Here we go again, another Bible version to address some supposed need — this time catering an audience thought to lack any sense of linguistic sophistication. Of course, all it will do is drag the Scriptures down while hardly lifting the reader up.

But we’ve seen this before, most notoriously in a “gender-neutral” version. But others such as the “Living Bible” aren’t much better. Certain offshoots of Christianity, such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own versions to bolster their departures from orthodox Christian doctrine.

And let’s not forget Mr. Jefferson’s ‘version’ which just omitted passages he didn’t like — such as references to eternal punishment.

That the Anglican church would endorse this nonsense is not surprising. Why should it be concerned with maintaining the dignity of a book it hardly believes anymore?

I’m reminded that when the notorious Bishop Pike was brought up on heresy charges it came to naught. The Anglican church by then had so completely abandoned the core doctrinal framework of Christian belief that they had no basis upon which to judge him. Modern Anglican leaders such as Bishop Spong carry on this decline.

Meanwhile, even when evangelical Protestantism doesn’t deliberately radically paraphrase the Bible, they try to be “seeker-sensitive” in their marketing, such as the Extreme Teen Bible, marketed towards the skateboarding, snowboarding “youth culture”:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0785200819

[Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com:

The Extreme Teen Bible dares teens to crack open its pages and live up to the cutting-edge standard found inside. This New King James translation (thoroughly explained in teen-friendly language) is clad in funky purple print and snowboard-type logos, appealing to the thrill seeker by promising a life of “no fears, no regrets, just a future with a promise.” Generous introductions, full-page profiles of faith-filled biblical characters, and a quick reference index covering subjects from abortion to worship guide the young reader into a more “extreme” relationship with God. “What’s It Mean?” sidebars appear on almost every page, answering tough questions, pointing out God’s promises, and directing teens into the will of God for their lives. By portraying Christ as the “truest revolutionary of all time,” the Bible becomes a survival guide to the world that teens live in. The editors assert that “It’s all here—truth, inspiration, bottom-line actual reality.” The only questions left is, “Are you up for the challenge?” —Jill Heatherly]

This sort of crap is why I ended up leaving evangelicalism for a traditionalist Reformed church.

The Church of England continues to embrace heresy in its desire to be “relevant”. The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who very much looks like a hippie professor, has endorsed a new “translation” of the Bible, called _Good as New_, by John Henson, a former Baptist minister. This cut-and-paste-and-rephrase job to the Bible, among other things, removes the Book of Revelation and replaces it with the Gospel of Thomas, excises St. Paul’s condemnation of sodomy and his prohibihition of fornication and adultery; and replaces “demon possesion” with “mental illness”. Paul’s teachings regarding marriage in I Corinthians 7 are radically rewriten. “Retranslating” Paul’s comment that “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”, the _Good as New_ version renders it, “My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner. Husbands and wives should strive to meet each other’s a sexual needs … It’s not good to refuse a partner.” Another verse in the same passage is “translated” as “There’s nothing wrong with remaining single, like me. But if you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated”. The “translation” has a very informal style. For example, St. Peter is refered to as “Rocky”; Mary Magdaline as “Maggie”; Aaron as “Ron”; Adronicus as “Andy”; and Barabbas as “Barry”. “The Kingdom of God” is removed and replaced with “God’s new world”; the “Son of Man”, a phrase frequently used to refer to Christ, becomes “the Complete Person”.

This travesty is discussed at the Free Republic here: (scroll towards the bottom the thread for the _Times_ account of the story).http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1158618/posts

The BBC version of the story is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3833693.stm

Here are excerpts of the new “translation“‘s treatment of the Book of Matthew and a defense of the new translation:http://one.gn.apc.org/Translation.htm

Thanks to Jim Kalb’s Turnabout weblog for the information.http://jkalb.org/node/view/1035

From the poster “eastsider” at Free Republic,
“Sodomy’s good, this I know;
Henson’s bible tells me so …”

Archbishop Rowan Williams not only endorsed this horrible “version” of the the Bible, but also wrote the forward to it. Here is an exerpt form the shagy Archbishop’s forword:

“What would Christianity look like, what would Christian language sound like, if we really tried to screen out the stale, the technical, the unconsciously exclusive words and policies, and to hear for the first time what the Christian Scriptures were saying? John Henson has devoted much of his life to wrestling with this challenge, and has for many people made those scriptures speak as never before-indeed, as for the first time. Patiently and boldly, he has teased out implications, gone back to roots, linguistic and theological, and re-imagined the process in which a genuinely new language was brought to birth by those who had listened to Jesus because they knew they were in a genuinely new world.

John’s presentation of the Christian gospel is of extraordinary power simply because it is so close to the prose and poetry of ordinary life. Instead of being taken into a specialised religious frame of reference-as happens with the most conscientious of formal modern translations-and being given a gospel addressed to specialised concerns-as happens with even the most careful of modern “devotional” books-we have here a vehicle for thinking and worshipping that is fully earthed, reconisably about our humanity. I hope that this book will help the secret to be shared, and to spread in epidemic profusion through religious and irreligious alike.”

By way of Free Republic http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1158618/posts

The information provided by Joshua is staggering yet unsurprising.

Now they’re literally re-writing the Bible to make it fit modern liberalism, to make it the Bible of modern liberalism. What can one do but to look at this and say, these people are heading into the abyss, and they may succeed in utterly destroying their own church, but it can’t affect the truth.

A question for anyone who knows something of Biblical scholarship or ancient Greek. Rowan Williams claims, incredibly, that Paul considers the view that “it is not good for a man to touch a woman” only in order to refute it. In fact, he means to say that it is good, that people should have more sex, etc.

It seems beyond belief that in 2000 years of translation and scholarship *no one* has noticed that Paul in fact means to say the very opposite of what he was thought to have meant. Surely it can’t be *that* hard to decide whether a passage in a foreign language is meant to assert a proposition rather than deny it. So does anyone know if there is any real scholarship or evidence that favors Williams’ position? If not, shouldn’t it be fairly easy to prove that he is either totally ignorant or a shameless liar? Or is the entire academic community actually supporting this incredible position?

I’ve run across this a zillion times.

Here’s the verse in question from the English:
“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband..”1 Cor 7:1-2

I don’t know Greek, but I do know Latin, and Jerome’s Vulgate says basically the same thing:
“de quibus autem scripsistis bonum est homini mulierem non tangere…”

“Moreover, about those things you (plural) wrote: it is good for a man not to touch a woman…”

Jerome had more than enough incentive to twist that phrase to strict celibacy if he wanted, but he didn’t, so I’d say it pretty well reflects the original Greek.

If you look at the first clause, you see that St. Paul is answering a question. I.e., “you Corinthians wrote me asking: ‘Is it good for a man not to marry?’.” The rest of the chapter goes on to say if you’re single, it’s good to remain so so you can better serve the Lord, and he analogizes this with a soldier, who is a better fighter when he doesn’t have to worry about family. HOWEVER, Paul acknowledges that this isn’t the case for everyone, and those who don’t have this calling are not only allowed marriage, but SHOULD get married so that they don’t fall into fornication.

Rowan’s sin, from what I can tell, is that he takes Paul’s concession to human frailty and twists it into an excessive permissiveness of the sort Paul would have never countenanced.

Julien, you’re imagining that the left is operating according to some kind of good faith, or at least the pretence of allegiance to the Bible and historical Christianity. I think that’s incorrect. As I understand it, Williams is not claiming that the new translation is rendering Paul’s true meaning correctly for the first time. Rather, Williams is saying: “We’re now writing the Bible the way _we_ think it ought to be, the Bible as suited to modern, liberal, people such as ourselves. It’s a new heaven and a new earth.”

Here’s a brilliant comment on this at the Free Republic discussion:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1158618/posts

———————

As many have already pointed out, this is so extreme as to be a caricature of itself.

In other words, it lacks Satan’s customary subtlety.

The 20th century was supposed to be Satan’s. It’s over. I suspect Satan may be lashing out in desperation as he feels his power waning.

45 posted on 06/23/2004 6:09:37 PM PDT by dsc

———————

Which reminds me of Al Pacino’s (playing the Devil) speech in the final scene of The Devil’s Advocate:

Final scene in Milton’s apartment.

Milton: Let me give you a little insight into God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift and then what does he do? I swear, for his own amusement, his own private cosmic gag reel, he sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow. Ha ha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He’s laughin’ his sick f-ckin’ ass off! He’s a tight ass, he’s a sadist, he’s an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never!

Kevin: Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven?

Milton: Why not? I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. I never rejected him in spite of all his imperfections. I’m a fan of man. I’m a humanist, maybe the last humanist. Who in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny that the twentieth century was entirely mine? All of it, Kevin, all of it, mine. I’m peakin’, Kevin. It’s my time, now. It’s our time.

To all you frustrated Anglicans out there:

I know just how frustrating it is to be an Anglican trying to be orthodox; I was one once. Now that Anglicanism’s chief prelate has endorsed trashing the Bible (bad as the horrible mistranslations are, I suspect the cut and paste job on the Biblical canon is worse), I think it is time to acknowledge that the Anglican Communion, as a Christian church, is broken beyond repair. Please consider returning to the Church your ancestors foresook. The Catholic Church has ills aplenty, but there is still a hard core of orthodoxy that I believe will prevail. Rather than waste your spiritual energies trying to save a denomination that seems literally Hell-bent, devote them to a Church that will survive. God knows we orthodox Catholics could use your help! HRS

Anglicans need not swim the Tiber, Mr Sutherland. The Church has offered them a comfortable ferry service called the Anglican Rite for over 20 years.

I wonder why this opportunity hasn’t caught on more. There are only 5 parishes extant; four of them in Texas. Maybe you need one on the Island.

To Howard Sutherland,

If this “Bible” and Williams’ endorsement of it are what they appear to be, then here’s the situation as I see it:

When the Episcopal Church USA ordained Robinson last year, it went from being a church that was corrupt and evil at the top to being a non-Christian body.

Now it appears, or at least it is arguable, that the Anglican Church as such has ceased to be a Christian entity.

However, there is another way of seeing it. The Archibishop of Canterbury has no authority over the various national churches. Ultimately, he’s just another bishop. So this atrocity does not affect Anglicanism as a whole.

Very few seemed to focus on this: “This cut-and-paste-and-rephrase job to the Bible, among other things, removes the Book of Revelation and replaces it with the Gospel of Thomas…”

Mr. Sutherland commented: “I suspect the cut and paste job on the Biblical canon is worse.”

Indeed. The Gospel of Thomas is part of the second-century Gnostic heresy, wherein the dualistic heresies that were criticized in their infancy in several New Testament epistles became full-fledged Gnostic dualist cults that attempted to take over the Christian church.

As horrible as the paraphrasing and modernizing and liberalizing are, to remove the Book of Revelation and replace it with the Gospel of Thomas is unspeakable heresy. Anyone who calls himself a Christian and remains subject to the Anglican hierarchy on up to Rowan Williams now has two choices: Leave for more faithful climes, or find a way to burn Rowan Williams and John Henson at the stake. The time for remaining within, and wringing hands, has long since passed.

I feel for Anglicans. It must be a terrible shock for a near Catholic to endure homosexual clergy. Who knows what this or the next Pope will propose? I don’t dare propose what they do about it such as they would do well to consider my Catholic faith. The prudent thing, I understand, is to listen, to offer comfort, to serve as an example, and to answer questions about my faith.

How do I know Anglicans are near Catholics? I recall attending an Anglican Mass for a Catholic friend’s father. It was so similar to the Catholic Mass that I was able to participate in large part.

If curious, one can learn about Catholicism by watching EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network. A weekly program (also rebroadcast so check your Web) that might be particularly interesting to Anglicans is “The Journey Home,” hosted by Marcus Grodi, a former Protestant minister. He listens to witnesses from former (usually ministers and evangelists) Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, and other faiths tell their Journey to the Catholic faith. And they answer viewer e-mails and call-ins.

I don’t have a problem with modernizing the language of the Bible if it simply means writing it in current English rather than early Modern English (that is, Shakespearean English such as the King James Version).
I do, obviously, have a problem with altering what the Bible says.
btw, what do Catholics use for their English-translation Bible?

I don’t approve of “slangizing” the Bible, however.

Michael Jose mentions a weakness of American vernacularized Catholicism. The translations commonly in use are flat and dumbed-down. As far as I can tell, though, they are not mistranslations. The original Catholic translation of the Bible into English is the late 16th century Douai-Rheims, which bears comparison with the Authorized Version. Needless to say, it gets as little use in American Catholic churches as the Authorized Version does in American Episcopal churches.

Mr. Caesar is right about the Anglican Rite. I have attended it when visiting in Texas. It is quite good, as far as it goes, but it is not the Traditional Mass, and has always struck me as something of a halfway house between Anglicanism and full Catholicism. It is hard for me to understand why a (former) Anglican who hungers for Catholic tradition would not prefer the Traditional Mass. Unfortunately, our progressive bishops - in defiance of the Pope - have made the Traditional Mass very hard to find.

Mr. Coleman is right. Bowdlerizing the biblical text is sinful enough. To presume to choose what books should and should not be in the Bible is diabolical arrogance, especially when it takes the form of deleting orthodoxy and inserting gnosticism. Just imagine what would happen to Williams if he were a mullah who presumed to change the suras of the Koran! He would be dead already. HRS