating” the text into simple Hebrew". The whole debate on the issue is very significant in echoing the objections to modern English translations and the issue of preserving the biblical English of the Authorised Version.

“The idea of translating the Bible into simple contemporary language is ‘scandalous,’ Drora Halevy, the ministry's National Supervisor for Bible Studies, told Haaretz. The booklets present the text in ‘skimpy slang’ that cheapens the Bible,” she added. "Halevy is convinced that using the simple-language Bible will lead to the loss of Biblical expressions and idioms that are used in contemporary Hebrew. She asserts that the booklet's meager language drives children away from the Bible, rather than bring them closer."

“It’s a purely marketing initiative intended for the below-average; it's a disaster,” says Professor Yaira Amit, a Bible instruction expert. “This is a colossal failure of our education system that defies description,” says Professor Amit. “How come children used to be able to read the Bible? How come they used to be able to learn sections by heart? It was hard for them then too, but they dealt with it because they were told it was important." “We give precedence to shallowness and shortcuts in many areas of modern life. It’s OK in e-mails in which the message is the main thing. But where is the boundary? You cannot do away with cultural values.”

"Teaching experts lambast the booklets, warning that children will skip reading the Bible and opt for the simplified version. This will not only deteriorate Bible studies but also impact the Hebrew language, which is based on the Bible, they say". “The Bible is the Hebrew language’s dictionary. It's the foundation of everything, says linguist Zvia Valdan. “If you read it without the original expressions and rhythms, it will lose its impact and power.”

"Booklet publishers Rafi Moses and Reches Publications say the Bible is a foreign language to Israeli children, who need to read it in simple language to understand it. Halevy and other Bible and Hebrew language experts fear that children will simply not bother to read the Bible, but use the simple language version instead".

In the Bible Lite version everything is paraphrased. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” is rendered “in the beginning God created the world.”

The man behind the Bible Lite version is a former Bible teacher and headmaster, and he indicates that he perceives it as a rewriting of Scripture. “When they first suggested [making the booklets] I was astonished. Why should we rewrite the Bible in a simple tongue?’ says Avraham Ahuvia, 87, of kibbutz Netzer Sereni.

Whose Voice? The Emerging Church rewrite the Bible

A(nother) new version has been produced and is being promoted. The Voice New Testament. One doesn't need to comment much on this. It speaks for itself. It is almost explicitly a version with the stamp of the Emerging Church Movement. (For a whole range of articles critiquing the Emerging Church click here)
"Any literary project reflects the age in which it is written. The Voice is created for and by a church in great transition. Throughout the body of Christ, extensive discussions are ongoing about a variety of issues including style of worship, how we separate culture from our theology, and what is essential truth. At the center of this discussion is the role of Scripture. Instead of furthering the division over culture and theology, it is time to bring the body of Christ together again around the Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers and Ecclesia Bible Society together are developing Scripture products that foster spiritual growth and theological exploration out of a heart for worship and mission. We have dedicated ourselves to hearing and proclaiming God’s voice through this project.

Previously most Bibles and biblical reference works were produced by professional scholars writing in academic settings. The Voice uniquely represents collaboration among scholars, pastors, writers, musicians, poets, and other artists. The goal is to create the finest Bible products to help believers experience the joy and wonder of God’s revelation. This is the first-ever complete New Testament in The Voice translation. Writers include Chris Seay, Lauren Winner, Brian McLaren, Greg Garrett, David B. Capes, and others.

Four key words describe the vision of this project:
Holistic: considers heart, soul, and mind
Beautiful: achieves literary and artistic excellence
Sensitive: respects cultural shifts and the need for accuracy
Balanced: includes theologically diverse writers and scholars

We have taken care that The Voice is faithful and that it avoids prejudice. As we partnered biblical scholars and theologians with our writers, we intentionally built teams that did not share any single theological tradition. Their diversity has helped each of them not to be trapped within his or her own individual preconceptions, resulting in a faithful and fresh rendering of the Bible.

Features include: bronze, highlighted text; screenplay-like format, ideal for public readings and group studies; devotional commentary; and book introductions."

It's literary qualities let alone it's fidelity to the inspired original are greatly in question as the following extract from John 1:1-5 shows.

"Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God. 2This celestial Voice remained ever present with the Creator; 3His speech shaped the entire cosmos. Immersed in the practice of creating, all things that exist were birthed in Him. 4His breath filled all things with a living, breathing light. 5 Light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazing through murky bottoms. It cannot, and will not, be quenched."

Why are the 10 Commandments addressed in the singular?

This is an important question. The original Hebrew is in the singular which is accurately reflected in the Authorised Version "Thou shalt not..." You is plural whereas Thou is singular. It does not say It does not say, "Do not kill" but "Thou shalt not kill".

Jewish writers and Rabbis have given many answers to this such as that they stood 'as one person of one heart', see here and here and here. For instance the first century AD Jewish writer Philo writes: "But why are the commandments formulated in the singular (Thou), when a multitude was present? Readers of the Holy Scriptures may learn from this that each individual who keeps the law and obeys God is as precious as the whole Nation, nay more, as the whole world. Another reason is that commands and prohibitions are more impressive if addressed to each individual in the audience." It highlights individual responsibility.

No doubt there is also something to be said for the fact that Israel is seen as the son of God, see here.

John Willison asks:
Q. Why doth this and the rest of the commands still run in the singular number, Thou, and not You?
A. Because God would have every man to notice the directions thereof as particularly as if they were spoken to himself by name.

It is "thou" not "ye," because each person is addressed separately as a distinct moral agent responsible to God for keeping the law. Willison also notes: "The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, which were solemnly delivered to the people of Israel from Mount Sinai, do contain the moral law; being a fixed and perpetual rule of righteousness, which God hath given to be observed by all mankind, in all ages and periods, to the end of the world." The Larger Catechism reminds us:
"That the law is perfect, and bindeth every one to full conformity in the whole man unto the righteousness thereof, and unto entire obedience forever; so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty, and to forbid the least degree of every sin."

The puritan Thomas Watson answers our question:
"Because the commandment concerns every one, and God would have each one take it as spoken to him by name. Though we are forward to take privileges to ourselves, yet we are apt to shift off duties from ourselves to others; therefore the commandment is in the second person, Thou and Thou, that every one may know that it is spoken to him, as it were, by name." Some have said that we ought to put our own name as it were into the commandment in order to recognise our own responsibility.

James Ussher in his Body of Divinity answers the question as to why the commandments are addressed in the singular:
1. Because God being without partiality, speaketh to all men alike; as well the rich as poor, high as low.
2. Because no man should put the commandments of God from himself, as though they did not concern him: but every particular man should apply them to himself as well as if God had spoken to him by name. Whence we gather, that God wisely preventeth a common abuse amongst men: which is to esteem that which is spoken unto all men, to be (as it were) spoken to none. As you shall have it common amongst men to say and confess, that God is just and merciful, and that he commandeth this, and forbiddeth that: and yet they usually so behave themselves, that they shift the matter to the general, as if it did not belong unto them in particular; and as if they
notwithstanding might live as they list. And therefore every man is to judge and esteem that God speaketh in the law to him in particular; and is accordingly to be affected therewith.

We are addressed individually by God as sovereign. This is because as the puritan John Dod put it "self [is] our chief idol: So that every carnal man sets up himself, he does nothing but seek and serve himself and therefore is his own idol, and another god to himself".

There is also intimacy in the individual singular and personal address "thou". Thomas Boston shows that when we see the context of redemption in the Preface to the Ten Commandments we see the commandments in their correct light for the believer. "The ten commandments were not given to the Israelites as a covenant of works, but in the way of the covenant of grace, and under that covert. Ye saw it was Jesus the Mediator that spoke these, Heb. 12:24-26. Amongst all the reasons there is not one of terror; but the sweet savour of gospel-grace."

"All true obedience to the ten commandments now must run in the channel of the covenant of grace, being directed to God as our God in that covenant, Deut. 28:58. This is to fear that glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD. And so legal obedience is no obedience at all. This obedience is performed not for righteousness, but to testify our love to the Lord our Righteousness; not in our own strength, but in that of our Lord God and Redeemer; not to be accepted for its own worth, but for the sake of a Redeemer’s merits; not out of fear of hell, or hope to purchase heaven, but out of love and gratitude to him who has delivered us from hell, and purchased heaven and everlasting happiness for us."

"So far is the state of the saints from being a state of sinful liberty, that there are none so strongly bound to obedience as they, and that by the strongest of all bonds, those of love and gratitude, arising from the amazing and wonderful obedience and satisfaction which he has performed for them. So that the love of Christ will sweetly and powerfully constrain them to run the way of his commandments; for his commandments are not grievous, and in the keeping of them is a great reward. They will love him, because he has first loved them; and his love has flowed out to them in the crimson streams of their dear Redeemer’s blood, by which their sins are expiated, and their guilt atoned. And those to whom much is forgiven, will certainly love much."

"God might have required of us obedience by his mere will, without giving any other reason; and in that case, men had been bound to give it at their peril. But how much sweeter is the command, and agreeable what he demands, when he enforces the equirement he makes by such engaging motives, as that he is the Lord, a being possessed of all possible perfection, of every glorious attribute and excellency, the author of all other beings, and all the amiable qualities and attracting xcellencies of which they are possessed; that he is our God, related to us by a covenant, which he hath made with his own Son as our Surety and Saviour, and which is brought near to us in the gospel, that we may enter into the bond thereof, and the righteousness of which is brought near unto us, who are stout-hearted and far from righteousness, that we may accept thereof, and so be delivered from condemnation and wrath? How agreeable and ravishing is it to reflect, that he incites and prompts us to obedience, not by the authority of his absolute sovereignty over us, and undoubted propriety in us, but by the inviting and attracting consideration of the great deliverance he has wrought for us, of which the deliverance from the Egyptian bondage was a bright type!

Can we reflect on the great salvation wrought for us by Jesus Christ, by which we were saved from all the horrors of sin and hell, rescued from the power of Satan, and delivered from the present evil world, and the pollutions thereof; can we reflect on these great and glorious benefits, which afford astonishment to men and angels, and our hearts not glow with the warmest fire of love and gratitude to him who hath done such excellent things for us? Can we hesitate a moment to say, good is thy will, O God, just and holy are thy laws, and we will cheerfully obey what thou commandest us?"

We wonder why the modern versions see fit to obliterate the fact that we are personally and individually addressed in the commandments. They translate it as "you" and not "thou". Yet when we think that the Ten Commandments that were written by the finger of God and that He wrote in the singular what a fearful thing it is to alter this. The Lord also commanded Moses to keep the second set of Ten Commandments safe in the ark for a perpetual testimony (Deut 10:5). Does this not give particular reverence and care for God's written words? Why then have modern versions showed such contempt for this way in which God makes His sovereign will known?

There is in the Authorised Version a Bible that contains the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm as the man in the street knows them only. There is a Bible that carries a weight of authority and stirs a wealth of association for a significant proportion of our population. It is a Bible which alone addresses them as singular and as individuals in the way that God did at Mount Sinai.

Translation and the ministry of the word

Reformed theologians understood that while translation was necessary, and while they could convey the Word of God from the original Hebrew and Greek in substance, it could not be translated absolutely, perfectly, or exhaustively. This doctrine is classically expressed by Francis Turretin (cf. Francis Turretin, The Doctrine of Scripture trans. J.W. Beardslee III, Grand Rapids, 1981) but in the British post-Reformation context it may be discerned in the preface to the Authorised Version of 1611, ‘The Translators to the Reader’. Here it is asserted that in the sixteenth century English translations, ‘all is sound for substance’ (p.19). Slightly before this, the Elizabethan English Presbyterian Thomas Cartwright, responded to the criticisms levelled by the Roman Catholic translators of the Rheims New Testament with the tenet that ‘the title…the worde of God’ used in relation to translations ‘agreeth only to the truth of God, which hath also the frame of his words’ (Answer to the Preface to the Rhemish Testament, London, 1602, p.102). Like Calvin, he favoured essentially preserving the word order (T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Grand Rapids, 1971, p.102) in order to convey the majesty of the Scriptures. Calvin was well aware that Biblical Greek was not classical Greek: it was in fact more powerful, ‘the force of the truth of Sacred Scripture is manifestly too powerful to need the art of words’ (Institutes, I.viii.1). That is to say, it does not need to be revised according to classical taste in rhetoric and elegant style, it has a simple, clear and powerful style of its own.

It was widely recognised amongst the Reformed that preaching is able to supplement the deficiency of translations, and, moreover, that, as Beardslee explains, preaching ‘continues the work of Bible translation; hence the importance of an educated ministry’ (ibid. p.154, n.3). In their high view of preaching the Reformers held it to be the Word of God. Bullinger enunciates it in the clearest terms: ‘praedicatio verbi Dei est verbum Dei’ (the Word of God preached is in fact the Word of God) (quoted John R. Knott, The Sword of the Spirit: Puritan Responses to the Bible, Chicago, 1980, p.50). Likewise Calvin said that ‘[t]he Word of God goeth out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise goeth out of the mouth of men; for God does not speak openly from heaven but employs men as his instruments’ (quoted Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, London, 1953, p.82). We read of Ezra and his colleagues that ‘they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading’ (Nehemiah 8:8).

Clearly, the Reformers were not claiming either ex cathedra infallibility or immediate inspiration for themselves as their Roman Catholic and Anabaptist opponents respectively asserted. The distinction between the substantial authority of translations and the total verbal authority of the original is perhaps helpful here. Preaching, inasmuch as it represented the Word of God faithfully, could in fact be termed the word of God. A similar distinction was made at the Westminster Assembly by George Gillespie, who held that truths established by logical deduction, that is ‘good and necessary consequence from scripture’ should be regarded as authoritative truth (cp. WCF I.vi and A treatise of the Miscellany questions, Edinburgh, 1649).

The Westminster Confession asserted ‘the majesty of the style’ of Scripture, an epithet that reflected Calvin’s emphasis. Thomas Cartwright likewise spoke of the ‘maiestie of th’authentical copies in the Greek’ (op. cit., p.93), while the discerning preface to the 1611 AV identifies the ‘perspicuity, gravity, majesty of the original Hebrew’ (p.21). William Perkins therefore recommended that pulpit speech be ‘simple and perspicuous, fit both for the peoples understanding and to express the Majestie of the Spirit’ (The Arte of Prophesying, quoted Knott, p.50 - my emphasis). In other words preaching should reflect the majesty of the Scriptures and should aim together with translation at least to be an echo of it.

The Westminster Directory of Publick Worship used similar phrasing in recommending that the minister ought to preache ‘Gravely, as becometh the word of God’ and in requiring him to abstain from ‘an unprofitable use of unknown tongues, strange phrases...sparingly citing sentences of ecclesiastical or other human writers, ancient or modern’. William Perkins had asserted that ‘[h]umane wisdome must be concealed, whether it be in the matter of the sermon, or in the setting forth of the words: because the preaching of the word is the Testimonie of God, and the profession of the knowledge of Christ not of human skill’, therefore a preacher must not ‘tickle the itching eares of his auditorie with fine ringing sentences of the Fathers but observe an admirable plainness and an admirable powerfulness’ (quoted Owen Watkins, The Puritan Experience, London, 1972, p.7). Preaching was to echo the plain powerfulness of the Scriptures themselves and to be informed by close study, in other words it must correspond to a large extent with translation.

In this way, the Divines maintained the careful balance set by the Refomers and their heirs that required learning on the part of a minister with the important qualification that it should not be paraded in the pulpit. They ‘presupposed (according to the rules for ordination) that the minister of Christ is in some measure gifted for so weighty a service, by his skill in the original languages, and in such arts and sciences as are handmaid unto divinity...all which he is to make use of and improve in his private preparations, before he deliver in publick what he hath provided’. Samuel Rutherford supplied the homely but pithy aphorism, ‘the pot may be used in the bilyng but not brought in with the porridge’ (quoted, R.S. Paul, The Assembly of the Lord, Edinburgh, 1985, p.365).

Certain sectarians in England, particularly leading Antinomians, opposed these views at the time. William Dell and John Webster attacked the emphasis upon learning the original Greek and Hebrew. Webster held forth in his tract Academarium Examinem that there could be no teachers, since only the Spirit could teach anyone. ‘To this I know it will be objected’, he said, ‘[t]hat schools teach the knowledge of tongues, without which the Scriptures (being written in the Hebrew and Greek) cannot be rightly translated, expounded, nor interpreted: and therefore it is necessary that Schools and Academies should teach these as properly and mainly conducible to this end’. Webster, however, could concede nothing to such objections, in his opinion languages had been changed and altered as ‘fashions and garments’ and in fact, whoever relies upon a translator is the same as anyone that depends upon a teacher (London, 1654, pp.6-7). Where this left the individual is hard to distinguish. Dell on the other hand simply rejected learning as necessary or prerequisite for the ministry (Christ’s Spirit a Christian’s Strength, London, 1651, p.22).

Rutherford took it in hand to reply to these directly, he emphasised the importance of all Christians having access to the Scriptures but not without what the Confession calls ‘a due use of the ordinary means’ for interpretation (I. vii). The grammatical-historical method could not be dismissed by appeal to the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, although the illumination of the Spirit was of course important. Rutherford could not see that those who ‘goe from weaving, sowing, carpentarie, shoo-making to the pulpit...being voyd of all learning, tongues, logick, arts, sciences, and the literall knowledge of the Scripture’ could make the dangerous claims that they made and allege a direct calling from Christ (A Survey of Spiritual Antichrist, London, 1648, vol. i, p.44-45). As Reformed theologians always emphasised, there must be a final appeal to the Hebrew and Greek, and there it was possible to refute heresies and ‘burie them by the power of the Word’. If the authority of ministers using the proper means of interpretation was rejected and ‘if interpretations be left free to every man’ chaos would ensue inevitably in ‘millions of faiths with millions of senses, and so no faith at all’ (A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, London, 1649, p.28 & 32).

According to this view as well as that of the Directory, the minister is a specialist engaged in reproducing and applying the message of the Scriptures, or preaching. The minister is a specialist in the Scriptures and must be entirely acquainted with them. J. Gresham Machen, writing at the beginning of the 20th century, in an article entitled defends this principle powerfully ‘The Minister and his Greek Testament’. ‘[W]hatever else the preacher need not know, he must know the Bible; he must know it at first hand, and be able to interpret and defend it. Especially while doubt remains in the world as to the great central question, who more than the ministers should engage in the work of resolving such doubt - by intellectual instruction even more than by argument?’ The obvious conclusion, however, is that ‘this work can be undertaken to best advantage only by those who have an important pre-requisite for the study in a knowledge of the original languages upon which a large part of the discussion is based’ (The Banner of Truth, 103, 4/1972, pp.21-23).

The translators of the Authorised Version possessed these qualifications to an extraordinary degree. Some such as Miles Smith were so conversant in Hebrew that when called upon for the public reading of Scripture on one occasion he produced a small Hebrew bible without vowel points and read from it in ‘the English tongue plainely and fully’. The Westminster Form of Church Government had comparably high standards and required candidates for ordination to be examined by ‘reading the Hebrew and Greek Testaments and rendering some portion of some into Latin’. The problem is that (speaking in the context of the last two centuries) the university or the Academy has taken biblical studies away from the Church particularly with higher criticism and its results. Specialisation in the Scriptures no longer seems to serve preaching at all. Most mainstream evangelical preaching is remarkable if it achieves any depth of continuous concentration upon the Bible at all. While there is no need to introduce learning in itself one feels that learning must be of no real use in the preparation of such discourses.

Today, there is a priestly caste of academics speaking their own language to themselves and these ‘Biblical scholars have rather successfully convinced many in the community of believers that only they, the biblical scholars, can really appreciate the Bible. They are the only ones who can determine what it means. The rest of the community must sit up and listen to the biblical scholars explain what the Bible means’ (T.J. Keegan, Interpreting the Bible: A Popular Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics, New York, 1985, p.9). Yet this coterie has produced no collective consensus on the meaning of Scripture in the way that Rutherford envisaged synods of ministers achieving and as was indeed the case in the great Reformed confessions and standards. The work of interpretation, however, ‘cannot be turned over to a few professors whose work is of interest only to themselves, but must be undertaken energetically by spiritually-minded men throughout the Church’ (Machen, op. cit., p.23).

The Church's Guardianship of the Oracles of God

The Westminster Confession, in its opening chapter emphasises that the Scriptures have been entrusted to the Church by the Lord, in order to ‘declare that his will unto his church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world’. Although the ‘authority of the holy scripture, for which it ought to believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God’, ‘We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverend esteem of the holy scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style’ etc.

Chapter 25 speaks of the ‘catholick visible church’, unto which ‘Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God’. This connection suggests that the guardianship of the Scriptures within the Church rests especially with the ministry, one may assume that the order is significant: to the Church the ministry is given, to the ministry the oracles and ordinances are specially entrusted. One of the proof texts here is a covenant promise in Isaiah 59:21 that seems to tie these elements together in saying ‘My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed , saith the LORD from henceforth and for ever’. The Confession does not explicitly draw our attention there but in speaking of the oracles of God we are reminded of I Peter 4:11, ‘If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God’, which seems to indicate the principle that preaching should echo the Scripture. Another passage that is quite clear, moreover, is Acts 7:38, which speaks of ‘the church in the wilderness’ ‘who received the lively oracles to give unto us’.

The Larger Catechism (Q156) together with the Directory of Publick Worship and the FPCG restrict the public reading of Scriptures to ministers. This is defended by proving that ‘the priests and Levites in the Jewish church were trusted with the publick reading of the word’ (Deut 31:9-11, Neh. 8:1-3, 13 & 9:3-5). The Divines concluded that the New Testament ministers correspond to the Priests and Levites (an interpretation that went back at least to the Second Book of Discipline in Scotland) ‘the ministers of the gospel have as ample a charge and commission to dispense the word, as well as other ordinances, as the priests and Levites had under the Law’. The basis for this was in Isaiah 66:21 and Matthew 23:34, where this identification is made, ‘under the names of Priests and Levites to be continued under the gospel are meant evangelical pastors’.

The Divines were clearly against any idea of a sacrificing priesthood and did not wish ministers to be known by the title of priest, but they recognised a typical correspondence which may be supplemented by texts such as II Chronicles 15:3& 17:7-9, Malachi 2:4&7, Micah 3:1, 1 Leviticus 10:11, Isaiah 30:20 and Malachi 3:3, since these texts emphasise the teaching responsibility of the priest and Levite and its future restoration under Christ. The Priests and Levites were the scribes of Scripture and received the deposit of the law in the Tabernacle (Deut 31:25-26, 1 Sam. 10:25, Deut 17:18, I Chron 2:55 ), during days of persecution, the priests kept the written word safely in the Temple (II Kings 22:8). ‘The priests lips should keep knowledge’ (Mal. 2:7), the very word of God should be stored upon his tongue: surely this is something of what ‘holding fast the faithful word’ means (Titus 1:9). The idea of the preacher as steward and guardian of the truth is of course well developed in the Pastoral Epistles (ITim. 1:3-5 &18-20, ch.4:7&14, ch.5:21, ch.6:12-14, II Tim. 1:13&14, ch.2:15, ch.3:14-16, ch.4:15).

This inference of guardianship has tremendous significance for the responsibilities of the minister as well as that of the role of bible translation. The Church has handed over its deposit in the present age when profiteering publishers can hijack the work of translation to ensure their own market niche. The Old Testament Church was extremely careful with the deposit of Scripture and its transmission. In the present era the Scriptures are patently being rewritten through the philosophy of dynamic equivalence.

The Church cannot be careless with the Scriptures. As Answer 54 of the Shorter Catechism reminds us, the third commandment requires of us ‘the holy and reverent use of God’s...Word’. If the Church and the ministry have been given a particular stewardship of the oracles of God then we must recall the principle in which the Head of the Church has instructed us. …unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more (Luke 11:48).

Single Version of the Truth

"A Single version of the truth" is a cliché commonly heard in the context of information management and business intelligence. It seeks to address the problem when similar information is held but not in a standardised way or in the same location, this can mean that it is not coordinated, out of date or reported in a slightly different way so that the information appears to be in conflict. The quality and reliability of the data thereby becomes questionable and open to interpretation. It means a company can't analyse the information about its operation and benefit as a result. One single version of the truth is a single set of reports and definitions for all business terms, to make sure every manager has the same understanding.

While this may be obvious in business - in other smore vital pheres it seems less obvious to many. In the context of the Truth, the Scriptures and their message, liberal theology has long maintained that there are many versions of the truth. They are contradictory but that it because your's is just one version of the truth among many versions. They have applied this idea of the truth as variable and elusive in the direction of inter-faith integration.

Evangelicals have largely resisted this notion but it is coming under attack by post-evangelicals such as the Emerging Church movement. They are taking a postmodern turn dismissing the emphasis upon propositional truth. John MacArthur in The Truth War (Nelson, Spring 2007) argues that many self-styled evangelicals today are openly questioning whether such a thing as truth even exists. Don Carson has written in 'Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church', "For almost everyone within the movement, this works out in an emphasis on feelings and affections over against linear thought and rationalities; on experience over against truth; on inclusion over against exclusion; on participation over individualism and the heroic loner." This approach produces what Brian McLaren calls "a new kind of Christian," and a new kind of church.

In relation to the Scriptures, we find that evangelicalism is at sea in having adopted the idea that many competing versions of the Scriptures is no bad thing. Many people say in our own day that we cannot have one translation of the Scriptures in any given language that can deliver a single authoritative Bible and will also fulfil everyone's requirements. There are now many more than 100 versions of the Bible in the English language; so many that it is becoming increasingly difficult to count them. The potential for the individual Christian to be confused and bewildered as a result is significant. Which Bible is correct and authoritative or can any be regarded as such? Each modern version competes aggressively with its rivals by proclaiming its unique and superior qualities. The reader might well think to themselves that there is always a new, improved and more appealing (partly because it will be new) version which will shortly succeed any promising new translation. Everyone chooses the Bible translation that suits their preferences and taste. This idea, however, undermines the very nature and purpose of the Scriptures.

The purpose of God in delivering the Bible to the Church is otherwise utterly undermined by the multiplication of translations in a language. When the Church allows doubt and serious confusion as to what Scripture constitutes and how it is to be rendered, however, it must be driven about by every wind and wave rather than being steadfastly established and strengthened by the unshakeable foundation of the Scriptures. English-speaking churches and believers need an accurate standard translation that they can appeal to and share as the fixed rule of faith of the true religion.

We have had a reliable single version of the truth in the English language in the Authorised Version for many centuries and none of the emerging versions have surpassed it in its accuracy. Indeed they fall far short. The AV as a translation is not of course equal to the original - but it is a reliable translation which opens up the original to English speakers. We need only one such translation.

These thoughts are followed out more fully in the following article
http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/Beliefs/AuthorisedVersion.php

The Inclusive Bible: the logical conclusion of dynamic equivalence

The Inclusive Bible called the first egalitarian translation takes dynamic equivalence to its logical conclusion. It not only erases gender-specific language but everything else that anybody might find offensive. In other words it contextualises Scripture fully within the culture of modern western society. The author ("translator") describes it:
"It is a completely new translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and koiné Greek into richly poetic, non-sexist, and non-classist modern English."

According to reports in the version, God is no longer "Father" but "Father-Mother." The "Son of Man" is rendered "the human one." God's "Right Hand" is recast as God's "mighty hand." The word "night" is used to describe evil rather than "darkness" lest folk with dark skin should be offended. Children are called upon to "heed" their parents but not "obey" them. The Inclusive Bible, uses feminine pronouns in reference to the Spirit. "When the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all truth. She won't speak on her own initiative; rather she'll speak only what she hears, and she'lll announce to you things that are yet to come."


Colossians 3:18-19 reads "You who are in committed relationships, be submissive to each other. This is your duty in Christ Jesus. Partners joined by God, love each other. Avoid any bitterness between you."

It is homosexual-friendly but not marriage-friendly

"Kingdom" is apparently both sexist and authoritarian, so it is replaced by the newly coined word, "kindom." Adam is not a "man," he is an "earth creature."

It is published by a group called Priests for Equality which the author describes as "a Catholic organization working for the full inclusion of women at all levels of the church. They're a project of the Quixote Center, though PFE's leader has retired and his second-in-command has moved on, so they're not sure the project will continue much further."
The author describes the background to the Inclusive Bible:
"Back in the 1980s, PFE started the Inclusive Language Project, resetting the church lectionary readings in non-sexist language because they felt that God-language was one of the biggest barriers to women (and at the time, it was certainly a major step). And since I had already worked on an inclusive lectionary for the Episcopalians, they were glad to have me on board. This grew into wanting to do a full translation of the Bible."

The author describes himself as 'spiritually, an explorer of the edges of consciousness, from Taoism and Zen Buddhism to existential Christianity and Jewish mysticism to everything in between—including Native American medicine practices and various forms of aboriginal shamanism'. He says that the extensive footnotes are especially liberal. 'The commentary, in particular, honors many different religious traditions and perspectives, and owes a great debt to Jungian psychology as well'.

Sr. Nancy Sylvester of the Immaculate Heart of Mary lauds it enthusiastically in the National Catholic Reporter
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n39_v31/ai_17359837
'This translation frees the text so that you can listen to the Spirit within.'

As Gene Veith points out 'Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures' goes further in taking dynamic equivalence to its logical conclusion. It describes itself as "women, gay and sinner friendly." Good as New leaves out the Pastoral Epistles and Revelation, including instead the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/11157

For a different post that reflects upon 'Good as New' as the culmination of Bible version projects in the 20th century go to http://the-holdfast.blogspot.com/2005/06/secular-bible-for-secular-church-bible.html.

It should be evident why these versions represent dynamic equivalence taken to its logical conclusion when we consider the statements of Eugene Nida father of this theory of translation.

"...God’s revelation involved limitations. ... Biblical revelation is not absolute and all divine revelation is essentially incarnational. ... Even if a truth is given only in words, it has no real validity until it has been translated into life. ... The words are in a sense nothing in and of themselves. ... the word is void unless related to experience" (Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 222-228).
"Because it is a medium of communication within a limited cultural context, human language is unsuited as a vehicle for supernatural, eternal truths that would, in fact, need a language that is unhuman or divine" (Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 224-228, cited by Van Bruggen, p. 76).

Nida writes, "Similarly, in the biblical account, the holy kiss, the wearing of veils, women speaking in the church, and wrestling with an angel all have different meanings than in our own culture" (E. Nida, Message and Missions, p. 41). According to Nida, Jacob’s struggle with the angel is being interpreted psychoanalytically or mythologically (E. Nida, Message and Mission, pp. 41-42). If wrestling with an angel is cultural then what could not come under this category? Nida makes this definition:
"The only absolute in Christianity is the triune God. Anything which involves man, who is finite and limited, must of necessity be limited, and hence relative. Biblical culture relativism is an obligatory feature of our incarnational religion, for without it we would either absolutize human institutions or relativize God" (Eugene Nida, Customs and Cultures, New York: Harper & Row, 1954, p. 282, footnote 22). Yet isn't God being relativised when translators use a name that a tribe or language already has for a heathen deity? This is just the same as what "The Inclusive Bible" does when it too renames God. It has simply reached a further stage on the dynamic equivalence/blasphemy continuum.

John Rainolds and the AV Project

John Rainolds or Reynolds was the theologian who famously suggested a revision of the existing English translations to King James at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604.

Early life

Born in 1549 at Penhoe near Exeter, in Devon, he went up to Oxford University at the age of thirteen. He was made Fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1568, at the early age of seventeen. Of his five brothers, four others were fellows at Oxford University.

Conversion
Although he was later known as a prominent Puritan he actually began as an ardent Roman Catholic, and it is thought that he may have spent some time educated by Roman Catholics on the continent. It was at this period, in the late 1560s that Rainolds was converted together with his brother William. It was a time of controversy between Protestants and the Roman Catholics who were still prominent in the land. There was a famous debate at this time carried on between Thomas Harding and John Jewel. This may well have had some influence in turning both brothers away from the errors of Rome. It seems that both were brought to the truth and sought at the same time to bring each other to the same knowledge. Sadly, however, his brother William later returned to Romanism and in 1575 he made a public recantation at Rome. One of the professors at the English College in Rheims he was to be one of the translators of the Rheims New Testament of 1582 and a bitter opponent of Protestant theology in print.

Scholarship

In 1572, at age 23, Rainolds was appointed reader in Greek at Corpus Christi College. His public lectures on Aristotle's Rhetoric were held in particularly high regard and also remained very popular in their printed version. He resigned his lectureship however, and gave himself more to the study of theology. He was adept in theological debate and entered into the areas of dispute between Protestants and Romanism in significant depth. He studied the Scriptures in the original languages, and read all the Greek and Latin early fathers. It appears that he was gifted with a photographic memory since it was said that "his memory was little less than miraculous. He could readily turn to any material passage, in every leaf page, column and paragraph of the numerous and voluminous works he had read." He came to be known as "the very treasury of erudition" and was spoken of as "a living library and a third university".

He became the leader of the puritans at Oxford and proved to be a strong defender of Calvinism. In 1575 he led the case for disciplinary action against Francesco Pucci who publicly taught against various Calvinistic doctrines. The next year he protested against conferring a doctorate on Antonio del Corro because of heretical views in relation to predestination and justification by faith. It was at this time that Rainolds was ordained and quickly became a noted preacher

Rainolds entered into extended debate with John Hart who saw himself as a champion of Romish doctrine. The summary of the debate was published in 1584 as The summe of the conference betweene John Rainoldes and John Hart: touching the head and the faith of the church.


In 1586 Rainolds became a tutor at Queen's College. Rainolds lectured three times a week during term to large audiences: ‘never were any lectures in our memory so frequented as these in that university’, wrote Daniel Featley, ‘nor any in Cambridge, save those of Dr. [William] Whitaker’ (Abel redivivus, 2.226). The Jesuit Cardinal Bellarmine was another more widely-known individual who had set himself to refute Protestant teaching and published various books with this aim. While he publicly lectured against Protestantism in the Gregorian University there were those with connections to England who were recording what he delivered. It is said that the notes of his lectures against Protestantism were sent regularly to Rainolds from Rome who refuted them publicly. Rainolds refuted Bellarmine's attempt to make the Apocryphal books part of the Old Testament canon. The 250 lectures were not published during Rainolds's lifetime, but appeared in 1611 in two enormous quarto volumes under the title Censura librorurn apocryphorum veteris testamenti.

Dr. Bancroft, Archbishop Whitgift's chaplain, and his successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, maintained in a sermon, preached January 12th, 1588, that "bishops were a distinct order from priests and that they had a superiority over them by divine right, and directly from God." This was a startling doctrine to many at the time. Sir Francis Knollys, one of Queen Elizabeth's distinguished statesmen, remonstrated warmly with Whitgift against it. In a letter to Sir Francis, who had requested his opinion, Dr. Rainolds observes, "All who have labored in reforming the Church, for five hundred years, have taught that all pastors, whether they are entitled bishops or priests, have equal authority and power by God's word; as the Waldenses, next Marsilius Patavinus, then Wiclif and his scholars, afterwards Huss and the Hussites; and Luther, Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger, and Musculus. Among ourselves, we have bishops, the Queen's professors of divinity, and other learned men, as Bradford, Lambert, Jewell, Pilkington, Humphrey, Fulke, &c. But why do I speak of particular persons? It is the opinion of the Reformed Churches of Helvetia, Savoy, France, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries, and our own. I hope Dr. Bancroft will not say, that all these have approved that for sound doctrine, which was condemned by the general consent of the whole church as heresy, in the most flourishing time. I hope he will acknowledge that he was overseen, when he announced the superiority of bishops over the rest of the clergy to be God's own ordinance”.

Rainolds went on to say that "unto us Christians, no land is strange, no ground unholy; every coast is Jewry, every town Jerusalem, every house Sion; and every faithful company, yea, every faithful body, a temple to serve God in. The presence of Christ among two or three, gathered together in his name, maketh any place a church, even as the presence of a king with his attendants maketh any place a court."

(to be continued)

Why are the words of Jesus in red?

The red letter edition of the Bible was invented by Louis Klopsch in 1899, and first published in 1900. Klopsch first thought of printing the words of Jesus in red when he read the Luke 22:20 which speaks of the cup as the new testament in Christ's blood. It included the words of Jesus quoted by others but not the words of Christ in the Old Testament. It was extremely popular, an initial edition of 60,000 "Red Letter Testaments" soon sold out. Prominent individuals gave their blessing to it such as the King of Sweden and President Theodore Roosevelt. For some people there is such a sacredness about this presentation that a Bible without the words of Christ in red is almost unthinkable. It is thought that around half of all Bibles printed are red-letter editions.

"Modern Christianity," Klopsch wrote in an explanatory note in his red-letter Bible, "is striving zealously to draw nearer to the great Founder of the Faith. Setting aside mere human doctrines and theories regarding Him, it presses close to the Divine Presence, to gather from His own lips the definition of His mission to the world and His own revelation of the Father… The Red Letter Bible has been prepared and issued in the full conviction that it will meet the needs of the student, the worker, and the searchers after truth everywhere."

Some large-print Bibles omit red letters, however, because the visually-impaired have difficulty with it. Another difficulty with this is that the various red-letter Bibles do not agree 100% on which words should be attributed to Jesus and which should not. Notoriously some red letter editions have Acts 18:9,10 in black while others have it in red. This albeit that the first edition was entitled: "The New Testament… With All the Words Recorded Therein, as Having Been Spoken by Our Lord, Printed in Color". He tried unsuccessfully to copyright it in England as well as the USA.

In the first red-letter Bible, the words "universally accepted as the utterances of our Lord and Saviour" were printed in red. Old Testament passages that Jesus quoted or that were directly related to incidents to which he referred (with the relevant cross reference) were likewise printed in red. Old Testament verses containing prophetic references to Christ were identified with red stars. More recent editions have sometimes avoided the Old Testament because of the difficulties, should verses in the Song of Solomon be in red for instance? This is a problem of interpretation which can, ironically, undermine the proper Christ-centred interpretation of the Scriptures.

Klopsch meant it to emphasise the authority of the Scriptures: "The plan also possesses the advantage of showing how frequently and how extensively, on the Authority of Christ himself, the authenticity of the Old Testament is confirmed, thus greatly facilitating comparison and verification, and enabling the student to trace the connection between the Old and the New, link by link, passage by passage".

There is a difficulty, however, because it seems to elevate certain words above the rest. It seems to imply that they are more holy than what is printed in ordinary black ink. The whole of the Scriptures, especially in fact the Psalms, are the word of Christ. all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable... ." (2 Timothy 3:16)

The Jesus Seminar used a similar colored notation for their publication. They used historical criticism to come to a conclusion as to which statements in the Gospels were spoken by Jesus (notated in red), or inserted by later Biblical writers or editors (notated in black). This Higher Critical bible made use of the notion that we can differentiate the words of Christ and this way of printing the bible to undermine the authority and infallibility of Scripture.

The idea was to produce an edition of the gospels in which only the words that Jesus "really" said would be in red. On the basis of the voting of the committee the words were to be printed either red (Jesus said it) or black (Jesus didn't say it). Eventually, a four-color scheme was developed matched to the voting record.

Red: Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it.
Pink: Jesus probably said something like this.
Gray: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.
Black: Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective or content of a later or different tradition.

They even brought in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas and printed some of its sayings in red.

Now we also have the problem of liberal evangelicals calling themselves Red-Letter Christians. They do this in order to discount the normal evangelical politics that opposes abortion, homosexuality etc. They are left wing in their politics and liberal in their convictions. They are reinterpreting Scripture in a liberal way.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/185/story_18562_2.html

Although well-meaning, this way of printing the Bible has created many problems and should be avoided. Thankfully the Trinitarian Bible Society have and continue to avoid it as a practice.

Bible versions and over-marketing

An article in the Los Angeles Times notes how bible 'publishers have found a niche -- a big one -- for stylized Bibles inspired by pop culture. Almost anything goes'. It appears that 2008 'marks the 30th anniversary of the best-selling New International Version of the Bible, a highly readable translation that has vaulted Zondervan (a division of HarperCollins) to the top of the Bible publishing world, with a 40% market share. To celebrate, the company is producing an update of the NIV Study Bible, with thousands of revised footnotes. Formatted with extra-wide margins for note-taking, bound in premium leather, the new edition has been tentatively priced at $119.99.'

The trouble is that bible publishers have so over-marketed their product that it is creating confusion. 'Half of all customers who walk into a store intending to buy a Bible leave empty-handed, according to Brenda Lugannani, a vice president of Family Christian Stores' (the USA's largest Christian chain). "When they look at what's available," she says, "it begins to confuse them." There is an even more serious issue, which is that the multiplicity of versions as well as editions are seriously undermining the authority of what is the Word of God. Which one is the right one? Which one contains all of the original? Another post on this blog looks at this issue:

http://the-holdfast.blogspot.com/2006/02/cult-of-modern-in-contemporary-bible.html

For the full text of the article in the LA Times go to
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-bible25dec25,1,502680.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true

The Importance of An Approved Translation Of The Bible

The following article explains the Importance of An Approved Translation Of The Bible for any Church.

http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/Beliefs/AuthorisedVersion.php

How modern versions mislead about textual criticism

An article by a textual critic has criticised the misleading way that the NIV treats text critical matters. The article "Some Witnesses Have ...": The Representation of the New Testament Text in English Bible Versions is by Holger Szesnat of the Cambridge Theological Federation. http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol12/Szesnat2007.pdf He is also critical of the CEV which manages to confuse notes relating to translation and notes relating to textual criticism in its Preface.

New King James Version
The article does not address one of the most confusing translations with respect to textual criticism, the New King James Version. The marginal notes relating to textual criticism in this version are among the most extensive since such matters were introduced by the Revised Version. The footnotes in the NKJV make constant reference to the Nestle-United Bible Society critical Greek text and in some cases to the Majority text and thus create exactly the same kind of doubt with respect to the original text of Scripture that is in the other modern versions. By questioning the authenticity of such verses and phrases the notes create confusion for the reader and even skepticism. There is an expectation that Bible students will be able to pick and choose according to their subjective sense of what is authentic. Or else there is an assumption that readers will initiate themselves into the philosophy of textual neutrality or eclecticism, of picking and choosing between the readings of competing texts and versions. The latter seems to be entirely the intention according to the New King James Bible Study Edition which states that:
'It was the editors' conviction that the the use of footnotes would encourage further enquiry by readers. They also recognized that it was easier for the average reader to delete something he or she felt was not properly in the text, than to insert a word or phrase which had been left out by the revisers'.

Textual criticism is a complex,technical discipline requiring the knowledge of many ancient languages and in-depth historical awareness of the history of texts. Modern versions would launch the general reader with very little intelligible information into a vast field of knowledge that they cannot hope to process adequately.

New American Standard Bible
This version had originally cut out various parts of the New Testament on the basis of textual criticism and has recently had to reinstate them. One of these passages was the ascension of Christ in Luke. The NASB originally left this ascension account out, claiming it was not found in the best witnesses. It is now restored. As Theodore Letis pointed out they did so 'on the basis of the discovery of papyrus75, (p75), a very early third century witness to the validity of this ascension account. This papyrus was discovered in the 1950s, just about the time that the NASB project was getting off the ground. The NASB New Testament portion appeared in stages between 1960 and 1963, but the entire bible did not materialize until 1971 and as with the current Updated Edition of the NASB which already lags behind the most current edition of the Greek N.T., 27th ed., the original NASB N.T. edition never took full advantage of this new evidence (p75 was first published in 1961, thus affording them plenty of time to adjust their text to this new data'. Can we even believe that these modern versions have got their homework right in relation to the position that they take on textual criticism? As Szesnat's article shows, there is much that is misleading in this connection within the NIV. It is important to note that the Today's New International Version has not really changed the NIV's treatment of text critical matters.

New International Version

Szesnat notes the confusing way that text critical matters are introduced in the preface to the NIV. The preface states (ix-x):
'The Greek text used in translating [the New Testament] ... was an eclectic one. No other piece of ancient literature has such an abundance of manuscript witnesses as does the New Testament. Where existing manuscripts differ, the translators made their choice of readings according to accepted principles of New Testament textual criticism. Footnotes call attention to places where there was uncertainty about what the original text was. The best current printed texts of the Greek New Testament were used ... In the New Testament, footnotes that refer to uncertainty regarding the original text are introduced by 'Some manuscripts' or similar expressions'.

As Szesnat points out what is the reader to make of this? An "eclectic text"? "Manuscripts"? "Witnesses"? "Original text"? "Best current printed texts"? He says: 'Clearly, it would be most difficult to understand the statement in the NIV's preface without basic text-critical training. It does not present the reader with an explanation of basic text-critical issues—in fact, it almost seems as if the preface has a trained exegete in mind, rather than the ordinary reader'. Szesnat goes on to point out that 'even more problematic is a claim implicit in the preface, namely that footnotes in the NIV are given only if there is "uncertainty" as to the original text. The preface seems to suggest that it is only in those cases noted in the NIV that there is any doubt about the "original text".

He states that this is misleading, 'if only because the NIV gives footnotes in many cases where there would be little 'uncertainty' among the vast majority of textual critics (e.g., Acts 8:37)'

'The NIV offers some 133 text-critical indicators in its text of the New Testament; two of these come in the form of notes within the text itself, the rest by way of footnotes. The format of these footnotes is fairly uniform, with few exceptions: variants are introduced as "some manuscripts
read / add..."(e.g. Mt 5:22) or "some manuscripts omit / do not have..." (e.g. Mt 12:47). It must also be noted that the abbreviations 'Mss' for manuscripts and 'MS' for manuscript, which are sometimes used in the footnotes of the NIV, are never explained. This seems odd, since these
abbreviations are hardly common outside the academic scene.'

In some instances, other indications are given with regard to the number of mss concerned: "a few" (e.g. Mt 27:35); "many" (e.g. Jn 13:32); "one" (only in Acts 10:19 and Heb 10:38); or "other" (only Acts 10:19). In some cases, temporal qualifiers are added: "some late manuscripts
..." (e.g. Mt 5:44); "some early manuscripts..." (e.g. Mk 6:14). In one instance, the variant reading is cited as being supported by "some less important manuscripts" (Jn 5:3)... One wonders though what the ordinary reader is to make of the information given: since no real introduction to textual criticism and the state of the NT text is offered, the reader's imagination is bound to run wild.'

In Mark 16 and John 8 there is some more of an explanation. 'The rather terse note reads: "The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20." But 'what do concepts like 'manuscripts' and 'witnesses' mean? Why are they important? What are 'reliable' or, for that matter, 'unreliable' mss?'

'In a number of cases, the NIV's description of external evidence is unnecessarily simplistic, if not misleading. A typical example is Heb 10:38, where the NIV states in a footnote: "one early manuscript But the righteous". Yet apart from "one early manuscript" (a reference to P13?) this
reading is supported inter alia by the so-called Majority Text...Another example of curious representation of text-critical matters is 1 Thess 3:2, where the NIV translates "Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow-worker". A footnote states: "some manuscripts brother and fellowworker;
other manuscripts brother and God's servant." This selection is strange given that there are several other variant readings here, including the form that the TR / AV chose ("and servant of God and your fellow worker")'.

'Once or twice the textual variant is reported in ambiguous ways. Acts 13:18 (translated as "he endured their conduct for about 40 years in the desert") sports a foonote after 'conduct' which reads: "Some manuscripts and cared for them". The reader might therefore think that the variant
reading is "he endured their conduct and cared for them for about 40 years in the desert", whereas the translators presumably wanted to refer to the variant "and he cared for them for about 40 years in the desert". The footnote at 2 Pt 2:13 is a similar case.'

What is implied in the NIV is that the age of the mss is the most crucial aspect of textual criticism. But, quite apart from the importance of internal evidence (even if one is not a proponent of radical eclecticism), external evidence hardly works that way'.

The NIV, perhaps unwittingly so, implies an extraordinarily simplistic view that 'early' mss equal 'reliable', 'faithful', or 'accurate' scribes—somewhat akin to the desire of 19th century source critics of the New Testament to find the oldest gospel in the New Testament, assuming that it would necessarily be more 'accurate', or 'reliable', than the others. In this sense, it represents a simplistic, indeed naive, 'search for origins'. On the whole, this gives a rather erroneous impression, if only because it was precisely in the earliest stages of textual transmission that the scribes who copied the New Testament experienced the greatest freedom to alter the text quite deliberately (cf. Aland & Aland 1989;
Ehrman 1993; Parker 1997).

As John Burgo said of the Revised Version
'For, the ill-advised practice of recording, in the margin of an English Bible, certain of the blunders--(such things cannot by any stretch of courtesy be styled 'Various Readings')--which disfigure 'some' or 'many' 'ancient authorities,' can only result in hopelessly unsettling the faith of millions.

It can not be defended on the plea of candour,--the candour which is determined that men shall 'know the worst.' 'The worst' has NOT been told: and it were dishonesty to insinuate that it has. If all the cases were faithfully exhibited where a 'few,' or 'some,' or 'many ancient authorities' read differently from what is exhibited in the actual Text, not only would the margin prove insufficient to contain to the record, but the very page itself would not nearly suffice . . . . It is the gross one-sidedness, the patent unfairness, in a critical point of view, of this work...which chiefly shocks and offends us.'

adding to the Word of God

The Better Bibles Blog is not one that supports the Authorised Version but in an even-handed way it has commended its accuracy.

http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2007/08/inserting-words-into-text.html

"Here are a few examples of where a word has been inserted into the English text of Bibles. Only the KJV doesn't do this. That is one thing you can be comfortable with in the KJV. And if words are added they now appear in italics."

The examples provided include 1 Cor. 2:1 "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God." KJV

The TNIV has added the word "human".

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. TNIV

In 1 Cor. 1:7 modern versions add a word, this time the word "spiritual" to read spiritual gifts. So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: KJV

In Romans 12:19 we read "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath" KJV
But even the NASB which is more literal than others adds the words "of God" to read "wrath of God".

Bible rankings

The CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) has released their March figures for sales of Bibles in their stores during January.
Their Bible sales ranked as:
1 King James Version
2 New International Version
3 New Century Version
4 New King James Version
5 New Living Translation
6 English Standard Version
7 Holman Christian Standard Bible
8 New American Standard Bible update
9 The Message Eugene Peterson
10 Reina Valera 1960 (Spanish)

What is most obvious from this is that the Authorised Version remains the bestseller in the USA. It also noteworthy that the ESV has not managed to supplant even the New King James or New Living Translation. It is also notable that the TNIV has dropped off the list for this particular month. It is sad, however, that The Message, which is a particularly bad and dangerous paraphrase should be in competition with translations, albeit that many of these have paraphrastic qualities themselves.