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Update or upstart? Biblical scholars debate language usage of TNIV

It may seem unlikely that Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson and Rolling Stone Magazine would have much of anything in common. Sure, both are seeking to make an impact upon American culture by communicating particular messages and beliefs. But that is like saying that Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush are similar because they both desire to motivate and persuade a particular group of people.

Granted, it has been for very different reasons, but James Dobson and Rolling Stone have found at least a bit of common ground in that both recently have been at odds with the relatively new and somewhat controversial TNIV. "The TNI...what?" was the response I received most when attempting to gather thoughts and opinions from Presbyterian friends. I have to admit, upon first hearing of it, I thought the T stood for "Teen." It doesn't.

In review: Today’s New International Version

The Bible: Today's New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

Since the appearance of the English Revised Version in 1870, considered by many the beginning of modern English translations of the Bible, more than 150 translations (often of only the New Testament) have appeared. Many of these are forgotten private translations, although some of the "giants" are still remembered (e.g., James Moffat, E. J. Goodspeed, J. B. Phillips).

The major advance in translation by a committee was made with the appearance of the Revised Standard Version (New Testament 1946; complete Bible, 1952). The next two major moments were the publication of the New English Bible (1961; 2d ed., 1970), a British production with a very interpretive flair, and the New International Version (1973), done in part to have a "conservative" alternative to the RSV.i

How I use the TNIV

After a year with the TNIV ... I have found it illuminating to do my daily readings in new Bible translations. Often I see familiar passages in fresh light because of new turns of phrase or word choices. Not long after its initial publication, I found the NIV a wonderful new rendering of our beloved Book. But over the years it has come to feel dated on several accounts -- something unavoidable when the goal is to translate into language as current as possible.

Stories as Nourishment

 Â©2004 by John R. Erickson. Used by permission.

I was surprised the first time an elementary school librarian invited me to read my Hank the Cowdog stories to her children.  

I knew nothing about children's literature and never dreamed that children could understand the subtle humor in a story whose main character might be summed up in a paraphrase of St. Paul: "That which I do, I should not, and that which I should not, I do--all the time." Hank, who narrates the stories, exaggerates, often tells little lies to cover his mistakes, has no self-knowledge, and ... well, isn't very smart. That's pretty subtle, and I wrote the first Hank book for adults, not children.  

Six million books later--most of them purchased by or for children--it is clear that I was not a marketing genius.

Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

by Frederick Buechner. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. ISBN: 0-06-084248-2. Hb., 320 pp., $24.95.

Here is a noteworthy collection of sermons by one of our most celebrated Christian apologists, Frederick Buechner. Ranging from sermons delivered in the 1950s to the late 1990s, this anthology lives up to its subtitle, presenting a half-century's worth of thinking aloud about the Christian way. Buechner, who has described himself as a part-time Christian and a part-time novelist, offers the reader many windows into the oftentimes hidden world of Christian truth.

The collection begins with a sermon called "The Magnificent Defeat," concentrating upon the all-night wrestling match between Jacob and God at the ford of the Jabbok. The encounter leaves Jacob crippled and helpless but, as Buechner describes it, in the end Jacob sees "something more terrible than the face of death--the face of love." (p. 7). Thanks to Buechner's vantage point, one can share a sense of authentic surprise the original Phillips Exeter Academy student-congregation must have felt at hearing the news that out of defeat can come blessing.

Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America

by Randall Balmer. New York: Basic Books, 2006.  ISBN 0465005195. Hb., 242 pp., $24.95. 

This book will anger, frighten and give hope.

Balmer is professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University, and visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. He is also a Baptist whose evangelical credentials are impeccable. He calls his book "An Evangelical's Lament," lament because the religious right has hijacked traditional evangelicalism, and, in its lust for political clout and legitimacy, has sold its soul to the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party. To be perfectly fair, religious liberals in the sixties and seventies did likewise, often identifying Democratic Party platforms with the promise of the kingdom of God. But that was then; this is now. Have we learned nothing?

Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament

by Jacqueline Lapsley. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22435-0. Pb., 154 pp. $19.95.

This exploration of four Old Testament narratives about women begins by recounting two different experiences that reflect well the difficult relationship between feminist scholarship and the church.

The first story is of Lapsley's conversation with a clergyperson who bemoans yet another book on women in the Bible! This experience speaks of a certain tiredness with respect to the topic, its redundancy given the many treatments that already exist. But it also might hint at impatience with the task of feminist scholarship and its hermeneutics of suspicion, an interpretive position that often denies the Bible's ability to speak a word of God for women's lives.

The second experience is a story about a student who admitted to throwing her Bible across the room in disgust and outrage over the sexist worldview that inhabits the Scriptures. This story reveals the importance of the feminist task but asks how God's word can be heard when the dominant voices in Scripture undermine and often harm the well being of women

2006 Top sellers in Christian publishing

What Christian books are believers reading and discussing? Publishers list their top sellers for fall 2006, both new books and continuing bestsellers.

A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics

by William Stacy Johnson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0-8028-2966-X. Hb., 320 pp.  $25.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. ... William Stacy Johnson believes that it is time: to address the issue of same-gender unions as a society and church and to lend his reasoned voice to the discussion. In A Time to Embrace he offers a well-documented, cogent argument in support of a welcoming and affirming posture toward persons in exclusively committed same-gender relationships. In so doing he traverses the terrain of religion, law, and politics, carefully reviewing where we have been, analyzing where we are, and setting forth a path for where we might go faithfully into the future. He limits his affirmation to those in committed, monogamous, egalitarian, same-gender relationships, for it is in these unions that he finds not only the possibility for compassionate support, but also the responsibility for faithful action.