BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Nullifying the Word of God for the sake of academic reputation...

This is a post showing how (it seems to me) shame over the Bible's history of Creation has led to the (maybe) decline of Covenant Theological Seminary. But first, a short back-story...

Some time back I had a man in my congregation who had grown up Baptist and was pursuing graduate studies in science. One weekend he was home visiting his childhood church and he came under the influence of John Armstrong who--whether through preaching or conversation, I don't know--convinced him to stop graduate studies in science and begin graduate studies in theology. Being PCA at the time, I encouraged him to go to the PCA's Covenant Seminary over in St. Louis and he matriculated there a year or so later.

Watching him across the years is part of the reason I've warned people to avoid Covenant. There's more to say than this, but two things are worth highlighting... 

'Sodomite' is the most accurate, loving word (part II); or, what does Jay Leno remember that everyone else has forgotten?...

In response to the post "Sodomite is the most accurate, loving word (part I)," one reader objects, declaring:

"The use of 'sodomy' "provide(s) an unnecessary offense to the gospel."

To which I respond: I'm grateful we agree 'sodomy' is an offensive word, but why is it offensive and is the offense bad or good?

For two thousands years Christians have used words with 'Sodom' as their root to refer to men copulating with men. And this use has always been offensive because those reading or listening understand that it's an explicit reference to what happened at Sodom--namely God destroying them by his fire from Heaven. Make no mistake about it. That's the center of the issue and it's why I asked in my original post whether we are ashamed of God's judgment of the Sodomites? Whether we are willing for that judgment to live on in our language as an example, warning those souls tempted by this sin? If this association is not "Gospel," what is it? What exactly do I need to hear when my heart is unbelieving and I am having sex with other men?

Feminism, homosexism, and veganism: The Grand Conspiracy

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30, 31)

You may want to dismiss it as looniness, but this assault against God's Order of Creation is rebellion against the God Who made us. It's not naive or misguided. It's evil. Attacks on God's Creation Order are all around us and we must recognize that each of them is a part of Satan's conspiracy to grease the descent to Hell.

Feminism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Adam first, then Eve. Thus those who conspire to place woman in positions where she teaches and exercises authority over man are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Homosexism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Eve--not Steve--for Adam. Thus those who conspire to legalize sodomy and promote sodomitic unions are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Veganism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God created adam alone--both Adam and Eve--in His Own Image. He did not create animals in His Image. Thus those whose morality has descended to Veganism and the claim of personhood and legal standing for animals are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Satan has conspired to paint each of these revolutions a pretty face. Feminism is a long-overdue correction of patriarchal oppression. Homsexism is a long overdue correction of homophobic oppression. Veganism is a long-overdue correction of speciest oppression.

Satan has also conspired to silence the Church of Jesus Christ... 

Translate however you want, but, please, at least be honest...

The offense of the ESV translation committee's debate over how to translate the Hebrew ebed and Greek doulos isn't so much their final choice of "bondservant" over "slave." Rather, it's the arrogance of the prior discussion.

Take, for example, Wayne Grudem's claim that non-scholars can't comprehend how slavery in biblical times differed from the slavery of blacks in the American South. Wayne says ancient slavery differed radically from the modern understanding of slavery in the following ways: 1) Ancient slavery was temporary and voluntary rather than permanent and involuntary; 2) Ancient slavery was not racially, but economically, based, and; 3) Ancient slavery had status and carried legal protections.

All this may be entirely true of many forms of ancient slavery. But what Wayne glosses over in his eagerness to rid Scripture of the unfortunate implications of the word "slave" is that the essential experience of slavery in Scripture was everything Wayne denies it to be. The paradigmatic slavery of Scripture is Israel's bondage in Egypt, a slavery that was permanent, racial and entirely lacking in legal protection.

Understanding the "beginning..."

Even as the ESV translation committee has been deliberating the meaning of "slave," CTW's translation committee has been discussing the difficulties inherent in translating the Biblical word "beginning." In this video we draw back the curtain on the deliberations of this august body as they diligently strive to render God's Word for a new generation. (DB)

Protecting God's Word from charges of anti-Semitism, patriarchalism, homophobia, and racism...

Here are a couple responses to questions asked under the post of the ESV committee's video. First the question, then my response. (TB)

Is every use of the word "slave" now going to be changed to "servant"? 

No, they are doing this gradually. Words indicating the ownership of men will be removed from Scripture at about the same rate as words indicating the federal headship of Adam  (male inclusives such as 'adam' and 'adelphoi'). As mentioned above, footnotes often show...

"Pretending they're not slaves..."

If you had the stewardship of the English Standard Version, would you have allowed this discussion to be filmed and put up on You Tube? Here these men are discussing whether or not to allow the words inspired by the Holy Spirit to be used in their Bible product. Ah yes, it was an august assemblage seated in the rarified atmosphere of Tyndale House, Cambridge. This must be history in the making.

The epicenter of scholarship in the English-speaking world and here the English Standard Version men do their work. Wayne Grudem is flown over from Phoenix, Arizona. Jim Packer is flown over from Vancouver, B.C. Kent Hughes is flown over from Spokane, Washington. Add to the mix the Wheaton men. They all roll up their sleeves and the battle is joined. But there's no battle--it's a fizzle...

Revising the ESV once again...

Once again the men revising the Revised Standard Version and selling their revision under the label English Standard Version have revised their revision of the revised standard version. They revised their version this time by changing around three hundred verses or so. They had already revised their version back in 2007 making a whole bunch of changes then, also. 

So ten years ago they revised the (already) Revised Standard Version and issued it as the English Standard Version. Then in 2007 they revised their revision of the Revised Standard Version while continuing to call their revision of the revision of the Revised Standard Version the same English Standard Version. And now in 2011 they revised their revision of their revision of the Revised Standard Version...

Recommendation for interlinear Bible...

A reader asked me to recommend an interlinear Bible. Since he's the most literal in his English interlinear text, I'd recommend McReynolds' Word Study Greek-English New Testament. For an English Bible translation, I recommend the New American Standard Bible (NASB) 1995 updated edition. (TB)

Buying a Bible for your son or daughter...

Someone asked what Bible I'd recommend he buy his son and I thought I'd post it since postings have been few these days and maybe others would be interested.

In the second half of life eyes need larger print than this, but for those in the first half of life the Pitt Minion of Cambridge Press would be my Bible. For versions of Scripture I still recommend the NASB95 since it's readable and the modern translation that is most faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek text.

Too I think it's a bad idea to print men's comments about God's words on the same page with God's words themselves so I don't use or recommend study Bibles. Study helps, yes--they're indispensable starting with the New Bible Dictionary and Calvin's commentaries. Maybe third you could keep a paraphrase or a study Bible on the table next to you as you read the Bible itself. But in yourself and your children, cultivate a radical distinction between any words of man and the very words of God.

After the question of which version or translation of Scripture, we're down to questions of...

Let us return to the Church, our Mother...

But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. - Galatians 4:26

Until believers understand that Scripture teaches the Church is our mother; and that, as Cyprian and Calvin put it, the man who won't have the Church as his mother may not have God as his Father; until then, parachurch religious organizations like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Navigators, and Campus Crusade for Christ International will continue to hold pride of position in college and university communities, devouring the lion's share of mission giving and prayer flowing to those communities from congregations around the country. And this is tragic...

Which Bible, which printing, and which binding...

Until the late nineties, I read and preached from the New International Version. Since then I've exclusively used the New American Standard Bible Updated (1995) Edition. For many reasons that is the Bible I commend. Some in ClearNote Church of Bloomington use the English Standard Version, the Holman Christian Standard Bible, or the New King James. I have no strong objection to these Bibles, but our standard here at ClearNote Church of Bloomington is the NASB Updated Edition. (Here's a longer explanation of why I prefer the NASB.)

Bible Design Blog is the place I turn for reviews of Bible printings and bindings. The details this blog provides are superb. Here's a review of an NASB printed by R. L. Allen and bound in crimson Highland goatskin.

 

Spring housecleaning of Evangelical missions long overdue...

Because hundreds of millions of dollars are given each year to Christian missionaries and missions organizations who are ashamed of and hide--or often, simply oppose--what is commanded in the Word of God, Baylybog works hard to expose those organizations. Churches, missions committees, and individual Christians give money to organizations like InterVarsity with faith these organizations will use the money to advance the Kingdom of God and His Church--not the Kingdom of Satan. But who will tell such godly givers and their churches when InterVarsity is using their money to pay the salaries of staff workers who are betraying God and His holiness?

Back when J. Gresham Machen was working for reform of the Presbyterian church, the battle lines formed around the church's missions. Missionaries and their missions organizations were betraying Jesus Christ in the Name of Jesus Christ while being supported by naive church members and missions committees who were clueless. So Machen joined forces with other godly men to put a stop to it.

The message went out far and wide that Presbyterian missionaries were betraying Jesus Christ and His Word. This infuriated denominational and mission executives...

Cleaning up Scripture's patriarchy, anti-Semitism, homophobia, speciesism...

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18, 19)

(Tim, w/thanks to several) Back fifteen or so years ago when I read the first proofs of the New Living Translation and saw they'd changed adelphoi to "Christian friends" in the Epistles, I said to my brother-in-law (who was over the NLT at Tyndale House), "If you're willing to change the words of Scripture to appease the feminists, there's no change you won't make. You'll be the slaves of every last advocacy group. It starts with feminism--who wants to say "no" to women? Then it'll be the Jews; you'll have to clean up the Gospel of John so the Bible isn't open to the charge of anti-Semitism. It'll go on to homosexuality; you'll do everything you can to avoid Scripture being accused of homophobia. And you'll end up taking out repentance, too. Because honestly, repentance is the most obnoxious part of the Bible. Get rid of it and the Bible won't offend anyone!"

Later I found they'd already changed the Gospel of John so it would be more acceptable to the Jews...

More documentation on the origin of the ESV...

(Tim: Most of the following was originally posted back in 2007. But last night I came across an old e-mail that adds to the historical record of the origin of the English Standard Version (ESV) within a working group composed largely of members and friends of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood during our work surrounding the Gender Neutral Bible Controversy. If you're interested in the material that's new with this particular post, today, take a look at the e-mail at the bottom of the post--I've put it under "ADDENDUM." This is one part of the history I'd forgotten but now document here, publicly.)

* * * * * * * *

(Originally posted October 27, 2007; but with an ADDENDUM added today, March 17, 2011.)

While moving into our new church offices, I found a new piece of correspondence documenting the origin of the ESV in the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy. Why bang this drum again?

Because the denial of any connection with controversy at the heart of the ESV's marketing campaign is so typical of the inability of evangelicals to understand that faith is battle, and men who hide the battle for fear it will scandalize the sheep actually harm the sheep.

Imagine reformers of past centuries trying to hide the conflict from those they were defending: Think of Calvin holding cloistered meetings with Cardinal Sadolet that the men of Geneva knew nothing about; or Luther publicly denying that his use of the word 'alone' in translating Romans 3:28 was in any way connected with the battle against Rome for justification by faith alone; or the Apostle Paul announcing in his epistle to the Galatians that Peter's particular failure of table fellowship had no significant bearing on his issuing this present letter--that this letter had been in the works for years prior to that public confrontation...

Benedict XVI, woman officers, and the Creation Order...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kevin) Roman Catholic leader, Benedict XVI, recently responded to those critical of Roman Catholics for not having woman officers. He makes several simple statements you'd wait years to hear on the floor of most Reformed denominational meetings. When it comes to the foundational issue, though, he misses the ball.

The church doesn't have women officers, not because our Lord chose men as His Apostles, but because...

We're all gay, now...

(Tim) Many of the current changes in English usage are motivated by the hatred of sex that is a defining feature of the postmodern. He opposes distinctions, particularly that hardwired distinction between man and woman we used to call "sex."

At times, his hatred is directed against God Himself. Consider the decline of naming God "Father" in preaching, teaching, and prayer. Among pomos, this change often is the most direct way of ascertaining faith or unbelief. If when "we cry out 'Abba! Father!'" the "Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God," those who refuse to name Him "Father" are not indwelt by the Spirit, but remain lost in their rebellion against God. Jesus commanded us to "Pray like this: Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name." Names have always been important to God. When we think to alleviate our own (or others') pain by avoiding addressing God as "Father," He yet remains the Father (pater) from whom all fatherhood (patria) gets its name. No other name will do.

Turning from God to man, the postmodern's attack on sex is a mishmash. The enemy can breach the wall as well by stealth and confusion and radar jamming as a ramrod smashing against the gates. Postmoderns are fuious that God made Adam first, then Eve; that He decreed Adam to be our federal head; and that He named our race "adam" rather than "adam-eve" or "eve," and this fury has led to changes in English usage which, in turn, have motivated thousands of deletions of the original Hebrew and Greek in our latest Bible products. It's not by frontal attack as much as by a thousand cuts: here a 'he' cut, there a 'him' cut, everywhere a 'father,' 'brother,' and 'son' cut. It's a tsunami of appeasement.

Then too, pomos obscure the nature of sex, itself. There's lots of talk about being sensitive to the queer...

Telling God what He's not allowed to say...

(Tim, w/thanks to Chris) Several have done yeoman's work putting together lists of the thousands of places Zondervan/Biblica's employees have changed the original Hebrew and Greek inspired by the Holy Spirit in order to produce their new line of Bible products (NIV 2010). Note the examples below showing how they've silenced the Word of God in order to keep postmoderns from accusing Scripture of being sexist, antisemitic, and homophobic. Gagging God is alive and well.

Ancestors. Acts 15. Jews. John 5. John 18. Word change stats. Homosexuality (1Corinthians 6:9).

This is a systematic attack on the words and Word of God.

NIV 2010: it's not a question of interpretation...

(Tim) Under this post opposing the deletion of words inspired by the Holy Spirit from modern Bible products like the NIV 2010, one reader commented:

This post is slanderously titled. You and Doug (Moo) are both seeking to sit under the authority of God's Word; that is not the question; the question is one of interpretation....

To which I respond: maybe you didn't read what I wrote? Doug Moo and the scholars he leads who are paid by Zondervan through Biblica are changing the text of God's Word so it won't offend the sensitivies of postmoderns. They take out words the Holy Spirit inspired such as 'brother,' 'man,' and 'Jews,' replacing them with words they claim better communicate the Spirit's message by avoiding the Holy Spirit's words. But of course, it's impossible to keep the Holy Spirit's message intact when His words are repudiated...

NIV 2010 and postmodern sensitivities (I)...

(Tim, w/thanks to Andrew) Working for its employer, Biblica, the Committee on Bible Translation has just announced a new line of merchandise labelled the New International Version 2010. Aimed at postmoderns who are quite sensitive to the charges of sexism and anti-Semitism made against Scripture, News Corp's Zondervan has purchased exclusive rights to what is likely to be a highly profitable product line. (The latest year for which stats are available, Zondervan paid Biblica $6,000,000 in royalties.)

David and I have long opposed changing Scripture to make it less offensive. Where does it end? If we're going to avoid offending feminists, what about post-Holocaust Jews? And if we're going to avoid offending feminists and Jews, what about the slaves? And if we're going to avoid offending feminists and Jews and the slaves, what about the gay community? What about all of us who hate repentance--can't they tweak things so repentance isnt' so prominent?

Where does it end?

But really, if we're going to sell Scripture short, let's skip all the secondary offenses and go straight to...

Do-it-yourself Bible translation...

(Tim, w/thanks to Steve H.) The Jerusalem Post runs this ad offering us a way to do our own Old Testament Bible translation, and thus avoid paying tens of millions in royalties to Rupert Murdoch's Zondervan for the use of their New International products.

We're wondering, though, if the scanner's been programmed by real men, or by PC scholars scheming to hide the embarrassing words God chose...

The church impotent...

(David) I was disturbed to learn earlier today that, for a number of years, Doug Moo has been attending College Church in Wheaton, the church Tim and I grew up in.

Which means... under the ministry of Kent Hughes, College Church included among its members Doug Moo, Lane Dennis, Ken Taylor, and Mark Taylor.

I love Kent Hughes. I respect the godly heritage of College Church--a heritage embodied in Mr. Taylor to my mind. I don't believe there's a man of greater integrity leading a Christian publishing company than Mark Taylor, but if Evangelicalism in the late 1900s and early 2000s actually had a beating heart College Church would have been been ripped apart by the centripetal forces at war in its breast.

How is it that under the ministry of Kent Hughes men responsible for the gelding of not one, but two translations of God's Word lived together under the same church roof without public disagreement, let alone any of them coming under church discipline for doing a corporate Thomas Jefferson to the Word of God?

Doug Moo has presided over the Committee on Bible Translation's breach of faith with the public by reneging on its Colorado Springs commitment to leave the original NIV untouched. Mark Taylor led the process which produced the New Living Translation, Evangelicalism's first gender neutral and Jewish-sensitive translation.

Evangelicalism's tired old body has lost its immune system. There's no will or power left for fighting disease. It waves its hands distractedly, clucks its tongue feebly and moves on to the collecting of money, the one thing it still has the energy and desire to do.

 

Doug Moo assumes authority over the text of God's Word...

(Tim, w/thanks to a longtime friend of Baylyblog) Over at another blog, Denny Burk does a good job exposing just one of many hundreds of places where the recently-released New International Version 2010 deletes or changes God's words in order to make Scripture more palatable to postmoderns. The verse in question is 1Timothy 2:12 which has, up until now, always been translated in such a way as to make clear to English speakers that, through the Order of Creation and the Fall, God has made clear woman is not to "teach" or "exercise authority" over man.

Now, though, such a message is horribly embarrassing, so it must be changed. This, of course, is precisely what Doug Moo and his colleagues paid by Zondervan and Biblica are eager to do, so it's a serendipitous set of associations. Thus this latest Bible product they're trying to sell, the New International Version 2010, gives us a much more approachable text:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;^b she must be quiet.

^b Or over her husband

Yes, it's one thing to "assume authority" and something else entirely to "exercise authority." That's the point, dear readers. But hey, you can justify your change with a whirlwind of words as Doug does in the comments under Mr. Burk's post...

Only the beginning: Bible publishers, Bible society execs, and Bible translators should disclose their pay and its sources...

(Tim) In an earlier post on the marketing of the just-issued New International Version 2010, I made a point of specifying the profit Biblica makes off Bible royalties paid by Zondervan each year, and that it's likely Doug Moo and his colleagues on the Committee on Bible Translation are paid for their work from this profit. To which one reader responded: "The problem isn't that Bible translation committees get paid."

To which I respond:

My point wasn't that paying scholars is wrong, but that every product that's a matter of life and death or supported by tithes and offerings or tied to peddling the Word of God should be subject to full disclosure. So, for instance, if Don Carson writes a book speaking ex cathedra...

NIV 2010: Moo appeals to the research of other men who are really, really smart...

(Tim) More on this later, but so you can get started: here's Doug Moo's justification for the bowdlerization he and his colleagues have perpetrated on the text of Scripture in the area of "gender language." It's the PDF summary of research Collins produced that had been purchased by the Committee on Bible Translation, and you'll see Collins waxes elephant on the subject--55 pages, including lots of pictures. Hee-haw!

The New International Version 2010: "any gender includes all genders..."

(Tim) The best-selling Bibles in the world today are those with the word 'International' in their title. It all started a couple decades ago with the New International Version, but now it includes the New International Reader's Version, Today's New International Version, and New International Version 2010. Copyright for these Bibles is owned by the corporation that until recently was called International Bible Society, but recently changed its Bylaws to take the name Biblica.

Biblica's updated Bylaws end with this statement:

Section 10.10 Gender. Unless the context requires otherwise the singular includes the plural and any gender includes all genders.

"All genders?" Every last one of them? Really? How many are there--five? Six? Twenty-seven?

Not "both genders," but "all" of them.

Here we have a perfect lead-in to explain Zondervan and Biblica's...

NIV 2010: Follow the money...

(Tim) Speaking of the goose that lay the golden egg, each year Zondervan pays Biblica royalties of around $6,000,000. It's out of these royalties, I suspect, Doug Moo and his colleagues on the Committee for Bible Translation are paid.

And keep in mind these royalties are not Zondervan's profit.

Zondervan/Biblica issue their latest Bible product ...on Election Day?

(Tim) Zondervan and Biblica thought Election Day was a perfect time to make news with their latest Bible product, the New International Version 2010. This is the gender-neutered update of the New International Version they promised the world they would never do. Reneging on that promise, their press release yesterday was perfectly timed not to be able to compete with other news, quickly dropping into the newsroom equivalent of Sun City, Arizona.

Here's a typical reason given by Doug Moo and his associates of Zondervan and Biblica's Committee on Bible Translation why all of us should update our Bibles to their latest and greatest product. Under the category of "Reasons for Changing the Text: Progress in Scholarship:"

When the NIV was first translated, the meaning of the rare Greek word harpagmos, rendered ‟something to be grasped,” in Philippians 2:6 was uncertain. But further study has shown that the word refers to something that a person has in their possession but chooses not to use to their own advantage. The updated NIV reflects this new information, making clear that Jesus really was equal with God when he determined to become a human for our sake: ‟[Christ Jesus], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.”

Try to take a toy from a toddler and you'll know what 'grasped' means and whose advantage is at stake...

The academy, the seminary, the church, and terminal degrees...

(Tim) Under the post about Wheaton's quarter-billion capital campaign, a reader asked, "(If a man) wants to prepare to be an Old or New Testament Professor... (w)here would you recommend him to study for a Ph.D. and why is this a better place to go than Wheaton?" Taking this as a jumping-off point for some related thoughts, I commented:

The academy has taken over the Reformed church and needs to be pushed back to being a servant, rather than a master. And its service needs to be circumscribed to the end that, once its overreaching has been disciplined, it doesn't have an easy time taking back lost ground.

The first necessary act of discipline is to reclaim for the church the training of shepherds. The academic model has utterly failed. It turns out men whose basic orientation is to avoid conflict. Not to be too hard on seminaries, though; this is only what academic institutions are ordered to produce. We shouldn't be harsh on them for doing what they're made to do.

The academy in its current manifestation is set up to manufacture men committed to being good disciples (of their profs) who will be hired by good colleges and universities...

Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. (Emerson, "Self-Reliance")

(Tim) Last night moving boxes for the garage sale at the church-house, someone pointed out the irony of the title given this edition of the New Living Translation--the best-selling gender-neutered translation in print today. They've removed thousands of male inclusives from the text of God's Word, yet market the book (it's not really a Bible at all) under the title, "Every Man's Bible." Or rather, "every man's Bible."

So let me get this straight: naming the race "man" is hip again, now. Just keep the letters all lower case--all of them except that 'B' in Bible.

Why no free MP3s of the NASB, ESV, NLT, and HCSB?

(This post was quite different, originally, and I've changed it to reflect what I found after more research. I'm sorry for my earlier errors.)

(Tim) Evangelical publishers would do well to offer free digital MP3 files of their Bibles to facilitate memorization. Free MP3s of the KJV are widely available, while other Bible publishers are earning good royalties off these audio files that cost little to nothing to serve on the web, nor do they need to be printed or shipped. The NASB95 is about the least expensive of contemporary versions at $20-30 for the entire Bible in MP3...

And women rule over them...

O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths. -Isaiah 3:12

If we wanted to describe the repudiation of Biblical sexuality spreading across conservative churches and denominations today, we'd have a hard time finding a better text than this curse of God recorded by the prophet Isaiah. Women lead men, those who guide the People of God lead them astray, and pastors confuse the direction of their flocks' paths.

It's everywhere, from Campus Crusade for Christ to Operation Mobilization to Columbia International University to Wheaton College to the Presbyterian Church in America...

A while back, the New Yorker ran an article by Malcolm Gladwell profiling Cesar Millan, the man behind the National Geographic show, Dog Whisperer. Titled "What the Dog Saw," the piece gave readers a spellbinding glimpse into the life of a man expert at disciplining incorrigible dogs. The central thrust of the article was an explanation of Millan's "phrasing," his ability to bring his body movements, hand gestures, tone of voice, and eye contact into perfect harmony so that dogs understand Millan says what he means and means what he says. In an interview following the publication of his article, Gladwell described Millan's good phrasing:

What we're talking about, when it comes to phrasing, is simply the ability to communicate with clarity. We all think that those around us have the ability to read our minds--and we get frustrated when our intentions are misunderstood. But the truth is that accurate communication is really hard, and only a very small number of people can do it well.

Gladwell's profile contained a number of examples of dog owners who hired Millan to tame their dogs. Here's the story of a dog named Beauty:

"I have forty-seven dogs right now," Cesar...idly scratched a big German shepherd. "My girlfriend here, Beauty. If you were to see the relationship between her and her owner." He shook his head. "A very sick relationship. A 'Fatal Attraction' kind of thing. Beauty sees her (owner) and she starts scratching her and biting her, and the owner is, like, 'I love you, too.'"

Near the end of his article, Gladwell told the story of a Chihuahua named...

Man named woman, but God named the race "Man"...

This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. (Genesis 5:1,2)

(Tim, w/thanks to Eric W.) I'm not a fan of indices consisting of tag or word clouds as they've come to be used on blogs, but take a look at the helpful picture of the doctrines of Scripture this tool creates. Note particularly the prominence of 'son,' 'man,' and 'father' with no corresponding prominence of 'daughter,' 'woman,' and 'mother.'

Really, this only flows from the doctrine that God named Adam together with Eve and their descendants "man" or "adam." Not "eve" or "woman." And not "adameve' or "manwoman."

If all Scripture--every last word of It--is "God-breathed" and "profitable," what profit has our language and usage today made from the name of the race Scripture records God Himself giving us, let alone the frequency of its use in the sacred pages?

Copyright law used to deny God's Word to Portuguese believers...

Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1)

(Tim) Under "Save your church money...," David Ker, a Bible translator and blogger of Mozambique, commented on the lockdown the Portuguese and Brazilian Bible Societies have put in place denying Portuguese Christians access to Portuguese digital versions of God's Word.

In a blog post titled, "Illegal sources of the Portuguese Bible in digital format," he writes:

While every other major world language has multiple versions of the Bible represented online, Portuguese has not one. To paraphrase Emerson, make the Bible illegal and we all become criminals*.

The spirits of John Wycliff and Brother Andrew hover over this shameful situation compelling us to act. If the enemy forces were a state religion like the Church of England or an oppressive government like China or Iran we would think nothing of risking our lives to bring the Bible to those who can’t access it otherwise. But in this case because the bad guys have the words “Bible Society” in their name we’re supposed to sit on our thumbs...

Why God named the race 'adam'...

(Tim: this is a rerun) The Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over man by woman, saying "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve." (1 Timothy 2:12a)

With this simple statement, Paul explicitly affirms what is implicit throughout God's Word: that the order of creation establishes patriarchy as God's pattern for leadership in human relationships. Addressing the matter of propriety in prayer, the Apostle Paul again emphasizes this order: "For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake" (1 Corinthians 11:8,9).

Imagine a new believer, thoroughly confused by our disordered world, discovering the truth of passages such as 1Corinthians 11:3-16, 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1Timothy 2:9-15, and 1Peter 3:1-7. What a deep sense of relief to discover that the order of creation gives us universal principles for the relationships between men and women.

But while the facts of Eve's creation are instructive for establishing proper order between man and woman, Genesis goes on to reveal another important biographical note about Adam and Eve. The significance of this biographical detail, also, is revealed more fully in the New Testament.

The first hint of this element comes after the Fall when God, walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, inquires of Adam, "Where are you?" When Adam responds by explaining that he and Eve found themselves naked and hid, it is notable...

The death of the TNIV: follow the money...

(Tim) Before everyone forgets about it, here are a couple thoughts about the announcement by Zondervan and Biblica that they're scrapping their TNIV product.

I've spent my life inside the world of Christian publishing, particularly the Bible publishing world. And the thing everyone must understand is that it's an exceedingly rare Bible translator or publisher who is unaware of the money that can be made or lost on Bible sales. And usually made--not lost. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and the necessity of keeping an eye on the mammon is as applicable to men like Don Carson who have been paid to translate gender-neutered Bibles as it is to the women like Moe Girkins who have been paid to head up gender-neutered Bible publishing corporations like Zondervan.

So, for instance, we all know Zondervan has canned their TNIV product because its sales have been pitiful. Looking more deeply into the matter, we find...

Why "pregnant" doesn't cut it (II): So how did Jerome translate it?

"(Tim) This is a comment made by Josh Congrove which I'm promoting to the main page from its original placement under the post, "Gagging God." Josh is a doctoral candidate in Classics here at Indiana University and a member of Church of the Good Shepherd. Thank you, Josh.

* * *

Brethren,

As Tim mentioned in his post, Gagging God," I want to offer some linguistic context for this discussion.  At the outset, let me say that this is not a formal, sustained argument, and that the evidence and claims I'm introducing here are initial, and preliminary.  Having said that, a decision to translate the Greek phrase in Matt. 1:18 as simply "pregnant" is not a discrete one.  It reveals, I think, much about both the state of evangelical scholarship today and the perilous ties between Bible translation and the academy, and between the academy and the marketing world.  If it comes to pass as I expect it will, it is a troubling, if not unexpected, development in a long line of distresses.

The proposed translation can be evaluated from two philosophies, of course, that of formal (or word-for-word) equivalence, and that of dynamic equivalence.  Since it's likely most of those reading this blog understand the essentials of these translation philosophies, I'll dispense with any further preliminaries, and move to explaining why I think translating this phrase as simply "pregnant" would be at the very least an unwise, and perhaps a reckless, decision.

First, then, a critique from the formal equivalence side.  As Tim mentioned above, the Greek phrase in question is 'en gastri echousa,' literally translated as "holding in her womb." The word gastri can indicate a number of body cavities, and indeed, though the word is fairly common throughout Greek literature, in the overwhelming majority of instances it means "belly" or "paunch" rather than womb.  In the New Testament, however, the situation is reversed: of the nine instances... I found in the NT, eight  denote "womb"; even more important, seven of those nine occur in the form of the exact phrase found in Matt. 1:18: "holding in her womb."  Why is this significant?  For now, just note that it's likely the usual NT meaning of "gastri" already differed somewhat from that of the surrounding culture. 

Gagging God...

(Tim) Two things needing to be said in the discussion under the post, "Why pregnant doesn't cut it."

First, as a matter of fact, "with child" is a more accurate rendering of the Greek than "pregnant." Unless, of course, we are not seeking to bring the meaning of the words in the original into the receptor language. We can slice and dice the meaning of the Greek original to such a point that it doesn't matter if the mother possessing a man in her guts isn't something we want to communicate, despite the fact that the Holy Spirit chose to communicate it, but then we're not seeking dynamic equivalence, even; but rather, reduction of meaning. More on this later, I hope, from Joshua Congrove.

Second, I said to a Bible publisher two days ago that it would be a wooden dynamic equivalence that, in principle, forswore ever rendering Hebrew and Greek words into English with the goal of instruction by words as well as by concepts. Even if I were sold on dynamic equivalence, I see no reason those of us who still hold to the plenary verbal inspiration of Scripture at this late date would seek to communicate concepts and doctrines entirely foreign to our receptor group, and yet would turn around and renounce the use of archaic or entirely new words, themselves, to help in the work.

If we expect our readers to learn new concepts (like Original Sin, for example) through a patching together of common words being used to compose phrases and sentences, there's no reason those new concepts can't be learned, also, by new words which better communicate those concepts (like Original Sin).

Why "pregnant" doesn't cut it...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dave C.) Doug Moo has done a good recent commentary on Romans and is a faculty member at evangelicalism's Harvard, Wheaton College. So why are my concerns unabated when he gives us assurances all will be well with the 2011 updated NIV his Biblica Committee on Bible Translation is producing?

Defending the integrity of the sort of changes he and his people will be making, yesterday Fox News reported Moo saying:

Most changes will have nothing to do with gender inclusivity, Moo said. And the TNIV provides a glimpse of likely changes: In the '84 NIV, Mary is "with child," but in the TNIV she is "pregnant."

Why am I not reassured?

We're halfway to a billion babies slaughtered in their mother's wombs in the past few decades, and our best and brightest...

"Reserving judgment" is exactly right...

(Tim) Also responding to Zondervan's and Biblica's announcement, yesterday, that they're putting the TNIV to rest, replacing it sometime in 2011 with a new Bible they hope will be more successful, CBMW's Executive Director, Randy Stinson, does a much better job:

Copyrighting the Holy Spirit's words, then living off the profit...

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities... (Acts 16:19)

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas) A Greek Bible web site used by lovers of God's Word around the world has been shut down by the German/United Bible Society. Why?

Because they are intent upon defending the stream of money they've lived off for many years, now, provided by the Greek text of God's Word they've assembled. They claim their text is the closest anyone can possibly get to the original autographs inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So think about this. The better they do their job, the closer they will be to claiming copyright for the very word of God. In an e-mail, my son-in-law, Lucas, put it this way:

I was trying to figure out what, exactly, the UBS was copyrighting when they produce their version of the Greek New Testament. My only guess is that when they produce a Greek New Testament, they are copyrighting their specific choice of words. In other words, their copyright is not so much on the words themselves, but on the precise sequence of Greek words in their version of the Greek New Testament.

Their ultimate goal, of course, is to produce a Greek New Testament that is *exactly* the same as the original. But here's the crazy part: If they succeed in their goal, they will have succeeded in copyrighting the *actual* text of the Greek New Testament--not a translation, but the real thing.

Is that not crazy? If I'm right, then you can state it another way: the goal of the UBS is to copyright the *original* text of Scripture.

The head spins...

The NASB and ESV on the iPhone...

(Tim, w/thanks to Lillis) Although for myself, I'll be waiting for a good tethering solution before I use an iPhone, many of you already have them and I wanted to pass on some information about a new Bible that's been produced for it. It's called Bible Touch and it runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch--not over the network. So you don't need internet access to run it.

It's encouraging they've only released it with true translations so far, and not the neutered non-Bibles known, for instance, as the TNIV and the NLT.

Here's the (sort of) press release...

The "New Living Translation" and "Today's New International Version" are bad...

(Tim) Starting in 1996 or so (actually, my work on the NLT started years before this), David and I worked hard privately and publicly to oppose a number of members of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) who, working through the International Bible Society, Tyndale House, and Zondervan, were removing the sex-markings of thousands of texts of Scripture in the Living Bible and the New International Version. At the time, the NIV was the Bible translation standard of the Bible-believing, English-speaking world, so it was the efforts to modernize this particular translation that were our main public focus.

Our opponents' plan was to put out an updated NIV called the New International Version Inclusive. Since then, they've updated their work giving it the name, Today's New International Version (TNIV). In the TNIV, Hebrew and Greek words such as adam, adelphoi, and aner are stripped of their male grammatical component. These scholars, publishers, and corporate executives worked together to mute these words, ending up with new books called "Bibles" where thousands of changes had been made to render them innocuous to those of us raised in a feminized society in which it has become gauche to make references to mixed-sex groups using any word with a male marking. Thus, in their book, 'man' became 'humankind', 'brothers' became 'Christian friends' (NLT) or 'siblings' (NIVI), 'man' became 'person', and so on--thousands of times across the pages of Scripture.
 
As you'll see from the above reference to the NLT, the NIV was not the only Bible in wide use across the evangelical world being similarly updated. In an effort to update the Living Bible which was growing long-in-the-teeth, Tyndale House Publishers had hired a long list of ETS academics to produce the New Living Translation which, benefiting from millions of dollars in advertising and purchased product placement in national bookstore chains, was steadily gaining market share. (The writer is the son-in-law of Ken Taylor, owner of Tyndale House Publishers until his death several years ago.)

Partly because of the naturally lower expectations of accuracy the NLT inherited from its predecessor, the Living Bible; partly because the academics who had done the NLT's translation work likely expected it to be more a devotional than a study Bible; and partly because the NLT's publisher responded to expressions of concern over some of the more egregious mistranslations evident in the NLT's text with thoughtful consideration and, eventually, a number of changes to the text of the NLT's subsequent printings; the public battle was focused almost exclusively on the updated NIVI, its publisher Zondervan, and Zondervan's subsidiary (in a manner of speaking), the International Bible Society and her subordinate Bible Translation Committee.

The public became aware of the battle through the publication March 29, 1997 of Susan Olasky's cover article, "The Stealth Bible: the Feminist Seduction of the Evangelical Church," in World magazine. For almost everyone this was the first hint of Zondervan's plans and the response was a good measure of the profound theological divisions present within the vast entrepreneurial business park named "evangelicalism."

Predictably, one side decried Olasky's divisive spirit and focused their attack on World magazine...

When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind...

(Tim) Zondervan is the publishing company that has licensed, printed, taken to market, and aggressively promoted Today's New International Version, a bowdlerized form of Scripture in which the original Greek and Hebrew has been amended in order to appease and mollify feminists. The TNIV is popular among the hipsters leading the Submergent church.

It's somewhat ironic then that Zondervan was just hit with a lawsuit filed by a man who is a sodomite and claims Zondervan's Bibles' treatment of sodomy has caused him great emotional injury. The lawsuit isn't likely to get far at this early date, but it led Zondervan to issue a press release defending their Bibles as follows:

We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish. We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.

"Highly respected" indeed. Their heavy use of 'credible' is telling, isn't it?

In the godly, fear and love embrace...

[Tim: These past few years, Mary Lee and I have become quite fond of Josh Congrove, a doctoral student in classics here at Indiana University. Recently, Josh sent this E-mail to Church of the Good Shepherd's pastors.]

During the Scripture reading this past Sunday, I noticed that the New American Standard Bible (NASB) renders Acts 2:43 in a way that was quite surprising to me:

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.

The word in this passage is, as you might have guessed, phobos, and though it may sometimes be interpreted as "awe," I do think that to actually translate it this way (esp. with "a sense of"--see below) substantially weakens the stark force of the text as well as the impact of the conviction seen earlier in the passage...

The Profit Principle...

(David) Placing authority over a translation of the Word of God in the hands of a commercial entity is no greater warrant for confidence than placing that translation in the hands of the descendants of Ellen White or the Watchtower Society. Pecuniary influences are just as real and baleful as sectarian influences.

I mean, really, if you're going to give a commercial entity control over your translation of God's Word, why not just sell it to Rupert Murdoch?

Translations of the Word of God should not be controlled by those with vested interests in their profits. Nor are arms-length translation committees which, though theoretically non-profit owe their existence and income to the profitability of a given version of Scripture, free from the temptations associated with venality and pride--considerations which pass all-too-easily through non-profit membranes.

An everlasting help in trouble...

(David) An old lion of the US Congress used to tell young congressmen, “A lie is an offense against Almighty God and an everlasting help in time of trouble.”

Tim has written on the history of the English Standard Version below. Let me state as circumspectly as Christian brotherhood allows the message he’s so carefully (and thus verbosely) delivered: when it comes to money, influence and standing, Christian leaders are as prone to temptation as the leaders of Apple, CBS and the US Congress. Greed and desire for status have led to economy of truth becoming the consistent practice of many Evangelical leaders.

In fact, in an Evangelical community which often views charges of dishonesty against its leaders as negatively as dishonesty itself, leaders are sometimes quicker to to lie than in the secular world because the Christian press, unlike the secular press, is often muzzled in revealing them.

Denying the origin of the English Standard Version and Bible marketing...

(Tim: originally posted October 27, 2007, with an ADDENDUM added March 17, 2011.) While moving into our new church offices, I found a new piece of correspondence documenting the origin of the ESV in the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy. Why bang this drum again? Because the denial of any connection with controversy at the heart of the ESV's marketing campaign is so typical of the inability of evangelicals to understand that faith is battle, and men who hide the battle for fear it will scandalize the sheep actually harm the sheep. Imagine reformers of past centuries trying to hide the conflict from those they were defending: Think of Calvin holding cloistered meetings with Cardinal Sadolet that the men of Geneva knew nothing about; or Luther publicly denying that his use of the word 'alone' in translating Romans 3:28 was in any way connected with the battle against Rome for justification by faith alone; or the Apostle Paul announcing in his epistle to the Galatians that Peter's particular failure of table fellowship had no significant bearing on his issuing this present letter--that this letter had been in the works for years prior to that public confrontation...

Bible translation: dynamic equivalence, right or wrong...

(Tim) Under a prior post, two dear friends began a discussion concerning dynamic equivalence, maybe the prevailing method of Bible translation today. Both men have good reason to support this method--Chris Taylor because he's the grandson of one of the pioneers of this technique, Ken Taylor, who wrote the Living Bible; and Michael McMillan who works supporting the publishing arm of Wycliffe Bible Translator's Summer Institute of Linguistics, the largest Bible translation organization in the world.

So I encourage you to click on through to the comments where you'll find Chris and Michael posting their thoughts on this critical matter. (It may take a few hours for them to get their comments posted, so stop back in a little while.) And by the way, if their discussion interests  you and you'd like to learn more, Leland Ryken's, The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, is a good place to start.

Martin Luther's commentary on Galatians, gagged...

(Tim) The second group of men have now matriculated in our pastors college and, as part of the heart religion emphasis during the first of three years' study, I'm leading a seminar on Luther's commentary on Galatians. I have an old copy of the commentary published in 1953 by London's James Clarke & Co. which I've used preaching through Galatians the past couple of years. But I went ahead and bought a second copy of the commentary since the most widely available and cheapest printing today is a paperback edition sold by Wheaton's Crossway Publishers. It's one volume in their Crossway Classic Commentaries series and we had assigned it as the edition of Luther's commentary the men were to read for the seminar. It made sense for me to be on the same page with the men. Literally.

Still, I wasn't entirely happy with the situation. Concerning evangelical publishers and their theological trustworthiness, I have a naturally suspicious mind. "Surely no need to worry about Crossway, though," I thought. "They publish many good authors and, although Alister McGrath is one of the series' editors, Jim Packer is the other and he wouldn't allow them to bowdlerize Luther." In his essay, "Sola Fide: The Reformed Doctrine of Justification," Packer cites the same edition of Luther on Galatians I use, translated by Philip S. Watson and published by James Clarke & Co. He's drunk at the same well so he'll not allow anyone to ruin Luther.

And yet I had a nagging thought at the back of my mind that we'd made a mistake by going with Crossway's edition...