Tag Archives: English Bibles

William Tyndale

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There is an excellent article on William Tyndale in Knowing and Doing (the magazine of the C.S. Lewis Institute) which anyone interested in the Bible or Translation would profit from. (HT Antony Billington)

Tyndale was both an able scholar (fluent  in seven languages in addition to English)  and “a conscious craftsman” with an “extraordinary gift for uniting the skill  of making sense of an original with the music of  spoken English at its best.” He succeeded in making the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament speak in remarkably clear, beautiful and vigorous English.

His work made the English a Bible-reading people and influenced future translations down to the present. Because William Tyndale gave the English people the Bible in
their own language, he is rightly honored as the “apostle of England.”

Not a few of Tyndale’s translations have become a part of the English language, including the following:

• “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”
• “No man can serve two masters.”
• “Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and
ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
• “Give unto one of these little ones to drink, a
cup of cold water only.”
• “The spirit is willing.”
• “Fight the good fight.”
• “In him we live and move and have
our being.”
• “With God all things are possible.”
• “Be not weary in well doing.”
• “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

This is the sort of legacy that any contemporary translator, in any language would love to leave behind. I do hope that it can be said of our work that it is expressed in remarkably clear, beautiful and vigorous Kouya.

Bible and Mission Links 26

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Myths and Bible Translation

Dan Wallace has a list of Five More Myths about Bible translation. In the space of a short article, he manages to take on Dan Brown, Islamic views of textual transmission and those people who think that verses printed in red are Jesus’ exact words. Good stuff in a small space.

Meanwhile, in a post which will comfort some and frustrate others,  Joel Hoffman talks about the Mythical Value of Reading the Bible in the Original languages.

More generally, the notion that studying Greek (or Hebrew) leads to a better understanding of the original texts is predicated on the idea that a student can do better than the professional translators. While, unfortunately, Bible translations tend to be of lower quality than other translations, they are still good enough that it’s pretty hard for all but the most expert students of Greek and Hebrew to find a true mistake.

What usually happens instead is that a professional translation takes a variety of factors into account while the student misses some of the nuances. Most people, unless they intend to become an expert, will understand the Bible better in translation. Worse, because of their limited knowledge, they’ll think their own reading is better than the accepted translations. This is a case of the clichéd way in which a little knowledge is dangerous.

Simon, meanwhile has reveals the shocking truth that the Bible isn’t new to him in any language:

I have heard many pastors and preachers tell of how much they love reading the Bible, how it’s a living word to them, and how every time they read it, it comes alive to them and they get something new and fresh from it. I have a dirty secret; that doesn’t happen for me. Yes, I love reading the Bible, but what generally happens is that I pick it up, and I go: I know this. I’ve read it, many many times, forward and backwards, in English and Japanese, Greek and Hebrew. This is not new information for me.

But I’m not sure that I actually need a fresh revelation right now. And I’m not sure that’s what God wants for me either. I don’t think God wants me to come up with a new, creative interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan; he just wants me to love my neighbour. I don’t think I need to notice something new about going into the world and making disciples of all nations; I just need to go, and do it.

Finally in this section, Mark and Laura Ward reveal the fallacy that lies behind some of the arguments used by proponents of the King James Only movement.

Missionary Life

A Faith to Live By gives us the extraordinary words with which Adoniram Judson asked his future father in law for his daughter’s hand in marriage. In rather more colourful language, Jamie gives her advice to anyone who is thinking about becoming a missionary (advice, I heartily endorse). Basically, Jamie says, start off by getting a real job:

A real job will teach you to live on a real budget. Because if you say to your real boss, “Hey, can I have some more money for a new car this week?” They’ll say “Um…No.” And then you’ll have to save your money, like a normal person, and buy the car later. Or not buy the car. … I know. It’s cRaZy!
A real job will help you learn not to be an entitled, self-righteous bunghole. Because if you act like that at a real job, they will kick your ass to the curb.
A real job will help you understand time management. Because, your real schedule will not likely allow you to spend three hours every Friday afternoon with your friends or your kids, – even if you call it “discipleship” on Facebook. Actually, that reminds me, your real job won’t let you call any time you spend on Facebook “work”. Not “support development”, not “communication”, not “team building”… Nope. No matter how you say it, Real Job does not approve.

A Bit of Controversy
Mark Woodward has some interesting thoughts on the subject of the Good News for the Poor.

What is the good news for the Bajaj driver, who works long hours to earn more than the $60 a month he pays to rent his vehicle, so he can make ends meet? What about the porter working in an electronics store, earning $50 a month carrying equipment around? What is the good news for the young men at the bus terminal, making small change packing bags into buses and selling phone credit?

Ben Tredaway, a recent University Graduate has some challenging things to say about evangelism. I don’t agree with all he has to say, but it’s well worth a read.

I’ll finish off with this great picture from Exploring Our Matrix.

 

 

It’s a Bit More Complex Than That

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Most mornings, which I turn on my computer I find that Google has selected a few new blog posts on the subject of Bible translation for me to read. Generally, these are discussing the merits of various English translations and I can safely ignore them. However, this morning I came across two posts that caused me to pause. The first was an old post from Adrian Warnock (I’ve got no idea why Google picked up on it today) which consisted of a quote from Wayne Grudem saying why he believes that literal, or word for word, translations are best. There was no discussion of what Dr Grudem said and no probing of his ideas. The implication was that because Grudem said it, it must be true – end of argument.

“I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible. I tried the NIV for one semester, and I gave it up after a few weeks. Time and again I would try to use a verse to make a point and find that the specific detail I was looking for, a detail of wording that I knew was there in the original Hebrew or Greek, was missing from the verse in the NIV.

“Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English . . .

“Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.

The second post which caught my eye was a list of fifteen myths about Bible translation from Daniel Wallace; the first of which reads:

Perhaps the number one myth about Bible translation is that a word-for-word translation is the best kind. Jerome argued against this, noting that his translation of the Vulgate was not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense. And that’s as it should be. Anyone who is conversant in more than one language recognizes that a word-for-word translation is simply not possible if one is going to communicate in an understandable way in the receptor language. Yet, ironically, even some biblical scholars who should know better continue to tout word-for-word translations as though they were the best. Perhaps the most word-for-word translation of the Bible in English is Wycliffe’s, done in the 1380s. Although translated from the Latin Vulgate, it was a slavishly literal translation to that text. And precisely because of this, it was hardly English.

I was rather amused that these two articles turned up next to each other in my Google reader! What to make of this discrepancy? I think the obvious point is that things are not quite as simple as Dr Grudem and Adrian Warnock would have us believe. This is ground that we’ve covered more than once on Kouya Chronicle.

The first thing to note is that the division between ‘literal’ and ‘dynamic’ or ‘word for word’ and ‘idea for idea’ translations is not particularly helpful. These are not terms which are used in any other field of translation and I’m not sure that they really help us understand translation debates. Joel Hoffman covered this issue a while ago and one commentator wrote:

The terminology of Bible translation annoys me somewhat, because in the real world of professional translation, these terms don’t exist. There’s mainly just good translation and bad, with some genres requiring more lexical rigidity than others. Preserving the word order and other idiosyncrasies of the source language is always inadvisable. Language is a vehicle for conveying thought. When your focus becomes preserving syntax instead of thought, you’ve missed the point.

However, I think we are probably stuck with the terms ‘literal’ and ‘dynamic’ even if they are not particularly helpful.  With that in mind, I have to say that there are some serious problems with the idea of ‘literal’ translation. You can see this illustrated in a couple of short blog posts; one by me and one by Nora. On a more scholarly level, Mark Naylor has this to say:

The English Standard Version (ESV), according to the preface on its website, “is an ‘essentially literal’ translation” that emphasizes “word-for-word” correspondence, in order to “be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.”However, unfortunately for literal translations, there is an inverse relationship between maintaining the structure of the original text with “word-for-word” correspondence and the communication of meaning. To the extent that a translation maintains original structure and words, it fails to provide the meaning.  Therefore, to claim direct access to both structure and meaning is oxymoronic. It is only by using the target language structure and words (i.e., the language of the reader) that communication is achieved.

Elsewhere, Naylor takes a more nuanced view:

Though individually limited, together literal and meaning-based translations provide readers with greater confidence that they have grasped the intended meaning of the original text. Exclusive use of a literal version makes it difficult for the reader to understand the message. Exclusive use of one meaning-based translation will prevent the reader from exposure to other possible nuances of the original text. Excellent scholarship lies behind both literal and meaning-based versions so that we can read them with confidence and compare them in order to obtain a deeper appreciation of the message. Literal translations ensure that we maintain a tie to the original text as the standard for the meaning, while meaning-based translations provide clarity and comprehension.

And this to me, is the point. There are strengths and weaknesses in all Bible translations; they are the work of fallible men. All of the translators of the major versions in English have set out to translate Scripture as faithfully as they can according to their own knowledge and abilities; we should be grateful to them. Equally, we all have our preferences as to the values of one translation over another. Dr Grudem clearly has strong views, but his is not the only opinion out there and there are other theologians and scholars who take a diametric opposite view. These are complex issues. Meanwhile, there are still 340,000,000 people without a single word of Scripture in their language. Perhaps if we spent less time faffing around discussing the merits English translations, we might contribute something to this.

One final note; the ultimate and authoritative guide to Bible translation terminology is still available on Kouya.net.

The Soul Survivor Youth Bible

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Hodder and Stoughton have kindly sent me a copy of the NIV Soul Survivor Youth Bible to review.

In their blurb, Amazon write:

With over 500 extra bits from the team and young people at Soul Survivor and other well-known experts, the NIV Soul Survivor Youth Bible digs deep into the Bible – its key themes, the big stories that run all the way through, the wisdom, stories and human lives that we can learn from. It also shows what the Bible has to say about things that we all face today, from tough life and world issues to the questions you really hope your mates don’t ask.

‘We’ve asked tough questions (like, ‘Why does God allow suffering?’ and ‘What’s Leviticus all about?!’) as well as tackling important issues that we face today (like relationships, terrorism, money).There are different streams on each topic for individual or group study, Bible reading plans, helpful facts and accessible stories. In short, we’ve packed every last thing that we could into these pages- and we’ve banned all jargon so it all makes sense!’

The first question that I might be expected to ask is whether there is need for yet another English Bible. However, this is not a new translation – it uses the NIV text – but a new edition with various helps to Bible reading and study included. If this gets people reading God’s Word, I’m all for it.

This Bible is currently only available in hardback, which makes for a nice solid book, but I’m not sure how well it will be adapted to a life of being stuffed into backpacks and carried around. Sometimes paperback Bibles can put up with a nomadic life better than hardbacks. The cover has a three colour dramatic design with the Soul Survivor name and logo prominently displayed; it certainly isn’t your standard ‘Bible-black’. While the cover isn’t a big issue, I do think that the prominent ‘Soul Survivor’ branding could be a mixed blessing. It will certainly be attractive to the large number of young people who are associated with Soul Survivor, but it may alienate those who have no contact with the movement. This would be a shame, because this really is a very good ‘youth Bible’.

The extra materials; study guides, introductions and such like, are all clearly set apart from the biblical text and, for the most part, don’t distract from reading the Bible itself, which is undoubtedly a good thing. That being said, the quality of the ‘extra material’ is generally very good. Each biblical book is preceded by a short introduction explaining what the book is about and why we should read it. These introductions are short, pithy and they were written for young people just getting to grips with the Bible, not for specialists in biblical studies. No doubt, it would be possible to pick holes in them, but that would be to miss the point. They set out to do a simple job and they do it well. I wish I’d had these introductions available to me 35 years ago. At the end of the Bible there is a short study guide to the Bible and a list of verses to look at in particular situations.

One particularly helpful concept is the ‘Walks’; these are guided series of readings touching on essential topics in the Bible. Each of these walks has fourteen passages to read and takes you through a subject such as the life of Jesus, or the journey to the promised land. I reckon that each of these walks could provide excellent material for a term’s talks or studies for a church youth group.

Scattered through the Bible are individual articles on subjects such as giving, prayer, evangelism and such like. These articles don’t avoid the tough questions and there are pieces on hell and genocide. As you would expect, the quality of these articles is variable; some are excellent, most are good and one or two could do with rewriting – but I’m being picky.

On a lighter note, there are some great little pieces which are not very deep, but which would grab the attention of the intended readership. Who could resist a study of the most disgusting meals in the Bible?

Overall, I think that this is an excellent edition of the NIV. I’m not sure whether the Soul Survivor branding is a good idea or not. It will certainly help people who have attended the various manifestations of Soul Survivor to pay attention to their Bibles, but it might also alienate others who would benefit from this great youth Bible. Just being a little picky, unless I missed something, the issue of world mission doesn’t really get adequate coverage though some of the trendier causes of the day do get a mention.

If you are looking for a Bible to give to a young person, I strongly suggest that you go out and give the Soul Survivor Youth Bible a look. Now that I’ve finished writing this, I’m going to go and give my review copy to our Youth department!

Bible and Mission Links 21

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It’s been a while since my last update of all things Bible and mission floating around the internet, so there is a fair bit to mention this time round.

Bible Translation

Coming from a secularised western society, I find it difficult to get my mind around concepts such as witchcraft and sorcery. However, this is something that Bible translators cannot ignore; the Bible has a fair bit to say on the subject and many languages have very complex ways of addressing it. The complexity of this issue is a great illustration of the  simple fact that not just anyone can be a Bible translator. The Huffington Post has an interesting background piece on myths about translation.

English Bibles

Tim asks the not unreasonable question of why we need so many versions of the Bible in English while Joel asks how our favourite Bible translations measure up. I am constantly amazed at the new and rather odd editions of the Bible which are produced in the US. If this review is at all accurate, I won’t be hurrying out to buy a copy of the Founders’ Bible at any time soon, but I might be tempted to buy a copy of the Mission of God Study Bible.

βλογάπη (great name for a website) has a fascinating link to a piece which evaluates the historical impact of the KJV.

Cross-Cultural Mission

Mark Woodward picked up on my links to Mark Meynel’s blog (the Two Marks of Mission?) and wrote an excellent piece which is well worth quoting:

What would it mean for us to make strategic decisions based on a study of God’s mission throughout the Bible? Or what Jesus had to say about poverty and wealth? As we are working across cultures and in multi-ethnic teams, what can we learn from Paul’s New Testament letters as he continually battles with a multi-racial church, with vastly different cultures, histories and traditional beliefs, that he insists has been united in Christ? How might we plan our work in a post-colonial and globalised world in light of the Bible’s interaction with the major themes of empire and oppression? Or slavery and (both geographical and spiritual) exile? How might the biblical approaches to suffering and persecution inform our decisions? Or the experiences of communities in the Bible as they live as ethnic minorities, with their culture and identity under threat from every side? What can we learn from Jesus about how to announce a kingdom that is putting everything right, but starts out as a small seed that falls to the ground?

I think at times we can be afraid to discuss these things in a corporate setting (particularly those of us working in an inter-denominational environment), as we are afraid to disagree. But again I think this fear stems from the modern insistence that there is only one right answer, and that we must decide on it together. Maybe the truth is that it’s only actually as diverse but united believers, wrestling with these huge issues and humbly stepping forward in faith, that we begin to draw closer to God and appreciate more of what he is doing in his world.

Jonathan Martin writes about a controversy which has convulsed parts of the American Christian blogsphere, but does so from a perspective of the world Church. What he has to say puts a lot of our current theological questions into perspective:

The average Christian in the world right now is an African or Latin American female in her early 20’s.  She doesn’t read our blogs and she doesn’t readChristianity Today.  She doesn’t know or care who I am and she never will.  The names Piper, Driscoll, Chan, Bell, Stanley, Warren—mean nothing to her.  Like most Pentecostal women coming into the kingdom around the world, words like “complementarian” and “egalitarian” are not in her vocabulary, nor Calvinism and Arminianism.  Unlike some of my brothers would lead you believe (where their lunch table is the only one that cares about Scripture and THE GOSPEL while anybody who believes differently from them in these tired conversations are flaming liberals), she takes the authority of the Bible very seriously.  But more importantly, she believes in the power of the Bible in ways that are incomprehensible even for our most rabid “conservatives.”  The western filter and language that frames these issues will not be determinative for her, unlucky as she is not to read our blogs.  She may well in end up leading a church one day where she preaches Jesus like a woman on fire and lays hands on the sick and watches God heal them, though this will surprise those Reformed colleagues who are sure all female church leaders have been trained by godless-Unitarian-lesbian-leftist-radical feminist-seminarians (she didn’t have access to seminary at all–unfortunately she has read the Acts of the Apostles).  Who knew?

The world has moved on, God has moved on, and we didn’t even notice.

Resources

There is a fascinating pieceon the Affinity website about reaching post-modern youth who come from an Eastern-Orthodox background. Thanks to Tim for pointing out that  Thomas Shcirrmacher’s collection of essays,  World Mission: Heart of Christianity, is available as a free pdf download. I’ve only just started reading this, but it seems very good so far. Ben has linked to some fascinating maps which look at the way in which religious believers have migrated around the world and Mez has reviewed one of the best books I know on Christian social involvement.

Varia

The Beaker Folk have posted an excellent guide to evaluating mission initiatives:

From the Beaker FOlk

 While the Opinionated Vicar has a great illustration of discipleship:

Bible and Mission Links 20

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For those who follow these things, I have changed the sea bird photograph that I’m using for this series. There is no significance behind the change or my choice of photo, but I though I’d mention it.

Over the last few weeks Antony Billington has been blogging up a storm and has linked to lots of good resources including:

Bible Translation

There have been a few recent blog posts setting out reasons why Bible translation is important for the Church.

The Seed Company blog has a good article setting out a justification for Bible translation. Itbuilds on the work of Lamin Sanneh and Andrew Walls. Regular readers of Kouya Chronicle will have seen much of this before, but as a summary of some current thinking it is worth a look:

Joel Hoffman has written a fascinating little post on the problem of translating directions in the Bible. Who would have imagined that a simple word like ‘south’ could be so problematic?

There are lots of blog posts written about theories and models of Bible translation, most of which are not written by translators – and it shows. As a general rule, if anyone writes something along these lines “there are two main theories of Bible translation; dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence”, they almost certainly don’t know what they are talking about! If you want to get a good overview of the various ideas about Bible translation and you would like to place them in some sort of context, this article would be a good place to start. (HT katadrew)

Nathan has written an excellent article on the problem of choosing the best Bible translation in English.

 This is unacceptable. The English language has plenty of translations to choose from. There shouldn’t be the thought of another translation project in our language until we cut the number of languages with no Bibles in half! And even then it probably wouldn’t be necessary to start another English language translation project. It’s amazing that the KJV has lasted so long with its thees and thous. People still use the KJV as their translation of choice. If the KJV could last so long, couldn’t our modern translations like the NIV or the HCSB tide us over for a while so that we can get as many resources over to these other countries that have nothing?

This piece asks some hard questions, while finishing on a heart warming note:

I had a professor once who is from the Miso people, who live in a remote part of northeast India.  He told us how, when he was a child, missionaries came to his village.  The Miso people had no written language.  The missionaries reduced the Miso language to writing, in part motivated by a desire to produce Miso-language Bibles.  They also established a school, the first his village had ever had.  Thanks to those missionaries my professor went on ultimately to get a Ph.D. from Princeton.  He told us that the most amazing thing he discovered when he came to America was the pervasive negative impression of Christians.  All he had ever known of Christians was goodness, love and self-sacrifice.

Missionary Life

Picking up on the previous link, my friend Ed Lauber has a fascinating story about some of the challenges he faced as a missionary in West Africa. Mark has some provocative thoughts on the current economic crisis which are informed by his experience of living in Africa:

As European news is filled with dread about the economic situation on a daily basis, I wonder if in fact the crisis is more a crisis of belief in an economic system, a paradigm where the golden rule is that we all act selfishly in the belief that this will bring prosperity and happiness to all. A system where we who are rich just look after ourselves, getting richer while at the same time believing that our greed is actually helping the poor too. A system where we feel we have the right to ever-increasing wealth, turning a blind eye to those who don’t seem to be benefiting in the same way that we are.

The Gospel Coalition challenges to consider cancelling our short term mission trips, while Nathan gives seven good reasons to support missionaries (if you need a missionary to support, you could always start with us!).
Meanwhile, Jamie has some brilliant observations on the subject of being a missionary:

We’ve watched our friends meet other missionaries and noticed that sometimes when they hear that word, something weird happens. We’ve seen couples who are simply living together suddenly become husband and wife, foul mouthed jocks suddenly wax eloquent, beer aficionados become teetotalers for the moment, and raunchy stories about what happened last Friday night get tabled for another time.

In my experience, it seems the only people who feel excited to cross paths with a missionary are other missionaries, and people who feel a religious kinship with missionaries.

Theology-ish

Recently, I was amused see someone on twitter talking about the differences between Africa and Europe, when their whole experience of Africa was one trip to Nairobi. Africa is a huge and highly diverse continent and to think that you know about it after one trip to Nairobi is a bit like assuming that you know about Europe on the basis of one visit to Copenhagen. In a similar vein, this short article tries to get to grips with ‘African theology’. It’s a good place to start, but it is no more than a start!

The Bible and Mission Blog points us to an excellent resource from Chris Wright and there is an excellent piece from an Australian journal on heart language worship in multi-cultural contexts.

Brian has posted lots of good and thoughtful stuff over the past few weeks. There is too much for me to link to everything, so just head over to his blog and have a read.

For those interested in witness and ministry among Muslims, there is an absolutely excellent, and very challenging paper in the latest edition of IJFM.

You cannot carry the gospel to the Muslim world today without having a clear and well-articulated opinion on the Palestinian tragedy, on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on US global military involvement and its offensive neo-colonial support for autocratic regimes and dictators to guard its own economic interests.

Lastly, I’ve not linked to a cartoon by Dave Walker for a while, but this one is well worth a look!

This CartoonChurch.com cartoon by Dave Walker originally appeared in the Church Times.

Bible and Mission Links 18

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Church Planting

Krish Kandiah is rather excited about the prospect of Saddleback Church from the US planting a new church in London, but Matthew Phipps is somewhat more cautious and Simon Cozens is somewhat sceptical. You can make up your own mind by reading all three posts.

Bible Translation

Bible translation has been getting quite a bit of coverage in the blogsphere of late. The Anvil journal devoted a whole issue to the question. You need to register to read the full articles, but the process is easy and only takes a minute or two (so far, I’ve not received any theological spam as a result of giving Anvil my email address!). The highlights are essays by NT Wright:

Opera-goers, of course, often have the luxury of surtitles, so that while the original words are sung on stage the translation can appear on a screen above. Despite the popularity of overhead projectors in church, I have not heard anyone suggesting that we should read the Bible out loud in its original Hebrew and Greek, with a modern English translation above. The reason we don’t do that, I think, is not just the lack of competent people to read the original languages out loud. The reason is that we believe in translation. Putting the message of Jesus, and the message about Jesus, into different languages so that people can understand it in their own idiom is one of the things Christians characteristically do.

and Lamin Sanneh:

Missionaries had to cope not only with strange, unfamiliar sounds and usage, but also with nuance and allusions in languages for which they had to develop, almost literally, new ears. We know from missionary correspondence what a crushing burden this puts on the shoulders of even the most able and willing, and how long and arduous is the effort to make headway.

Mark Woodward has an interesting post on the value of linguistic diversity from a Christian point of view.

In this light I believe a Christian response is to come alongside communities whose languages are threatened by extinction and offer our help in preserving and developing these languages, thereby allowing often struggling communities to thrive, affirming their identity, self-worth and their place in God’s world. This may not always be seen to be cost-effective or an efficient use of resources, but I think it is a practical outworking of God’s kingdom in an increasingly globalised world that is happy to see minority languages fall by the wayside. The alternative, to accept uniformity as necessary for the sake of convenience and “progress”, is merely to repeat the mistake of the builders at Babel, who sought to stay together and try to achieve something significant apart from God, rather than fulfilling God’s mandate to go, fill and steward his diverse creation.

On the subject of English Bibles, there has been a lot of hysteria about a new translation called The Voice (not to be confused with a TV show of the same name). Ben Witherington has reposted some comments on the whole thing:

In the new translation called The Voice Bible (Thomas Nelson Publishers), the choice was made to go for a more dynamic translation of some familiar words. The one that seems to have got some folks all worked up is the translation of the Greek word Christos as “the anointed one”. Hysterical people and some news outlets scream: “New translation takes Christ out of the Bible!” So, e.g., the lead scholar in the project, Dr. David Capes (Houston Baptist University), gets interviewed on CNN about why they’ve done this, and across blog-dom the hysterics spread.

So, for the record: CNN and USAToday have misrepresented the translation. Nobody’s removed Jesus from the NT. The translation “anointed” is simply what “Christos means. It’s not a name, of course, but a title.

Not all discussions of Bible translation are heated or uninformed. Simple discipleship has a great little post about the difficulty of translating the word doulos in the context of an ethnically mixed congregation in the USA. It is a superb illustration of the sort of minefield that translators are continually forced to navigate.

On the subject of minefields, the World Evangelical Alliance have announced the chairman of the panel who will be carrying out a review of Wycliffe’s translation policies.

Various Mission Issues

We have always enjoyed good relations with our supporting churches. However, this cautionary tale shows that not all missionaries can say the same thing.

Simon has posted an interesting piece on the danger of doing.

… events are the false god of missionary work. And yeah, that’s strong terminology but I’m going with it because I think there is something very seductive and very dangerous—at least for me, I’m speaking here about what pushes my particular egotistical buttons—about the idea that I can put on an event, lots of people come, and hey presto, my missionary work is worthwhile. I’m doing something, and better than that, I made it happen. People came to a thing I made.
This is complimented by a challenging piece from my friend Ruedi on Measuring God’s Performance.

In Christian circles, it has become fashionable to measure impact and results rather than activities. Yet, the apostle Paul wrote that some plant and some water, but God gives growth. When we try to measure results, we ultimately attempt to measure God’s performance. Which, to say the least, seems just a tad presumptuous… The biblical response for us, as it was for King David, is not only to cease and desist from a measuring behavior, but to repent of the desire to measure in the first place.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on that one!

And Lastly…

Doug posted a wonderful article on inventing the mythical Jesus, which needs to be read in its entirety, so I won’t try and quote it. We’ve had a lot of dismal weather in the UK over the last couple of months, thankfully, the Beaker Folk have found the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Best Kept Secret

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Does it frustrate you to see so many English language versions of the Bible when some languages don’t have one?

It drives me up the wall quite frankly. When I saw they were revising the NIV yet again, I found it quite difficult.

That being said, many of the translators do use their profits to support Christian ministry around the world. So the people who publish the Living Bible are very generous benefactors to Wycliffe.

I can’t complain entirely, but I do wish we’d stop lavishing resources on ourselves and offer resources to the rest of the world. It’s the spiritual equivalent of obesity being a huge problem in the Western world while there are millions around the world who are starving.

This is an excerpt from an interview with me conducted by Sam Hailes of Christianity.co.uk.

Bible and Mission Links 17

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Bible Translation

This theme brings us back to a couple of perennial issues. One of the things which never ceases to amaze me is the way in which people hold to the belief that the King James Version is the only acceptable translation of the Bible. The original translators certainly didn’t believe this, as this excellent post shows. The other recurring issue is the question about appropriate translation of certain family terms in the Scriptures. The World Reformed Fellowship has an interesting article by someone who attended a meeting where translators were discussing this question.

Returning to the normal subject matter of this blog; Wycliffe UK have a couple of excellent posts on the impact of Bible translation among the Hanga people of Ghana. Read this one first, then this one. Mark Woodward posted a fascinating piece about his experiences in Tanzania.

Last month we were excited to be able to host six speakers of the Kibende language, as they took the very first step towards writing their language and later starting to translate the Bible into Kibende. During the week that they spent with us here in Mpanda they managed to collect over a thousand words in their language, which will later be analysed linguistically in order to come up with a writing system that is intuitive and easy for Kibende speakers to read and write.

For us it was encouraging to see this first step in the translation project, and to look ahead in faith to the coming months and years as the Bende hopefully become more and more involved in the work, and start to produce the first portions of Scripture.

Varia

The coup in Mali has faded out of the mainstream news in the UK, but the situation there is still very difficult. This piece describes some of the things that Christians in the North of the country are facing.

There is a believer in one of the cities that has been overtaken that had an opportunity to leave the city yesterday.  A bus was sent to pick up him and the other believers that he had been shepherding during this time.  However, when the bus arrived, he and several other believing men gave up their seats so that more women and children could escape even though they were not believers.  They are hoping that another bus will come soon and that the rest of them will be able to leave.  I do not know this man personally but I am sure that in spite of all that has happened in the past two weeks he has not ceased to say “Blessed Be Your Name.”

From time to time I’ve commented on some of the problems with missionary approaches which focus on ‘unreached peoples’. This article picks up on a similar theme.

I am full aware of the urgency of reaching the unreached and preaching the Gospel to all creation, (Mark 16:15) but who gets to corner the market on the definition of “unreached?”  I suspect, it is the “market place” of Christendom itself.  Perhaps it’s the wrong question entirely. The desire to reach the unreached is motivated by the thinking that when all ethnic groups have been reached, then Christ will return. (Mark 24:14) This assumption may be emotionally driven, but I don’t think it’s biblically supported.  In fact, I don’t believe this particular verse has anything to do with Christ’s ultimate return at all.

The Beaker Folk have a superb take on the disciple Thomas:

I do like Thomas. He’s the brave one who says “well we may as well go to Jerusalem and die with him”. I say “brave” – “desperate” might be another word; again, “cynical” might be another. But he can reckon up the probabilities of what may happen if they go to Jerusalem – calls it about right, let’s face it – and still figure it’s worth going with it – because if Jesus goes to Jerusalem without them, after all, what have they got left?

He’s the one who effectively says “I’m not saying I don’t believe you – I’m just saying give me the evidence”. And he’s the one who makes the leap that the others couldn’t manage in a week. Imagine that week as he’s thinking – “If I don’t see Jesus, he’s just a dead rabbi. If I do see Jesus – there’s only one thing he can be. If I don’t see Jesus, we just go back to normal. If I do see Jesus – I’m going to have to bow and worship. If I don’t see Jesus, things are still what they seem. If I do see Jesus – there’s something very different about the world, all of a sudden.”

Lastly for this time round is a short video about the work of Street Pastors in my home town. Paul travelled the world  preaching the Gospel to Gentiles, but he never lost his affection and concern for his own people, the Jews. I’m no Paul, but it does my heart good to see the love of Christ being shared with ‘my people’. On a linguistic note, who wouldn’t want to work in a city where people have such a wonderful accent? Dave Burke’s blog is a great place to find out more about what God is doing in that part of the world.

Bible Translation Controversy: The Problem of English

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I know it might sound obvious, but when discussing Bible translation issues, it is really important to remember that the Bible wasn’t actually written in English. Not only that, but unless you are talking about the NIV, ESV etc, Bible translations aren’t done into English either. This means that discussions about translation controversies inevitably involve talking about translation from language one (Greek or Hebrew), into language two (the ‘host’ language), using language three (English). Anyone who has studied languages in any detail knows that words in one langauge almost never have the same exact meaning and range as their ‘equivalents’ in other languages. Trying to conduct a debate across three different languages is fraught with difficulty.

Let me illustrate this with something I read on Twitter.

“Father, Messiah and Holy Spirit”. Is this a good translation?

Of course, anyone who reads this would immediately react and say that it is not good. It’s a dreadful translation; really awful! However, I don’t actually know of an English version of Scripture which uses these terms, so it’s not really a sensible question. Whether it sounds right to English speakers, is not really important. What matters is that the term used in the host language (translated into English as ‘messiah’) accurately carries the sense of the Greek term τοῦ υἱοῦ. To judge whether this is a good translation means having a good understanding of both NT Greek and the host language concerned, the English words tell you almost nothing. (I will return to the technicalities of this particular translation in a later post.)

Vern Poythress captures this question accurately.

Words do not match in a one-to-one fashion across languages. The difficulty is a general one, and is not confined to religious vocabulary. But meanings can still be communicated faithfully, provided we recognize a difficulty when it appears. We try patiently to find a way to express the meaning in the target language. But expressing the meaning faithfully may sometimes mean searching for the right expression, rather than immediately choosing an expression in the target language whose words seem to a native speaker of English to match English words at some points.

Cranmer explores what this means for the current online debate about Bible translation:

The notion that translation can be effected by internet petition (by people many of whom will have very little understanding of the host culture situation) seems like the very worst kind of Western Christian arrogance. We may know what ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ mean in English, but it does not follow that they must have the same semantic range in another language. Who but the Greek and the scholar of Greek can know what is meant by huios? Who but the indigenous and the participant observer can begin to grapple with the difference and distinction between biological and social familial terms?

So what does this mean in practice? It certainly does not mean that there is no place for discussion. There must always be a place to question and discuss issues as important as translating key Biblical terms. Translators must always be open to listen to other opinions. Again, quoting Cranmer:

There is drafting and wide consultation with members of the local community to discover if phrases or expressions capture the sense of Scripture. This is rigorous and painstaking, and is followed by revision and further revision. Translators have to learn humility as their scholarship and professionalism are constantly criticised and not infrequently amended or even completely discarded.

However, the important thing is that this discussion needs to be informed. The proper place for these debates needs to be within the host language community, involving people who know and understand the language being used and its implications. Even then, there will always be disagreements (I will return to this question, later, too).

Does this mean that there is no place for mono-lingual English speakers to have a view on this debate? Not entirely. However, if you have, at best, limited knowledge of biblical languages and no background in the host language, it would be wise to take time for some serious study and reflection before expressing a firm opinion on a subject as complex and nuanced as this.

The PM, The Bible and Cultural Christianity

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This year has seen the four hundredth anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible marked with a good deal more publicity than ever attended its orignal publication.

Yesterday, in a speech delivered to clergy in Oxford, the Prime Minister added his voice to the many who have spoken up over the last year (read it here). I tend to avoid political comment on this blog, but given that the Prime Minister has wandered into my territory, I reckon I can make a few comments on what he said, or as Mr Cameron puts it…

I certainly don’t object to the Archbishop of Canterbury expressing his views on politics. Religion has a moral basis and if he doesn’t agree with something he’s right to say so.

But just as it is legitimate for religious leaders to make political comments, he shouldn’t be surprised when I respond.  Also it’s legitimate for political leaders to say something about religious institutions as they see them affecting our society, not least in the vital areas of equality and tolerance

So, what do I think of the speech?

It is good to see the Bible being discussed in the public arena. Famously, Tony Blair “didn’t do God”, so it’s good to see a politician who is prepared to speak out on these issues. Whatever the merits of the content of his speech (and they are mixed, at best) the fact that the Prime Minister has got people talking about the Bible is something we should be grateful for.

The Bible is not primarily a cultural artefact. Like many commentators over the past year, Mr Cameron has made the mistake of seeing the Bible primarily in cultural terms. In his speech he makes great play of the way in which the King James version expresses itself more poetically than the Good News Version. This is an old argument and I’m not going to go over it all again, but the original Greek of the New Testament was not high flown and elegant (some early Church writers said that the Greek of the New Testament was significantly inferior to Homer’s classical Greek). The point of the Bible is not to express amazing art (though it does that) but to be understood. It is fine for an Eton and Oxford educated Prime Minister to say that he prefers the KJV, but modern versions of the Bible are far easier for normal people to understand – and understanding is what counts.

The Message of the Bible has shaped our society. Mr Cameron was right to point out that the political life and institutions of our country have been shaped by values derived from the Bible and Christian faith. (If you are unconvinced by this give The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization a read.) He was also correct to suggest that we shouldn’t use the Bible to insist that one political approach and mindset is correct. Scripture has been mis-used to defend apartheid and slavery in the past and I’m sure that our generation can find ways to justify wrongdoing in politics today.

The Bible is not a book about Values. Though the Prime Minister had a number of good things to say, his speech was undermined because, for all of his classical education, he doesn’t really understand what the Bible is about. He never mentions the central narrative of the Bible: God reaching out to reconcile a fallen world and a fallen humanity to himself through the death of Christ on the Cross. Indeed, as far as I can tell, the words cross or crucifixion never get a mention.

Mr Cameron, says “… we are a Christian country and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so”. What exactly does this mean?

Indeed, as Margaret Thatcher once said, “we are a nation whose ideals are founded on the Bible.”

Responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion, humility, self-sacrifice, love…

…pride in working for the common good and honouring the social obligations we have to one another, to our families and our communities…

…these are the values we treasure.

Yes, they are Christian values.

And we should not be afraid to acknowledge that.

In the Prime Minister’s view, a Christian country is one which shares a set of moral values. They are good moral values, ones that it is hard to argue with and which, as he points out, are shared by most faiths. However, as a “a committed – but  vaguely practising – Church of England Christian” he clearly does not grasp the central message of the Bible and the Christian faith; the message of reconciliation to God and the creation of a radical new society.

The sort of cultural Christianity which Mr Cameron advocates in his speech, has a fine moral code and no-doubt leads to the production of great works of art and literature, but it falls a long way short of the counter cultural message of the Bible. Without the cross, Christianity has nothing to offer the world other than nice sounding words and unattainable aspirations.

David Cameron has done us a great favour in bringing the Bible into the public discourse, but though he has much to say that is interesting and of some value, he ultimately misses the point, which is sad. We need to continue to pray for him and all of those in authority.

Much of the online comment on this speech has been rather disappointing and simplistic. However, I would recommend comments from Simon’s Blog, Creativity Defines Me and A Faith to Live By.

Edit: since I posted this, Archdruid Eileen has published a wonderful commentary on the same subject.