In yesterday's post, we began an examination into the sorts of Bibles that dominionists are using--Bibles that have very specifically skewed ideas on basic Biblical concepts, even from a mainstream Christian viewpoint. In many ways, understanding the reference Bibles they (and their pastors) read is to understand dominionism itself.
Today, we focus on a bit of a different subject--namely, instead of dominionist reference Bibles, but specifically dominionist-friendly translations of the Bible. One of the most well-known of these is the New International Version--which was largely authored by dominionist groups opposed to more accurate Bibles which had the fatal flaw (in their eyes) of being more inclusive, and which (as we'll see tomorrow) is now the basis of one of the most commonly promoted reference Bibles in the neopente dominionist community.
Sunday School of a sort begins after the cut...
Dominionists push for their own Modern English version
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the King James Version--one of the first English-language versions of the Bible--was seen as increasingly dated, in part because better manuscripts had been found for some of the books of the New Testament in particular (including the Dead Sea Scrolls) and in part because of major changes in the English language. The 19th and 20th century saw the most changes in Bibles since the Reformation and the publication of the first English-language Bibles; among other things, the Apocrypha was only widely removed from Bibles starting in the 1880s (and to this day, several Protestant versions of the KJV Bible do contain the Apocrypha; the vast majority of Bibles used in dominionist churches do not, including the Scofield Reference Bible). Versions of the Bible without the Apocrypha were published in 1769 and 1782 but were not popular, and in fact the Anglican Church forbade removal of the Apocrypha from its versions of the KJV until it was finally redacted in 1885.
Among other things, the first English retranslations of the Bible since the King James Version was released--the Revised Standard Version, a complete retranslation from the Textus Receptus (the oldest known texts of the Bible in Greek) and the Masoretic Text (the oldest known texts of the Old Testament in Hebrew). An American retranslation followed called the American Standard Bible which was substantially identical to the RSV.
Dominionist churches did not like the RSV at all--in fact, they considered it far too liberal (even though in many ways the RSV was a more accurate translation to modern English). Even after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 (and revision of the RSV text based on the Dead Sea Scrolls), many dominionist churches stuck with the KJV; in fact, in "fundamentalist Baptist" churches into Christian Reconstructionism, there is still to this day a very heavy "King James Only" bias which claims that--like the original Greek text--the KJV was divinely inspired and thus the only "correct" English translation.
In 1971, the major conservative/evangelical alternative to the RSV--a literal word-for-word translation called the New American Standard Bible based on the Masoretic Text and Textus Receptus as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls material--was released. It has been criticised in part because the NASB is a bit clunky for native English speakers to read; despite its clunkiness, it and the RSV are probably the most accurate translations available (with the NASB erring towards translating idioms literally, if anything; the RSV does do a bit better job at translating these idioms to modern English and "flowing" better). To this day, the NASB tends to be the dominant modern English translation in non-dominionist conservative and Evangelical circles.
This, however, was not good enough for the "Joel's Army" crowd. The RSV was too "liberal"; the KJV and NASB were "too hard to understand".
In 1973, the New International Version was released by Zondervan Publishing (a bookseller and publishing company which has been very important in publicising "Joel's Army" neopente dominionism in particular, as we'll see tomorrow). Practically all of the denominations involved were either dominionist or under the process of steeplejacking (it may surprise people to see Mennonites in this list; the truth is that certain denominations of Mennonites have been under a process of steeplejacking for some time by neopentecostal groups); one of the main players, in a pattern repeated over and over again for practically the entire history of dominionism, was the Assemblies of God. In a number of cases, no denominational affiliation is known for translators (even then, Assemblies-linked groups tried to hide their connections) and a number of people had no formal theological training whatsoever. (This is, in all probability, related to the participation of neopente groups--whom, as I've noted before, require little or no formal theological training.)
To say there was a specific agenda with NIV translation was an understatement. From Bibletexts.com:
The New International Version [NIV] (copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, the International Bible Society) is the by far the leading Bible purchased today by English-speaking Christians. Since 1987 it has outsold the KJV and now represents approximately 40% of the Bibles sold in the US. (The KJV represents about 20% of the Bibles sold today.) As described in its Preface,
The New International Version is a completely new translation of the Holy Bible made by over a hundred scholars working directly from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts... The fact that participants from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand worked together gave the project its international scope. That they were from many demoninations -- including Anglican, Assemblies of God, Baptist, Brethren, Christian Reformed, Church of Christ, Evangelical Free, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Wesleyan and other churches-helped to safeguard the translation from sectarian bias... From the beginning of the project, the Committee on Bible Translation held to certain goals for the New International Version: that it would be an accurate translation and one that would have clarity and literary quality and so prove suitable for public and private reading, teaching, preaching, memorizing and liturgical use. The Committee also sought to preserve some measure of continuity with the long tradition of translating Scriptures into English...
According to Phillip W. Comfort, Philip W. (The Complete Guide to Bible Versions, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1991):
The translators of the New International Version sought to make a version that was midway between a literal rendering (as in the New American Standard Bible) and a free paraphrase (as in The Living Bible). Their goal was to convey in English the thought of the original writers.
For some significant verses, the NIV maintains wording more similar to the KJV's wording than does the NRSV. For instance the Hebrew word adam was translated in the KJV as follows: man Gen 1:26,27, Gen 2:5-25, 3:12-24, 5:1 (and elsewhere); Adam: Gen 2:19 (and always wherever else the name Adam appears in the Old Testament); person Num 31:28 (and elsewhere). In Genesis 1:26,27, along with the KJV, NAB, NASB, NJB, NKJV, the NIV also translates the Hebrew word adam as "man;" whereas, the REB and TEV translate adam "human beings;" the NRSV translates adam as "humankind" (NRSV), and the CEV translates adam as "humans." browse http://www.bibletexts.com/... to read a commentary on the use of the Hebrew word adam.
For some other verses the NIV translation reflects a fundamentalist slant that often does not take into account the nuances of the Greek text. For some examples of this, please refer to the BibleTexts textual commentaries on Joh 1:1 and Joh 1:18 at http://www.bibletexts.com/... Viewing its translation and interpretation as representing fundamentalism, several very prominent, internationally respected (non-fundamentalist) biblical authorities with whom I have spoken about the NIV give the NIV a very poor ratings. It has been said that regardless of it great popularity, it is not a serious translation.
(Of minor sidenote here--the list of denominations here are almost all dominionist or are denominations that are under some heavy steeplejacking attempts by the FGBMFI and/or the Institute for Religion and Democracy. (More info on them in the wiki link to the right.) Based on some of the specific skewage in the NIV, I strongly suspect the denomination reps were from steeplejacked congregations. In particular, Mennonites, Baptist and Anglican congregations have been under heavy attack by FGBMFI-linked steeplejackers (with a fair amount of success, in particular with the Anglican Church/Church of England and the "Alpha Course", a future subject in this series); Church of Christ is either UCC (under heavy steeplejacking pressure from IRD) or possibly International Church of Christ (a highly abusive "Bible-based cult" that is based on the abusive "discipling and shepherding" movement); Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches are under IRD steeplejacking pressure; the Brethren (it is not specified whether "open" or "closed" Brethren are meant) are a "holiness" group which invented "rapture theory", are hardline dominionists, and have been noted as being "Bible-based cults"; the Nazarenes do have some occasional issues with steeplejacking (and may be an FGBMFI target due to being a generally religiously conservative group), and many Wesleyan and Christian Reformed churches are borderline dominionist or seen as "conservative sympathisers".)
Some of the translation skews are substantial--and especially of note when one realises that far more accurate texts were available (including Dead Sea Scrolls material and early Greek texts):
In Joshua 15: 33-36, the King James lists several cities: "[33] And in the valley, Eshtaol, and Zoreah, and Ashnah, And Zanoah, and En-gannim, Tappuah, and Enam, Jarmuth, and Adullam, Socoh, and Azekah, And Sharaim, and Adithaim, and Gederah, and Gederothaim; fourteen cities with their villages." Are there fifteen cities or fourteen cities? The RSV retains this error, as does the Darby, the NASB, and even the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation (which usually can be expected to cover up a mistake like this, as it does with so many other problem passages, such as I Cor. 15:29, the "baptism for the dead" passage).
The NIV, however, admits in its Preface that "the translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God's word in written form." Thus we can expect the NIV to get funny with this passage, and it does: "In the western foothills: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah, Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam, Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah, Shaaraim, Adithaim and Gederah (or Gederothaim) [45]--fourteen towns and their villages." Footnote [45] quietly gives, as an alternate translation, "Or Gederah and Gederothaim." That's it! "Or Gederah and Gederothaim." No explanation or justification. No appeals to some obscure "ancient manuscript" or to the Septuagint. Only a pre-stated "commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible." In other words, they can get away with making the Bible say whatever is convenient to fit their position. In the case of the NIV translators, their bias is clearly admitted in the Preface: the translators were fundamentalists who presupposed the inerrancy of the Bible; thus, page after page of classic problem passages disappear.
. . .
* A particularly vexing problem that was "cleared up" in the Greek Septuagint (as well as the NIV, of course) occurs when we compare II Chron. 21:20 with II Chron. 22:1-2:
"He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem; and he departed with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. [...] And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahazi'ah his youngest son king in his stead; for the band of men that came with the Arabs to the camp had slain all the older sons. So Ahazi'ah the son of Jeho'ram king of Judah reigned. Ahazi'ah was forty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Athali'ah, the granddaughter of Omri."
So, then, Jehoram was 32 when he reigned, and he reigned for eight years until he died. This would make him 40 when he died. At this point, his youngest son takes his place at age 42.
Hey, wait a minute! How can the son be two years older than the father?
The NIV places the son at age 22, justifying this by pointing to "Some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac" and by referring us to II Kings 8:26. The Hebrew Bible, though, the one about which Jesus said "not one jot or tittle will pass away," says the son was 42. Several "jots and tittles" appear to have passed somewhere, though.
(Of note, some of these "problematic verses" are why mainstream Bible translations are relying more on things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Coptic Christian texts, etc. in addition to the Septuagint and the Textus Receptus. We have a lot better material to work with in getting an accurate translation.)
Bible-researcher.com also documents extensively the translation biases, including use of less accurate texts to bolster dominionist viewpoints:
The New International Version (NIV) was a produced by a committee of scholars associated with various evangelical churches in America, who began work on the version in 1965. It was not a revision of any previously existing version, but an entirely new translation in idiomatic twentieth-century English.
The New Testament translators took as their starting point the first and second editions of the Greek New Testament published by the United Bible Societies (see Aland Black Metzger Wikren 1966), but did not follow the UBS text in all places. Recently a Greek text which purports to give the readings adopted by the NIV committee has been published under the title A Reader's Greek New Testament (Zondervan, 2004). (1)
The NIV was conceived as a version that would appeal to evangelicals. Members of the NIV committee were conscious of the reasons for conservative rejection of the Revised Standard Version, and so they deliberately avoided the "liberal" aspects of that version. The most objectionable aspect of the RSV was its policy of translating the Old Testament without any regard at all for the interpretations of Old Testament passages in the New Testament, and so the members of the NIV Committee on Bible Translation in 1968 stipulated in their Translator's Manual that "the translation shall reflect clearly the unity and harmony of the Spirit-inspired writings." (2) In many places one can see the practical difference which this rule made in the NIV.
In Genesis 2:19 the NIV rendered the first verb as an English pluperfect: "Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man." The pluperfect "had formed" was used here so as to explicitly harmonize the verse with the account of creation given in chapter 1, in which the animals are created prior to the creation of man. This harmonistic rendering was intended to counter the liberal assertion that the story beginning at 2:4 is from a source which does not agree with the account in the first chapter. (3)
The word almah in Isaiah 7:14 was rendered "virgin" in the NIV, in accordance with the interpretation of the word in the first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. This contrasted with the RSV's rendering "young woman" in Isaiah 7:17, which was used instead of Matthew's "virgin" because the RSV translators believed that Matthew was simply mistaken about the meaning of the word. But this was not an option for the NIV translators, who as theological conservatives were bound to affirm that Matthew correctly interpreted the word.
In Mark 4:31 there is good example of how apologetic arguments in defense of biblical inerrancy have caused the translators to adopt a linguistically unsound interpretation. Here instead of a literal rendering Jesus is represented as saying that the mustard seed is the "smallest seed you plant in the ground." Actually, he calls it the "smallest of all seeds on earth." Likewise in the parallel in Matthew 13:32 they have "the smallest of all your seeds," rather than "the smallest of all seeds." The NIV translators have adjusted the translation at these points so as to avoid an apparent contradiction between the biblical statement and known facts of modern science. But Jesus was merely using hyperbolic language here, not making a scientifically precise statement--the NIV's attempt to rescue Him from a technically incorrect statement is misguided.
There is a very remarkable footnote on 1 Corinthians 11:4-7, which states that theses verses may be rendered thus: "Every man who prays or prophesies with long hair dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with no covering of hair on her head dishonors her head--she is just like one of the 'shorn women.' If a woman has no covering, let her be for now with short hair, but since it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair shorn or shaved, she should grow it again. A man ought not to have long hair since he is the image and glory of God," etc. This note is well-nigh indefensible, and it seems to be an attempt to harmonize this passage with modern habits of dress. Paul's headcovering instruction is not being observed in most conservative churches today, who would like to think that their practices are strictly in accordance with Scripture. The alternative "translation" accommodates them. (4)
(In other words, one of the big objections was that Old Testament material--meant for a primarily Jewish audience--didn't match modern sensibilities of dominionists like Scofield Reference Bible claims of the book of Ezekiel labeling Russia as the home of the Antichrist. (Of note, the "old Scofield" is based on the KJV.) Hence they essentially changed translations specifically to sound more like KJV translations if a more accurate translation didn't match what they wanted it to say.)
In some cases this causes text to mean the literal opposite of what the original text notes:
(in regards to a Hebrew/English Old Testament using the NIV as its English text)
Another problem is the editor's occasional failure to recognize where the NIV translators have followed a critically emended text which does not correspond to the Hebrew text printed in the volume. For example, in Genesis 4:15 the Hebrew word laken (???) is glossed "not so," but this word really means "therefore." The NIV's "not so" here is based upon an emendation of the text: lo ken (?? ??), as explained in the footnote. In Genesis 49:10 the Hebrew text has the very obscure words "until Shiloh comes," but the NIV has "until he comes to whom it belongs," an interpretation which is based upon an emendation of the Hebrew text (the NIV fails to mention in its margin that a textual emendation has been made here), and so—betrayed by the NIV, it seems—Kohlenberger puts the English gloss "he whose" under the Hebrew word "Shiloh" in his interlinear translation, as if that were a possible meaning of the word as it stands in the unemended text. In some places there are mistakes that are hard to account for, as in Judges 11:34, where a word which means "only one" (?????) is glossed "along." Is this a typographical error, in which "along" is put for "alone"? If so, it only causes us to wonder why Kohlenberger would have glossed the word as "alone" instead of "only one." Errors of interpretation like this are serious faults in an interlinear translation, and they bring into question the competence of the editor. He seems to have relied upon the NIV in making the interlinear translation, without enough independent knowledge of Hebrew to see where the NIV departs from the BHS text.
Problems are not just restricted to Hebrew. The Greek text is also frequently mistranslated due to the literalist agenda:
RNC note #2: The NIV and NASB translate this verse in a way that most reflects "the shortest reading, ho monogenes," which is "too poorly attested for acceptance as the text." (The only support for that reading is a deviant Vulgate manuscript and another 4th or 5th century writer.) The NIV translates, "No one has seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." And the NASB translates, "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him."
The fact is that the NIV and NASB both may have used the UBS4 reading, but their translations of John 1:18 have the same shortcoming as with their (and most others') translation of John 1:1, of which Newman and Nida (A Translator's Handbook on the Gospel of John, New York: United Bible Societies, 1980, pages 8-9) comment:
These many differences in translation are due to the Greek sentence structure. In this type of equational sentence in Greek (A=B) the subject can be distinguished from the predicate by the fact that the subject has the article before it and the predicate does not. Since "God" does not have the article preceding it, "God" is clearly the predicate and "the Word" is the subject. This means that "God" is here the equivalent of an adjective, and this fact justifies the rendering he (the Word) was the same as God.
This becomes important because mistranslations and skewings of translations have been used to rather explicitly promote Joel's Army theology. The Assemblies of God in particular embraced the NIV, and Assemblies-linked promoter of Joel's Army theology Ron Luce has used the NIV's translations of verses to justify religious harassment in the name of "Joel's Army", specifically in pages 17-18 of a document Teen Mania Ministries promoted in the 1990s called the "RIOT Manual" (in essence, a guide for teens on how to commit religious harassment of non-dominionists):
A riot usually starts when people are dissatisfied with the status quo. Tired of puffing up with too much for too long, they say it is time for a change. Scripture says, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it" (Matt. 11:12). Jesus tells us here that He came to change the status quo. He points out that since He and John came on the scene, some amazing things had happened in God's kingdom. After years of relative quiet, someone showed up who knew what was sup posed to happen and by force took hold of God's kingdom.
Today, God is looking for some young people to do the same, people who have had enough of the world cramming sin and a sinful lifestyle down their throats and acting like it is cool. Since the Garden of Eden, the devil has had a free- for-all - abusing, taking advantage of and deceiving people - with almost no resistance. He has manipulated us and given us a raw deal for so long that we accept it as the way things are supposed to be. We think it is normal to be ripped off by Satan. It happens all the time, but we don't get mad because we're used to it.
Well, we think it's time to get mad - mad enough to start a R.I.O.T.
It should be noted that the NIV is the only major Bible translation which uses this wording--a wording that is in fact the complete opposite of that used in practically every other Bible translation out there, including the KJV and RSV:
In fact, the verse quotation is from a particular version of the Bible that has mistranslated it. According to the text in the RSV (considered by most mainstream Biblical scholars as a more accurate translation of the Bible than the KJV or NIV) the verse alone describes people ATTACKING Heaven, not a marching mass of "God Warriors":
- From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.
The KJV version is similar: 12: And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Sadly, the NIV rendering is widely used to justify "Joel's Army" theology. Among other things, an Assemblies church explicitly uses this mistranslation of Matthew 11:12 to promote its youth program:
Have you ever dreamed you were Aragorn leading the way for the Ring, fighting for "Freedom" alongside William Wallace or wish you could visit the land of Narnia? Within us there is a great desire to be apart of a tale with adventure, challenge, perseverance, and, ultimately, victory. As young children we act out these great epic stories with the hopes of someday living them out.
As God orchestrates this great epic tale of life, we seek to find our place. Carmel Student Ministries is only the beginning of this journey. In the month of March we will continue to build our community, we will inhabit our new home, adopt a new name, and continue to learn our part in this epic tale. Jesus tells us that from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. (Matthew 11.12) Advance with us and find your part at Carmel Student Ministries.
(Again, keep in mind that in practically all other non-NIV translations this particular verse is referring to Heaven being assaulted by violence; only one other translation supports the NIV version.
The one other translation that supports the NIV in the above link (in regards to the particularly "Joel's Army" translation of Matthew 11:12) is the "God's Word" Bible; the GWT is a translation by a group which heavily promotes dominionist causes on its links page and is linked to a steeplejacking group within the Lutheran church (the "Good News Bible" was apparently too liberal for their tastes). It, too, suffers from translation errors resulting from a specific agenda.
The NIV is important because it is probably the dominant Bible translation now used by dominionist groups, including the Southern Baptists; it is also the basis for a major reference bible produced by the Assemblies (and used as essentially religious marching orders by neopente dominionist groups), as we'll discuss tomorrow.