WHICH ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE SHOULD I USE?

8/13/2019 WHICH ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE SHOULD I USE?

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Vol. 2 No. I September 20A2Which English translation of the Bibleshoutd I use?By His Eminence Metropolitan Isaiah of DenverGreek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Christianrty in America is often characterized as afaith of the "Bible-thumpers." Our cities are indeedfilled with "Bible churches" and the Holy Scriptures arewidely assumed to be the basis of Christianity itself.In response to this, either out of sense of'catchittg up' or to confront the more outlandish claims(sometimes against Orthodoxy) of fundamentalist, Biblebased 'Christianity' most of our Orthodox parishes holdregular "Bible sfudy" classes.Faithful orthodox believers who corne to theseclasses, and even their pastors, are quickly confrontedwith a vast array of Bible translations, and Bibles them-selves come in all colours, sizes, shapes,and with or without "study helps."To some, the very Bible itself seemswrapped in a veritable "tower of Babel"with every one we meet seeming to quoteScripture passages just a little bit differ-ently-and some who denounce one transla-tion while extolling another.To answer the question posed as thetitle of this article, however, we must firstexamine what the Bible is, and then exam-ine its various sources and translations.

Strictly Speaking, There Never wasA "Bible" in the Orthodox Church. Atleast not as we commonly think of the Bibleas a single volume book we can hold in our hand.'Sincethe beginnirg of the Church, from the start of our litur-gical traditioil, there has never been a single book in anOrthodox church we could point to as "the Bible".Instead the various "Books" of the Bible arefound scattered throughout several service books lo-cated either on the Holy Altar itself or at the chanter'sstand. ':The Gospels (or their pericopes) are compliedinto a single volume-usually bound in precious metaland richly decorated-placed on the Holy Altar.The Epistles (or, again, their pericopes) are boundtogether in another book, called the Apostolos, which isnonnally found at the changer's stand. Usually locatednext to the Apostolos on the chanter's shelf are thetwelve volumes.of the Menaioo, as well as the bookscalled the Triodion and Pentecostarion, containing vari,ous segments of the Old and the New Testaments.The fact that there is no "Bible" in the churchshould not surprise us, since our liturgical ffadition is acontinuation of the practices of the ototy Church, whenthe Gospels and the leffers from the Apostles (the Epis-tles) had been freshly wriffen and copiea for distribuiion

tq"lhe Christian communities.The "Hebrew Scripfures" (what we now call the"Old Testamenl", comprising the Law (the first fivebooks) and the Prophets, were likewise written on vari-ous scrolls, just as they were found in the Jewish syna-gogues.The Church is Not Based on the Bible. Rather,the Bible is a productilf tft" Church. For the first fewcenturies of the Christian era, no one could have put hishands on a single volume called "The Bible." In fact,there was no agreement regardittg which "books" ofScripture were to be considered accurateand coffect, or canonical.Looking back over history, there were vari-ous "lists" of the canonical "books" com-prising the Bible:* The Muratorian Canon (130 AD) cites allthe books we consider as parts of the Bibletoday, except for Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2John, 3 John, and Revelatior/Apocalypse*Canon 60 of the local Council of Laodicea

(3 64 AD) cited Revelation/Apocalypse:r A festal Epistle by Saint Athanasius (369AD) lists all of them.Even so, there was no official, authoritative"canon" listittg all the books until the SixthEcumenical Council, at Constantinople in680 AD,. Canon II of that Council ratifies the Firstthrougti the Fifth Ecumenical Councils, as well as thelocal councils at Carthage (255 AD), Ancyra (3 15 AD),Neocaesaria (3 15 AD), Gangra (340 AD), Antioch (34LAD), Laodicea (364 AD), Sardic a (347 AD), Constan-tinople (394 AD), and Carthage (419 AD).When the Council at Laodicea specified the con-tent of the Bible as we know it - 39 years after the FirstEcumenical Council (325 AD) and 17 years before thesecond Ecumenical Council (381 AD) -'the Liturgy waspretty much well-defined and established and had"canonized" by common usage the reading from thesebooks.It was not until the inven-tion,of the printing press:in Western Europe, coinciding with the period of theProtestant Reformation of Western Christianity that"The Bible" was widely disseminated as a singie vol-ume.

The 'sProtestanton Old Testament is Antitheti-cal to Christian Truth. When Protestant WesternChristians reviewed the canonical books of Scripture,


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8they adopted the "Hebrew Canon" accepted by the Jewssince 100 AD.The so-called Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical,books (found in "Catholic" ;d *Orthodox" versions ofthe Bible) were a problem for Jews living after the timeof Christ, since they often very clear$ prophesy con-cerning Our Lord, and indicate His Divinity.

Some of the books were also problematic for boththe Jews and the Protestants because they make pro-phetically evident the special role of the 'i-heotokoi inthe oikonomia of salvation. In fact, the Orthodox Fa-thers cite passages quite effectively to discuss theChurch's understanding of the role of the Theotokos.Also, the only scriptural reference to praying forthe dead is found in a Deuterocanonical Book: viz.,Maccabees.Not surprisingly, these Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books were rejected from the "canon"of books indicated in the Jewish Scriptures. This canonwas formally pronounced by a rabbinical council atJarnnia (c.100 AD), which stated that all canonicalScripture had to have been written: in Palestine, in He-brew (not Greek), and more than 400 years prior to thattime (i.e. in 300 BC) .In addition, the authorized Hebrew "hanslation"was at variance with the aicepted Septuagint Greek ver-sions, which had been prepared by 72 franslators work-ing in Alexandria, ES/pt.This is significant, because the Apostleso whowere the authors of the New Testamen as well as theearly Church Fathers, frequently cite passages onlyfound r+ the Septuagint (Greek) Old Testament thathave significant differences in meaning from the He.brew. Moreover, they frequently cite passages from the'Apocryphal' books ofthe Old Testament.

The lloly Scriptures Were Prroduced by theOrthodox Church. The Church's holy prophets andApostles wrote the books contained in the Bible. TheChurch determined which books were authoritative andbelonged in Holy Scripture. The Church preserved andpassed on the texts ofthese Scriptural books.The seventy-two Jewish rabbis and scholars whogave us the Septuagint Greek Old Testament, producedseventy-two identical Greek translations working inde-pendently and in isolation from one another. Writing inGreek, the Holy Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,Paul, James, Peter, and Jude produced the books of theNew Testament.The lloly Scriptures Were Preserved by theOrthodox Church. These books and letters were stud-ied, oopied, collected, recopied, passed from group ofearly Christians to another, and read in the services ofthe Church.Testimony to the fidelity of reproduction in thismilieu is the consistent agreement among the ChurchFathers when they cite Scripture, and their common un-derstanding of Scripture in their deliberations at the lo-

The Voicecal and Ecumenical councils.Over the centuries, alterations crept into somemanuscripts. Sometimes the texts were altered by acci-dent (e.g. mistakes made in copying these books byhand). At other times intentional alterations were made,either by misguided but innocent copyists who thoughtthey were correcting errors in the manuscripts they wereworking from, or by heretics who fulI intended tochange the words of Scripture to suit their purposes.The Church, however, guided by the Holy Spiritdistinguished between authentic and inauthentic manu-scripts, discarding or ignoring the latter, copying andhanding on the former.Even today we see the authentic words of Scrip-ture preserved. When a young priest or a chanter mis-pronounces a word in its original Greek, there will be aBishop, an older priest - or even a venerable Orttrodox"grandmother'o - who will be quick to point out the ab-erration from the way the text "has always been sung orread"

The Authentic Greek Text of the Bible is Pre-served by the Orthodox Church. When translating theNew Testament into English, there are many Greekmanuscripts to choose from. To ask, "What does theoriginal Greek say?" is to beg the question, whichGreek text?For fthodox Christians this is a very easy ques-tion to answer. We simply use the Greek text handeddown within the Orthodox Church which has beenproven consistent by 2000 years of liturgical use andwhich the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, has givenus. To Scripture scholars there is a huge body of an-cient Greek manuscripts, known as the Byzantine text-ffpe, which embodies the Orthodox textual tradition.These old manuscripts and lectionaries differ very littlefrom each other, and are indeed in overwhelming agree-ment ivith each other throughout the whole New Testa-ment. Furthennore, they are great in number and com-prlse the vast majority of existing Greek manuscripts.There is Another, Bogus, Greek Text of theBible. Beside the Byzantine text-type family of manu-scripts, there is a minor collection of Greek Scripturetexts which are very ol4 and sometimes predate theByzantine texts by hundreds ofyears.In the middle of the last century, "modern" Scrip-ture scholars, or critics, deterrrined that newly-"discovered" ancient texts-such as the Codex Sinaiti-cus, the Alexandrian Codex, the Codex Ephraemi re-scriptus-Aating from the fourth through to the sixthcenturies, had determining authority in establishing theoriginal text of the Gospels and the words of the Lord.Criticism was levelled against these critics byother scholars who maintained that the older manu-scripts had been preserved through the ages precisely

because they were set aside and unused since they wereinferior copies-obvious from the ineptitude of the


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10The clearly Protestant bias against the Theotokos,

and her Orthodox definition as critical to preserving thedivinity of Christ is also very evident in the RSV. Con-sider Matthew I:25:KJV: "(Joseph) knew her not till she hadbrouglrt forth her "*rstborn son; and he called his nameJesus." RSV: "(Joseph) knew her not until she hadborne a son; and he called his name'Jesus."From the Byzarfiine, OrthodoX, texts, the KJVtells us that Mary brought forth not a son, but her first-born - precluding her having had previous children.Moreover, He is clearly her son; but not Joseph's.Note how the RSV is distinguished from the KJV inLuke 2:33; after Simeon returned Jesus to His mother,the narrative tells us:KJV: "Joseph and his mother marvelled at thosethings which were spoken of him."RSV: "And his father and his mother marvelledat what was said about him."

,The,,,RSV infers that Joseph is Jesus' father, Pro-su:nably his biological father - a clear refutation of thedogma of virgin birth.Or again, consider the following notable omissionin John 3:13 according to the RSV:KJV: "No man hath ascended up to heaven, buthe that came down from heaven, even the Son of manwhich is in heaven."RSV: "No one has ascended into heaven but hewho descended from heaven, the Son of man."The Byzantine text is clearly reflected in theKJV; the eclectic text by the RSV. Yet only a tiny hand-ful of manuscripts omit the expression "urhich ig inheaven." while the vast rnajonty of manuscripts includeit, as do the quotations of Church fathers such as SaintBasil the Great, Saint Hilary, Saint John Chrysostom,and Saint Cyril.This particular Scripture text is the clearest wit-ness to the Orthodox teaching that Christ is fully manwhile not being circumscribed in afiy way as God, sinceit indicates that Christ was simultaneously on earth inthe body and in heaven with the Father. It also indicates,contrary to modern liberal theolo W, that our Lord knewvery well just Who He was, where He came from, andwhat business He was about.There are many more examples, but let us simplynote one more, I Corinthians 15:47, which needs nofurther cofirment:KJV: "The first man is of the earth, earthly: thesecond man is the Lord from heaven."RSV: "The first man was from the earth, a manof dust; the second man is from heaven."

The Corruption of ooParaphrasedo' Bibles.There is no need in this article to provide such criticalanalysis of the various other translations which fol-lowed the RSV (e.g. New International Version (NIV),New American Bible (NAB)); all are even more flawed.A comment should be made, however, of several very

The Voicedangerous paraphrased "versions" of the Bible, such as"Today's English Version" and the volume sold as "TheBook."If the Scripture scholars can criticize the Byzan-tine copyists for comrpting the text to conform to Or-thodox theolory, what are we to say about the non Or-thodox paraphrases who have radically altered not onlytext, but the whole meaning of various passages?These "Bibles" are to be totally and completelyavoided by the Orthodox; they have no good purposewhatsoever because they are gross distortions of thetruth, and serve only to infiltate a completely comrptedtheolory into the minds of the faithfirl.

The Orthodox Witness. One very interestingquestion, never asked, is this: "If scholars are willing toassemble an eclectic text out of Scripture fragmentsfrom various sources : often of unknown doctrinal ori-gin or authority - why haven't they ever considered theliving archaeological evidence of Scripture segmentsthat have been repeated faithfully for ages in the ftho-dox Liturgr?"Why haven't serious modern scholars consideredthe incredible coincidence that 72 Hebrew scholarscould all translate the Old Testament in exactly thesame manner into the Septuagint Greek?Why haven't they examined the translation of theScriptures done a thousand yearsi agi from Greek intoSlav,qnic- which has preserved exactly, accurately, andprecisely the mreaning of the Greek original? And, moreto the poinf,.if errors have crept in and accumulafed astexts were copied over the yeari, why aren't the existingcopies of these Greek and Slavonic SCriptures diver-gent? Non-Orthodox scholars cannot answer thesequestions because, to do so honestly and rutrfully, theywiiuid hbve'to adniit thirt id fact'the Q"rthq&x,.C-hu *thiough'the guidance of the Hoty Spirit, has prese#d{intact'and correct$ the Holy Scriptures",And, moreover,this preservation is in part assured by the dogma anddoctrine of the Church which both draw from the Scrip-ture and provide evidence and support of its truth.

What Translation Should I Use? The answer isthis: the King James Version (KJV) is the most reliableand faithfirl English translation. Unfortunately, it iswritten in an archaic, 500 year old styb of English. A1-though not as incomprehensible as the 2000 year oldGreek of the New Testament and Liturry is to modernGreek speakers, it is still awkward and difficult formany to understand.Th9,r.q4lqge-stio,q.th-atbegs:'ind{nlgadg;foran answd4r i3''thia: "Why hasn't the Grek ShodoxChurch sponsored,an acerdate n in"t qflde$English from the Byzdn-tihe textt*nil. t fragments-of Scripture found in ihlihiig)''of theChurch?"Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver Bulletin: March1995, Volume 3, Number 3., pp. 14-17

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WHICH ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE SHOULD I USE?