1 - Christian and Missionary Alliance

hut nothing more. One reason is that of them, or who would use them to
no other text sxnh to insure that ;I some imagined adv;intagc.
change will he anything more thanjust Irue, too, it has its archaisms. I
that.
would rather put up with thehc corn-
I lherc are. 111 course. versions more pnr~~ti~cly few instances of ob-
;~ccur;~tc and usable. one notable ex- solescence. howe\'cr. than lice ;I new
ample heinp the American Standard set of prohlcmh generated by using
Version of 1901. Ihis is a confessedly terms more familiar and morc cornexccllcnt
translati~in. in which the mon than common Greek. New I estaarchaisms
ofthu lhl I Authori~cd Ver- men1 (ireek may have hcen common.
>ion are satistictoril? changed while a but it was never crude. Although the
dignified text is retained. Yet thc fact is language i f the niarkctplacc, it is
thet during the last thrce-quarters of a \vondcrfull~ attractive and prccise, and
century. during which translations ngish llcxiblc though it is. must
have made thcir consecutive and niul- work hard to convey (;reek ideu It is
tilold appearance. the use of the King quite pwsihlc to miss the original point
.lames Hible has hcen among the more in order to come t(1 a "readable"
consistent factors within the English- rendering. Of what use is it 111 hand thc
speaking Christian community. I do public something that is quite readahle
not say this must not and cannot hut misses what "stands written"'! The
change; I only say that. essentially, it Hihle cannot always hemade readable:
has not so far hem changed. Why? it dop.s haw its esoteric side.
In relation to the King .lames Version's
communic;ihility. this can he a
problem. Hut I am far from convinced
that it is always a problem, or an
overwhelming one.
First. the Authorired Version 01.
Ihll is still the pcoplc's Bible. One
cannot dcny that it isselling. Others are
too. ofcoursc; butjudgcd by the simple
gauge of demand. theold \'ersion is not
about to retire. I find evcnasignificant
number of younger people using it
without the difficulties one is told must
accompany its use.
From the standpoint of what many
preachers want in a study and pulpit
Bible. it is likely that those needs will
be available for the most part in the
King .lames Version. The best editions
oT annotated, wide-margin, and loose-
leaf Bibles are available primarily if
not exclusively with the old text.
Secondly. the old version is, as
already suggested, neither as corrupt
nor as incomprehensible and incom-
municable as is sometimes loudly
claimed. True. it has its glosses, but I
have yet to find ;I rcasonably alert
minister of the Word who is unaware
A s a third consideration, new
translations do not come with the
assurance of being free from
theological bias or plain hlunders.
Examples of this abound. One interesting
case is in the New English
Bible rendering of the word "propitiation"
r . hilu.smv.s) by the word
"remedy" in First John 2:2 and 4:10.
That is a blunder or a bias, an error in
both language and theology: In
language because hilusmos has not the
remotest connection with an idea such
as'kmedy"; in theology because therc
is no such thing as "the remedy for the
defilement of our sins."
God did not "remedy" sin: He
destroyed it. He did not so much alter
as remake us, 1-hat is not hairsplitting,
it is sound theologq. Rut to complete
the observation: the New English Hible
trilnslators were not even consistent in
thcir treatment 111' the word hiiu.rt~~o.\.
ah a glance at Romans 3:25 will show.
It was apparent t i them thet the
English ~'(ird "propitiation" was not
n