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I more or less figured that if I were to have a religion that
counted, it shouldn't be one in disagreement with the Bible, and
that to know what the Bible says, I'd better be reading it, like
maybe every day, and certainly enough so that it doesn't collect
dust. That's not an extraordinary task, and it's a good book to
read. In the process of regular reading, I end up picking up
things from it. I went to a movie a while back which was a cartoon
takeoff on the story of Moses. There was a disclaimer at the
beginning saying it didn't strictly follow the biblical account;
that if we wanted that, we should read the Bible for it. I was
able to pick out the various discrepancies as I watched the movie,
where a lot of it had to do with giving Miriam a more exalted role
than she had in the Genesis account. I figured I must be learning
the Bible okay to pick out that stuff without looking at the Book.
On my way home in the bus I was talking to a sister I knew from
church who was on the bus with her husband. I told her about the
movie and the places where it disagreed with the bible, and I found
that she knew the subject every bit as well as I did. I guess I
don't have any monopoly in understanding the Bible.
I'm at a church made up in part of people I'd known from my earlier
days, only while our former preacher used the KJV, now it's mostly the
NIV.
The matter I'm concerned with was intimated before English speaking
Protestants were using any version other than the 1611 one:
The objections against a
multitude of sectarian translations are
very serious. The dialect of the English Bible is also the dialect
of devotion and of religious instruction wherever the English
language is spoken, and all denominations substantially agree in
their sacred phraseology, with whatever difference in
interpretation. There are always possibilities of reconciliation,
sympathies even, between men who, in matters of high concernment,
habitually use the same words, and appeal to the same formulas;
whereas a difference of language and of symbols creates an almost
impassable gulf between man and man. When, therefore, we have, not
different churches only, but different Bibles, different religious
dialects, different devotional expressions, the jealousies of
sectarian division will be more hopelessly embittered, and the
prospect of bringing about a greater harmony of opinion and of
feeling among English-speaking Protestants proportionally
darkened.2
A number of years ago I'd started going to a newly formed church.
When I asked what kind of a church it was, they told me they'd all
come from so many different church backgrounds they didn't rightly
know themselves. So we went around in a circle and everyone told
his church background. No two were the same. Then we went around
again and everyone stated which Bible version he used. Everybody
used the King James Version except for the pastor who used the
Revised Standard Version. then we went around and told when we'd
come to the Lord. I was the oldest one in the Lord in
that church, except for one other man who didn't come all
the time.
In my background it was instilled in me to shun
denominationalism, and here was my one opportunity that at least
this group of people from all their different backgrounds would be
one in the Lord if I had anything to do with it, and I might hold
some responsibility simply on account of my age in the Lord. Would
the use of a different version by one member, the pastor, make it
more difficult? I'd soon find out. And if it caused problems in
just this one group, we could not expect all of Christendom to be
immune either.
Now, if anyone were to bring up the matter of Bible version to the
pastor, it would be I the (near) eldest in the Lord. Nobody else
would. It was sort of like the pastor's son who brought in his
chess board and wanted to play me. They told me he'd beat everyone
else in the church and now it was my turn. Now, I'm not a serious
player by any means, but the advantage of age is that even as a
recreational player I've got a few games under my belt. There was
the time I was walking across the downtown mall past the chess club
playing outdoors on the little concrete tables. They had an odd
number of players, so the odd fellow out wanted to engage me in a
game. I told him I wouldn't be much of a challenge; I hadn't
played in a long time, and he was always playing chess, that or
reading up on it. But he really wanted a game, so I sat down with
him. He put down his tome on chess and really concentrated on our
game, all the right moves and all. Of course, I beat him, but
after I showed him what he was doing wrong, he beat me the second
game. See, those tables were small with the seats close at a fixed
distance, and instead of using the imbedded chess board on the
table, he had unrolled his larger cloth board over it. Then when
he was leaning over concentrating, his back row was outside his
field of vision. so later in the game all I had to do was develop
some threat from his back row, and he didn't see it coming—literally.
Otherwise he was a good player, probably played in tournaments, but
I doubt if he won any. No, but I've played someone who has. In
college in Cincinnati the Ohio state champion lived in my dorm, and
one night he played me a game. When it wasn't going well for him,
he resigned. He was playing blindfolded and furthermore he was
intoxicated (we both were) and all I had to do was make a series of
disjointed moves to confuse him. No big deal.
The big deal, that was the time I was in the student union trying
to think of an excuse not to go home and study, when I noticed a
bulletin saying the chess club had invited a grand master to play
them an exhibition game that evening. I went over. They had a
long table with chess boards set up on both sides. The whole chess
club was there to play him at once, and they had some extra boards
for visitors. I sat down on the end.
They introduced him listing a number of his past accomplishments.
He had once beat someone who had beat the world champion, which I
guess put him in that class. Now he was playing all of us, going
around the table a move at a time. This was no mere state champion
here, and I held no illusion about being able to beat the guy, but
all I'd wanted to do was kill time, so when I captured his bishop
early in the game giving him neither pieces nor position in return,
he was forced to develop a long term strategy to eventually beat
me, and all I had to do was keep up a good game in the meantime.
As the other players were eliminated in turn, they circled the
table to see how their friends were doing and when they came to me
they stopped upon seeing someone amazingly having the upper hand.
I had quite a crowd of fans, all of whom were better chess players
than I, some of them perhaps capable of winning from my position,
but all I'd done was exploit a vulnerability early. He assumed I
was member of the chess team, and I used it against him. You see,
the early moves of the game, called the opening, follow certain
guidelines established by long play. All the chess club knew them,
he knew them, so for the first few moves he (and they) were playing
mainly by rote. The opening he was using meant he would bring out
his bishop at a certain point to a square that is never then
guarded because that would be suicidal to his opponent. Look, I
wasn't going to beat him by playing any better opening, or any
other way for that matter, so if I bring out my piece to guard that
square, which he could then take, well, I'd lose anyway even if I
played it standard, so why not? By the time he got around to me he
was so used to playing the rote moves with the team, perhaps even
using the same opening with one of the others, that he placed his
bishop right where I could take it. Could you do better?
Sure, the preacher's kid could try to beat me at chess, but I
wasn't particularly intimidated by either his record or confident
air; I'd played a game or two of chess in my time. Fact is, I did
beat him, hands down, but then I think he'd have a better attitude
if he didn't win every game.
Likewise I wasn't particularly intimidated by the pastor there as
he, along with about everyone else, was my younger brother in
Christ and I'd had enough experience not to let myself be cowed by
him, which I guess is the advantage of having elders, to have
someone who doesn't mind bringing up issues with the minister. So,
I inquired why he wasn't using the KJV like everybody else. He agreed
with me it was an excellent translation, but he had
various other reasons for using the other one, all of which I could
pretty well refute—even before I found my current reference work2. Eventually I got to
the heart of the matter when he gave as his reason, "But that would
be the spirit of conformity!"
Aha! Where have we heard that expression before? Of course, back
in the fifties the beatniks' constant criticism of society was we
were all conformists. And we were. And all the Protestant
churches used the KJV,
and then under the beatnik influence society started to change, at
which time the RSV
(This pastor's version) came into vogue. While the KJV Bible is the most popular English
book of all time, the RSV
has sold a phenomenal 50 million copies, opening the way for variety to
where the NIV has sold
1 2/3 million. Of course, I understand that pastor's choice of version
to be an expression of his liberty, so I am not surprised when our
minister "Right-on" claims the freedom to use the NIV, and an elder relegates it
all to the freedom of a minister of the gospel to paraphrase scripture.
None of this surprises me. What I do note is that this freedom's
development away from the KJV
is part of the general liberation of society under the
beatnik/hippie influence, so it behooves us to examine the scriptural basis of hippie
freedom, I mean, to look at our versions-away-from-the-KJV freedom from that particular
perspective:
More that 30
years ago (a "generation," as Karl Mannheim reckoned social time, two
generations as Jose Ortega y Gasset reckoned it, and three, four,
or more as contemporary journalists and other grabbers of the main
literary chance reckon it), the literary critic Malcolm Cowley
wrote Exile's Return, a book about the experience of
American literary expatriates in Europe in the 1920's. In it he
treats to some extent the history of bohemianism, starting back in
the middle of the 19th century with that important document of
bohemian history, Henry Murger's Scenes of Bohemian Life.
By 1920, Cowley says, bohemia had a relatively formal doctrine, "a
system of ideas that could be roughly summarized as follows" (and
as I go through these eight basic ideas, please keep in mind the
hippies—and the fact that these ideas were formulated 33
years ago about phenomena that were then more than a hundred years
old):
#2 "The idea of
self-expression.—Each man's, each woman's, purpose in life is to
express himself, to realize his full individuality through creative
work and beautiful living in beautiful surroundings." This, I
believe is identical with the hippies' moral injunction to "do your
thing."3
It doesn't take much imagination to see the beatniks' aversion to
conformity and the hippies' desire to do their own thing, all
formulated into part of an eight point doctrine as point two, the
idea of self expression, to express oneself in his full
individuality, taken up as the philosophy used to write new Bible
versions. Straight bohemian doctrine as far as I can tell.
But these eight doctrines go back a lot further than just two
centuries, back to Job, in fact, the oldest book in the Bible. In
a list of eight common animals each animal corresponds to a point
in the bohemian/hippie doctrine (but in a different order). The
one for self expression is (ch. 39:19-25), "Hast thou given the
horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst
thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils
is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his
strength: he goeth forth to meet the armed men. He mocketh at
fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the
sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and
the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage:
neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith
among the trumpets, Ha, ha! And he smelleth the battle afar off,
the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." There was an
article in "National Geographic" about the amazing fearlessness of
the horse. It will rush into battle, no worry. It's not afraid to
dive from heights into water. It's just amazing how fearless the
horse is, and the example from the animal kingdom of not being
afraid to do one's thing is the horse, (Jer. 8:6b) "... every one turned to
his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle."
When I read Job I see a bunch of relentless whiners complaining
about the fairness of God in the face of a righteous life, and I
see as part of God's response from the whirlwind a suggestion in
the form of eight common animals, that there are things we mortals
can do, and perhaps have not been doing, that could increase our
happiness without compromising our righteousness. One of them is
that we don't have to be conformists afraid to do our own thing.
If Jesus bids us consider the fowls of the air, maybe God would
like us to consider the horse. You don't like the King James
Version, well, step out in faith and produce a version you do like.
At any rate that's what's happened.
So, I was invited to watch a video enactment of one of the gospels.
What version was it in? The NIV. I don't normally read
the "New Idiots Version," but then I rarely watch the idiot box either, so
I joined them, figuring it wouldn't kill me. A businesswoman asked
me to recommend a Bible verse to advertise her business. I didn't
feel like casting pearls before swine, so I gave it to her from the
NIV figuring advertising
is idiotic to begin with, so I what difference would an NIV verse make. I had a difference of
opinion with some people who decided to trivialize God's name, and
I wanted to quote the commandment, (Ex. 20:7) "Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless
that taketh his name in vain," but I used the NIV "...the LORD will not
hold anyone guiltless ..." to emphasize the point that their
position in the community wouldn't excuse them in what they were
doing. Those being the only times I've ever preferentially used
the NIV, we can take them as
simply an expression of liberty.
But the thing is the hippies and all have developed their concepts
embraced by our society without strict control from the church, so
what we have inherited might be beyond the advice in Job.
Take:
#3 "The idea of paganism.—The body is a temple in
which there is nothing unclean, a shrine to be adorned for the
ritual of love." Contemporary paganism, by no means limited to the
hippies but especially prevalent among them, is manifest in the
overpowering eroticism that their scene exudes: the prevalence of
female flesh (toe, ankle, belly, breast, and thigh) and male
symbols of strength (beards, boots, denim, buckles, motorcycles),
or the gentler and more restrained versions of these, or the by now
hardly controversial assumption that f___ing will help set you free.3
The corresponding animal in Job is (ch. 38:39-40) "Wilt thou hunt the
prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, when
they crouch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in
wait?" The lion gets what it wants; it's not ashamed of its
body and won't turn aside for any (Prov. 30:30) in seeking its prey in
order to feed its cubs, so why should a woman be ashamed to breast
feed her baby in public? (Num. 23:24) "Behold, the people
shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion:
he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood
of the slain." And for that matter, it is downright
inconvenient to cover up as the Muslim women are required to do,
and they could probably expose a "toe, ankle, belly, breast [to
hungry baby], and thigh" without totally distracting the man with
pure eyes. At any rate the hippies don't seem to be ashamed of
their bodies, and perhaps there is something that could be said for
that. I was invited to march with the La Leche organization in the
Eugene Celebration parade, and why not? it's not gay pride or
something like that; their message is that breast feeding is
healthy for baby, healthy for mother. In the South women in the
holiness Pentecostal churches will breast feed their babies right
in the front row. If I wanted to argue with the Pentecostals, I'd
probably want to pick a different subject.
A single gal I know who purports to be Christian recently had a
baby saying she was only showing her boyfriend "hippie love." I
think that when the hippie acceptance of the body goes as far as
fornication, they have exceeded the suggestion in Job. Hippies get
married, and hippies use the King James Version too, and if the
liberty to do one's own thing in selecting Bible versions results
in different Christians, different churches using different
versions—even though they are all English speaking Protestant
(/derivatives)—to the extent that they no longer have the single
reliable version that everyone may consult, then something valuable
has been lost in the process. I believe in liberty to do one's own
thing, but shouldn't that liberty be tempered by consideration of
whether it's being used to profit or detriment?
It comes down to: (I Peter 5:1-11) "The elders which
are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the
sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall
be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the
oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy
lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's
heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief
Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away. ..." If we consider as elders the men who
gave us our Bible, not having done so for gain but willingly,
and receiving their heavenly reward, then the rest follows.
"... Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the
elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be
clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth
grace to the humble. ..." We are submitting to our elders,
the ones who brought us the Bible, when we read the Bible and obey
it. We are submitting to one another when we all read the same
Bible, translated from the Textus
Receptus into our respective language, and the younger
are submitting to the elder by desiring the sincere milk of the
word. This mutual submission is reinforced by habitually reading
the word and having it preached from to us weekly. Furthermore,
any brother may come up to a fellow believer and ask him why he
isn't conforming to such-and-such from the Bible and that other
brother would want to consider it, answer him, and/or perhaps
change something in his walk. Thus the Bible is ipso facto the submission to our
elders-way-back, to one another, and from the younger.
Now, if we somehow fail to learn and apply God's word to our lives,
it is not just the fault of our religious leaders but the laity in
the congregation are for their part partially accountable also: see my addendum #1. If, say, a group of
scholars gets together and translates the Bible their way, not
God's way, and our preachers in our churches start to use it, sure,
God would hold them accountable big time, but I wouldn't get off
scott free either if I ignored an acceptable translation and just
went along with whatever was or wasn't preached.
Furthermore, and I should know, it is easy enough to confuse the
true gospel with other religious outlooks if one is not careful how
he expresses Christian terms. Example: Addendum #2.
Therefore it is not surprising that Satan should try to subtly
influence the wording of our Bible supposedly in the interests of
updating it, as has been documented: Addendum #3.
It is a curious point, this wish to keep abreast of language
changes rather than retain its old forms, as:
According to Caesar Zedd, one cannot be strong until one first
learns how always to be calm. Strength and power come from perfect
self-control, and perfect self-control arises only from inner
peace. Inner peace, Zedd teaches, is largely a matter of
deep, slow, and rhythmic breathing combined with a determined focus
not on the past, or even on the present, but on the
future.4
That is in contrast to:
From what I have said it will of course be understood that I
see no sufficient present [1859] reasons for a new translation, or
even for a revision, of the authorized version of the Bible; but
there are certain considerations, distinct from the question of the
merits of that version, which ought to be suggested. The moral and
intellectual nature of man has few more difficult practical
problems to resolve than that of following the golden mean between
passion for novelty and an ultra-conservative attachment to the
time-honoured and the old. Both extremes are inherently, perhaps
equally, mischievous, but the love of innovation is the more
dangerous, because the future is more uncertain than the past, and
because the irreverent and thoughtless wantonness of an hour may
destroy that which only the slow and painful labour of years or of
centuries can rebuild.5
And let us not forget (Ecclesiastes 1:9f) "The thing that
hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is
that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it
hath been already of old time, which was before us." I'm reminded
of the game of chess where my opponent played an excellent game on
the seven rows away from him but kept row 1 outside his field of
vision. We can miss the whole point if we don't understand our
history. That being the case, let's look at the development of
languages of old. In (Genesis 10:5,20,31) the families from
the three sons of Noah on the ark were to spread out "every one
after his tongue, after their families, in their nations; ... after
their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in
their nations; ... after their families, after their tongues, in
their lands, after their nations." The differences in languages we
see today are the result of it
(see Addendum #4.)
Furthermore, righteous Noah was behind this plan, anointed by God
to develop the postdiluvian world, sending out his sons and their
families including "a plan for
introducing the Semitic and Indo-European languages in which the
Bible, the written 'word of God,'is incarnated." (Addendum #5)
Basically, it is from Shem's line that the linguistic lines for
both Greek and Hebrew came, God's chosen languages for the Bible,
through his chosen vessel(s), but from Ham came the rebellion of
the tower of Babel which prefigures antiChrist (see Addendum #6), so this business of
unifying us to speak just one dialect in our church, a modern one,
some see as a device to bring on the AntiChrist (Addendum #3) having a precedent back
when languages were just starting and they didn't want to split
them into different ones. I think we should look as best we can at
the happenings back then, so we can avoid similar mistakes.
Evidently, instead of spreading the various new languages, it was
a fairly easy matter for the teachers to substitute the Hamitic
tongue, thus unifying them all
under one tongue (See Addendum
#7). But that is exactly what is happening today; it is a
fairly easy matter for our teachers and preachers who would
ordinarily teach us the ins and outs of the old Bible dialect, the
portions that we can't pick up easily on our own, to instead teach
from the modern versions so that we no longer use two dialects,
regular and Bible, but only one. That's nothing new.
Then in the midst of the status quo arises a small group that
insists that the KJV is the
way to go when it comes to English Bibles. We're rocking the boat.
But that's nothing new either; out of the midst of the confused
society back then came Abram and
then his pesky sons with their own way of doing things. See Addendum #8.
Then there was the battle of the titans. I was going to a church
where they no longer used the King James Version except rarely in
some ceremonies. We no longer spoke scripture in the Bible dialect
but in a modern one, exclusively NIV. I decided to fix that. I signed
up as a lector in rotation, one who reads the scripture printed in
the bulletin at the beginning of the service. All I had to do was
get the secretary to print it in KJV and I'd read it that way, and we'd
at least still have the Bible dialect in our congregational
service, not just the modern one. I was able to convince the
secretary, so it seemed to be working. I thought I could win that
battle, which is all it would take. Then the secretary retired and
we got a new secretary who would only print the bulletin from the
computer which had only NIV.
So my last Sunday there, not having looked at it beforehand, I got
up to read and it was in NIV.
It was embarrassing, but I read it that way; I had to.
But that's not new either, if you check out Addendum #9. Someone used a
similar strategy back then, which would have thrown a monkey wrench
into the work of unifying the language, but in a duel of champions,
like me and the secretary, he got humiliated and it didn't work.
And he wasn't very forgiving.
Then I tried to get some retribution, against the NIV, or to be more precise, against
the publisher Zondervan. I figured the NIV had twisted the words of the
apostle Paul all around and made him look bad, so that if he had a
2000 year copyright he could sue them. That's not likely, but in
our men's group we were studying another book published by
Zondervan in which they twisted a Walt Disney song around, without
crediting the source, and in so doing put down the founder himself,
Mr. Disney. I sent complete documentation to Walt Disney, along
with a letter from Zondervan admitting their knowledge of it. I
don't know if Disney will actually sue Zondervan—their
investigation is confidential—but it wouldn't surprise me.
But retribution is not a new phenomenon. Seems that Esau mixed it
up with Nimrod and in so doing tired himself in the hunt so that he
didn't negotiate well with his birthright and lost something valuable to himself (see Addendum #10). I seem to have
likewise lost something valuable to me when the men's group was
terminated after it was learned Zondervan was being sued over a
book we were studying. You know, maybe I should have studied up on
Esau beforehand, but it's too late now.
The tract New
Age Bible Versions shows how the NIV is messing with God's/Christ's
name(s). But this is nothing new. The language at Babel messed with God's
name too—see Addendum #11.
When we come to the actual confusion of tongues, the analogy is to
a confusion of translations, which here I'll go into with but one
verse in three translations, otherwise we'd not have time.
It's a lot like making a chess move which seems sacrificial or
which would put you at a disadvantage, but in the long run can pay
dividends. A Christian marrying a nonbeliever is seemingly placed
at a disadvantage, but as it can lead to a spouse's salvation, it
might not be a bad move in every case.
In the early nineties I went to Bible School. In class one day the
teacher-elder explained that Christians are only allowed to marry other
Christians. He ended his teaching by mocking some churches who
believed in "missionary
dating." I spoke to him after class, saying that I believed in
missionary dating. He firmly stood his ground, and when I
countered his scripture quote with one of my own, he said that
there was a huge number of passages that support him, so there was
no use my trying to argue it. It's pretty easy to lose an
argument to someone in authority, so I gave in; I was not allowed
to date a non-Christian. I just had one question that needed
clarification. My girlfriend in town. I had asked out a
non-Christian and she agreed for the next Friday. During the
week she went to a revival meeting and came forward to receive the
Lord—baptism and all—so that when we went out she was a
Christian, although she wasn't when I asked her. My question was,
since I had asked her, and she agreed, before she was saved, did we
have to repent? He thought a moment, then smiled and said that
wasn't necessary. He and his wife were not simultaneously saved;
these things happen at different times.
During the nineties I was going to a Chinese Church. They preached
that a Christian was not permitted to marry a non-Christian. In
their members' testimonies they made a big deal of their marriages
to fellow Christians. In the midweek (English speakers) Bible
study, they read in their New International Versions that a widow,
and presumably anybody else, must marry only to another Christian.
I looked at my J.B. Phillips Bible which didn't say that, but
that the widow must marry by the guidance of the Lord. It said
nothing about him having to be Christian. That started an
argument. I wanted to use my King James Version to straighten it
out, but they were not at all familiar with it. They argued that
their version used better manuscripts than the KJV. According to my textbook chapter
on Bible translation, it is difficult for those holding different
interpretations to reconcile their points of view, and it is well
nigh impossible if they are using different versions to support
their beliefs. I could make no headway with them.
A certain level of objection to the NIV's rendering of "only in the Lord"
comes from (Eph. 5:3) "But
fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be
once named among you, as becometh saints." Our high standards
against fornication require that we keep the door to marriage open,
not closed for frivolous reasons. Homosexuality is a prohibited
uncleanness. The attack by homosexuals is directed at the
issue of diversity, and although theirs is more precisely a
perversity, we should take our stand from a position of
honoring legitimate diversity such as mixed marriages. As for
covetousness, that's a foundation sin to many others as Americans
covet many rights, e.g. freedom of choice, which are not even
legitimate, let alone unalienable, including "equal pay for equal
work" which somehow got twisted in a certain parable we shall
discuss. Paul continues, (vs. 4) "... but rather giving
of thanks," which should be our attitude when we read that God has
sanctified mixed marriages, and what we watch out for is
(vs. 6) "Let no man deceive you with vain words."
The vain words that deceive are actually in the preface to the
NIV, which if we compare to
the foreword of the J.B. Phillips Version, and a lecture on
the science of translating, we'll see how they went wrong on that
verse, and on how many others we can only imagine.
NIV Preface:
"The first concern of the translators has been the accuracy and
its fidelity to the thought of the biblical writers. They have
weighed the significance of the lexical and grammatical details of
the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. At the same time they
have striven for more than a word-for-word translation."
Phillips Foreword:
"After reading a large number of commentaries I have a feeling
that some scholars, at least, have lived so close to the Greek text
that they have forgotten their sense of proportion. I doubt
very much whether the New Testament writers were as subtle or as
self-conscious as some commentators would make them appear.
For the most part I am convinced that they had no idea that they
were writing Holy Scripture. They would be, or indeed perhaps
are, amazed to learn what meanings are sometimes read back into
their simple utterances! Paul, for instance, writing in haste
and urgency to some of his wayward and difficult Christians, was
not tremendously concerned about dotting the i's and crossing the
t's of his message. I doubt very much whether he was even
concerned about being completely consistent with what he had
already written. Consequently, it seems to me quite beside the
point to study his writings microscopically, as it were, and deduce
hidden meanings of which almost certainly he was unaware.
A test a good translator should be able to pass is that
of being able to produce in the hearts and minds of his readers an
effect equivalent to that produced by the author upon his original
readers."
Lecture XXVII. Choice of Dialect for Translation.
"The true result to be aimed at, where we propose anything
beyond the communication of bare fact, is to produce upon the mind
of the English reader, so far as possible, the same impression
which the original author produced upon the minds of those for whom
he wrote. The [NIV]
rule I have just condemned does not lead to the accomplishment of
this [Phillips] aim, but, so far as it is practicable at all, its
effect is to translate the author, not his work, to give an
imitation, not a copy, of the original; whereas it is the
characteristic of a perfect translation , that it, for the time,
transforms the reader into the likeness of those for whom the story
... was first said ... ."6
When Paul was trying to straighten out the Corinthians, was he
aware that he was writing the Bible, taking care that all seeming
inconsistencies were dealt with? Or was he using an image of
yoked oxen familiar to their agrarian society without concern for
how it would all look in some distant future when that familiarity
was lost?
What's happened is we start with a vague concept of yoked animals
and then try to iron out all seeming inconsistencies in Paul's
letters without regard for how the Corinthians themselves would
have seen it, and without regard for harmonizing it with the rest
of the canon of which these two letters are but a part, and so we
end up with the NIV's
rendering. I think it must go like this: Paul says mixed
marriages are sanctified, then he tells us not to be unequally
yoked which looks like he's telling us not to marry an unbeliever
after all, so we'll just make "only in the Lord" refer to marrying
a Christian so that way we've harmonized the two sayings. God
will sanctify the marriages entered into before conversion, and
once one is converted he will obey the commandment not to marry an
unbeliever. This is what Paul must have meant, so we'll reword our
translations that way with confidence in our studied
effort. Bravo!
Okay, let's try something now. Let's put "unequally yoked" in
modern terms.7
The essence of conflict seems to be disagreement,
contradiction, or incompatibility. Thus, conflict
refers to any situation in which there are incompatible goals,
cognitions, or emotions within or between individuals or groups
that lead to opposition or antagonistic interaction. This
definition recognizes three basic types of conflict:
- Goal conflict
- is a situation in which desired end states
or preferred outcomes appear to be incompatible.
- Cognitive conflict
- is a situation in which ideas or thoughts are inconsistent.
- Affective conflict
- is a situation in which feelings or emotions are incompatible;
that is, people literally become angry with one another.
Let's try to apply them one at a time to modern situations:
"Goal conflict is a situation in which desired end
states or preferred outcomes appear to be incompatible."
He could still remember the day of her graduation, summa
cum laude, in Hebrew studies. Raful had stood side
by side with her mother, tears streaming down both their faces,
while the strains of "Hatikva" floated beautifully, gravely, above
the throng; dinner afterward; the stunning blow she had delivered
over nightcaps in the Baka apartment: no government service, not
one hour on a kibbutz, no boyfriends, no life in Israel ...
but to London! She would go to London, there to study fashion
design and spend the rest of her life making clothes for rich
Goyim.
The war between them had been long, one of
the few Raful ever lost.8
In our times lifestyles are goals. The government seeks to promote
certain lifestyles that Christians oppose. This resulted in
conflict when the California Salvation Army, to secure some
government financial support, agreed to provide benefits for
domestic partners and the Christians supporting that ministry
withdrew their support.
What about goal conflicts in marriage? Well, the ultimate
goal of marriage is children, and Paul in
1st Corinthians 7 said the children of a mixed marriage
are holy, which means the marriage itself is sanctified,
so we go to the next conflict: "Cognitive conflict
is a situation in which ideas or thoughts are inconsistent."
Certainly the ideas and thoughts of homosexuals/
cohabitants are different from those of Christians. And in
marriage if one spouse is a Christian and the other is not, then
their thoughts and ideas would not be the same either. Yes, but
in Paul's epistle he puts forth the hope that the unbelieving
spouse would be converted and then his or her thoughts would
conform to the other's. That leaves us: "Affective
conflict is a situation in which feelings or emotions are
incompatible; that is, people literally become angry with one
another." Now, I've walked out of a movie that portrayed a man
dressing up as a woman. It might be politically incorrect to
have such a visceral reaction but that kind of behavior disgusts
me. But as for marriage, if the two people can't stand each other,
we wouldn't expect them to get hitched, now would we? And if the
unbeliever is not pleased to stay, he or she may depart in peace
says Paul.
In modern terms of conflict we can see how the Salvation Army's
compromise results in it in ways that we cannot apply to mixed
marriages to condemn them.
Okay, let's now take a look at a situation of the Corinthians where
they could apply the "unequally yoked" teaching, and with
their understanding of yoked oxen, we'll see if it would
tend to forbid them mixed marriages.
At the time of his letter to the Corinthians, sin was rampant
in Corinth.In fact, idol worship was rampant. Towering above
the ruins of old Corinth is a two-thousand-foot-high mountain
fortress called Acrocorinth. In Paul's day, the Temple of
Aphrodite sat atop that hill. Aphrodite, goddess of fertility, was
worshipped by the people of the day. In Aphrodite's temple, as many
as a thousand prostitute priestesses would carry on their immoral
activities, all in the name of worship, of
course. History records that these prostitute
priestesses would walk through the streets of Corinth, wearing
specially designed sandals that left the words "Follow me"
imprinted in the sand. Many citizens of Corinth did just that.
They followed the priestesses to the high places, where their pagan
temple was located, and they "worshipped" Aphrodite—an excuse to
commit adultery, idolatry, and immorality.9
How would poor Joe Christian struggling with that kind of sin apply
Paul's exhortation not to be unequally yoked, seeing he is actually
familiar with yoked oxen? Well, we know from our library book that "if by chance the
partner is absent, the ox calls him with affectionate lowing" and
from the quote above "prostitute priestesses would walk through the
streets of Corinth, wearing specially designed sandals that left
the words 'Follow me' imprinted in the sand." From the library book, the oxen "are eager
to resume work," and from the above quote, "Many citizens of
Corinth ... followed the priestesses to the high places." So when
Joe Christian with a priestess is doing "immoral activities, all in
the name of worship," and he remembers Paul's exhortation that all
worship is not the same worship, couching it in terms of unequally
yoked oxen, I'd say that Corinthian Christian is going to know
exactly what Paul is talking about.
How will he extricate himself? Well, he remembers Paul's
letter that says marriage is a way to avoid fornication.
Fine. In Corinth where Christians are a real minority, he
does have at least one marriage option, but to an unbeliever.
That's fine too, according to Paul's letter. Maybe he marries her
to avoid fornication, and maybe she becomes a Christian herself
through association with his people. At any rate, he is not going
to see the unequally-yoked exhortation as opposed to mixed
marriage.
Our modern rendering of conflicts does not oppose mixed marriage as
Biblically taught, and the way Paul phrased it does not oppose
mixed marriage as the Corinthians would have understood it in
their situation. The way I see it being applied to oppose
them is by sleight-of-hand using our very vagueness about both the
conditions in Corinth and an agrarian symbol. I don't think
we can do that, at least not without some sound corroborating
parallel passages.
The unequally-yoked image likely derives from the OT: (Deut. 22:9-10) "Thou shalt not sow
thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou
hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. Thou
shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together." I keep
pointing out that it is labor being addressed, as from "Thou shalt
not plow with an ox and an ass together," not the holy offspring of
marriage written about in the previous epistle, or Paul would have
incorporated the verse prior to it, "lest the fruit of thy seed
which thou hast sown be defiled."
Going next to the widow marrying "only in the Lord," the parallel
passage reads (I Tim. 5:11-12) "But the younger
widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against
Christ, they will marry; having damnation, because they have cast
off their first faith." Man hungry. Marrying in the Lord
means keeping one's first faith in the process, I would think.
Nothing is mentioned about the husband at all.
We might also add that if a widow rejects the proposals of ninety
nine Christian men to marry the one lost sheep who asks her, and we
criticize her for not marrying in the Lord, it could be that we
just don't understand the Lord's priorities.
So, what passage do we use to enlighten the teaching in I
Corinthians that specifically addresses mixed marriages? We
don't use any. It is a principle of Biblical hermeneutics
that the more direct, the more specific passage is used to throw
light on the vague or periphery ones. But I hardly ever hear
anyone refer to Paul's direct teaching when they're condemning
mixed marriages.
The NIV has substituted "but
he must belong to the Lord" for "only in the Lord." That passage
was then used to convince a newly born-again international student
to break up with her fiancé of nine years. That was an act
of cruelty. She was a kind hearted sister, at least until then. So
we now have a NIV Bible that
has combined two acts of cruelty into one, a sin of omission and a
sin of commission, as it were.
Paul does say, for example, that it's permissible for a Christian
to marry a non-Christian. Some Christians contort the verse "only
in the Lord" to try to refute Paul's clear teaching, but that's not
honest exegesis. I really don't think the apostle meant the widow
had to marry only a Christian man.
"But," said the Lady Matilda, "is there no duty on the part of
the true Christian to try to convert and lead to safety those who
are going down the paths of damnation? Is Sir Dermot always to be
condemned to the presence of the women of the tavern and the
inn—the wenches of St. Germain? Does Mother Church forbid any
other kind of women to associate with him? Are we to gain Heaven
selfishly, ignoring the perils and struggles of others? Or
are we to gain Heaven risking Hell—out of a Christian regard for
the welfare of our fellows?"10
The New International Version, and a few others, have tampered with
the permission list in taking mixed marriages off it, using what
passes for scholarship to rewrite the Bible. To support such
a version is to support a corrupted list of permissible sexuality
so that one is rejecting some forms based not on apostolic
authority but on later "scholarship." We're safe, though, with the
King James Version.
As far as I'm concerned, that a widow can only remarry "in the
Lord" should be left as is in our translations. It's a
somewhat vague expression and for that reason applicable to many
situations where marrying might seem to take one away from the
Lord. I mean, maybe some widows couldn't marry at all without
leaving their first love, while others could do okay married but
only to another Christian, while still others might be in the Lord
only to certain kinds of men, be they Christian or no, and maybe
there are some men it would be dangerous for any widow to marry.
Since there's another NT
passage dealing with widows falling away through marrying, perhaps
Paul's exhortation in I Corinthians is especially applicable
to widows nevertheless it should be taken generally, in my opinion.
If I had to make a stronger statement about being "in the Lord" I'd
likely quote the radio preacher who said, "You're in the Lord when
the Lord is in you."
"And I must say what comfort there is to be found in the words
of the Twenty-third Psalm. Because it is not only the boasting of
David in the power and majesty of God and in David's belief that
God will uphold the faithful; it is in the certainty that God will
surely comfort us in our moment of trouble, as we walk 'through the
valley of the shadow of death.' What shall we fear? Nothing
but our fear of God. Comfort is what He brings us in that
terrible hour. Such a cozy word, 'comfort'; it conjures up the
image of a friendly fire at the end of a long and damp day in the
fields...
"And remember always that the Lord shall be
with you, all of you, each in your secret hearts, all the days of
your life, and let this comfort you...."11
A second place I'd refer "in the Lord" to is
(Ephesians 6:10ff) "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the
Lord, and in the power of his might. ..." If a widow
were in the shepherd's care per Psalm 23, and strong in the
Lord per Ephesians, I wouldn't further concern myself with telling
her whom to marry.
But there are a thousand passages (at least) that one could relate
to being in the Lord, so maybe there is no single correct
answer. There is, however at least one wrong answer that I
know of. Paul in I Corinthians gives the strongest
statement that mixed marriages are sanctified. In
II Corinthians he tells us he is not using handling the word
deceitfully. In Genesis we see the sons of Jacob answering
their neighbor deceitfully that they are allowed to intermarry when
they are not; they wanted revenge for Dinah. Therefore Paul's
II Corinthians statement not to be unequally yoked in Christian
ministry cannot be applied directly to mixed marriages.
The J.B. Phillips translation makes "only in the Lord" say
that the widow should be guided by the Lord, which if it's a bit of
a paraphrase, at least it is consistent with the context of
Christians seeking guidance. The NIV makes "only in the Lord" say that
the widow should marry only another Christian, which flies in the
face of Paul's in-context teaching on mixed marriages and seeks to
import the "unequally-yoked" passage which it's own context
disallows.
Let's see what we'd read in a historical novel:
The Name
of the Rose, Umberto Eco, p. 338, "...the
oxen...are symbols of friendship and goodness, because every ox at
his work turns to seek his companion at the plow; if by chance the
partner is absent at that moment, the ox calls him with
affectionate lowing. Oxen learn obediently to go back by
themselves to the barn when it rains, and when they take refuge at
the manger, they constantly stretch their necks to look out and see
whether the bad weather has stopped, because they are eager to
resume work."
When the apostle Paul, encouraging the Corinthians to follow his
lead in Christian labor, told them to not be unequally yoked with
unbelievers, he used the very symbol of friendship and goodness
familiar to his audience but obscure to our postindustrial society
unless we read historical novels or the like. The oxen are
friends with each other and how can coworkers manage with different
concepts of goodness?
Next, if we are at all familiar with the nature of our own work,
we'll understand it to have social dimensions.
Work, since time immemorial, has been the means to satisfy
man's need for belonging to a group and for a meaningful relation
to others of his kind. When Aristotle said that man is a
zoon politikon, i.e. a social animal, he said in
effect that man needs to work to satisfy his need for
community.12
Evidently, Paul was referring to this same dimension when
discussing Christian ministry which I understand from my various
reading but which some have expanded upon in their study to cover
such broad territory of application that the primary focus has been
lost resulting in the yoking exhorted against.
Perhaps an example would be helpful: There was a guest on a show
telling of his experience. He was a young high school
teacher. He waited until a female student was graduated and
then wrote her a letter saying she could disregard it if she wanted
but he thought she was his ideal woman. They courted and
married, and on the show looked like they were doing fine.
Say you're a principal of a high school and one of the teachers
wanted to marry a student, "only in the Lord." He probably couldn't
until she was graduated.
Okay, I'm not giving a teaching here, only some examples, so let's
look at Ireland in the seventh century:
'Fidelma,' she said with a sudden rush,
'I am disposed to take a husband.'
Fidelma's eyes widened but she said
nothing. Clergy, even bishops, took spouses; even the
religious of houses, whether mixed or not, could have wives and
husbands, under Brehon law and custom. But the position of an
abbot and abbess was in a different category for they were usually
bound to celibacy. Such was the rule at Kildare. It was the
Irish custom that the coerb, or successor to the founder of an
abbey, should always be chosen in the kindred of the founder.
Since abbots and abbesses were not expected to have direct issue,
the successor was chosen from a collateral branch. But if, in the
collateral branches, no religious was found fit to be elected, then
a secular member of the coarb was elected as lay abbot or abbess.
Etain claimed relation to the family of Brigit of Kildare.
'It would mean giving up Kildare and
returning to being an ordinary religious,' Fidelma pointed out
eventually when Etain made no further comment.
Etain nodded. 'I have thought of this long
and hard on my journey here. To cohabit with a stranger will be
difficult, especially after one has been alone for so long. Yet
when I arrived here, I realized that my mind was made up. I have
exchanged the traditional betrothal gifts. The matter is now
decided.'13
Maybe you and I don't completely understand "Brehon law and
custom," not to mention the laws and customs throughout time and in
every place, including Corinth in the early Christian era, but we
should be familiar with our own in whatever situation we find
ourselves and to marry contrary to it is questionable at best, and
without extenuating circumstances not, strictly speaking, in the
Lord. Mind, I haven't taught why this is, just that we'd
better figure it so.
I don't think that exhausts the matter because even if I'm
following all the customs and laws, I'd better "Be sure it's true
when you say, 'I love you.'/ It's a sin to tell a lie." Marrying in
the Lord means being sincere with one's partner-to-be. The
basis of courtship has largely changed from Bible times:
One of the clearest indications of the
change is in the area of courtship and marriage. In most
horticultural, herding, agrarian, and maritime societies, marriage
was thought of largely in economic terms (and in the governing
class, in political terms as well). This was reflected in the
practice of arranged marriages, in which the parents took the major
responsibility for deciding whom their son or daughter would marry,
and in the requirement of a bride price or a dowry. ... ¶ By
contrast, people in industrial societies view marriage largely in
romantic terms.14
I would think that even in arranged marriages there would need to
be a certain sincerity among the people involved if the marriage
were to be "in the Lord," because, after all, "It's a sin to tell
a lie."
Even if the couple has got it together with each other and with
contemporary law and custom, there's still the vertical dimension,
as J.B. Phillips renders marrying only in the Lord, "but let
her be guided by the Lord." I would think that having a world
renowned prophet sanction a marriage would be a good indication,
and although we don't use prophets much these days, I'm told they
were more common when Paul wrote his Corinthian letter(s), so
perhaps marrying in the Lord to them meant having a prophet bless
the arrangement. I suspect that even today with our reliance
on a written scripture (but who reads it?) a lot of people going
down the road to matrimony look for signs along the way. Be
that as it may, our policy today to get the guidance of the Lord is
to have the church counsel a couple that wants to marry, so they at
least have an idea of what they are getting into, what marriage to
a believer is about. It is here in this expected counsel, I
believe the long string of objections I hear raised concerning
marrying an unbeliever should be addressed. If it is in fact too
much of a problem to face, then they'd decide not to go through
with it, right? I just don't see the need to eliminate this
step, to throw out a nonbeliever before giving him a chance.
Now, when I read I Corinthians, I see Paul addressing folks
who are somewhat on the ball, (ch. 1:5) "That in every thing ye
are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge,"
so that they'd pretty much be expected to follow the guidelines
above without having them spelled out, so that I cannot ignore them
even though they are not specifically mentioned here. And if
he does mention to the widow to marry only in the Lord, he is only
nudging a weak vessel so that she doesn't ignore what she knows
better than to do because she is man hungry. Paul doesn't
mention it to the rest and doesn't elaborate to the widow, so I
just use the brains God gave me to see what he was getting at.
Now, when I read the first letter to the Corinthians, I see (ch. 3:21f) "For all things are yours,
... whether the world, ... or things present, or things
to come." The Bible does say that. In the context of
the same letter Paul explains that a marriage of a Christian to a
non-Christian is sanctified, an instance of the world being
ours. The sanctification is derived from the offspring of
such a union being holy, which is the case whether one was a
converted after marrying the unbeliever or was a Christian
beforehand, "things present or things to come."
Then further down the page when Paul is discussing widows, after he
has moved past the mixed marriage issue, he reminds the widow of
what everybody there already knows, as I've discussed above, but
doesn't elaborate. He is not addressing mixed marriages
here. He specifically addressed them earlier and is now on
other issues.
Sometime months later, maybe years later, maybe never, I'm reading
Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians. I've got it under my belt
that a Christian is allowed to intermarry with the unsaved.
I read that Paul is (ch. 4:2) "not handling the word
of God deceitfully." I remember from the OT where (Gen. 34:13-16) "And the sons of
Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said,
because he had defiled Dinah their sister, ... If ye be as we
be, that every male of you be circumcised; then will we give our
daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we
will become one people." They went back on their word which
is why they were deceitful. I don't expect Paul to suddenly
reverse himself, and when I read about not being unequally yoked,
I don't relate it to marriage.
The nature of the difference [between
Jesus and the Pharisees] is made clear only in the light of the two
opposing understandings of God. For the Pharisees, God is
primarily one who makes demands; for Jesus he is gracious and
compassionate. The Pharisee does not, of course, deny God's
goodness and love, but for him these were expressed in the gift of
the Torah [Law] and in the possibility of fulfilling what is there
demanded. ... Adherence to the oral tradition, with its
rules for interpreting the law, was seen by the Pharisee as the way
to the fulfillment of the Torah. ... Jesus' elevation of
the double command of love (Matt. 22:34-40) to the level of a
norm of interpretation and his rejection of the binding nature of
oral tradition ... led him into conflict with Pharisaic
casuistry.15
I'm starting from the position that God is "gracious and
compassionate." He has already forbidden fornication for some very
good reasons. Marriage is the normal way to escape such
sin. But on that side he has forbidden divorce, except as a
lesser evil for unbelievers with an unregenerated heart.
Being gracious and compassionate he allows believers a wide scope
in selecting mates they can live with; he even sanctifies mixed
marriages; God is gracious and compassionate. That's the
normal way to interpret Paul's exposition in I Corinthians 7.
From the Pharisee's starting point of a demanding God, Paul's
command in II Cor., to be not
unequally yoked extends back to marriage, nullifying Paul's earlier
teaching.
From a study of Biblical and secular
evidence, we can conclude that the Pharisees thought highly of
themselves as guardians of the public good and the national
welfare. They were not satisfied that God's law was fundamentally
clear and easily understood. Wherever the Law seemed to them
to be unspecific, they sought to plug apparent gaps with defined
applications to eliminate any need for conscience. These
religious leaders attempted to devise a precept to govern conduct
in all issues, even trivialities.16
That the widow (and the rest of us) marries "only in the Lord" is
a public good and general welfare that the religious leaders seek
to promote, and with such an unspecific expression they are not
going to leave it to our conscience—that's for sure—, but will
plug the gap with a defined application such as we read in the New
International Version, "but he [her husband selection] must
belong to the Lord," at which point I cry foul! From our
Romans 14 (to 15:7) framework the brother who eateth not
is not supposed to judge him that eateth. If he rewrites a Bible
version (NIV,
etc.) to forbid what the scripture allows we
cannot use that version as the standard of faith in that matter.
But, wait. Understanding "only in the Lord" means having a
broad general understanding of m-f relationships, and lacking that,
a man is not qualified for high office, (I Timothy 3:5)
"For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he
take care of the church of God?" Therefore I cannot trust the
NIV (and its ilk) as a
standard for faith in any matter.
The matter of mixed marriages is given us from the perspective of
(I Cor. 7:12a)
"But to the rest speak I, not the LORD:..."; Paul did not
have a direct commandment regarding it; he only spoke as a
spiritual man would come to understand it. For the translators of
the NIV to miss this
understanding and then come across with their own commandment
against it, shows they are not qualified to bring us God's commands
in general, lacking the understanding of a spiritual man.
If we want to select our main Bible with at least as strict
criteria as used for a bishop, then by I Timothy 3, we'd
have to select a Bible that was "given to hospitality" as well as
"apt to teach." The KJV is
often faulted for not being apt to teach, being hard to understand,
but it comes through nicely on given to hospitality. The
second commandment is that we love our neighbors as
ourselves. Choosing a Bible that is easy to understand is how
we love ourselves, but picking one that gives hospitable renderings
is how we love others. I appreciate the use of the hospitable
version when apropos.
There is one place where the NIV tags itself for being
inhospitable. Among the KJV, RSV, ASV, NIV only the NIV in I Corinthians 7 tells
a widow that she must remarry only to someone belonging to the
Lord; the others just say she must do it in the Lord. It
seems to me that it would be inhospitable for any group one joins
up with to force a woman to break up with her fiancé of nine
years. That's how I once saw the NIV used.
I don't think one has the authority of Paul to do so. I mean,
he clearly tells us the mixed marriages are sanctified, and then if
he makes some general statement that a widow is to remarry only in
the Lord, well, he expected the people he wrote to understand it,
perhaps from their earlier letter to him (which we don't have) or
perhaps by their own circumstance, which we might at most apply to
ours. When he told them in II Corinthians not to be
unequally yoked, again, he expected them to understand it from
their familiarity with yoked oxen working together. If some
later Christians take those two letters and put them together into
a Bible and then use the second letter as a context for the first—which
is what the NIV
translators did in their interpretive rendering—, then that does
not come from apostolic authority and it's inhospitable.
That's actually my main concern, and when I see the NIV being used to support sermons, it
looks like the fox guarding the chickens.
Its [KJV] relations to the English language
are, for a variety of reasons more important than those of any
other volume; and it may be said, with no less truth, that no
Continental translation has occupied an equally influential
position in the philology and the literature of the language to
which it belongs. The English Bible has been more universally
read, more familiarly known and understood, by those who use its
speech, than any other version, old or new.17
In taking the KJV over other
versions, especially the NIV,
I go roughly by the qualifications of a bishop
(I Timothy 3) as can be applied to collections of
writings, a Bible version. "A bishop then must be blameless."
The version must be doctrinally sound, of course, blameless.
The King James Version has a good reputation in this respect.
One place where I don't go along with the NIV, minor in significance, is the
name of Barnabas, as I think Son of Consolation [KJV] gives a better example of
preaching style than what the other versions render it. A friend's
given me a list of differences between the KJV and the NIV that his daughter used to convince
her Ass'y of God church to return
to the KJV from the NIV. It's probably a more
serious list than my example.
"The husband of one wife." The Bible is married to the culture in
which it was produced, which is no reason not to take it seriously,
witness the lesson of Miriam and Aaron murmuring against Moses
because of his wife. If my culture says the seat of the soul
is the heart and another culture says it's the belly, and we make
a multicultural translation that says David was a man whom God
could stomach, it's lost something in the translation.
International Bibles should not be our major authority.
"Vigilant." That's a quality the paraphrases lack in translating
their material, and to their credit they tell Christians not to use
them as their main Bible.
"Sober." Bible translation is to be a serious enterprise if the
fruits are going to be respected as ultimately authoritative. I
recall a chess match with a worthy opponent who lost because he was
both blindfolded and drunk. To undertake the translation of God's
Book without his involvement, without his Spirit, is like
translating blind: it can be done if you're good enough. But if
Satan is trying to mess you up at the same time, it's like being
drunk besides.
"Of good behavior." That's why it's called the Good Book, and if
a translation doesn't rate that appellation, we don't need to
highly regard it.
"Given to hospitality." The Gideons have left countless KJV (and perhaps others) Bibles out at
hotels and motels. Some version locked away in some library
only accessible to scholars is not the one for us.
"Apt to teach." The main criticism I hear of the King James
Version, but I think the difficulty is overrated; it's not that
hard, and besides, this isn't the only criterion on the list; there
are plenty more that the other versions would have to live up to.
"Not given to wine." Ah, take a little wine for thy stomach's
often infirmities, Timothy. If a translation allowed too much
boozing, though, we'd have to devalue it.
"No striker." Here I believe this means a Bible version that's
ultimately authoritative is not to be one put out by some
denomination or other to take cheap shots at promoting their
particular viewpoint. That's why the advantage of a mixed
group of translators to guard against it, although a rightly
motivated single translator could still succeed here. The New
International Version, fails this test: "Edwin Palmer was the
"coordinator of all work on the NIV"18
and "selected all of the
personnel of the initial translation committee."19
He also edited
the NIV Study Bible
which Zondervan says includes the "liberal position."20
"Not greedy of filthy lucre." The major motivation of an
acceptably authoritative Bible should not be the financial success
of its publisher. New versions can only be profitable if the
publisher has a copyright and copyrights are given only if a work
is substantially different from other works.
"But patient." Good authoritative versions come about over a long
process.
"Not a brawler." It should not encourage militant
applications. The NIV
fails this, of all tests, in (Revelation 13:10) "If anyone
is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone
is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be
killed." That turns the traditional reading into a tautology
and a carte blanche for a militant group to do its thing.
If he can't take care of his house, he can't rule the church.
The NIV mistakes whom a
Christian may marry, so I can't trust it on spiritual matters.
"Not a novice." That rules out all the "New Whatever"
versions.
"Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without."
The KJV is most highly
regarded. On talk radio they call the NIV "The New Idiot's Version."
I have such problems with a high place for the NIV.
Now, the internet sites I've visited concerned with Bible versions
have not employed the bishop qualification list, but nevertheless
use some of the same criteria.
"www.reformation.org/james.html
(3)...All modern bibles are © copyright. Under the copyright laws
you are supposed to get permission from the author or publisher
before you quote anything but a brief excerpt. ... Imagine
asking the Lord for permission before you quote His Word. The
authors of new bibles have ONE thing in the back of their minds
... "FILTHY LUCRE." The NIV copyright holder is Rupert
Murdock.......the tabloid king!"
I was reading an autobiography of a woman who'd married a
Mormon. Part of the condition of her divorce was that she was
to write to their bishops detailing her sexual experiences both
before her marriage and after her divorce. She finally wrote
and told them she was a virgin when she married, faithful during
her marriage, and abstinent afterwards. I have a real
question in my mind why those bishops needed to know the details of
a divorcee's sexual experiences.
I think that as an authority our Bibles (esp. KJV) do well to tell the widow wishing
to remarry that she may do so "only in the Lord." Evidently some
widows were remarrying for wanton reasons, but the Bible leaves it
up to us to figure out the details of "only in the Lord," which I
think we're quite capable of.
J.B. Phillips expands on the concept to say, let her be guided
by the Lord. I've nothing in particular against the Lord's
guidance, but I think that "only in the Lord" has other
dimensions. Our last James Dobson insert in our bulletin gave
us a warning example of a precipitous marriage based on an
intuitive leading, a leading such as might be overly encouraged by
Phillips. I wouldn't use Phillips for a general teaching in
this area, but if I knew a couple open to modern versions about to
marry blissfully unaware of the requirements, I might use Phillips
to get them to seek guidance through counsel. It would be a
judgment call. However, I think marriages have been made in
the Lord without either party feeling a particular inspiration from
God to select each other.
We are given the consolation in (Rev. 13:9,10) "If any man have
an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go
into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with
the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the
saints." I believe Jesus explained the concept to Peter
(Matt. 26:52, John 18:11)
"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his
place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword. The cup which my father hath given me, shall I not
drink it?" Jesus took his cup; we bear our crosses likewise
and lay off violence because that brings its own retribution.
The NIV remakes it to read,
"If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will
go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword
he will be killed." Those are tautologies.21
The word is sometimes applied to identical propositions
such as 'I don't like my tea too hot'; for such statements see the
truism section of COMMONPLACE. A truism in
the strict sense is a statement in which the predicate gives no
information about the subject that is not implicit in the
definition of the subject itself. What is right ought to be
done; since the right is definable as that which
ought to be done, this means What ought to be done ought
to be done, i.e. it
is a disguised identical proposition.
The NIV tautologies are a
setup for violence. But that's not the aspect I'm
considering, but that their departure from logic here and stirring
up the emotions in the other situation mentioned about the widow's
marriage are the hallmarks of the tabloid.
Rupert Murdock the tabloid king knows the formula for (monetary)
success, and the horse he's backed is such a winner. Of
course, following a tabloid line of approach, the NIV has a good readership, because
that's what tabloids strive for is readership at all costs.
It's that popularity among the young that induces ministers to
adopt the New International Version in their preaching, but that
popularity is due to tabloid formulas.
I feel that the continued use of a certain Bible version implies it
has a lot of authority, so that it should be subject at least to
the criteria used to recognize a bishop, to the extent it can be
applied to such writings. Jerry gave me his list of problem
verses in the NIV; he also
loaned me his book on the subject which you could order if you're
interested. The fact that he's reading such material
indicates some question about the NIV, so I'll pass along his list with
my letter.
The criterion I'm addressing is that a bishop, and by
implication a Bible, is to be blameless; it's got to be a faithful
translation from reliable manuscripts of canonical books.
There is much literature having far more serious objections to the
NIV than mine, but I'll pass
mine along for what they're worth.
For me the words of a song22
have such exquisite symbols:
Pitter-patter, don't ya flatter
me with words. I see your eyes.
Clock is mockin'. You've been rockin'.
Tickin'-tockin' with the guys.
Don't look away or try to tell me
that you're mine. You'd sooner sell me
up the river in a shot glass
fulla' gin fizz and lies ...
Taking the lines one at a time, "Pitter-patter, don't ya flatter me
with words." The hype for and the introductions to the new
versions flatter themselves regarding their ability to communicate
clearly the truth of God's word:
At the intersection of Bible Boulevard,
Madi$on Avenue and Wall $treet, there are many crooked turns of the
truth. Advertising campaigns create a cloud of confusion,
calling the KJV "obscure,
confusing and sometimes incomprehensible," while they crown the
NIV's "clarity
and ease of reading" and the NASB's "contemporary English." Christians are
coerced by full color ads written to color the plain facts by advertising,
not English majors.23
That doesn't work on me. Though not an English major, I studied
English at one of the best high schools in the country, got an
engineering degree from a college with a reputation for teaching us
how to write a good engineering report, and have tutored
international students in English.
"I see your eyes." I went to a Chinese church for years where the
sermon was given in Chinese with an English translation. That
means when the Bible was quoted the preacher would give the
reference, then read it in Chinese and the translator follow
reading from the NIV. While
the preacher was reading the Chinese Bible, I'd read my King James
and then compare it to the NIV when the translator read
that. I know there's something deficient with the NIV the same way that fellow knows
something's not right with his girl when he looks in her eyes, and
no amount of flattery changes that knowledge.
"Clock is mockin'. You've been rockin'./ Tickin'-tockin' with
the guys."
The transition from the Authorized King
James Bible to a recent version is usually based on the contention
that the KJV is old and
difficult to understand. The real gap is one of distance
between God and man, not a lapse between us and 'Father
Time.'24
Clock is mockin'. They say they're updating the English
dialect but end up updating God's word.
Tickin'-tockin' with the guys. I don't think the guy
felt any consolation that she was unfaithful with several men
rather than one; neither do I feel any relief that such a version
was corrupted by a committee rather than an individual.
"Don't look away or try to tell me that you're mine. You'd
sooner sell me up the river in a shot glass fulla' gin fizz and lies ..." The girl
was trying to mix him up, whence the symbol of the mixed
drink. I feel the same about the NIV. Some passages of the Bible
have been crucial to me, what my Christian lifestyle is to
be. Girls I date, and presumably might marry some day, should
be dated "in the Lord" which has a meaning different from dating
only Christians. I should be patient in the face of violence
and not resort to it myself. And in street preaching I need
to consider Barnabas the son of consolation and not encourage
unfruitful confrontations. While I'm trying to work out what
the Bible says, these churches have been preaching a mixed-up
version where Paul contradicts himself first saying a mixed
marriage is sanctified and then telling us not to enter one, where
Barnabas gets a name change from what we've always known him as,
and where an important statement regarding the sword is made into
a tautology. Because that would interfere with my biblical
examples and sayings guiding my life, I'd say I was being sold up
the river, being mixed up by newer versions.
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