This day in history: Steven T. Byington died on this day in 1957. Byington was a Christian Anarchist and a Bible translator. The Watchtower society bought the rights to his Bible in 1972. The book "So Many Versions" remarks on the association below:
"While this translation is completely independent from the NWT, we made a comparison of the two. Since it is published by the Jehovah's Witnesses, we were especially interested in those passages where the characteristic biases of the NWT [New World Translation] were evident. In the BLE [Bible in Living English], "Jehovah" is used in the OT but is not found in the NT. The word "God" is capitalized when referring to Jesus Christ, e.g., in John 1:1; 1:18; 6:45; 10:33. Where the NWT added the article "the" in brackets in Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 and "other" in Colossians 1:16, 17, this translation does not, so that Jesus Christ can be identified with God in these passages. Furthermore, by its punctuation in Romans 9:5 it has clearly identified Christ as God: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom in the way of flesh comes the Christ, he who is over everything, God blessed forever-Amen!" The designation "Holy Spirit" is capitalized, contrary to the NWT, and the words "cross" and "crucify" are used instead of "torture stake" and "impale." The only apparent reason for the Witnesses' publishing this translation is the translator's use of "Jehovah" for God's name in the OT, unless they also want to tone down the idiosyncrasies of their own translation." So Many Versions by Sakae Kubo and Walter F. Specht
Reply: Much of the above is over-stated. I fail to see where Christ is identified as God at Romans 9:5, and a clear understanding of the other Scriptures listed and its context removes any divinity from Christ, specifically at John 1:18: "Nobody ever has seen God; an Only Born God, he who is in the Father's bosom, he gave the account of him." A God that is "born" is definitely held as separate from that God that cannot be seen.
Consider also other Scriptures that waters down the deity of Christ:
"I will be what I will be" Ex 3:14
"God is your throne forever" Psalm 45:6
"Jehovah framed me first in line" Prov 8:22
"his origin being from of old, from ancient days." Micah 5:2
"they will look at the one they stabbed to death" Zech 12:10
Acts 20:28 footnote points to "the Lord's church"
"let all God's angels do him reverence" Heb 1:6
"God is your throne forever and ever." Heb 1:8
"firstborn of all creation" Col 1:15
"did not regard equality with God a prize" Php 2:6
"the beginning of God's creation" Rev 3:14
Byington had high sights set for his Bible in his Translator's Preface:
"It is customary for the preface of a new translation of the Bible to say that this translation is to be used only for certain limited purposes, and for most purposes the old version, or a conservative revision of it, should still be preferred. I say the contrary: I sincerely recommend that my translation be used in preference to the old for all purposes, under all circumstances where mine is available. I do not say, observe, that mine is better than any other that can or will be made; neither do I say that it is probable that mine will become everybody's Bible. What I have more right to expect, and what I am bound to be content with, is that when a Bible is made which shall be everybody's Bible, my work will have contributed part of the material which will go into it; what I am here recommending is that when a choice is to be made between mine and the old version, and a version better than either is not available, mine be chosen rather than the old."
From: The Concessions of Trinitarians By John Wilson 1845
The word homousion is not found in the Sacred Writings; and therefore from these alone, what the Arians deny cannot be taught or proved, except by inference. ERASMUS: Op. tom. ix. p. 1034.
We ought to believe, that there are three persons and one essence in the Deity; God the Father unbegotten, God the Son consubstantial with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. But, though you attentively peruse the whole of Scripture, you will never find these sublime and remarkable words "three persons - one essence - unbegotten consubstantial — proceeding from both.” COCHLEUS; apud Sandium, pp. 4, 5.
The word Trinity is never found in the Divine Records, but is only of human invention, and therefore sounds altogether frigidly (frigide). Far better would it be to say God than Trinity. There is no reason for objecting to me, that the word homousion was made use of in opposition to the Arians. It was not received by many of the most eminent men; Jerome himself having wished to abolish the term; and on this account, they did not escape peril. .... But, though from my soul I abhor the word homousion, and am unwilling to employ it, I shall not therefore be a heretic. LUTHER: Postil. Major. fol. 282; Confut. Rat. Latom. tom. ii. fol. 240.
I dislike this vulgar prayer, "Holy Trinity, one God! have mercy on us!" as altogether savouring of barbarism. We repudiate such expressions as being not only insipid, but profane. - Abridged from CALVIN: Tractat. Theol. p. 796.
The phrase,"Holy Trinity, one God," is dangerous and improper. LAMBERT DANEAU: Resp. ad Genebrard. cap. iii.; Opusc. p. 1327.
The words Trinity, person, homousion, and others of a similar kind, besides being ambiguous, .... never occur in the Scriptures. LIMBORCH: Theol. Christ. lib. vii. cap. 21. § 13.
The words Trinity, homousion, hypostasis, procession, &c. ... were not expressly to be found in the Holy Scriptures. BISHOP SANDERSON: Ad Clerum, p. 85; apud Tracts for the Times, vol. iv. No. 78, p. 45.
It must be allowed, that there is no such proposition as this, That one and the same God is three different persons, formally and in terms, to be found in the Sacred Writings, either of the Old or New Testament; neither is it pretended, that there is any word of the same signification or importance with the word Trinity, used in Scripture, with relation to God.- DR. SOUTH: Consid. on the Trinity, p. 38.
It were to be wished that on topics so sublime [as that of the Trinity], men had thought proper to confine themselves to the simple but majestic diction of the Sacred Scriptures [instead of using the terms homoosious, homoiousious, hypostasis, hypostatikos, &c.]. — DR. CAMPBELL: Lectures on Ecclesiastical History: Lect. xiv.
The title of Mother of God, applied to the Virgin Mary, is not perhaps so innocent as Dr. Mosheim takes it to be. The invention and use of such mysterious terms as have no place in Scripture are undoubtedly pernicious to true religion. The use of this [the word Trinity] and other unscriptural terms, to which men attach either no ideas or false ones, has wounded charity and peace, without promoting truth and knowledge. It has produced heresies of the very worst kind. DR. MACLAINE: Note to Mosheim's Ecclesiastical Hist. cent. v. part ii. chap. v. § 9; and Chron. Table, cent. ii.
The general practice of Scripture seems to indicate, that, in ordinary worship, we should address the Deity in his unity, manifested to us as, in Christ Jesus, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing to men their trespasses. I confess that I have ever disliked the use of the word Trinity in prayer to God, as not being a name whereby God reveals himself to us, and as savouring of scholastic theology. — CARLILE: Jesus Christ the Great God, p. 232.
Substance, and person, and essence, as applied to the Godhead, are not to be found in Holy Scripture.-H. M'NEILE: Sermons preached in St. Jude's Church, Liverpool, on Trin. Sund. 1835; p. 10.
I need hardly make any observation on the word purgatory: the very name itself is generally made one of the topics of abuse, because it is not be found in Scripture. But, I would ask, where is the term Trinity to be discovered in Scripture? Where is the term incarnation to be found? Where are many other terms which are held most sacred and most important in the Christian religion, to be found in Scripture? DR. WISEMAN: Lect. on the Doct. of the Rom. Cath. Church, p. 270.
[It is admitted also by TILLOTSON, SWIFT, HEY, TOMLINE, the Oxford Doctors, and others, that the scholastic terms here spoken of do not occur in the Bible. But who would venture to say that they do?]
This day in history: Bible translator Charles Bray Williams died on this day in 1952. C.B. Williams should not to be confused with Bible translator Charles K. Williams.
Williams graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem NC, and was a Baptist minister.
Williams stated, "Our aim is to make this greatest book in the world readable and understandable by the plain people."
Some have noted that there are many similarities between Williams New Testament and Goodspeed's New Testament (one of the greatest New Testament translations ever produced).
Here are some comparisons:
Revelation 5:10 "and have made them a kingdom of priests for our God, and they are to reign over the earth." Goodspeed
"and have made them a kingdom of priests for our God; and they will rule over the earth." Williams
While "over" is a better translation, most Bible use the word "on".
John 10:38 "But if I am doing so, even if you will not believe me, believe the deeds, that you may come to know and continue to know that the Father is in union with me and I am in union with the Father." Williams
"But if I am doing them, then even if you will not believe me, believe the things I do, in order that you may realize and learn that the Father is in union with me, and I am in union with the Father." Goodspeed
Both Goodspeed and Williams use the phrase "in union with" many times.
John 8:58 "Jesus said to them, 'I tell you, I existed before Abraham was born!'" Goodspeed
"Then Jesus said to them, 'I most solemnly say to you, I existed before Abraham was born.'" Williams
This is a better translation than the traditional "I am" as the "Greek at John 8:58 fits an idiom described by grammarian Kenneth McKay as the “Extension from Past”, which occurs when a present tense verb is “used with an expression of either past time or extent of time with past implications.” (A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach), p. 41, 42 (Source)
However, Williams was much more conservative/fundagelical in many passages.
For instance at John 1:1 where Goodspeed has "the Word was divine", Williams goes overboard with the horrible rendering of "the Word was God Himself."
At John 1:18, where it should read, "No man hath seen God at any time; an only begotten god, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him", Williams has, "No one has ever seen God; the only son, Deity Himself, who lies upon His Father's breast, has made him known."
Where Goodspeed would use "homage" in places like Matthew 2:2, Williams reverted back to the word "worship,"
Additionally, Williams insisted on continuous action of a Greek verb made Mark 1:5 sound like the people were being repeatedly baptized, "And people from all over Judea and everybody in Jerusalem kept on going out to him and being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins."
In the Bible, the word "Soul" comes from the Hebrew word "nephesh"
and its Greek equivalent "psykhe". As we can see in the following
chart, it certainly doesn't have the immortal aspect to it that people
think it does.
Abbreviations:
N = New
S = Standard
A = American
L = Living
E = English
B = Bible
V = Version
T = Translation
W = World
C = Contemporary
To = Today
I = International
Bible
Gen. 2:7
Gen. 9:5
Ezekiel 18:4
Matt 10:28
Acts 3:23
1Cor. 15:45
1Peter 3:20
Rev. 16:3
N.W.T.
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
King James
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
L. B.
Person
Omit
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
BODY
Persons
Everything
A.S.V.
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
R.S.V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
Person
Thing
N.E.B.
Creature
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
Being
Persons
Thing
N.L.T.
Person
Person
Person
SOUL
Omit
Person
People
Everything
N.A.B.
Being
Life
Life
SOUL
Everyone
Being
Persons
Creature
N.R.S.V
Being
Life
Person
SOUL
Everyone
Being
Persons
Thing
To.E.V
Live
Life
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Being
People
Creature
N.I.V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
Being
People
Thing
N.King James V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
SOUL
Creature
C.E.V.
Life
Life
Those
SOUL
No one
Person
People
Thing
N.A.S.B.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
Thing
Modern Language B.
SOUL
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
Young
Creature
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
SOUL
SOUL
Deaf
Thing
Life
Person
SOUL
Person
Thing
People
Thing
Darby
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Jerusalem B
Being
Life
Man
SOUL
Man
SOUL
People
Creature
Rotherham
SOUL
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
A.T.
Being
Lives
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Creature
People
Thing
Lamsa
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Webster B
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Amplified B
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
People
Thing
Phillips
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Thing
Douay
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Beck
Being
Anyone
The One
SOUL
Anyone
Being
Persons
Thing
Concordant
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Emph Diag
N/A
N/A
N/A
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
SOUL
B. Basic E.
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
Thing
Moffatt
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
SOUL
Thing
Weymouth
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
Everyone
Animal
Persons
Creature
Williams
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
Person
Creature
People
Thing
Byington
Person
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Life
R.E.B.
Creature
N/A
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Creature
People
Thing
Schonfield
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
N/A
SOUL
Persons
Everything
Wuest
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
As we can see from the above, a SOUL is simply...YOU!! It is
not a separate being outside of you. Even animals are souls-Revelation
16:3
While doing a hand-count in the 80's, of the 858* instances of the
Hebrew word for SOUL [NEPHESH] and the Greek equivalent [PSYKHE] that I
looked at, only the New World Translation (Reference Edition) translated it SOUL every time.
The New American Standard Bible (considered to be the most literal Bible)
only did so 297 times. Other versions are as follows:
Darby Bible: 575 times
Douay Bible: 551 times
King James Bible: 534 times
Young's Literal Version: 533 times
English Revised Version: 504 times
American Standard Version: 503 times
Rotherham Bible: 493 times
Revised Standard Version: 242 times
New International Version: 138 times
*I realize that hand-counting might not be the most accurate way
to do this, especially now with software making this much easier, but this
does give an overall view of the ways this word was translated..
SOUL; SELF; LIFE nepesh-"The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing,
taking a breath." W.E. Vine
psyche-"denotes the breath, the breath of life." W.E. Vine
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (edited
by C. Brown, 1978, Vol. 3, p. 304) states: "Matt. 10:28 teaches not the
potential immortality of the soul but the irreversibility of divine judgment
on the unrepentant."
"However much God may give his spirit to frail man, and however exalted
the resurrected Jesus has become, man, from the biblical point of view,
is dust animated by spirit, and not body and separable soul,which is a
Greek idea. 'Human Being' by definition denoted mortality, subject to frailty
and death. 'It is appointed unto man once to die...' (Heb 9:27)." The Doctrine
of the Trinity-Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound by Anthony Buzzard/Charles
F. Hunting
D.R.G. Owen, "Body and Soul in the New Testament," In Readings and Christian
Theology, ed. M.J. Erickson (Baker Book House, 1967), 86: "In Hebrew thought,
as we have seen, the word translated 'Soul' regularly stands simply for
the personal pronoun and means the self, and the phrase 'body and soul'...stands
for the Hebrew idea that man is an 'animated body' and not for the Greek
view that he is an 'incarnated soul.' "
"Many people today, even believing people. are far from understanding
the basis of their faith...Quite unwittingly they depend upon the philosophy
of the Greeks rather than upon the word of God for an understanding of
the world they live in. An instance of this is the prevailing belief amongst
Christians in the immortality of the soul. Many beleivers despair of this
world; they despair of any meaning in a world where suffering and frustration
seem to rule. And so they look for a release for their souls from the weight
of the flesh, and they hope for an entry into the 'world of the spirit,'
as they call it, a place where their souls will find a blessedness they
cannot discover in the flesh. The Old Testament, which was of course the
Scriptures of the early Church, has no word at all for the modern (or ancient
Greek) idea of "soul". We have no right to read this modern word
into St. Paul's word "psyche", for by it he was not expounding what Plato
had meant by the word; he was expressing what Isaiah and what Jesus meant
by it...There is one thing sure we can say at this point and that is that
the popular doctrine of the soul's immortality cannot be traced back to
the biblical teaching." -G.A.T. Knight, Law and Grace (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1962), 78, 79.
"Both man and animals are souls, they are not bipartite creatures consisting
of a soul and a body which can be separate and go on subsisting. Their
soul is the whole of them and comprises their their body as well as their
mental powers. They are spoken of as having soul, that is, conscious being"
(Life and Immortality, B. F. C. Atkinson, M.A., PhD., p.2).
"Although Heb. nepes has a wide range of usage, it most frequently designates
the life force of living creatures.
Thus, all the earth is full of "living creatures" that have the "breath
of life" (Gen. 1:20-21,24,30). When God creates Adam, God breathes the
breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and Adam becomes a "living being"
(Gen. 2:7). Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, "soul"
refers to the whole person. Thus, a corpse is referred to as a "dead soul,"
even though the word is usually translated "dead body" (Lev. 21:11; Num.
6:6). "Soul" can also refer to a person's very life itself (1 kings 19:4;
Ezek. 32:10).
"Soul" often refers by extension to the whole person. Thus, Leah bears
Jacob 16 souls (Gen. 46:18), and when Jacob moves into Egypt, there were
"70 persons ('souls') in his house". In the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) Israelites
are commanded to love their God with all their heart, soul, and strength.
Although "soul" appears in the translation to be a separate faculty of
the body, the verse is an exhortation to love God with ones entire self.
The soul is also the seat of the emotions. It is both the center
of joy in God (Ps. 86:4; cf. 62:1[MT2]) and the seat of the desire of evil
in the wicked (Prov. 21:10)
In the NT “soul” (Gk.psyche) refers to the living being of the whole
person (Acts 2:41; 3:23) and to a person’s life. After Herod’s death,
the angel commands Joseph to take his wife and child (Jesus) back to Israel,
for “ those who were seeking the child’s life (soul) are dead” (Matt. 2:20).
Before he heals the man with the withered hand, Jesus asks the synagogue
authorities whether it is lawful on the Sabbath to “save life (soul) or
to kill” (Mark 3:4). In the parable of the rich young fool (Luke
12: 13-20), the young man says to his soul that he has ample goods laid
up for many years; Jesus then tells him, “ This very night your soul (‘life
force’) is being demanded of you.”
Although the NT contains little evidence of the body-soul dualism
that is apparent in Hellenistic philosophy, some passages indicate that
the soul lives on after death (Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19)."
Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible
[Let us see if this is really so. Luke 9:25, “ What benefit
is it to anyone to win the whole world and forfeit or lose his very self.” Luke 12:4, “ To my friends I say: Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body and after that can do no more.” Luke 21:19, “ Your perseverance will win you your lives.”
New Jerusalem Bible As you can see, the scriptures mentioned do not point to an immortal
soul or life after death. As Ecclesiastes says, “for the living are
at least aware that they are going to die, but the dead know nothing whatever.
No more wages for them, since their memory is forgotten…Whatever work you
find to do, do it with all your might, for theirs in neither achievement,
nor planning, nor science, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” New
Jerusalem Bible]
Can souls die? Yes, according to the following scriptures:
(Job 36:14 [KJV margin]; Psalm 56:13; 78:50;
116:8; Ezekiel
18:4, 20; James 5:20; Psalm 22:29; 30:3; 33:18, 19; Isaiah
55:3; Ezekiel
13:19; 18:27; Psalm 49:8; Psalm 35:17; 40:14; Proverbs 6:32;
Ezekiel 22:27;
Acts 3:23; James 4:12; Ezekiel 22:25; Matthew 16:25, 26 [the
Greek word for soul is here translated life in many translations]; Leviticus 22:3; Numbers 15:30) The body is not the soul, but it is a component of the soul. The soul is made up the body and the spirit (or breath) of life from God. (Genesis 2:7) When one dies the soul dies [ceases to be a living sentiency] and the original life process is reversed. (Ecclesiastes 12:7) With the life-giving source departed from the body, the soul [sentiency] ceases to exist.
This day in history: Nicholas Thomas Wright FRSE was born on this day in 1948. N. T. Wright (or Tom Wright) is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham from 2003 to 2010. He then became research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's College in the University of St Andrews in Scotland until 2019, when he became a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford.
If you're a Bible collector like myself, then you know N.T. Wright for his criticism of the New International Version Bible. He wrote:
"In this context, I must register one strong protest against one particular translation. When the New International Version was published in 1980, I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses. This contrasted so strongly with the then popular New English Bible, and promised such an advance over the then rather dated Revised Standard Version, that I recommended it to students and members of the congregation I was then serving. Disillusionment set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul's letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said. I do not know what version of scripture they use at Dr Piper's church. But I do know that if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about." Wright, N. T. (2009). Justification : God's Plan and Paul's Vision. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic. pp. 51–52. ISBN 978-0-8308-3863-9.
This criticism is echoed by many others.
James Barr, in Modern English Bible Versions as a Problem for the Church_ Quarterly Review/Fall 1994 writes:
"But this was not the end of the story. If on the one hand the conservative acceptance of the RSV as usable betokened a certain willingness to work along with the main currents of Christendom, there still existed the impulse to evangelical separatism, the unwillingness to do anything or accept anything that was not totally and purely "evangelical." The most important manifestation of this latter tendency is the so-called NIV, or New International Version, (New Testament, 1973; whole Bible, 1978).
The preface to this version begins with one of the most whopping falsehoods ever to be written into a Bible version by a group of 'Bible believers' such as the promoters of the version were, for it says that the people who worked on the version came from many denominations and this 'helped to safeguard the translation from sectarian bias.' The contrary is the case; the NIV was a sectarian project from the beginning. It was, as it itself says, planned by committees of the Christian Reformed Church and the National Association of Evangelicals. The name International, as is well known to anyone experienced in the literature, is a code word meaning 'acceptable for conservatives and fundamentalists.' The reason for the existence of the NIV is not, and never was, that it was in any way better, or had better principles of translation, or better scholarship behind it, or that it had solved the problem of style as between archaic 'biblical' style and conversational "modern" style. Its reason for existence was purely and simply that it was produced by and for evangelicals and for them only."
One website, Poor and Misleading Translation in the New International Version (NIV) documents each error. It starts off by saying: "The...NIV translators, in many of the passages that challenged their doctrines and belief in inerrancy,...change(d) the Bible itself — altering the offending words and phrases to say what they think it ought to have said. In most cases of mistranslated NIV passages, there is a clear 'problem' with the original text related either to doctrine or to biblical inerrancy."
This Day in History: Kenneth N. Taylor died on this day in 2005. Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor was an American publisher and author, better known as the creator of The Living Bible and the founder of Tyndale House, a Christian publishing company, and Living Bibles International. The Living Bible sold more than 40 million copies and was translated into more than 100 languages.
The main problem with all this is that the Living Bible is not a real Bible, it is a paraphrase.
"The word 'paraphrase' is used quite commonly in English for restating something in other words. In Bible translation, a paraphrase has the same primary goal as a dynamic equivalence translation -- that is, to make the meaning as plain and understandable as possible for the reader. The idea of making a Bible paraphrase is based upon the notion that the Bible's own phrasing is too difficult for the average reader. In a paraphrase, the translator is able to remove difficult rhetoric, harmonize passages with one
another, and draw out implications for the reader. It is a perfect opportunity to make the Bible consistent with the translator's own theology.
For these reasons, a paraphrase should never be mistaken for a Bible. It should not be packaged as a Bible, sold as a Bible, or used in place of a Bible. It should pass under the name of its author, as a commentary or interpretation of the Bible. When, instead, it is handled as if it is a Bible translation, and the author's name is left off of the title page as if he or she had no role in determining the contents of the book, a terrible deception is happening." Truth in Translation by Jason Beduhn
Taylor acknowledged this in his preface: "There are dangers in paraphrases as well as values. For whenever the author’s exact words are not translated from the Greek, there is a possibility that the translator, however honest, may be giving the English reader something that the original writer did not mean to say. This is because a paraphrase is guided not only by the translator’s skill in simplifying but also by the clarity of his understanding of what the author meant and by his theology. For when the Greek is not clear, then the theology of the translator is his guide, along with his sense of logic, unless perchance the translation is allowed to stand without any clear meaning at all. The theological lodestar in this book has been a rigid evangelical position."
Michael Marlowe criticized this work, saying that it was "the dumbing-down of the Biblical text to a grade-school level" done "in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." He adds that "very few scholars have given any encouragement to its [The Living Bible] use, and most have either ignored it or have strictly warned against it." Moreover, he claims that the text of The Living Bible contains "venturesome interpretations that no scholar is likely to approve" and that "[i]n several places Taylor brazenly wrests the scripture so as to conform it to Arminian teachings about salvation."
The Living Bible has made some interesting choices in wording. An early edition had "You son of a bitch" at 1 Samuel 20:30.
Also:
"I am just some drunken bum" 1 Samuel 1:16
"You illegitimate bastard" John 9:34
"Come to bed with me my, darling." 2 Samuel 13:11
"The Reluctant Dragon" Isaiah 30:7
"Israeli" at Exodus 9:4;12:34;14:20;19:1 etc.
"Hell is licking its chops in anticipation" Isaiah 5:14
The original text of the Living Bible is the great American Standard Version of 1901. The ASV correctly had JEHOVAH 7000 times instead of the horrible practice of replacing the name with LORD or GOD. The Living Bible only keeps Jehovah 313 times.
One case of clear theological bias can be seen at John 1:1. "Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God." This is not even remotely correct, and introduces a contradiction with Christ being WITH God and being "himself God." You can tell a translator's bias by how they treat this one passage.
This Day in History: English ecclesiastical reformer and Bible translator Myles Coverdale died on this day in 1569. In 1535, Coverdale produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.
Coverdale was also involved in translating The Matthew's Bible (1537), The Great Bible (1539) and The Geneva Bible (1557).
On inspecting my copy of Coverdale's Bible at Exodus 3, I notice that Coverdale does not translate ‘ehyeh asher ehyeh’ in verse 14 as "I am that I am." He instead translates this as "I wyl be what I wyll be', and in doing so breaks the connection to John 8:58 where Jesus says "I am." (Many use the connection between these two Scriptures as proof that Jesus is Jehovah). Coverdale may have drawn on William Tyndale's translation of Exodus 3:14 where he writes, "I wilbe what I wilbe."
While your mainstream standard Bible may say "I am that I am" many of them will feature the other reading in the margins or footnotes [American Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; NIV Study Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Living Bible - "I WILL BE"; Good News Bible - "I WILL BE."].
Many alternative Bibles do not translate Exodus 3:14 as I AM, but rather "I will be," such as The James Moffatt Translation and Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation By Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler says that Exodus 3:14 is "probably best translated as 'I Will Be What I Will Be'" and Robert Alter in his Hebrew Bible concludes as well that "I Will Be Who I Will Be" is the most plausible construction. Frederic Huidekoper in his "Genesis, Chapters I.-XI.: In Parallel Columns" also believes "I Will Be What I Will Be" "is the only translation." https://tinyurl.com/se9cupw . Even Walter Martin in his The Kingdom of the Occult at footnote 25 in the Eastern Mysticism and the New Age section that "the original words literally signify 'I will be what I will be.'"
"There is high probability that ehyeh is mistranslated as “I am” (as was pointed out by M. Buber in the New Bible Dictionary)." Source
'If the Apostles worshiped God in three persons, it will so appear in their conduct and writings; this circumstance will characterize their devout expressions everywhere. And this the more especially, because they were Jews, - a people who worshipped God with a strict and most jealous regard to his unity. They could not have changed their practice in this particular without the change being most strikingly observable. Yet we have no intimation of such a change. They appear to have gone on with the worship of the One God of their fathers, without any alteration. Look at this fact. When Paul was converted, he must have passed supposing the Trinity to be a christian doctrine from believing Jesus a blasphemous impostor, to believing him the Lord Jehovah. Is there the least hint of such an amazing change? He speaks with admiration and rapture of the new views and feelings which he enjoyed with his new faith. But all the rest together was not so astonishing and wonderful as this particular change. Yet he nowhere alludes to it. Is it then possible that it could have been so? that so great a revolution of feeling should have taken place, and no intimation of it be found in any act or expression? He speaks frequently of his prayers. And how? 'I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom.' It is plain therefore to whom Paul directed his worship. - His epistles contain many doxologies and ascriptions of praise to God. And in what terms? Always to One person, God the Father. And not once, either in his epistles, or in any other writing of the Bible, is a doxology to be found, which ascribes praise to Father, Son and Spirit, or to the Trinity in any form. This fact is worth remarking. The New Testament contains, I think, twenty-eight ascriptions in various forms; and from not one of them could you learn that the doctrine of the Trinity had been dreamt of in that day."
This day in history: The entire New English Bible was published on this day in 1970. The NEB is unique in that it was the first Protestant translation of the Bible made by a committee that abandoned the Tyndale/King James tradition. It was truly an ENGLISH Bible, as it was sponsored by the:
Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland
British and Foreign Bible Society
Church of England
Church of Scotland
Congregational Church in England and Wales
Council of Churches for Wales
Irish Council of Churches
London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Methodist Church of Great Britain
National Bible Society of Scotland
Presbyterian Church of England
It was also very British in its use of "Whitsuntide" instead of "Pentecost" at 1 Corinthians 16:8. Luke 12:6 has "Are not sparrows five for twopence?" and Mark 12:42 uses the word "farthing." Mark 6:37 has "Are we to go and spend twenty pounds on bread and give them a meal?"
The New English Bible has retained the old English (thee, thou) only when God is addressed, for its respectful tone, but the NEB has also been criticized for its irreverence. For instance, it starts Genesis 11:1 with "Once upon a time..." This was changed in its successor The Revised English Bible. The NEB has also been criticized for "watering down the Deity of Christ", but then, as Bible scholar Rudolf Bultmann stated: "In describing Christ as _God_ the New Testament still exercises great restraint."
The translators of the New English Bible, much like those of the Good News Bible, chose to render their translation using a principle of translation called dynamic equivalence (also referred to as functional equivalence or thought-for-thought translation). C. H. Dodd, Vice-Chairman and Director of the Joint Committee, commented that the translators "...conceived our task to be that of understanding the original as precisely as we could... and then saying again in our own native idiom what we believed the author to be saying in his." Dodd goes on to summarize the translation of the New English Bible as "...free, it may be, rather than literal, but a faithful translation nevertheless, so far as we could compass it." As a result, the New English Bible is more of a paraphrase at times in order to render what they thought the original author was saying.
The New English Bible does make for great reading however: "I call him a pompous ignoramus. He is morbidly keen on mere verbal questions and quibbles...all typical of men who have let their reasoning powers become atrophied." 1 Timothy 6:4. "It is an intractable evil, charged with deadly venom." James 3:9.
Still, I can't help thinking that the translators had a little fun. For instance, Joshua 15.18 reads “As she sat on the ass, she broke wind, and Caleb asked her, 'What did you mean by that?'”
Job 18:11 has "The terrors of death suddenly beset him and make him piss over his feet."
Ezekiel 21:7 has "all men's knees run with urine"
Also:
"Have nothing to do with loose livers" 1 Corinthians 5:9
"Am I a babboon..." 2 Samuel 3:8
"buffaloes/bison" Isaiah 34:7
"the griffon-vulture" Deut 14:12
"guardian angels" Matthew 18:10
"mother earth" Ecclesiastes 5:15
"porpoise hides" Exodus 35:23
"dragon" Psalms 68:22
"goddesses of the field" Song of Solomon 2:7
In Proverbs 18:10 there is a quote from Shakespeare's "Richard III, 5, iii, 12.
Hebrews 12:8 has "you must be bastards"
The Matthew 16:18 reading of "You are Peter, the Rock" has a very Catholic feel to it, as does the inclusion of the Apocrypha.
The Divine Name Jehovah is used 6 times in the book of Exodus (Ex.3:15,16; Ex.6:3; Ex.33:19; Ex.34:5,6).
The NEB is however a very readable Bible and is a complement to any present Bible version on your bookshelf, though it should not be used as a primary Bible (though I could say the same thing about the New International Version, which is a poorer Bible version). It did not catch on with the public in a lasting way, though it was successful enough to garner a revision.
One amazon reviewer noted on the Oxford Study Edition of the NEB: "Beautifully constructed language based on the earliest possible sources result in a loving and living Bible. The impressive group who did this monumental work intentionally ignored later and better known translations in order to get to the heart of the text and to use words that more closely communicate the intent and actual usage of the day. The contemporary language is not slangy or dumbed-down, either. This translation assumes you have a decent vocabulary and grasp of English, a FAR cry from the NIV, which is easy to read but does not have the rich evocative qualities that the NEB has.
Add all the Study notes, maps, etc, and this is a truly valuable and provocative Bible with many interesting historical references about the politics, commerce and customs of the day, richly added to every page as footnotes. Cross-references to other passages for clarity or reinforcement, alternative translations for some words or descriptions of items also add to the broad scope of appreciation one can get reading this lovely translation... even if you aren't Christian.
If you want to experience how beautifully the Bible can be conveyed in modern, real language, this is the Bible for you, and the study notes only make it all the more enriching."
This day in history: The first portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published on this day in 1946. According to Wikipedia, the RSV was "the first serious challenge to the popularity of the Authorized King James Version." This is incorrect. The first serious challenge to the popularity of the KJV came in 1881 with the publication of the English Revised Version, followed by the American Standard Version in 1901.
The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) remains the only officially authorized and recognized revision of the King James Version in Great Britain, though you would be hard-pressed to find a copy to buy. The American Standard Version has received a second life of its own online.
While the King James Version used the Divine Name "Jehovah" 4 times (Ex.6:3, Ps.83:18, Is.12:2, Is.26:4), and the ERV used "Jehovah" 9 times and the ASV used the name almost 7000 times, the RSV went against the Hebrew text and removed all mention of the name.
This however did not cause any controversy. What was deemed controversial was removing the word "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 and replacing it with "young woman." Luther Hux, a pastor in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, announced his intention to burn a copy of the RSV during a sermon on November 30, 1952. This was reported in the press and attracted shocked reactions, as well as a warning from the local fire chief. On the day in question, he delivered a two-hour sermon entitled "The National Council Bible, the Master Stroke of Satan—One of the Devil's Greatest Hoaxes". After ending the sermon, he led the congregation out of the church, gave each worshipper a small American flag and proceeded to set light to the pages containing Isaiah 7:14. Hux informed the gathered press that he did not burn the Bible, but simply the "fraud" that the Isaiah pages represented. Hux later wrote a tract against the RSV entitled Modernism's Unholy Bible.
The controversy stemming from this rendering helped reignite the King-James-Only Movement within the Independent Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Furthermore, many Christians have adopted what has come to be known as the "Isaiah 7:14 litmus test", which entails checking that verse to determine whether or not a new translation can be trusted.
In the Revised Standard Version, a change was made in the usage of archaic English for second-person pronouns, "thou", "thee", "thy", and verb forms "art, hast, hadst, didst", etc. The KJV, RV, and ASV used these terms for addressing both God and humans. The RSV used archaic English pronouns and verbs only for addressing God, a fairly common practice for Bible translations until the mid-1970s.
For the New Testament, the RSV followed the latest available version of Nestle's Greek text, whereas the RV and ASV had used the Westcott and Hort Greek text, and the KJV had used the Textus Receptus.
There are several different editions of the RSV Bible. Catholics have embraced the Catholic Edition (RSV-CE Ignatius Bible). The Common Bible: An Ecumenical Edition is supposed to be an edition of the RSV for all branches of Christendom. The RSV was also the basis of the Readers Digest Bible.
In 1989, the National Council of Churches released a full-scale revision to the RSV called the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). It was the first major version to use gender-neutral language and thus drew more criticism and ire from conservative Christians than did its 1952 predecessor. For instance, at Matthew 4:4 and RSV has "Man shall not live by bread alone" while the NRSV has "One does not live by bread alone."
Several members of the Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary complained in 1953 that the RSV Bible refused "to concede the full deity of Jesus Christ."
I'll let you be the judge:
Psalm 45:6 "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" ASV
"Your divine throne endures for ever and ever" RSV
Micah 5:2 "But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." ASV
"But you, O Bethlehem Eph'rathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." RSV
Romans 9:5 "...Christ, who is God over all, forever praised." New International Version
"God, who is over all be blessed for ever." RSV
Acts 20:28 "Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood." NIV
"be the shepherds of the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Son." Revised Standard Version
See also the footnotes at Hebrews 1:8, Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1.
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