A New Hearing for the Authorized Version
by Theodore P. Letis, Ph.D.
Back Cover of
printed Sola Scriptura Publications reprint: After many years of training
and research, the author concludes that “keeping in consideration both the
divine and the human aspects of the Bible, the Authorized Version should be
retained in the churches, in Bible studies, and in the classroom, because of
the superiority of its Greek text, translation, and English usage; and because
it is a link with our past as well as a unifying factor for the present.” In a
day of confusion, misinformation, and misrepresentation about an extremely
important issue, this short but scholar work does what the title states—it
provides a new hearing for the Authorized Version of the Bible.
Copyright 1997, 1978, Theodore
P. Letis
Reprinted by Sola Scriptura Ministries with the kind permission of the author.
About the Author
The author is director of the Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies. He is past president of the University of Edinburgh Theological Society and is currently a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion, and the American Society of Church History.
Dr. Theodore P. Letis has a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in ecclesiastical history and an honors M.T.S. (magna cum laude) from Emory University in American church history. He has completed graduate studies at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, and Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and has a B.A. in history and Biblical studies from Evangel College with additional undergraduate studies at Southwest Missouri State University.
He is editor and contributor
to The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate
(1987), and author of The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority
and the Popular Mind” (1997) and From Sacred Text to Religious Text: An
Intellectual History of the Impact of Lower Criticism on Dogma
(forthcoming). He is also author of a documentary script titled Eclipse of
the Sacred, which will be accompanied by a popular manual and a CD-ROM
program by the same title.
For more copies and other publications, write to:
The Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies
6417 N. Fairhill,
Philadelphia, PA 19126
Web site: http://www.kuyper.org/thetext/
Introduction
Twentieth-century man is a
manipulated creature. The merchandisers of the world have conditioned him to
believe that he must have variety and multiple choice for everything from toothpaste
to gravestones. He has reached the point that if he does not have several
options to choose from he feels forced upon by some authority other than his
own freedom of choice. No dimension of life is sacrosanct, including religion.
Not only do we have a religion (or denomination) for every conceivable
disposition, but now we have Bibles to suit any temperament. If you have not
seen one that you like yet, wait awhile; it will arrive. I find that I can
tolerate most of this multiplicity of variety except when it comes to the
Bible, and that is because I cannot seem to make it all fit with my idea of a
“final authority” (for all matters of faith and practice). Perhaps my problem
is that I take the issue too seriously.
Nevertheless, I have made a comparison of the English
Bibles published from 1525 (Tyndale’s) to the present, 1978 (New International
Version, first edition), with a view to the New Testament specifically, and
have arrived at the following conclusion: keeping in consideration both the divine
and the human aspects of the Bible, the Authorized Version (which shall
hereafter be referred to as A.V. or King James Version) should be
retained in the churches, in Bible studies, and in the classroom, because of
the superiority of its Greek text, translation, and English usage; and because
it is a link with our past as well as a unifying factor for the present.
Keeping in mind both the human
and the divine aspects of the Bible the first area we will examine is that of
the Greek text.
The Scrolls and the Parchments
One of the most prevailing
criticisms of the A.V. is that it was produced before we had the advantage of
recent manuscript discoveries [American Bible Society, “Why So Many Bibles?” (New York: American
Bible Society, 1968), p. 5]. For example, it was not until the late
nineteenth century that scholars took full advantage of two of the oldest New
Testament manuscripts, Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, both of the fourth
century [Ibid,
p. 15].
In spite of the antiquity of
these two documents, however, some scholars believe they are edited copies
because they differ from the majority of the rest of the manuscripts. Moreover,
they differ from one another in over 3,000 places in the gospels alone [H. C. Hoskier's Codex B
and Its Allies: A Study and an Indictment, vol. I (London: Bernard
Quaritch, 1914), p. vi]. John William Burgon, a scholar who personally
examined these two “old” documents, characterized them as follows:
We suspect that these two
Manuscripts are indebted for their preservation, solely to their ascertained
evil character; which has occasioned that the one eventually found its way,
four centuries ago, to a forgotten shelf in the Vatican library: while the
other, after exercising the ingenuity of several generations of critical
Correctors, eventually (viz. in A.D. 1844) got deposited in the waste-paper
basket of the Convent at the foot of Mount Sinai. Had B and א been copies
of average purity, they must long since have shared the inevitable fate of
books which are freely USED and highly prized; namely, they would have fallen
into decadence and disappeared from sight. But in the meantime, behold, their
very Antiquity has come to be reckoned to their advantage [John W. Burgon, The
Revision Revised, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1885), p. 319].
Burgon had good reason for
doubting the reliability of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, if only because they
differed so radically from the majority of the manuscripts. It was on the
majority that the AN. was based, which thus assured it of the greatest possible
accuracy, until the discovery of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. In what ways do
these two ancient documents differ from the majority? It can be summed up in
one word: omissions-close to five thousand altogether [Wilbur N. Pickering, The
Identity of the New Testament Text (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1977),
p. 16].
Although it has been continuously asserted that none of these omissions (and
other alterations) affect doctrine, the following examples seem to indicate
otherwise:
1 Tim. 3:16
The Authorized Version
reads: “God was manifest in the flesh.”
Sinaiticus (Vaticanus is
missing this portion) reads: “. . . Who was manifest in the flesh.”
Colossians 1:14
The Authorized Version
reads: “In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins.”
While Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
read: “In Whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins” (“through
His blood” omitted).
Luke 2:33
The Authorized Version
reads: “And Joseph and His mother marveled.”
While Vaticanus and Sinaiticus
read: “And His Father and His mother. . .”
This latter variant is of no
small significance in light of a recent book titled The Illegitimacy of
Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives
(1987). Here Professor Schaberg argues that Jesus was, as the title of her book
makes clear, illegitimately born to Mary and Joseph and that it was Luke’s
intention to demonstrate that “This child will be holy because the Holy Spirit
will come upon his mother, and she will experience divine protection and
empowerment even in a situation deemed unholy [Jane Schaberg, “The Illegitimacy
of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives” (San
Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1987), p. 125]. Moreover,
“The process of gradual
Christian erasure of the tradition [of Jesus’ illegitimacy] began here in the
gospels, as the evangelists attempted to minimize the potential damage of the
tradition and maximize its power. The tradition became a subtext, difficult to
read” [Ibid., p. 195].
In other words, later
Christians altered this truth of Jesus’s illegitimacy by turning it into a
virginal birth, but the earlier manuscripts, such as Codices Vaticanus,
Sinaiticus (and Bezae), which read “His father and His mother,” still suggest
remnants of the original tradition. We can see here how such small alterations
in the text can have profound implications for theology.
Some of the other lengthy
passages omitted by these documents are as follows:
John 7:53-8:11 (The entire
account of the woman taken in adultery, 12 verses in all.)
John 5:3,4 (The account of the
angel troubling the water.)
Mark 16:9-20 (12 verses in all
recounting the Resurrection and the Ascension.)
It will be asked why are these
manuscripts so highly regarded if they lack so much that has been traditionally
regarded as Scripture? Most scholars will answer that antiquity must be
regarded as the highest priority [Sir Fredric Kenyon, “Our Bible and the
Ancient Manuscripts,” 5th ed. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958), p. 3].
In effect, the criterion of ANTIQUITY alone has prevailed over the MAJORITY,
and today all modern versions from 1881 on (with the rare exception of “The
21st Century King James Version,” which I shall address shortly), either are
based on, or have reference to, these two manuscripts (and some kindred
papyri), even though they seriously conflict with the majority, and each other.
Dean Burgon (1883) had the following to say concerning the advocates of this
new textual theory:
“They [Westcott and Hort]
exalt B [Vaticanus] and Aleph [Sinaiticus] . . . because in their own opinions
those copies are the best. They weave ingenious webs, and invent subtle
theories, because their paradox of a few against the many requires ingenuity
and subtlety for its suppor”t [W. MacLean, “The Providential Preservation of
the Greek Text of the New Testament,” 3rd ed. (Gisborne, NX: Westminster
Standard Publications, 1977), p. 11].
There were other men along
with Burgon who never lost sight of the divine aspect of the book and who
realized that, though an open mind should be kept with regard to new manuscript
discoveries, they were not ready to “take away from the words of the book” so
quickly. They wanted to wait until all the evidence was in. There were others who
wanted the Bible updated immediately according to the findings. Two such men
were Bishop B. F. Westcott and F.J. A. Hort.
The Revised Version of 1881-83
Westcott and Hort were the
leading force on a revision committee formed in 1879 to update the AN. by
ridding it of obsolete words and by correcting “plain and clear errors” [’F. F.
Bruce, “The English Bible”, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970),
p. 139]. In fact, they were given eight general rules to follow, one of which
was “to introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the A.V.
consistently with faithfulness” [Ibid., p. 137]. This principle, however, was
stretched to its limit-some would say it was actually violated-when the revised
Greek text Westcott and Hort had been conjointly constructing for nearly twenty
years was introduced to the revision committee, a section at a time. It was a
text revised to the standard of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. Burgon, who had not
been invited to work on the committee and so had some degree of detachment, had
a few words to say about this switching of Greek texts which has subsequently
affected nearly every translation to date:
“Shame, -- yes, SHAME on that
two-thirds majority of well intentioned but most incompetent men who, --
finding themselves (in an evil hour) appointed to correct “PLAIN AND CLEAR
ERRORS” in the English “Authorized Version, “ -- occupied themselves instead
with FALSIFYING THE INSPIRED GREEK TEXT in countless places, and branding with
suspicion some of the most precious utterances of the Spirit! Shame, yes, SHAME
upon them!” [Burgon, “The Revision Revised”, p. 135].
Westcott’s and Hort’s type of
Greek text has prevailed in Bible translation work to the present day. Since
their time, however, we have had an opportunity to take a closer look at the
materials at hand; and as a result, some scholars are now starting to return to
the type of Greek text on which the AN. was based.”
[On this point consult H. C.
Hoskier’s “Codex B and ItsAllies: A Study and an Indictment”, 2 vols. (London:
Bernard Quaritch, 1914), wherein he has a dedication which reads as follows:
“This essay is respectfully dedicated to the next body of revisers in the hope
that it may prove of some service to them.” In the wake of this seminal work
see more recently, Wilbur N. Pickering, “The ldentity of the New Testament
Text” (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 1977); Jakob Van Bruggen, “The Ancient
Text of the New Testament” (Winnipeg: Premier Printing, 1976); Brevard Childs,
“The New Testament as Canon” (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), “Excursus
I”, pp. 518-530; and my own “The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical
Authority and the Popular Mind” (Institute for Renaissance and Reformation
Biblical Studies, 1997).]
Biblical English
With regard to English usage,
the A.V. has been both praised and scorned; praised for the power and beauty of
its language; scorned because that language is regarded as “archaic.” The best
defense for the language of the A.V., however, is a professional appraisal of
the state of today’s English, and for that we turn to remarks made by George
Orwell:
“Most people who bother with
the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it
is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it .
. . [B]ut an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and
producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely . . .
[I]t is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It
becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the
slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts”
[George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” in Readings For Writers,
ed. JoRay McCuen and Anthony C. Winkler (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc., 1977), p. 299].
Americans are particularly
susceptible to this criticism because of the ubiquitous influences of
consumerist slogans and the national past-time of creating jargon and
euphemisms in the business world and in popular journalism. What might this say
for the argument that the Scriptures, with their regal thoughts and concepts,
should be wrestled down from heavenly plateaus and made to speak through a
language that is “ugly and inaccurate”? What would the effects be on those
concepts as a result? Perhaps Kenneth Taylor’s Living Bible will serve as a
fair example:
I Samuel 20:30: “You son of a
bitch!” [This was actually altered in later editions because of the storm of
protest it precipitated].
1 Kings 18:27: “Perhaps he is
talking to someone or else is out sitting on the toilet.”
Should we not want to infuse
contemporary English with a slightly higher form of expression, such as is
found in the AN.? Pierson Parker noted in his insightful essay, “In Praise of
1611,” that
“it may well be that the
flaccidity and banality of much twentieth-century English stems from the fact
that people today do not know the Bible, the 1611 Bible, as their forefathers
did. Yet we long for a fuller command of English among college and university
graduates” [Pierson Parker, “In Praise of 1611,” Anglican Theological Review 3
(July 1964), pp. 251-60].
Some will reply, “that is an
artificial approach; no one can be expected to go backward; besides, when the
Bible was originally written it was in the language of the day.” Woodrow W.
Hill would reply that
“While the original language
of the New Testament was conversational in nature, the truths communicated were
elevated and spiritual. For this reason it seems inappropriate to many for the
vehicle used in conveying these sacred truths to have too much of the smell of
the mundane upon it” [Broadman Press, “What Bible Can You Trust?” (Nashville:
Broadman Press, 1974), pp. 99-100. Moreover, it would seem that even the well
repeated slogan that the New Testament was written in , street language” has
been called into question since the days of Deissmann (1866-1937), who first
popularized this notion, as we will see under sections dealing with translation
philosophy, “utilitarian” and “theological”].
I hear someone else responding
with “Yes, but even the A.V. was in contemporary language in its day!” This is
another of those popular misconceptions, I’m sorry to say, used by modern Bible
publishers to legitimize whatever version they are pushing onto the market.
According to Dr. Edward F. Hills, an authority on the A.V.,
“The English of the King James
Version is not the English of the early 17th century. To be exact, it is not a
type of English that was ever spoken anywhere. It is Biblical English, which
was not used on ordinary occasions even by the translators who produced the
King James Version. As H. Wheeler Robinson (1940) pointed out, one need only
compare the preface written by the translators with the text of their
translation to feel the difference in style . . . The King James Version . . .
owes its merit not to 17th-century English -- which was very different -- but
to its faithful translation of the original . . . its style is that of the
Hebrew and of the New Testament Greek” [Edward F. Hills, “The King James
Version Defended”, 4th ed. (Des Moines: The Christian Research Press, 1973), p.
218].
To me that seems to say that
the A.V. is in one sense timeless, and as such, cannot be rightly called
archaic. One last
response, however, to the
sincere advocates of “the Bible in the language of the people”:
“Again it is sheer accident,
and wholly artificial, that Elizabethan language should be associated in the
public mind with worship-just as it is accident and artifice that make us
think’church’when we see gothic architecture. But legitimate or not, the
association has been made and is a fact of our life. Even the R.S.V. and N.E.B.
translators, when they come to hymns and prayers, revert to the ‘Thee’s’ and
‘Thou’s’ of yestercentury. The question is by no means frivolous: if, as R.S.V.
and N.E.B. testify, the tongue of Elizabeth is proper for hymns and prayers,
why is it not proper for all Scripture reading in the churches?” [Pierson
Parker, “In Praise of 1611,” pp. 251-60].
As for the overall difficulty
of Elizabethan English, this is also a popular fallacy born of a scornful age.
Dr. Rudolf Flesch, one of the leading authorities on readable writing, has
shown that the difficulty of any reading material can be gauged by the number
of affixes per hundred words. For example,
“the average reader standard
of 37 is important to know. The best example of very easy prose (about 20
affixes per 100 words) is the King James Version of the Bible: literary writing
tends to be fairly difficult; scientific prose is very difficult. This book has
on the average per 100 words, 33 affixes” [Rudolf Flesch, “The Art of Plain
Talk” (New York: Harper & Brothers Publisher, 1946), p. 43.].
Incidentally, a good example
of a Bible that tends to be “difficult” for the average reader is the modern
“New English Bible” (1961-70). Terence H. Brown noted that
“In many places the homely
Anglo-Saxon words [in the KJV] have been displaced by stilted Latinisms, and
simple expressions exchanged for more difficult ones. Typical examples are: --
machinations (lying in wait), anxious to ingratiate (willing to do the Jews’
pleasure), beneficent work (grace), indefatigable in confuting (mightily
convinced), arrogates (takes), inscribed (written), extirpate (destroy).
Outstanding examples of pompous pedantry are to be found in I Tim. 4:3
‘inculcating abstinence’; I Tim. 6:4 ‘pompous ignoramus’; James 3:8
‘intractable evil’ [Terence H. Brown, “The New English Bible” 1961-1970
(London: The Trinitarian Bible Society, 1970), pp. 1-2].
It appears that the popular
notions that the A.V. is difficult because it is OLD, while modern versions
tend to be easy because they are contemporary, are both fallacious.
Thees and Thous
The issue of specific
archaisms in the A.V. is one that has been abundantly over-labored but should
be addressed. Though more may exist, Hills offers only seventeen serious
examples of words which have changed meaning since 1611 [Hills, “The King James
Version”, pp. 217-218]. Nevertheless, almost every modern version justifies its
existence on the basis of these archaisms; and certainly it must be admitted
that there is something to be said for updating obsolete words. Why is it,
though, that we do not feel such a compulsion with regard to Shakespeare’s
works? The answer is probably that while all should be literate in Shakespeare,
there are probably many who never will be. But Holy Scripture should be made as
accessible as possible, to all levels of literacy. Hence, the recent appearance
of a masterful updated edition of the classic A.V. now allows anyone with a
desire to use the old Anglican Bible to do so, less the archaisms. The “21st
Century King James Version” is an exact reproduction of the A.V. with accurate,
modern equivalents for all the several archaisms found throughout its last
revision [”The 21st Century King James Version” (Gary, South Dakota: 21st
Century King James Bible Publishers, 1994). Moreover, this edition has not
attempted to amend the underlying Greek and Hebrew texts of the A.V., as other
modern publishers have done]. The complaint of difficult archaisms is no longer
available for those who want to impatiently dismiss this sacred classic.
Moreover, there is actually an
advantage to the antiquated pronouns that modern translation advocates are
either uninformed about, or else rather quiet regarding. Late in the twentieth
century, Thomas Nelson, knowing a market when they saw one, made an attempt to
update the old workhorse of both high church liturgists, as well as low church
fundamentalists, but also gave way like the “Revised Version” before it, this
time in the Old Testament text, and by ditching the Tyndalian/Elizabethan
second person singular/plural distinctions (i.e., the thees and thous) in their
“’New’ King James Bible”. Dr. Mikre-Sellassie, a United Bible Societies
translation consultant, rehearsed in an article he wrote for “The Bible
Translator” in April of 1988 (pp. 230 -237), why the “thees” and “thous” cannot
be dispensed with in good conscience. While many marketing-types think these
terms are the shibboleth by which consumers will judge whether a Bible is
“modern” or not (while trying to make up their minds at the shelf of their
local religious bookstore), it is no justification for erasing the important
grammatical function these terms actually fulfill. I shall let him speak in his
own voice:
“Translators, and especially
those in common language projects, may find it strange and surprising to hear a
consultant recommending use of the King James Version for translation . . . The
archaic English pronouns of the KJV distinguish number in the second person
pronoun in all cases, as shown in [the accompanying] table. Thus the KJV can
certainly render an important service to those translators who do not have any
knowledge of the source languages of the Bible and therefore work only from an
English base, in easily distinguishing between “you singular” and “you plural”
[Ammanuel Mikre-Sellassic, “Problems in Translating Pronouns From English
Versions,” “The Bible Translator” vol. 39 (April 1988): pp. 230-237].
|
Person |
Singular |
Plural |
|
1st Person |
I |
We |
|
2nd Person |
Thou Thee Thy Thine |
Ye You Your |
|
3rd Person |
Masculine Feminine
Neuter He She It |
They |
Hence, it is impossible to
communicate this important grammatical point without Elizabethan/Biblical
English terms, as found in the A.V. and as retained in the KJ21.
The “Language of the People”?
We will now illustrate the
fragmentation that has occurred as a result of so many “Bibles in the language
of the people,” vying to replace the A.V. and thus assume the monopoly of which
it alone could once boast. I hope this will also demonstrate the fallacy of
trying to ascertain just what is the “language of the people.”
The following quotations are
from the book “What Bible Can You Trust?”, which supplies a brief description
of the purpose for which several of the more important modern Bibles have been
published. Though most of them give more reasons, all of them give the
following:
The New Testament in Modern
Speech, by Weymouth, 1903:
“To consider how it could be
most accurately and naturally exhibited in the English of the present day”
[Broadman Press, “What Bible”, p. 39].
Centenary Translation of the
N.T., by Montgomery, 1924:
“ . . . to make a translation
chiefly designed for the ordinary reader . . .” [Ibid., p. 40].
The Bible: A New Translation,
by Moffatt, 1926:
“The aim I have endeavoured to
keep before my mind in making this translation has been to present the books .
. . in effective, intelligible English . . .” [Ibid., p. 41].
The New Testament, An American
Translation, by Goodspeed, 1923:
“ . . . those facts were
adequate reasons for a new translation . . . put in the familiar language of
today” [Ibid., p. 42].
The New Testament in the
Language of the People, by Dr. Charlie B. Williams, 1937:
“Dr. Williams . . . felt a
need to produce a translation which would be as understandable to modern
English readers as the original Greek text was to the reader of the first
century” [Ibid., p. 43].
Revised Standard Version,
1952:
“A common slogan associated
with the first publicity was, ‘the Word of Life in Living Language’” [Ibid., p.
48].
Today’s English Version, 1966:
“This translation . . . came
in response to repeated proposals that a translation be made that would be
understood by anyone who reads English . . . “ [Ibid., p. 65].
The New English Bible, 1970:
“We aim at a version which
shall be as intelligible to contemporary readers as the original . . .” [Ibid.,
p. 70]
New American Standard Version,
197 1:
“. . . to make the translation
in a fluent and readable style according to current English usage” [Ibid., p.
76].
The Living Bible Paraphrased,
by Ken Taylor, 1971:
“Ken Taylor has . . . made the
Bible readable” [Ibid., p. 81]
“The New International
Version”, 1973:
“Opinions were garnered from
men of wide and diverse theological and denominational backgrounds. The
consensus was that, in spite of the fine features of many translations, there
was a need for an up-to-date translation [!] . . . “ [Ibid., p. 84].
Let us at this point invoke a
little common sense and logic into the discussion. These, of course, are only a
few of the major versions, but the reader is left with one of three conclusions
after reading the “raison d’tre” for each of these modern editions: (1) all
previous attempts at putting the Bible into the language of the people have
failed, thus prompting continuous attempts; (2) our language has been changing
so fast that we need a new translation every few years to keep up with it; or
(3) there are other factors that prompt one to make a translation of the Bible,
which, when discovered, will explain why we have become inundated with modern
Bibles.
Once one gets free of
advertising slogans, two factors suddenly materialize offering insight as to
what has prompted such a torrent of Bibles “in the language of the people”:
first, a low regard for Scripture as a sacred text; and second, the economic
determinism that governs free enterprise, which then enters to exploit the
first point.
Concerning the first point, we
refer to C. S. Lewis’s work “The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version”, in
which he demonstrates that the movement to regard the Bible “as literature”
arose from the era of Romanticism, the result of which negated any view of the
Bible as a sacred text. It was this prevailing view of “the Bible as
literature” that led some to try their hand at rendering a new translation “in
the language of the people,” thus assuring for themselves a sort of immortality
through their work.
The second factor, that of
economic determinism, is probably the more significant of the two
considerations. Paul told Timothy “The love of money” was the root of all evil,
and I suppose Marx had a better grasp of this truth than most Christians have.
Unfortunate as it may be, the economic factor is a strong incentive to any
publisher to consider the guaranteed returns of publishing a Bible. It is
common knowledge that since the invention of printing, the Bible has virtually
dominated the field as the best seller of all time. Cunniff, an Associated
Press business analyst put it this way:
“In the cold, hard, material
world of book selling, there is nothing like the Bible. The Word sells like
nothing else. It beats sex, diet, money, and fad books. It has no equal year
after year [John Cunniff, Associated Press Release: “Bible Still the Best
Seller,” 1976].
It can almost be predicted
that, just by publishing a “New Bible” and getting some well-known evangelical
or academic to endorse it, one will insure a considerable profit. A case in
point is Ken Taylor’s Living Bible. Since the publication of this paraphrased
version, as early as 1976 Taylor had sold well over twenty-three million copies
and formed his own major publishing company (Tyndale House Publishing) [Ibid].
Further examples could be
shown, such as the economic success story of a small regional religious
publisher, Zondervan. Soon after publishing the New International Version, it
became a part of the massive conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, of which
Harper and Row, and Collins are just a part [For just a glimpse of Murdoch’s
power as a media mogul, see Henry Porter’s interesting analysis, “The Keeper of
the Global Gate,” “The Guardian”, Tuesday, 29 October 1996, pp. 2-5].
Enough has been established,
however, to make clear that these two factors, the Bible treated as literature,
and economic considerations, will insure that there will be no end to new
“Bibles in the language of the people.”
Historical Ethos: The Forgotten Factor
Concerning translation, it
seems the AN. has had more than its share of criticism. It has become fair
game, and open season declared, for every first-year Greek student to display
his command of Greek grammar by pointing out so-called “inaccurate
translations” in the A.V. I suppose this is to be anticipated since the
temptation to correct a 385 year-old document must be more than some can
resist. There is, however, a quaint anecdote that illustrates the truth that “a
little learning is a dangerous thing.” Dr. Kilbye, on one of the translating
committees for the A.V., went to a Sunday morning service and heard a young preacher
waste a great amount of his sermon time criticizing several words in the
then-recent translation. The preacher meticulously illustrated with three
reasons why he felt a particular Greek word should have been rendered
differently. Later that evening, the preacher and Dr. Kilbye, who were
strangers, were invited together to a meal. Dr. Kilbye took this opportunity to
tell the preacher that he could have used his time more profitably. He then
explained how the translators had very carefully considered the “three reasons”
given in the sermon, but were constrained by thirteen more weighty reasons for
translating the word the way they did.
This is a good opportunity to
point out that in the seventeenth century, scholarship had reached no mean
attainment. Lancelot Andrews, one of the translators (at home in fifteen modern
languages, not to mention his command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac,
and Arabic), spent the greater part of five hours a day in prayer. John Boys,
another on the translating committee, spent sixteen hours a day studying Greek.
It must be remembered, there were not the enemies of learning to contend with
in those days, such as television, radio, telephone, or jet travel for trips to
the Holy Land. All spare time for these men was consumed with learning.
John Alfred Faulkner noted
that these translators also, “had a deeply religious spirit which was
thoroughly in rapport with the sacred text, and could therefore reproduce in
print its wonderful spiritual atmosphere” [John Alfred Faulkner, “English Bible
Translations,” Biblical Review Quarterly (April 1924): pp. 199-231]. The unique
historical and cultural setting that gave birth to this translation, when
compared with the technocratic-secularism of much of modern western culture, is
a consideration which must not be lightly dismissed as incidental. Again,
Faulkner observes:
“In 1611 the civilization of
England was saturated with religion, not with science. Everybody thought and
talked theology. ‘Theology rules there’ wrote Grotius of England in 1613.
Religion and culture were then firm friends . . . The whole moral effect which
is produced nowadays by religious newspaper, tract, essay, lecture, missionary
report, sermon, was then produced by the Bible alone [Ibid].
I am not, of course, arguing
from these facts that the A.V. could never be improved. (Herman C. Hoskier, the
coadjutor of Burgon, could find only one point in his essay “The Authorized
Version of 1611,” Bibliotheca Sacra 68 [October 1911]: 693-707, that he felt
even deserved mentioning)” [It appears that at least at one point the
translators retained a creative, proto-dynamic equivalent translation left over
from Tyndale’s edition, e.g. “Easter” for the Greek “pascha,” Acts 12:4. On
this see the helpful treatment found in the “Quarterly Review” vol. 470
January-March 1980): pp. 15-16]. Rather, my point is that we should not think
for a moment that the twentieth century has the advantage of some special
insight into linguistics because of its modern technological context.”
[There has been much published
in recent days concerning the value of the Egyptian papyri discoveries and the
insights they provide for the New Testament vocabulary and usage. Nevertheless,
theologically speaking, in that the Biblical usage of the Greek language was a
vehicle to convey inspired Revelation, as opposed to the secular usage of the
papyri, the Scriptures themselves should always be consulted as a more reliable
source for determining “revelational” meaning and usage. The Greek grammarian
Nigel Turner has made a special contribution in this area. And as F. F. Bruce
put it so succinctly, “As long as scriptural writers hug the coast of mundane
affairs, the Egyptian pharos yields a measure of illumination to their tract;
but when they launch out into the deeps of divine counsels, we no longer profit
by its twinkling crosslights” F. F. Bruce, “The Books and the Parchments”,
1950, p. 64.]
Modern does not always equal
better. In his article, “In Praise of 1611,” mentioned earlier, Pierson Parker
has brought to light the enduring quality of the translation work behind the
A.V. He has found no less than forty-four instances where the A.V. has a
superior translation as compared to the Revised Standard Version, in the books
of First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, and Galatians. After giving these
examples, he concluded his article on a slightly ironic note (ironic in that
Parker is one of the leading lights in the areas of source criticism and the
synoptic problem):
“So my conscience troubles me,
a little, now and then . . . I have seldom used the K.J.V. in book, article,
lecture, or seminar -- except, occasionally, to point out its shortcomings.
Shortcomings, it certainly has. But then, one of life’s easiest tasks is to
find deficiencies in the work of other men. The K.J.V. has, likewise, its own
gigantic strength -- strength which no amount of tinkering could reproduce in
the R.S.V. or the A.R.V. or the N.E.B. Perhaps while retaining those others, I
ought to expose my students more fully to the work of 1611. For they will find
here a Bible that is rich, rewarding, and sometimes, even right” [Parker, “In
Praise of 1611, “ p. 260].
The Modern
Approach to Translation (Utilitarian)
James Moffatt, one of the
earliest to offer his own modern twentieth-century translation of the Bible,
wrote in the preface to his edition in 1913: “Once the translation of the New
Testament is freed from the influence of the theory of verbal inspiration . . .
difficulties cease to be so formidable.” Theologically, however, difficulties may
just begin.
The prevailing modern
philosophy of Bible translation now being used by the American Bible Society is
called the “dynamic-equivalence” method and has been borrowed from modern
communications theory. Several scholars such as James Daane [”Converting by
Translating,” Reformed Journal vol. 29 (February 1979): pp. 2-3], Noel K. Weeks
[”The New Testament Student and Bible Translation” (Philadelphia: The
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1978)], and Jakob Van Bruggen
[”The Future of the Bible” (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1978)] have noted
the loss of original Biblical content in the translations produced by this
method. Simply stated, those who advocate this theory maintain that
“communicating” is the all-consuming priority -- as a result, the Biblical
content must be reduced to the receptor language categories, thought forms, and
cultural points of reference, for real communication to take place.
This may sound like a
reasonable approach to translation until it is discovered that one’s theology
will color the determination of what should be regarded as “essential,” and
therefore what should be translated literally, and that which is
“non-essential,” and should be translated in such a manner as would be
understood in the receptor language, even if the original content must be
altered. E. A. Nida, the American Bible Society’s former Executive Secretary
for Translations and the major proponent of the dynamic-equivalence theory,
gives an example showing why a major tenet -- perhaps its very foundation -- of
historic Christianity, such as the dogma of the substitutionary atonement of
Christ, should be exchanged for a concept that would be more readily understood
in a given culture:
One of the most common
interpretations of the atonement has been substitutionary, in the sense that
Christ took upon Himself our sins and died in our place as a substitutive
sacrifice. This interpretation, true and valuable as it may be for many, is not
communicable to many persons today, for they simply do not think in such
categories . . . [T]he presentation of the Atonement in terms of reconciliation
is more meaningful, since in this way they can understand more readily how God
could be in Christ reconciling the world to Himself [Eugene A. Nida, “Message
and Mission” (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1960), p. 59].
The problem that Noel Weeks
sees with this reductionism is that, “the original Scripture was not written on
this assumption” [Daane, “Converting by Translating,” pp. 1-2]. Weeks feels that
turning the Biblical text into an evangelistic tract so that it will be
comprehensible to the unbeliever (who it might be expected would not readily
understand the theology of the substitutionary atonement, even in the
post-Christian West, or other important Christian distinctives), is “turning
Scripture to a use for which it was not originally designed [Ibid].
This is not, however, a remote
problem dealing only with missionary translation work, but has been used in
producing the “Today’s English Version” (“Good News for Modern Man”). An
example from the T.E.V. can be seen in the substitution of the word “death,”
when speaking of Christ’s atonement, for the word “blood” (the latter word
being the literal rendering of the Greek). Van Bruggen has seen a betrayal of
the original Biblical content in this method and protests that,
“When the translator starts
reducing the author’s form . . . the possibility of letting his own theological
prejudice influence the determination of what is essential and what is not
essential is far greater than when he sticks as closely as possible to the
textual form handed down” [Van Bruggen, “TheFuture”, p. 167].
This “sticking as closely as
possible to the textual form handed down” has been the method used from the
very beginning of Bible translation until recently and in contrast to
dynamic-equivalence, it is called formal-equivalence. For example, if
Colossians 1:14 says: “in Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the
forgiveness of sins “ (KJV/KJ21), it is not proper to render this: “in Whom we
have redemption through His death, even the forgiveness of sins,” as Nida and
the “Good News Bible” advocate. According to the teaching of Scripture itself
there is grave theological significance to Christ shedding his blood, not just
in his death alone. And herein lies the rather substantial problem of
dynamic-equivalence: it allows the content and the form of Scripture to
capitulate to the language, forms, and culture of the given receptor peoples,
even at the loss of Biblical teaching itself.
Again, I am not advocating a
total ignoring of the phenomenon of IDIOM, overdone by Luther and nearly
ignored by the Revised Version of 1881-83. Idiom has always been a
consideration in traditional, formal-equivalence translation. Rather, what I am
arguing for is that the language, form, and images of Scripture, when
translated formally in the traditional sense, do justice to the intent of
Scripture, and that is to convert not only personalities, but language and
culture, to the matrix of the Judeo-Christian revelation.
We determine this from the
first trans-language conveyance of revelational communication from the Old
Testament Hebrew, to the Hellenistic Greek of the Septuagint (LXX). F. F. Bruce
has established the importance of realizing that
“the Greek was not suited for
Hebrew revelation but was adapted to Hebrew thought forms and transformed by
them: To one accustomed to reading good Greek, Septuagint Greek reads very
oddly, but to a Greek reader acquainted with Hebrew idiom, Septuagint Greek is
immediately intelligible. The words are Greek, but the construction is Hebrew”
[F. F. Bruce, “The Books and the Parchments” (London: Pickering and Inglis,
Ltd., 1950), p. 70. 52 Ibid., p. 70].
Concerning the influence of
this Hebraic-Greek of the LXX on the New Testament, Bruce further mentions that
“The most important kind of
influence exercised by the Septuagint on the New Testament Greek is in the
meaning of certain theological and ethical terms. The Greek outlook on religion
and morals differed from that of the Jews, and the Greek terms were of course
devised and used to reflect the Greek outlook. But the Septuagint translators
used these terms to represent Hebrew words which reflected the Jewish outlook,
AND THUS GAVE THESE GREEK TERMS A NEW CONNOTATION. And it is this new
connotation which regularly attaches to these words when they are used in the
New Testament [emphasis mine] [Ibid].
If this is transformation, or
conversion, if you will, of the New Testament Greek, in the direction of
revelational content, why should we not see this as the proper approach to
translation?
The
Renaissance/Reformation Approach to Translation (Theological)
Returning to the Renaissance
/Reformation period which was, in fact, the birth of modern vernacular Bible
translation, we again find a model for this transformation of the receptor
language when used to convey revelation, in Luther’s German Bible (1534).
Luther not only gave the German people the Bible, (faithful to their idiom,
yes, but NOT to the neglect of the original Greek and Hebrew content overall),
he greatly influenced German usage, thus giving birth to, and molding the
German language around Biblical terms and themes. Goodspeed has noted this:
“Luther’s translation was so
well done that it went far to form the basis of German as a literary language;
it is generally regarded as the beginning of German literature. It set so high
a standard that for centuries no further efforts to translate the Bible into
German were made; they seemed superfluous” [Edgar J. Goodspeed, “How Came the
Bible?” (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1940), p. 93].
Are we hearing Goodspeed right
when he says Luther “set the standard” for German literature? Why, this is the
very inversion of what Nida advocates when he says Scripture should be reduced
to the culture, rather than to mold, or to convert the culture (i.e., language,
etc.), to the content and expression of Scripture.
One final example will be
offered in our “Authorized Version” of 1611. It has been universally acclaimed
as the pinnacle of English expression and the standard by which all great
English Literature has been judged. No one has analyzed this phenomenon with
more insight than did C. S, Lewis, in his “The Literary Impact of the
Authorised Version”. But many will be amazed to learn that though Lewis
acknowledges that it was, indeed, this Authorized Version which has had
inestimable influence on English language and literature (which is a further
substantiation of our thesis that Bible translations should influence culture
in its direction, rather than vice versa), he sees this not as a result of
seventeenth-century English style, but rather as a result of the “faithful”
formal-equivalence translation of the Hebrew and Greek:
“There is . . . no possibility
of considering the literary impact of the Authorized Version apart from that of
the Bible in general. Except in a few places where the translation is bad, the
Authorized Version OWES TO THE ORIGINAL ITS MATTER, ITS IMAGES, AND ITS FIGURES
[emphasis mine] [C. S. Lewis, “The Literary Impact of the Authorised Version”
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), p. 3].
That is to say, because the
seventeenth-century Anglican divines who produced the A.V. held to a high, orthodox
view of inspiration, which believed every word, and even syntax was inspired,
those merits which we sense intuitively in their Bible are actually the Greek
and Hebrew shining through the transparency of the “Biblical” English they
employed. In light of these historical testimonies to the influence which
formal-equivalence translation has had when given reign in a culture, Nida’s
emphasis, and that of nearly all modern Bible publishers’ rhetoric, appears
hopelessly novel and defective.
Historical Cycles and the Modern Situation
The English Biblical scholar,
F. J. A. Hort once made the observation that Protestant Christianity as we know
it today, “. . . is only parenthetical and temporary.” Any student of church
history would have to concur with his observation. The renewed Christianity of
the sixteenth century gained a hard-earned peace and freedom which it has
experienced since the triumph of the Reformation in the West; and though it may
sound paradoxical, it is not suited to such leisure. Historically, the purest
form of Christianity tends to thrive in a persecuted state. It was Tertullian,
one of the early church fathers, who said that it was “the blood of the martyrs
that was the seed of the church” [Earle E. Cairns, “Christianity Through the Centuries”,
6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1973), p. 72].
If one could draw a principle
that best bears this out from church history, it would be that persecution
produces a pure form of Christianity which, in turn, becomes adopted by the
persecuting powers; and thus it then loses its power and purity; then the cycle
begins again when persecution is permitted to come and purge the church back to
its pure state. The “blood of the martyrs” purchased the freedom of
Christianity from “Imperial” Rome when Constantine adopted Christianity in 313
[B. K. Kuiper, “The Church In History” (Grand Rapids: The National Union of
Christian Schools, Eerdmans, 1975), p. 24]. Just prior to the Protestant
Reformation (speaking in broad terms) a decadent form of late medieval
Christianity prevailed. With the reassertion of a more Biblical Christianity
(still speaking in broad terms), Luther and the Reformers suffered great
persecution from “Catholic” Rome, until at last Protestant freedom was
purchased by “the blood of the martyrs.” It is under this present
“parenthetical phase” that we are again entangled with an aberrant form of
Christianity, which explains why the publishing of a Bible can be reduced
solely to a moneymaking proposition. The Bible has in our age passed from the
oversight of the church, into the hands of corporate Bible landlords, each with
their own copyrighted editions of Holy Writ.
The Authorized Version
is the one supreme treasure left to us from the last period of renewal, the
very era that purchased our freedom, and it is meant to be a constant reminder
of what is the true nature of Christianity. The A.V. translators still had
fresh impressions of the Marian persecution at Smithfield. Without in any way
wanting to needlessly invoke old sectarian animosities, nevertheless, it is
important to understand the ethos from which the A.V. arose. This intensely
emotional feeling is conveyed in the “Letter of Dedication to the King” (still
found in many editions of the A.V.) in which the translators make reference to
the freshly won victory over medieval religion. Here they speak in terms of the
truth prevailing over the Pope, “. . . which hath given such a blow unto that
man of sin, as will not be healed . . .” They also invoked the tendency of the old
church to thwart distribution of the Scriptures to the common man:
“So that if, on the one side,
we shall be traduced by Popish persons at home or abroad, who therefore will
malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God’s Holy truth to be yet
more and more known unto the people whom they desire still to keep in ignorance
and darkness . . . we may rest secure, supported within by the truth . . .
[Oxford or Cambridge Editions of the Authorized Version. Citing this
provocative document should not be interpreted as a piece of Protestant
triumphalism, particularly in light of the historical record of misapplication
of Scripture once placed in the hands of Protestant communities, i.e., the
burning of Michael Servetus at the hands of the Genevan Calvinists, the
slaughter of the peasants under Luther’s watchful eye, and the regicide at the
hands of the English Puritans. Rather, it is intended to be honest about the
historical ethos from which the 1611 edition came forth.]
Scholars agree that the A.V.
is virtually the work of William Tyndale (the A.V. is nine tenths his version)
[Neil R. Lightfoot, “How We Got the Bible” (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1974), p. 101], and as such, it is a blood-stained book in one respect, because
Tyndale sealed his work with his death at the stake. His parting prayer was for
God to open the eyes of the king of England so that he might grant to the
people the freedom to read the Bible in their own language [Ibid., p. 99. What
Tyndale meant by in their “own language” was ENGLISH, rather than LATIN, not
conversational colloquialism!]. That prayer was answered, but how insignificant
such freedom seems to most of us today, particularly as a result of the
cheapening of the Biblical text in the hands of so many religious merchandisers.
The A.V., on the other hand,
has for 385 years been our link with the conservative Anglican Reformation
heritage and as such represents a William Tyndale type of Christianity; and if
given the choice to embrace the type of Christianity historically produced by
the A.V. (if I may be allowed to speak in such terms), or the type that has
been produced since the arrival of “the Bible in the language of the people,” I
feel constrained to embrace the former, archaisms and all.
Not only does the A.V. supply
a Christian with a sense of identity by giving him a direct link with his
Protestant roots, and the “via media” of the English Reformation, but it also
undergirds this sense of identity by supplying him with a unifying force for
the present. For example, there is a popular misconception that the name
“Authorized Version” was given to the 1611 edition because of some official
decree given by King James, but this just was not so. King James merely gave
permission for the translation to take place only after he was asked by John
Reynolds, one of the translators. “Strictly speaking, the authorized version
was never authorized, nor were parish churches ordered to procure it [S. L.
Greenslade, ed., “The Cambridge History of the Bible”, vol. 3, “The West From the
Reformation to the Present” (London: Cambridge University Press) p. 168]. It
seems to have acquired the title on its own merit!
This common consensus is so
well established it hardly requires to be labored. F. F. Bruce acknowledged
that,
“it is well recognized that,
throughout the English speaking world, there are hundreds of thousands of
readers by whom this version [the A.V.] is accepted as ‘The Word of God’ in a
sense in which no other version would be accepted” [Bruce, “The English Bible”,
p. 112].
It has also been described as
having “acquired a sanctity properly ascribable only to the unmediated voice of
God” [Greenslade, “The Cambridge History”, p. 168].
The most telling summation,
however, both of the unifying effect of the A.V., as well as its ability to
command authority, was given by Burgon:
“Whatever may be urged in
favour of Biblical revision, it is at least undeniable that the undertaking
involves a tremendous risk. Our A.V. is the one religious link which at present
binds together ninety millions of English-speaking men scattered over the
earth’s surface. Is it reasonable that so unutterably precious, so sacred a
bond should be endangered, for the sake of representing certain words more
accurately -- here and there translating a tense with greater precision --
getting rid of a few archaisms? It may be confidently assumed that no revision
of our A.V., however judiciously executed, will ever occupy the place in
publick [sic] esteem which is actually enjoyed by the work of the translators of
1611 -- the noblest literary work in the Anglo-Saxon language. We shall in fact
never have another “Authorized Version” [John W. Burgon. “The Revision
Revised”, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1885), p. 113].
Another illustration of the
A.V.’s ability to command authority to the popular mind is seen in the Gideon
Bible found in most hospitals and motels. In spite of all the Madison Avenue
talk about “more reliable manuscripts” the Gideons still publish the A.V. text
as their Bible. The Gideons have seen them all come and go over the years, from
the first Revised Version in 1883, to the present “superstar,” the New
International Version, and to date, it is still the A.V. that holds sway over
the popular mind [They do, however, supply modern language versions on special
request]
With so much discussion about
the need for unity in the church one would think that more people would
recognize the value of the A.V. to this end, but instead one hears only of
using “the Bible of your choice,” which tends to lead to fragmentation in any
group study, rather than to unity.
The results of having an
abundance of modern versions to choose from are anything but constructive.
According to an article in the New York Times, within the past twenty years “several
hundred versions of the Bible, catering to every niche of reader” has resulted
in a glut in the market, “too many Bibles for too few faithful” [”The Bible, a
Perennial, Runs into Sales Resistance,” New York Times (October 28, 1996)]. The
obvious problem of conflicting translations is illustrated by the many books
that follow in the wake of the many translations, which attempt to clarify why
there are so many translations! A few recent titles are, “Why So Many Bibles?”,
1968; “What Bible Can You Trust?”, 1974; “Which Bible?”, 1975; “So Many
Versions?”, 1975; and others.
John 1:18 provides a good
example of the kind of confusion that results from conflicting translations.
The A.V. (and the KJ21) reads
“No man hath seen God at any
time; The Only Begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father, He
hath declared Him.”
The italicized portion of the
verse is rendered in the following different ways by some modern versions:
N.I.V. and T.E.V. “The only
Son” [”begotten” omitted]
N.A.S.V. “The Only Begotten
God” [Polytheism?]
N.E.B. “God’s Only Son”
[”begotten” omitted and “God” added]
Which is correct? [For a
detailed and technical treatment of this variant, see Theodore P. Letis, “The
Gnostic Influences on the Text of the Fourth Gospel: John 1:18 in the Egyptian
Manuscripts and the Canonical Approach,” in The Ecclesiastical Text: Textual
Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind (Institute for
Reformation Biblical Studies, 1997)].
As for the footnotes in the
modern versions, they seem to be questioning the authenticity of every other
verse with comments such as “not found in some ancient manuscripts” or “some
manuscripts add,” without offering any explanation as to the value of these
optional readings, or the various manuscripts they come from.
This tends to leave the
average reader (unconsciously perhaps) with a doubtful attitude regarding what
he can consider authoritative and in some sense final. Burgon noted this when
such footnotes were first employed in the R.V. (1881):
“The marginal readings, which
our revisers have been so ill-advised as to put prominently forward, and to
introduce to the reader’s notice with the vague statement that they are
sanctioned by ‘some’ (or by ‘Many’) ‘ancient authorities’, -- are specimens
ARBITRARILY SELECTED out of an immense mass . . . No hint is given as to WHICH
BE the ‘ancient authorities’ so referred to: -- nor what proportion they bear
to the ancient authorities producible on the opposite side: -- nor whether they
are even the MOST ‘ancient authorities’ obtainable: -- nor what amount of
attention their testimony may reasonably claim . . . How comes it to pass that
you have . . . instead, volunteered in every page information, worthless in
itself, which can only serve to unsettle the faith of unlettered millions, and
to suggest unreasonable as well as miserable doubts to the minds of all? [”The
Revision Revised”, pp. 130, 131].
We have become so desensitized
by these notes in our modern editions that one can hardly appreciate the impact
they must have had on the first generation to encounter them in the Revised
Version (1883). An example that might be able to shake us afresh will serve to
illustrate just how misleading such footnotes can be.
At Mark 16:9-20, in the “New
International Version”, there is a footnote stating, “The most reliable early
manuscripts omit Mark 16:9-20.” What they fail to make clear is that out of the
approximately 5,487 [Graham Stanton, “Gospel Truth: New Light on Jesus and the
Gospels” (HarperCollins, 1995), p. 37] Greek manuscripts available to scholars,
of those that contain Mark, only three manuscripts omit this passage. Two of
them, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, were put to the most detailed study of perhaps
any others to date, by Herman Hoskier, in his “Codex B and Its Allies: A Study
and an Indictment” (1914). No man in his day, nor perhaps since, knew these two
documents as intimately as did Hoskier. The conclusion of his study offered the
following consensus:
“To revive the Egyptian
textual standard [represented by Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus] of A.D.
200-400 is not scientific, and it is certainly not final. The truth is
scattered over all our documents and is not inherent entirely in any one
document, nor in any two. Hort persuaded himself that where Aleph B were
together . . . they must be right. This kind of fetishism must be done away
with” [”Codex B”, vol. 1, p. 487].
Summary
In conclusion the Authorized
Version should be retained by the churches, as well as in Bible study and
in the classroom, because of the superior consensus represented by its Greek
text, its translation technique, and its English usage; and because it not only
provides the Christian with a link to his Protestant heritage, but it also
supplies him with a sense of unifying identity for the present.
I do not believe, however,
that anyone has the right, nor the authority, to pontificate to the Christian
world one Bible alone as Holy Scripture, while anathematizing the rest to the
incinerator (the Holy Spirit Himself must ultimately bear witness to the Divine
final authority). We have all heard testimonies of people who have come to the
Christian faith by reading a Jehovah’s Witness Bible. Martin Luther received
salvation light from a Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate. We should never think that
the Holy Spirit is limited to Elizabethan English.
But to whom much is given,
much will be required. Those of us who have become aware that the modern Bibles
represent more the abstract concerns emanating from the competing textual theories
of various specialists, as well as representing the more pragmatic concerns of
the Bible marketing industry which has capitalized on the loss of consensus
produced by the specialists, it would seem we have a responsibility. That is,
to direct young and seeking pilgrims, as well as seasoned saints, back to the
“old landmarks.” John Wesley stated it this way:
“I
have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow
through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just
hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I
drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing -- the way to
heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to
teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down
in a Book. 0 give me that Book! At any price, give me THE Book of God!”
[emphasis mine]
veritas temporis filia