Zondervan is releasing a new edition of the Bible, and what else is new? But as we keep making advances in semiotic contextualizations, we have now learned how to make the Bible even more accessible to middle America, which is of course where all the Bible buyers are. Take, for example, this problem passage:
“The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).
Instead of blaming the crucifixion on the Jews, Zondervan has determined that these words would be a lot less offensive and a lot more palatable (to Bible shoppers in Little Rock) if they were different words. And so the new edition renders it the following way:
“The imams and jihadists answered him, We have sharia, and by this sharia he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).
Now if you are concerned about this alteration, and the reasoning beneath it, then write to Zondervan and tell them to quit messing around.
Just kidding. Nobody would ever do that, right? No, they wouldn’t — not in that direction. But translation monkeyshines do happen all the time as a matter of course. They accommodate themselves to whatever respectability breezes are blowing out of academe. Within the last generation, the first big temptation has been caused by pressure from feminism (where adelphoi, brothers, is translated as human android units). Then came the political pressures where American translators turned themselves inside out trying not to sound like Pope Pius IX, pretending not to notice that the thick coal deposits of anti-Semitism are a European thing, and so what they were really doing is establishing their authority to tinker with the text. Next up will be the pressure to translate “sodomite” as “one who cheats at cribbage.”
This is how the game works. It is all about control of the narrative. Mankind assigns meaning to events necessarily, and this is why rebellious men assign rebellious meanings. We can all agree on the facts, like the fact that Jerusalem fell. But Jeremiah then had to contend with those who maintained that this was because they had not been idolatrous enough.
“But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine” (Jer. 44:18).
With a few notable exceptions, the network of evangelical leadership is a cluster of cowardice and corruption or, at other institutions that are farther down the road, corruption and cowardice.
Tim Bayly has shown (and is showing) that InterVarsity as an orgnization has been actively complicit in promoting sodomy. The way they can put that right is clear, but thus far they aren’t doing it. Just as I counsel young women to take a look at how a prospective suitor treats his mother — because that will be her role in about ten years — so also I encourage every Christian church, college, seminary, publishing house, web site, or radio station to take a hard look at compromised and corrupted organizations today, all of which were in better spiritual shape fifty years ago than your organization is now. Your future can be seen today. What you will be in the future is what you make excuses for in the present.