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
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
? 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
