Sunday, February 7, 2021

A Non-Conservative Look at Liberal Bible Translations

 

I came across this entry at https://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_Bible_Translations on Liberal Bible Translations, which I found rather amusing. 

It starts out by saying: "Liberal bible translations are attempts to distort Biblical text to support liberal ideals." 

In fact, it has been my experience that Evangelical bible translations are attempts to distort Biblical text to support Evangelical ideals.

The examples it gives of Liberal Bibles are: 
Today's New International Version
Amplified Bible
Jerusalem Bible
New Jerusalem Bible
Moffatt Bible
Goodspeed Bible
Revised Standard Version
Revised English Bible
New American Bible

First, let's discard the TNIV and the Amplified Bible, which no one their right mind believes are Liberal Bibles. This leaves us with:


The problems with these Bibles, as indicated on the site, are:

"Political correctness towards gender by using "gender inclusive" language
Downplaying the existence of Hell and God's judgment
Downplaying the deity of Jesus
Downplaying the power of the Holy Spirit
Denying the prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus
Downplaying the prohibition on homosexuality
Downplaying the differences between men and women
Editorializing on passages to push a liberal point of view
Adding content"

Of the above Bibles, only the New Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible can be accused of using "gender inclusive" language. While I myself may prefer the traditional use of "man", when I check out even older works like Vine's Dictionary, Strong's Dictionary and Thayer's Lexicon, they give "human being" as the primary definition of anthropos (see also BAGD and BDAG)

As for "Downplaying the existence of Hell and God's judgment" I notice that the Revised Standard Version uses the word "hell" 14 times, as does the New Jerusalem Bible. In fact, near as I can tell, of the above list of Bibles, only the Catholic New American Bible refrains from using the word Hell. No Bible should use the word Hell. Hell is translated from the words Sheol, Hades, Gehenna and Tartarus. A good Bible should translate with those words, instead of adding a word that has no right to be there. 

Downplaying the deity of Jesus: Rudolf Bultmann’s wrote that "In describing Christ as _God_ the New Testament still exercises great restraint." Also, "There is scarcely one text alleged by the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers".—John Locke (Common Place Book)

"When we consider further the fact...that Christ is nowhere called God in any unambiguous passage by any writer of the New Testament and that it is nowhere recorded that he ever claimed this title, we cannot reasonably regard this abstinence from the use of the term as accidental." Ezra Abbot

The Bible downplays the deity of Jesus, not Liberal Bible Translations.

As for "Downplaying the power of the Holy Spirit" I wish I had some examples to go on.

Moving on to "Denying the prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus" I have to assume this means Isaiah 7:14. The King James Version here uses the word "virgin" while the above "Liberal" Bibles use the words "young woman." [The Jerusalem Bible actually uses "maiden" and some editions of the New American Bible use the word "virgin." See above image.] However, while even I prefer the word "virgin" here, most of my lexicons give "young woman" as the primary definition of the Hebrew word Almah.

As for "Downplaying the prohibition on homosexuality" I went straight to 1 Corinthians 6:9 to see what words the above Bibles used. While the King James Bible uses the watered-down term "effeminate", the RSV and REB uses "sexual perverts" [the REB's predecessor, the New English Bible used "homosexual perversion"], the JB & NJB and Moffatt uses "sodomites", Goodspeed uses "given to unnatural vice" while the NAB uses "practicing homosexuals." It doesn't sound like they downplayed anything in this regard. 

As for the rest, like "Downplaying the differences between men and women" seems to me to be part of the first complaint, "Political correctness towards gender by using "gender inclusive" language."
Editorializing on passages to push a liberal point of view, and Adding content is too vague to comment on, especially since Evangelical Bibles can also be accused of the same.

As we can see, supposed Liberal Bibles hold up well to the complaints brought against them, and can complement any Bible library. Also, it is not lost on me that many of the Bibles on their list are Catholic Bibles (there are popular Catholic editions of the RSV as well). Protestant and Evangelicals claim to derive their beliefs from the Bible, so they add their beliefs into the text of their Bible translations. Catholics on the other hand don't derive their beliefs from the Bible. As Robert M. Price stated in the review of Jason Beduhn's book: "Catholics can be freer with the details of the text because they don’t have to pretend to find their theology in it in full-blown form." http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/reviews/beduhn_truth.htm 



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