I can't remember a world without a Superman. He was part of the modern world's mythology instilled to me by my parents from a very early age. As soon as I could begin reading (which was pretty early), my father bought me Superman comic books. I wish I still had those exact issues. I continued to buy comic books on my own up until shortly before Kathy and I got married in 1990 (I couldn't afford both). The Superman of the comics most familiar to me was the one drawn by Curt Swan, spanning almost three decades until John Byrne revamped the Man of Steel in the mid-eighties. However, I was also very familiar with the early Superman of the late-thirties, forties, fifties and sixties thanks to reprints and collections of stories in books. Superman was always one of my favorite heroes, if not the favorite (with the possible exception of the Fawcett Captain Marvel of the forties and fifties, but that's a subject for another day).

And then there was the Superman of television and film. As a kid I watched (in reruns) the late, great George Reeves (Adventures of Superman) don the cape. In many ways, although he was the Superman of my parents' generation, he set the standard for me as to what Superman should embody as a hero. I was eleven when Superman: The Movie, starring Christopher Reeve hit the theaters. For the two or three years leading up to its release, this movie had been hyped in the comic books with a two-page contest explaining how "You Could Be in the Superman Movie." I wondered if I won that contest if they'd let me play Jimmy Olson. Years later I would find out that the two winners of that contest got to act as stand-in players on the Smallville football team, and if they were actually able to spot themselves in that very brief scene, perhaps there is such thing as super-vision.

Superman: The Movie (1978) marked a shift in super-hero movies, and would not be topped stylistically for at least eleven years until 1989's Batman. Even at the age of eleven, I could tell that this film was treating the character seriously. It had well-known actors like Marlon Brando as Jor-El and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. Even today, it's hard for me to see Hackman as anything but Luthor because that's where I first noticed him. The special effects, though a bit dated today, were cutting edge for the time. The tagline for the movie had been "You will believe a man can fly." And we did. Even watching the film recently, some (but not all) of the flying scenes are quite smooth. Before anyone depicted flying in films was obviously set in front of a blue screen. Not so with at least some of the scenes in Superman: The Movie. Even today, the film stands up fairly well and no doubt that for many, when they think of Superman, they think of Christopher Reeve. To me the movie is well done up until the last quarter or so. The whole turning-back-time-by-flying-very-fast-against-the-world's-rotation shtick didn't impress me even when I was eleven. Plus, as I verified while watching this movie again the other day, Superman still doesn't stop the second missile from hitting, he just saves Lois Lane. It makes you wonder who he didn't save in order to achieve this?

The scripts for Superman: The Movie and Superman II were both written by Mario Puzo of The Godfather fame. Although I liked the story line in the second installment involving the Phantom Zone villains (a great continuation and connection to the first movie), even as a boy, by that time at age 13, I did not care for the personal themes in Superman II. It wasn't merely Superman and Lois lane engaging in unmarried sexual intercourse (something that had never taken place in the comic books), it was the personal choice that Puzo had Superman make. Here was earth's protector choosing to give up his powers and abilities to have a normal life with the woman he loved, Lois Lane. Maybe that's a romantic decision for some, but then and now, it seemed like a very selfish and unheroic choice. It was a choice seemingly made on impulse without thought for the rest of humanity. It was a choice made without wisdom. I could never imagine the George Reeves' Superman making such a choice for Noel Neill (the television Lois Lane).

Superman III, which featured then popular comedian Richard Pryor, is largely unforgettable with the exception of the fight between Superman and Clark Kent (you'd have to see the movie to understand). That scene, to me, is one of the most clever psychological visualizations I've ever seen on film. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, co-written by Christopher Reeve himself, suffers from obviously political overtones and perhaps one of the worst edits of a film I've ever seen. I remember watching the movie and wondering how the characters got from one scene to another, feeling as if something was left out. After reading a comic book adaption based on the shooting script, the story made more sense, but the product on the screen seemed incredibly rushed. The failure of this movie ended Christopher Reeve's run as the Last Son of Krypton.

The nineties saw a number of attempts to resurrect the franchise. For a while Tim Burton was schedule to direct the film. This project went far enough to see teaser posters created. Personally, while I thought Burton was a great match for Batman, I did not want him to touch Superman. The same thing goes for Nicholas Cage, who unimaginably for a time was in talks to play Superman. Cage is one of my favorite actors, but he'll make a better Ghost Rider than Superman.

So finally, after nineteen long years, Superman Returns. Rather than reinvent Superman the way Burton planned, director and story co-writer Bryan Singer, chose to pick up where the Mario Puzo stories of Superman and Superman II left off. Ignoring the events of Superman III and IV (just as well), Superman Returns is a thematic sequel to the first two films, especially the second. John Williams' unforgettable theme music (by now inseparable from the Superman mythos) returns, although Williams himself does not score this movie. The only actor from the originals to return is Marlon Brando in spite of the fact that he's dead! But this was an incredibly clever choice. Another actor from the 1978 film showing his face is Glenn Ford, who played Jonathan Kent in the original. His picture is clearly visible on the mantle in the Kent farmhouse. Even the opening titles for the new film are done in the same style as the original movies. Seeing that lettering and hearing the John Williams' music transported me back momentarily to my childhood.

SPOILER ALERT: Read no further if you haven't seen the movie yet. Superman Returns is everything Superman III should have been in 1983. The events in Returns take place five years after the events in Superman II. Over these five years, Superman (Brandon Routh) has been missing. We find out that in response to astronomers' discovery of Krypton, Superman has been on a long galactic journey to see if anything remains of his homeworld. Finding nothing, he comes home. Of course, it's never explained how Superman can get there and back in a span of five years even though Jor-El has stated that he's been dead for thousands of earth years. Oh well.

During this time, no only has life moved on for Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), she is now a mother and engaged to Richard White (James Marsden of X-Men fame who gets more screentime in this movie than he did in X-Men II and III combined), the nephew of Daily Planet Publisher Perry White (played expertly by Frank Langella, although I miss Jackie Cooper). Hell hath no fury for Lois Lane scorned, and to prove it, she has won a Pulitzer Prize (a goal mentioned more than once in the first two movies) for her editorial, "Why the World Doesn't Need a Superman." It seems the boy in blue left without even as much as a goodbye, something she (rightly) took very personally.

The Richard White character is handled quite well. From a formulaic standpoint, usually an audience is made to hold contempt for any third wheel getting in the way of the characters you want to see hit it off. This is normally necessary so that he can be eventually discarded. When first introduced to Richard White in the movie, I wanted to dislike him, but as the movie progressed, that became something very difficult to do. I found myself feeling sympathy toward White, who was clearly insecure about Lois' past relationship with Superman--I mean, what man wouldn't be? Further, White is established as heroic in his own right, despite not being able to bend steel in his bare hands. Further (I warned you about spoilers), he is not removed from the triangle at the end of the movie, but the security of his relationship with Lois is at least questionable now that Superman's back in town.

The more significant plot point regarding Lois is her five-year-old son--coincidentally the same age as the length of time that Superman has been gone. Hmmm.... I'm going to break a golden rule of movie reviewing for the sake of later discussion and reveal to you that, yes--if you hadn't already guessed it--Jason Lane is actually Superman's son, the result of their coupling in Superman II. Of course, Time Magazine revealed the secret this week before me.

The third plot point revolves around Superman's arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey). Superman has not only been an absentee father to his son, but he failed to make the parole hearing for Luther who is now legally a free man. And having visited Superman's Fortress of Solitude in Superman II, he goes back there to steal Kryptonian technology. Just as in Superman: The Movie, Luthor has a real estate scheme; although this time, he's creating a new continent rather than dropping missiles on an old one. Of course, just like the first time, if he succeeds, billions will die in the process because raising a new land mass will cause flooding of existing ones.

Bryan Singer is an incredible director and story-teller. You can tell he is a true Superman fan, familiar not just with the movies, but also with the comic books. In this movie Superman is doing very Superman-like things--walking through sprays of machine gun bullets, preventing a plane crash, tunneling through the earth. Kathy and I were in a theater on opening day and the audience was quite fun--they applauded and cheered at all the appropriate times. The 1938 Action Comics #1 cover in which Superman lifts a car over his head is reproduced in the movie, something that the true fan will instantly recognize. Regardless of whether in the end a viewer likes this film or not, I can't see how anyone would not feel excitement and awe at the end of Superman's first appearance when he keeps a Boing 777 from crashing.

Although the 1978 film was supposed to make us "believe a man can fly," the flight in Superman Returns is how I imagine it really would be. There's not one scene that looks superimposed over a blue screen thanks to modern computer graphics and computer-based editing. And as opposed to the Christopher Reeve Superman, who when flying at tremendous speeds still never messed up his hair and his cape only lightly flapped, Routh's Superman's hair looks like he's riding in a convertible and his cape really seems to be pulling hard in the wind. Speaking of the cape, Superman's costume in this movie is slightly altered. The colors are darker for a modern audience (watching the original movies a few days ago, Reeves' costume comes across almost like pajamas by today's standards). The "S" on Superman's chest has been slightly altered somewhere between the version we're most familiar with and the original 1940's Siegel and Shuster rendition. However, Singer goes crazy with that S and it becomes superfluous. The S on his belt is redundant to the one on his chest. And there are even little S's on the heels of Superman's boots--oh my.

Besides the aforementioned connections to the earlier Superman movies, there are two nods to the fifties' Adventures of Superman television show. Noel Neill (the Lois Lane of the forties serials and seasons 2-5 of the TV show) and Jack Larson (Jimmy Olson of the TV series) both have roles in the movie. Although their roles are small, they are significant characters, not merely walk-ons such as when Stan Lee makes a cameo in a Marvel Comics movie. Neill's character is in a very early scene and although she was unrecognizable physically, her voice instantly gave her away to those of us familiar with the show. Larson's character is actually in a scene with the new Jimmy Olson (Sam Huntington) which makes it even more memorable.

Speaking of cameos, folks familiar with billionaire adventurer, Sir Richard Branson will spot him as one of the space shuttle pilots in one of the movie's early scenes. I wonder how much he paid to be in this movie? More trivia: Noel Neill has now been in more Superman renditions than any other actor. She played Lois Lane in the movie serials with Kirk Alyn and in the television show with George Reeves. In Superman: The Movie--if you can view an uncut version--she plays the mother of a very young Lois Lane who, while riding on a train, sees a young Clark Kent run speeding past. Kirk Alyn is also in that scene playing Lois' father. Neill also guest starred on a episode of the Superboy TV show.

Brandon Routh obviously won the part of Superman because he bears not an identical, but a striking resemblance to Christopher Reeve. But in all fairness, not everyone would be able to easily wear that costume. While Routh captures the essence of his predecessor, and some of his lines sound almost exactly like Reeve's (in fact, at least two lines are identical to those in the 1978 movie), he also makes the character into his own. When the bank robber shoots Superman in the face--actually in the eye--Routh's Superman looks ticked off in a way that I don't ever remember seeing in the Christopher Reeve portrayal of Superman. And Routh's Clark Kent goes even beyond Christopher Reeve's performance making him not just a nerd, but an outright geek (there is a difference, you know).

Incidentally, according to the trivia on the IMDB, Routh thought he had blown the role when at his first meeting with Singer, he stumbled and spilled coffee all over the table where they were sitting. However, Singer later told him that blunder helped get him the role because it convinced him that he could play not only Superman but Clark Kent as well.
Some will disagree with me, but I never saw Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. She didn't have the spirit of Margot Kidder, the charisma of Teri Hatcher, and certainly not the brass of Noel Neill. There was great chemistry between Kidder and Reeves in Superman I and II. But even with characters' relationship estranged, I never saw any such connection between Routh and Bosworth. I kept wondering what Superman saw in this Lois anyway. To me, Bosworth's Lois came across a bit flat and lacks energy, but in interviews of Bosworth I've seen, she comes across that way in real life.

Kevin Spacey makes a wonderful Lex Luthor, who in the end was not quite over-the-top as one of my friends feared based on previews. Rather, he was a much darker and seemingly smarter Lex Luthor than the Hackman version. In one interview that I saw, Spacey says that after accepting the role, he purposefully did not go back and watch Gene Hackman's version of Luthor so that he could make the role into his own. For this type of Lex Luthor, I believe Spacey was the best casting choice imaginable. And fortunately, there was no "Otis-like" character as in the Puzo scripts, which I believe took away from Luthor's character. However, I hope that one day we can get beyond the Puzo version of Lex Luthor who simply seems to pursue one land scheme after another. I like the John Byrne version of Luthor depicted in the comic books who is not only a scientific genius, but also a politician who runs and wins the presidency making Superman's conflict with him even more complex. This is the Luthor I'd like to see on film. Michael Rosenbaum's Luthor on Smallville, by the way, is a nod toward Byrne's version.

One of the strengths of the movie and certainly part of Singer's genius was to tie this Superman movie to the iconic versions from 1978 and 1980. However, in my opinion, this is also one of the film's greatest weaknesses. The ultimate connection to Superman II is the night that Superman and Lois spent together in his Fortress of Solitude. Lois' son is the consequence of this action. So, now the storyline begun with Superman's selfish disregard for all of humanity is now continued with his role essentially as that of an absentee father, perhaps even a "deadbeat dad." He certainly didn't pay child support during those five years he was gone, did he? Rather he left mother and son in the lurch. Granted, he didn't know about the Jason, but he didn't have a chance to find out because he left earth without telling Lois goodbye. C'mon, Superman, get a spine. This is certainly not heroic actions. Is this Superman supposed to look more human to us? Is he supposed to be an example perhaps to unwed fathers because now he's going to take responsibility for the child? I don't know. Again, I could never see George Reeves in this situation, and it's not what I want in Superman. Unfortunately, now that Singer has resurrected this storyline, I can only imagine that I won't see the kind of Superman movie I really want until I'm a very old man, if then.

Plus, here's an interesting continuity question. If Clark Kent (who as Superman had all kind of "extra" never-seen-before-or-since powers in Superman II) removed Lois' memory of events and his secret identity with some kind of super-kiss at the end of the second movie, how in the world does she know that Jason is Superman's son? This question is never addressed, let alone answered in Superman Returns. One wonders whether or not Lois shouldn't speculate that the child was some kind of "virgin birth."

Speaking of such things, it's hard to deny the Judeo-Christian imagery in the Superman myth. Superman is the story of a savior sent to our world from a heavenly father, who's last name just happens to be "El," the Hebrew word for God. In the Christianity Today interview, Singer rightly points out that Superman started out as more of a Moses figure seeing as Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both Jewish. However, the story has been written and rewritten by many, many different writers over the years and the Christian imagery has grown. In fact, in the 1990's "Death of Superman" saga, Superman actually died and rose from the grave! There is a new book out that explores some of this imagery in the Superman myth, but from the reviews of it I've seen, too much is being read into the story. A better treatment of this imagery is in John Galloway's The Gospel According to Superman written about three decades ago. Although it's out of print, used copies are still attainable.

Bryan Singer, although Jewish, certainly plays this Christian imagery up in the film. The Superman of this movie hears the voices of everyone at once, like the God of the Bible who can hear the prayers of all people. There's much talk in the movie about whether or not the world needs not just a Superman, but a savior (that exact word is used). Jor-El's words from the first film about sending "my only son" are repeated. Superman is stabbed in the side like Christ, and toward the end, even stretches out his arms in a very Christ-like pose.

Personally, I'd rather leave the Christ analogies out. I love the Superman story, but Superman is not Jesus. And the Puzo-Singer Superman, the one who selfishly gave up his powers and had what turned out to be a one night stand in Superman II, resulting in a son of his own in Superman Returns is not my Jesus. Pardon me for saying this but the Superman of the Puzo-Singer storyline has more in common with Dan Brown's Jesus of the Da Vinci Code than the Superman of the Bible. Forgive me, but I'd simply prefer to keep Jesus and Superman separate (notwithstanding that Jim Caviezel was turned down for the role of Superman for this movie).

Kathy and I saw the IMAX 3-D version of Superman Returns. I hadn't been to a 3-D movie in years, and I thought this might make a good one to see with the effects. However, while fun, it doesn't really add anything to the story and may actually take away from it because the viewer is more concentrated on the effects than the story. In the end, there was less than 20 minutes of the two and a half hour movie that were actually in 3-D with nothing in the second half in 3-D at all except for the final flight scene. My hunch is that the team responsible for adding the 3-D effects simply ran out of time. These days, the final cut of a movie is often completed mere weeks before actual release. The lack of 3-D scenes in the second half and especially during the opening titles (which scream 3-D) seems to give away this tight schedule.

Go see Superman Returns. Overall, it is a good installment in the series. If you saw the first parts of the storyline as a kid like I did, it will take you back to your childhood. Just don't put the Man of Steel on too high of a pedestal. Remember instead that the world actually does have a Savior, and he's not vulnerable to Kryptonite, let alone rash choices.

Tags: Superman

Christianity Today Movies has a great interview with Bryan Singer, director of the upcoming Superman Returns.

The interview is fairly significant because CT really tries to pin Singer down on the spiritual influences in the film. Although Singer comes across as a pluralist, he doesn't deny the Judeo-Christian imagery in the movie. Here's an excerpt of the Interview:

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The guys who created Superman were Jewish, so I don't think they intended him to be a Christ figure, but he seems to have kind of become that over the years.

Singer: I don't think Jesus … Well, I can't get into religious things, but um…

Well, you are talking to Christianity Today!

Singer: Well, yeah, that's true, so I guess it's going to come up! (Laughs) I think that it [Superman as Christ figure] is kind of a natural evolution, because he began as kind of a Moses figure, of the child sent by the parents down the river to fulfill a destiny.

Kind of as a liberator in response to Hitler and the Nazis?

Singer: Yes. The Second World War presented an interesting dilemma for the Superman creators, because he was a very much an inspirational figure for the troops—and yet even though he was so powerful, he did not simply go clean up the Nazi menace and solve all the problems in Europe. He helped out, but he primarily led by example. He stirred others; he inspired. He left the actual heroism to the real heroes, to the soldiers in the field and abroad, and in that way, he became this very inspiring figure.

And that, obviously, translates into these kinds of allegories, Christ being a natural one, because Superman's a savior. And even more so in my film, because he's gone for a period of time, and then he returns. For me to say that those messianic images don't exist in the movie would be absurd.

The 1978 film seemed to push the messianic imagery, especially with the Jor-El quote about sending "my only son."

Singer: "They can be a great people Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way." It's very powerful and very meaningful, that monologue and the other moment in the film where Kal-El's mother says, "He will be isolated alone," and Jor-El takes the crystal and places it into the ship and says, "He will not be alone. He will never be alone." Those two scenes resonated the strongest with me in the making of this movie, which is why I ultimately used Marlon Brando's voice and image.

As a Jewish guy, have you embraced this Christology/mythology, or do you see it as more than that, or what?

Singer: I grew up as a relatively secular Jewish kid in a Catholic neighborhood. I went to a Christian youth club as a kid, 'cause I liked the sports.

Mr. Ecumenical, huh?

Singer: It was very peculiar! And I had a Hindi friend, so I had some measure of exposure to multiple faiths. I have an aunt who's a born-again Christian; I wonder what kind of impression the film will make on her. I think it'll be obvious to her.

But when you grow up in a Judeo-Christian culture, these things find their way into your subconscious and your storytelling. So some of the imagery is, I think, unintentional, and some of it is very thought-out and celebratory. If I try to say, "Oh, I didn't know about that imagery," I'd sound like a fool—or like I was just being insincere.

In an action adventure film, if you don't care about the people that the action adventure is happening to, then the action adventure doesn't work as well. It's not as thrilling and meaningful. So, by calling upon certain romantic feelings, by calling upon certain spiritual feelings, by calling upon those thoughts and ideas and manifesting them in this kind of movie, it allows the audience to have a multiple of experiences besides just fireworks. For me, that's a very important part of the movie.

Obviously this was a very personal and emotional project for you. Was it also a spiritual experience in any way?

Singer: Uh, I think I have a spirituality that I keep very much to myself. I don't talk about it much, because I'm a filmmaker, I'm not a preacher (laughter)! I think spirituality exists in the movie, but I have my own [spirituality]. I pray in my own way, I guess you'd say.

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Read the full interview. And look for This Lamp's review of Superman Returns late Wednesday or sometime Thursday.

Tags: Superman

A Guest Retro-Review by Andrew Wells

I really loved the Ocean's 11 remake (I can’t vouch for the original, having never seen it). It was popcorn fare done really smart, like they used to do in Hollywood. Big stars acting but still being stars. Effective character actors in supporting roles. A commercial director who has artistic ambitions. Smooth as cotton candy, but not forgettable--the kind of movie you want to watch when it shows up on late-night TV, or you pull out of your DVD stack when you are in the mood for fun.

So I saw the Ocean's 12 sequel when it came out in theaters, and it was bad. I got to watch it on DVD a couple of nights ago, and only did so because I wanted to give the movie a fair shake. It’s still bad. What went wrong?

The plot: Benedict (Andy Garcia), the bad guy that Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his crew stole money from in 11, is given information about who robbed him from a shadowy figure known as The Night Fox. Benedict demands his money back or else. Feeling they have no choice, Danny and the gang head to Europe to do a job to repay Benedict, but The Night Fox is a step ahead of them. Meanwhile, Rusty (Brad Pitt) must deal with an old flame turned police investigator (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

It seems like it takes forever to figure that out, because I’m guessing two-thirds of the time the movie gets in the way of itself. 12 commits three serious mistakes, in addition to a great many smaller ones.

First, the movie is too…French. Or European, if you want to be politically correct. Director Steven Soderberg has always made clear that foreign films and the avant-garde has an affect on his directing style. In his big studio productions, he’s usually been able to make effective use of these influences. Out of Sight, Traffic, and 11 and even Solaris are all good examples. In 12, however, the style just gets in the way. The oblique conversation with Danny, Rusty and Linus (Matt Damon) in the bar, the wacky comedy scene at the Paris train station, the attempt at farce when Tess (Julia Roberts) shows up to help in the heist—the style and format is all taken from French New Wave movies (such as The 400 Blows and Breathless). But no attempt has been made to work this material into the film; in fact, 12 comes off like a bunch of scenes strung together poorly, many of them improvised by the actors goofing around.

Improvisation, if there is any, may also be 12's second mistake. There were character moments in the first movie, but they were secondary to the plot. Here it is the other way around—the movie is less about plot than getting the characters together. There are long scenes where the characters just jabber, without getting anywhere, especially in the hotel. The characters, especially the supporting ones, aren’t built for the work, and neither are most of the actors playing them.

The third mistake involves the golden rule of con movies, which is show the audience the con. The idea is that the audience is supplied the information in the movie, but then something happens or is said that changes the meaning of everything that comes before it; thus, the con is revealed. In 11, this worked effectively. The audience knew the crew was pulling off an impossible robbery (i.e., the con), but did not realize the depth and cleverness of the con till the very end. Here, the audience doesn’t even get to see the real robbery, but also have to accept the improbable—that Danny and his crew knew the whole situation almost from the first moment, and were playing The Night Fox and Isabel the whole time. Special mention must be made of the improbable lasers (you’ll know it when you see it). Remember another movie golden rule: audiences will believe the impossible, but not the improbable.

The film has some good in it. The soundtrack is by retro-cool artist David Holmes, with lots of good percussion and horns. There are some excellent in-jokes regarding Hollywood and the first movie, including a hilarious cameo meltdown by Topher Grace. My favorite in-joke is what song Benedict is playing on the piano when he finds the Don Cheadle character. You have to watch the credits to discover it. Matt Damon comes off the best here--his character actually develops, and instead of goofing around, he’s trying to act. I can’t wait to see what he does with The Departed and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Amazingly, 12 made enough money that there will be an Ocean's 13 in 2007. Roberts and Zeta-Jones aren’t scheduled to star, but Al Pacino is involved, and supposedly the movie will take place in Las Vegas again. That’s probably a good idea, since 12’s visit to Europe was such a bust. Bon débarras!

Note: all mangling of French is the writer’s fault, since he doesn’t speak it.


Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.

Tags: Andrew

Our Bible study at church this morning is taken from Job 28. As I was going back over the passage, the last four verses stood out:

            When God fixed the weight of the wind
            and limited the water by measure,
            when He established a limit for the rain
            and a path for the lightning,
            He considered wisdom and evaluated it;
            He established it and examined it.
            He said to mankind,
            “Look! The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
            and to turn from evil is understanding."
           
            (Job 28:25-28, HCSB)

The last two lines are particularly striking. The choice for humanity was set at the beginning of creation. This same choice was echoed by Moses in Deut 30:19-20.

And I remember another wise person once saying, "In life some people get it; some don't." Me? I want to be one of the ones who gets it.

Tags: Job, HCSB

No, I promise this isn't a Mac vs. Windows entry. But it is an every decent browser in the world vs. Internet Explorer 6 polemic.

If you're using Internet Explorer 6 for Windows (IE6), not only are you not seeing my website correctly, but you're probably missing out when viewing lots of other websites as well. Look for instance at the way my menu system is supposed to look:



But if you're using Internet Explorer 6 for Windows, you get this:



The problem is that IE6, a browser released five years ago, will not read .png graphics and CSS styles correctly even though they meet current internet standards. Sadly, IE6 does not meet current internet standards. Sometimes, graphics or tables that I include in a blog get pushed down below the last bit of text in my sidebar meaning that the IE6 user has to scroll down. When I posted my last entry I included a table, and because it was the top entry of my blog, any visitor to the site using IE6 either thought there was only one very short entry on the page or perhaps was smart enough to scroll down to see the rest.

So what are you going to do? If you are a Windows user, it's not your fault that Microsoft hasn't updated Internet Explorer in five years. But it is your fault if you choose to stay with a browser representative of old technology. I recommend that all Windows users do one of two things--either install the beta for MS Explorer 7 (which is actually quite stable) or download the Mozilla Firefox browser (better option). Who knows what else you're missing as you surf the internet by not using a modern browser?

Here's the deal--I'm no expert on these things, but I'm told that I could go in and supposedly edit the CSS style sheets and tweak them for IE6 users. But IE6 is old technology that will eventually go away.

Currently, according to the Sitemeter stats, IE6 users only make up about 47% of visitors to my site. That's way down from what it used to be. That number can only get lower, so I'm not going to tweak my site so that it will work for IE6 users. To me, that's a bit ridiculous even if they are the current majority. It's a shrinking majority.

By the way, if you're using a Mac browser such as Safari or Firefox to view this site, everything should be fine (unless you're using IE5). I find it very interesting that while supposedly Windows is supposed to have a 90%+ niche of the computer market, Windows users only account for 69% or so of the visitors to my site. Look at this Sitemeter chart:

So don't just continue to look at the internet through scratched old dirty glasses. Download Firefox, the IE7 beta, or better yet, get a Mac.

For those who are interested, I am placing some thumbnails below that demonstrate how my website looks in different browsers. Click on any of them to get a fullscreen view.


THIS LAMP BY BROWSER THUMBNAILS (click on an image to get a fullscreen view).

Tags: Windows

I left one item out of my review of the New Living Translation that I originally planned to include. When I remembered it this afternoon, I at first started to go back and add it, making a note of redaction at the bottom of the entry. However, the NLT review seems to be long enough as it is, so I've left it alone.

In my earlier review of the TNIV a couple of weeks ago, I commented about the translation of verses like Psalm 34:20 which I feel trades a messianic connection to John 19:36 for the sake of inclusive language. As I've stated many times, I'm not opposed to inclusive language for humans when the context clearly implies a male and female audience, but I'm conservative enough to prefer that messianic references be left alone. For the sake of fairness, in my follow-up to the TNIV, I presented the other side of the argument, even though I don't agree with it.

Since this had been the point of good discussion, I originally intended to show how the NLT handled a passage such as Psalm 34:20.

PSALM 34:20
TNIV	NLT1	NLT2
he protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken.	For the Lord protects them from harm-- not one of their bones will be broken!	For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken!

Note, first of all, that the 1996 edition of the NLT handled the verse in a similar manner to the TNIV--it, too, obscures the messianic reference. However, the 2004 edition has a much more creative solution to the issue. Instead of making the verse inclusive by substituting a plural pronoun for a singular pronoun, pronouns are avoided altogether in the NLT2. The one being protected is simply referred to as "the righteous" which could be construed as singular or plural, male or female.

An elegant solution such as this can satisfy all interests, and it's this kind of clever outside-the-box creativity that keeps me coming back to the New Living Translation.

Tags: NLT

Series note: My early hunch had been that as I got further into this series, the postings would become shorter. Frankly, I don't use the BIbles later in the list as much as I use the earlier ones. And I also assumed this post--the one on the New Living Translation--would mark the point where the entries began to shrink. However, I was mistaken. In the process of reflecting and taking a fresh look at the NLT, I became aware at how little I realized the massive number of changes made between the 1996 and 2004 editions. Whereas before, I had in mind one entity known as the NLT, I now realize that these two editions are quite different. I admit I was simply unaware; I had not been keeping up. Therefore, the focus of this entry is no longer merely on the NLT itself, but a substantial portion of it makes note of the changes made between the first and second editions. And of course, I don't feel that I can ignore some of the history leading up to the NLT, so that's included as well. I have considered breaking this entry up into two or even three parts, but in the end decided it was best left as a single piece.

A reminder that this series is not just a collection of reviews, but more importantly a very subjective take on these Bible versions, including my personal history with them.

Edition designations: I have seen the second edition of the New Living Translation referred to as the NLTse and NLT2. In this blog entry, when referring to the 1996 edition, I will use NLT1; and for the 2004 edition, NLT2. When simply referring to the New Living Translation in general, I will use NLT.

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The other day, I noticed the elderly lady sitting in front of me at church was carrying a rather unusual looking black Bible. The Bibles people carry always interest me. When we stood to sing, I leaned over and noticed that the black Bible she was carrying was actually one of the original green padded Living BIbles from a generation ago. The Bible had received so much use over the years that it had turned from green to black! Such devotion is characteristic of what the Living Bible meant to a number of people. I've seen similarly worn Living Bibles used by my grandmother, my father, and Kathy's grandmother.

Kenneth Taylor's "Living" Legacy. Supposedly, the Living Bible came from Kenneth Taylor's desire to produce a version of the Bible that his children would understand. The Bible he produced was not a translation from the original languages, but rather a paraphrase, specifically of the 1901 American Standard Version. The complete Bible was published in 1971. For many people, Kenneth Taylor's Living Bible simply spoke their language. It made the Bible real to them and come alive. Complain all you want about the deficiencies of a paraphrase, this is the Bible that many people were willing to read. The Living Bible held the distinction of being the first Bible version to knock the King James Version out of the top spot in monthly Bible sales. Although it was not able to maintain this dominance, it's brief time in the top spot testifies to is acceptance and significance. The Living Bible would remain in the top ten list of Bibles sold, usually in the top five, until it was replaced by Tyndale with the New Living Translation in 1996.

Billy Graham called the Living Bible "the world's greatest evangelist." I've seen firsthand evidence to that declaration. When I was in college in the late eighties, I worked in a small Christian bookstore. Tyndale House Publishers, the publisher of the Living Bible, sent us a display with free samples from their forthcoming Life Application Bible. These were simply gospels of Mark in the Living Bible with the Life Application notes at the bottom of the page. Over the weeks I had worked at the store, I became acquainted with our mail carrier. From our brief conversations, I gathered that he was probably not a believer, had a bit of a rocky past including a number of failed marriages, and there were hints that alcohol had been a recurring problem in his life. While he was in the store one afternoon, he asked if he could take a copy of the Life Application Gospel of Mark with him. The next day, he came into our store absolutely beaming. He said that after he had made his last mail run on the previous day, he went to a diner and began reading the Gospel of Mark in the Living Bible over dinner. He told me that the words seemed to seize him and he couldn't put it down. Sitting in that diner, he read the entire gospel AND the Life Application notes. Feeling overpowering conviction of the Holy Spirit, and convinced that Jesus had died for his sins, he prayed to receive Christ all by himself in the diner that night. Rarely have I ever heard of people coming to Christ in settings where they were all alone. But in a sense, he was not alone. He said that he had never been able to understand the Bible before he read it in the Living Bible paraphrase. I kept up with him over the next three or so years until we moved. From my observances, his conversion was very real and life-changing.

I never used the Living Bible much, although very early on I had a Children's Living Bible (the text was the same, but color pictures were added) that my grandmother gave me. As I've said elsewhere I rarely carried it to church because I was embarrassed of the word "children" on the cover. However, two uses of the original Living Bible stick out in my memory. First, on the number of occasions when I actually did carry it to church, it was often used as a distraction during a boring sermon by looking up 1 Samuel 20:30 (which was definitely rendered into contemporary English) and snickering with my buddies sitting beside me. Later printings of the Living Bible put the offending phrase down into the footnotes.

My most significant use of the Living Bible came, when as a child in Sunday School, I left church absolutely baffled after our study of Romans 7. Verses 14-20, a mental tongue-twister in most translations, really confused my childlike mind. When I got home, I opened the King James Version (which I had in class) alongside the Living Bible and the light bulbs went off.

ROMANS 7:14-20
King James Version	Living Bible
14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.	14 The law is good, then, and the trouble is not there with me, but because I am sold into slavery with Sin as my owner. 15 I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to--what I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. 17 But I can't help myself, because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things. 18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't. 19 When I want to do good, I don't; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20 Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

Not only did I understand the passage and was able to apply the Living Bible text back to the King James version, but I also discoverd the value of studying the Bible with translations in parallel--a practice that I continue to this day.

One final note about the Living Bible... As I was preparing to write this blog entry, I pulled my copy of the Living Bible off the shelf to re-familiarize myself with its tone and feel. The copy I have with my collection of English Bible translations is not the green padded hardback with which most people are familiar, but rather a black imitation leather text edition. I purchased this Bible around two decades ago as one of the early items added to my collection. Upon looking at the title page, I was surprised to see something I had never noticed before:

THE
LIVING
BIBLE

PARAPHRASED
A Thought-for-Thought Translation

I had never paid attention to the line that reads "A Thought-for-Thought Translation." I find this interesting for two reasons. One has to do with recent discussions (see here and here) trying to distinguish how a paraphrase differs from a translation. I find it interesting that at some point the publishers began defining a paraphrase as a thought-for-thought translation. I don't think (but someone else will have to verify) that this line was used in the green hardbacks. Is calling a paraphrase a thought-for-thought translation a contradiction in terms? I also found it interesting that the very phrase "A Thought-for-Thought Translation" is now used as a marketing description for the New Living Translation, which is never referred to as a paraphrase, although it undoubtedly includes elements of paraphrase here and there.

I've only heard this secondhand from one of the NLT translators, but supposedly in the eighties, Kenneth Taylor had a strong desire to update the Living Bible. Unable to complete the task himself, his son Mark Taylor convinced him to turn the reigns over to a translation committee. The end product of that effort would, of course, be the New Living Translation.

However, before discussing the NLT, it might be worth noting that in 1990, Tyndale published a text simply known as The New Translation that included Romans through Jude (this corresponds to Taylor's Living Letters, the first portion of the Living Bible published in 1962). The copyright is held by "The Society for the New Translation." As of yet, I have not been able to determine exactly how the New Translation relates to the NLT or if the translation committees are the same. But a number of this text's features stand out.

In the preface, written by Ken Taylor, he notes first of all that the New Translation is translated from the Greek; and thus, it's not merely a paraphrase of an earlier version like the Living Bible was in regard to the ASV. Second, Taylor notes that the New Translation will go back to the method of using italics to identify words added to the text for meaning in English (always a bad practice in my opinion since modern readers see italics as indicators of emphasis). He adds that no modern translation uses this practice (and for good reason I might add), but I think he means that no translation outside of the Tyndale/KJV tradition uses italics.

A third, and very significant feature in light of recent controversies, is the use of gender inclusive language (although that phrase is not used). Talylor writes:

Another outstanding feature of The New Translation is its correct translation of such statements as "He who has the Son has life" to become "Whoever has the Son has life." Since God's grace is for men and women alike, a valid translation must reflect this. It may be an unimportant point for many readers, but to others, both in and outside the church, it is important and helpful.

At the time of the New Translation's publication (1990), only the New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible (both released in 1989) featured inclusive language. This indicates that Taylor and the translation committee had a mindset early on in favor of inclusive language. This would later be reflected in the final release of the New Living Translation six years later. The connections between the two seem to end there, though.

On both the back cover and immediately following the preface, Rom 1:5, 7, 14 and 1 Cor 2:7 are paralleled beside other English translations. To give you a flavor of the New Translation in context with Tyndale's other Bibles, let me recreate the chart with the Living Bible and NLT1 included as well.

	Living Bible	Other	THE NEW TRANSLATION	NLT1
Rom 1:5	And now, through Christ, all the kindness of God has been poured out upon us undeserving sinners; and now he is sending us out around the world to tell all people everywhere the great things God has done for them, so that they, too, will believe and obey him.	NIV: Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the oebedience that comes through faith.	Through Christc I have received the gracious gift of being an apostle, to lead people of every nation to obedient faith in Him for the glory of His name. c Greek: "we"	Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.
Rom 1:7	And you, dear friends in Rome, are among those he dearly loves; you, too, are invited by Jesus Christ to be God's very own--yes, his holy people. May all God's mercies and peace be yours from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord. [note that in the Living Bible, vv. 6-7 are combined]	KJV: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.	This letter is written to all of God's loved ones in Rome, called to be His holy people. may God's wonderful, undeserved favor and peace be yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.	dear friends in Rome. God loves you dearly, and he has called you to be his very own people. May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rom 1:14	For I owe a great debt to you and to everyone else, both to civilized people and uncivilized alike; yes, to the educated and uneducated alike.	NKJV: I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.	For I am under obligation both to the Greeks and all other Gentiles,c to the wise and simple alike. c Literally, "and to barbarians,"	For I have a great sense of obligation to people in our culture and to people in other cultures, to the educated and uneducated alike.
1 Cor 2:7	Our words are wise because they are from God, telling of God's wise plan to bring us into the glories of heaven. This plan was hidden in former times, though it was made for our benefit before the world began.	NASB: but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory;	but we teach the wisdom of God, hidden in mystery in the past, but planned for our glory from before the beginning of the world.	No, the wisdom we speak of is the secret wisdom of God, which was hidden in former times, though he made it for our benefit before the world began.

Comparing the New Translation to the NLT seems to demonstrate no real influence upon the latter at all. The two are very dissimilar. One might suppose that the New Translation project was completely abandoned in favor of the New Living Translation; however, this may not completely be the case based on information I will present below about the NLT. I wish I had more details about this stage of history at Tyndale House Publishers.

The Old Is New Again: The NEW Living Translation. A couple of Sundays ago Kathy and I were asked to provide a Scripture reading in the worship service. A few days before, our minister of music handed us a copy of Eph 1:2-14 from the NIV Dramatized New Testament., a copy of the Scriptures broken down into "parts" for public reading or performance. Our church has recently gone through the difficult process of combining a declining traditional service with a growing contemporary service. The new format has been called "blended," but probably leans a bit more to the contemporary. As Kathy and I read through the NIV text of Eph 1:2-14, we weren't sure that it was the best translation for the service. Kathy put it bluntly, "It sounds too liturgical."

Now, I should say that upon reflection, I find great irony in thinking of the NIV as "too liturgical." Such an idea three or four decades ago would have been quite laughable. But she was right. This passage in Ephesians has a number of weighty concepts and the vocabulary it contained seemed to be too formal for a passage that was going to merely be proclaimed with no commentary. Immediately, of course, she wanted to use the New Living Translation--her version of choice. But I was more cautious. I wanted to compare a number of Bible versions, especially in regard to how they sounded out loud. We read the CEV and the REB since they are known for their quality when spoken. We read the passage in about half a dozen translations before we settled on the NLT which was, of course, what my wife had suggested in the first place. She was right. The NLT rendered this passage in a manner that was much more like normal people speak in regular conversation than any of the other translations we considered.

This is one of the reasons I like the New Living Translation. Its use of English seems very natural, and in my ear, moreso than most translations. When I was searching for a primary translation of the Bible to use at church in replacement of the NASB, the NLT was a top contender, perhaps behind the HCSB and TNIV. In the end, I eliminated it not because I thought it was necessarily less accurate than these other translations, but because its renderings sounded so natural that I was afraid it would be too different from the Bible carried by the average person I teach. Plus, since Kathy uses it, I am always able to turn to her and have her read a passage.

Tyndale House Publishers released the New Living Translation midyear in 1996. I was just starting the doctoral program at SBTS (first time around), and at that time our school boasted four of the ninety or so translators: Daniel Block, Gerald Borchert, Thomas Schreiner, and Robert Stein. Tyndale gave every student on campus a copy of the new Bible. I was interested in it simply because it was a new translation, but the more I read, the more it impressed me.

I've always been a fan of clever translation, and verses like Mark 2:16 really stood out: "But when some of the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with people like that, they said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with such scum?'" (NLT1). I'd never seen a word like "scum" in the Bible before, but I felt like that verse accurately captured in English the essence of the original text's meaning. I completely read through the NLT over the next few months and introduced Kathy to it as well. It instantly became her primary Bible version.

The New Living Translation differs greatly from the Living Bible in that not only is it a translation (albeit a fairly loose one) instead of a paraphrase, but it also relied on the work of a translation committee instead of the primary work of one person. The "Note to Readers" in the 1996 edition states that "ninety evangelical scholars from various theological backgrounds and denominations were commissioned in 1989 to begin revising The Living Bible. The end result of this seven-year process is the Holy Bible, New Living Translation--a general purpose translation that is accurate, easy to read, and excellent for study."

The quotation above makes one wonder if the committee referenced is not the same committee that produced The New Translation in 1990 since the above group began work a year earlier. If so, direction seemed to have significantly changed after publication of the letters in the New Testament. Further, whereas the Living Bible (regardless of actual use) was intended as a complementary version for other translations, the NLT was designed to stand on its own as a primary Bible for everyday use.

The introduction to the 1996 edition spends practically the entire first page and then some extolling the virtues of a dynamic equivalence translation, something that the 2004 edition seems to back away from some in its introduction. In fact in the earlier intro, one reads "A thought-for-thought translation prepared by a group of capable scholars has the potential to represent the intended meaning of the original text even more accurately than a word-for-word translation." Strong words in light of the battle over translation philosophies to follow in the years following the NLT's initial publication.

From my perspective, of all the major translations in print today, the English in the NLT seems the most natural-sounding in its use of language. It's one thing to translate the Bible into English; it's another thing to translate the Bible with a contemporary English-speaking audience in mind. With the 1996 NLT, a concerted effort was made to translate ancient designations into terms that would be more meaningful to the English-speaking reader: measures (1 Kings 7:26, "11,000 gallons of water") weights (Ezra 8:26, "24 tons of silver"), calendar days (Ezek 33:21, "On January 8..."), time (Matt 4:25, "About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came to them") and currency (Acts 19:19, "The value of the books was several million dollars"). It's not that this had never been done before, but it cuts against the grain of most major translations, including ones produced in the last five or six years. One has to ask whether the text has been fully translated if the reader is left wondering how much or what time a passage is actually referring to.

The first edition of the NLT is much freer in its translation than the second edition, and it's much freer than most popular translations. I've blogged about this before, such as the entry I wrote about Rom 14:4 in the NLT1. I've also written a post about the NLT's influence from the LXX in Isa 18:1. The dynamic nature of the NLT's translation philosophy gave its translators a great deal of freedom in rendering the biblical text. As I concluded in my post on Romans 14:4, although it's a bit more free than what I prefer in a primary translation for my own use, I cannot say that such renderings are inaccurate. Most of the time when I've had questions as to why a passage has been translated a particular way in the NLT, when I've dug a little deeper, I've received my answer. But that doesn't mean that there's not some paraphrase at play, too, now and then. Consider a verse like Ecclesiastes 9:8, shown here in the HCSB for reference to a literal text with the NLT 1 and NLT2 beside it:

Ecclesiastes 9:8
HCSB	NLT1	NLT2
Let your clothes be white all the time, and never let oil be lacking on your head	Wear fine clothes, with a dash of cologne!	Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne!

I have no doubt that cologne communicates meaning well to a modern audience, but it's very difficult to say that this is anything but paraphrase. You find verses like this in the NLT now and then. However, most of the renderings--however free--fall on the border of meaning-driven translation as opposed to actual paraphrase.

You Only Live Twice. The NLT Bible Translation Committee continued to hone their work even after the NLT was published in 1996. A minor revision followed the initial publication. I'm not sure of all the changes, but in a number of places (such as Phil 3:13) in the initial 1996 printing, ἀδελφοί was sometimes rendered "friends." A later printing changed this rendering to "brothers and sisters" which is certainly more accurate.

In 2004 the Bible Translation Committee delivered a second edition of the NLT. I'll admit that I was using the NLT less at this point than I had when it was initially released, and I didn't rush out to get a copy of the update. In fact, I only picked one up earlier this year for my collection. Even then, I didn't take the time to compare the 1996 and 2004 editions other than noting that the Prophets were finally in poetic form, so I had no idea how extensive the changes were.

To be honest, it was when Kathy and I decided to use the NLT in our Scripture reading at church a couple of weeks ago that I first noticed how extensive the changes were. Compare for instance, the passage we read--Eph 1:2-14--in the two editions:

Ephesians 1:2-14
NLT1	NLT2
2 ¶ May grace and peace be yours, sent to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. 3 ¶ How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. 4 Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure. 6 ¶ So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. 9 ¶ God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. 10 And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because of Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us from the beginning, and all things happen just as he decided long ago. 12 God’s purpose was that we who were the first to trust in Christ should praise our glorious God. 13 And now you also have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us everything he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God.	2 ¶ May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. 3 ¶ All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. 9 ¶ God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. 12 ¶ God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

I noticed when comparing these passages in the two NLT versions for the first time, that the NLT2 was tighter, less given to unnecessary words. Note in v. 5 that there is a preference for active voice over passive. And yet the second edition was still able to do what the NLT1 had done best--communicate God's Word in a natural, even conversational manner. Some might find it interesting to note that when we put our Scripture reading together, Kathy and I chose to use vv. 2-11 from the NLT2 and vv. 12-14 from the NLT1. The words Jews in v. 12 and Gentiles in v. 13 in the NLT2, while certainly implied in the context of Paul's message, seemed less appropriate for our Southern Baptist congregation. We also liked the freer rendering of the NLT1 for the last sentence in v. 14: "This is just one more reason for us to praise our glorious God." In fact that freer rendering is one of the very reasons I've liked the NLT over the years. I admit that I have not spent as much time as I would like with the NLT2 yet, but I hope that in the desire to streamline the translation, wording such as this has not been lost in too many places.

But such tightening (my term) has certainly been one of the goals for the NLT2. In the FAQ section of the NLT website, one reads, "The translation of difficult terms is made more concise. In the NLT, difficult terms are often made easier to understand by expanding them into longer phrases. The second edition often shortens these expansions--without sacrificing clarity." In most cases, this is probably for the best, but I believe some changes could be debated. Consider, for instance, Romans 3:25.

Romans 3:25
NLT1	NLT2
For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times.	For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past,

What exactly did Jesus do for us on the cross? Well in more traditional translations, specific theological words have been used: propitiation in the KJV, NASB, NKJV, ESV and HCSB and expiation in the RSV, NEB, and REB. However, some translations such as the NIV, NRSV and TNIV have opted simply for "sacrifice of atonement" which can be said to mean either of the two previously stated theological words. When the NLT1 stated that "God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us," the translators are clearly communicating propitiation without using the word. By opting for "God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin," the result is something much more like the NIV or NRSV. Was this the translators' intention or merely the result of making the NLT2's wording more concise?

It's interesting to note the differences found in the first page of the Introduction to the second edition. Whereas the first edition served as a defense for dynamic equivalence translations, most of that wording is now gone, or at least lessened. The new introduction speaks more to the differences, strengths, and weaknesses of the formal and dynamic philosophies of translation. And surprisingly, one reads:

The translators of the New Living Translation set out to render the message of the original texts of Scripture into clear, contemporary English. As they did so, they kept the concerns of both formal-equivalence and dynamic-equivalence in mind. On the one hand, they translated as simply and literally as possible when that approach yielded an accurate, clear and natural English text. Many words and phrases were rendered literally and consistently into English, preserving essential literary and rhetorical devices, ancient metaphors, and word choices ... On the other hand, the translators rendered the message more dynamically when the literal rendering was hard to understand, was misleading, or yielded archaic or foreign wording. They clarified metaphors and terms to aid in the reader's understanding. The translators first struggled with the meaning of the words and phrases in the ancient context; then they rendered the message into clear, natural English ... The result is a translation that is both exegetically accurate and idiomatically powerful.

Such give and take between translation philosophies sounds very close to the "Optimal Equivalent" method of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Regardless, this is a far cry from the principles of the 1996 NLT, and from what I've seen so far, the new text definitely reflects this change in method.

The changes between the two editions are so great, they are for all practical purposes almost two completely separate translations. I corresponded with one of the translators this week and he called the shift between editions "massive." He stated that once the decision was made to restore the prophetic sections to poetical form, entire sections had to be redone. He estimates that the Prophets are 80% changed and the rest of the text somewhere between 30-50%. From what I've read, it seems to be at least 50% if not more. If you lay the two editions side by side, hardly any verse has been left unchanged. I read a good bit of Genesis the other night with both editions side by side, reading one verse in one and then in the other. I'm amazed at the extent of the revision.

Consider, for example, Genesis 1--

Genesis 1
NLT1	NLT2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Together these made up one day. 6 ¶ And God said, “Let there be space between the waters, to separate water from water.” 7 And so it was. God made this space to separate the waters above from the waters below. 8 And God called the space “sky.” This happened on the second day. 9 ¶ And God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky be gathered into one place so dry ground may appear.” And so it was. 10 God named the dry ground “land” and the water “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land burst forth with every sort of grass and seed-bearing plant. And let there be trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. The seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And so it was. 12 The land was filled with seed-bearing plants and trees, and their seeds produced plants and trees of like kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 This all happened on the third day. 14 ¶ And God said, “Let bright lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. They will be signs to mark off the seasons, the days, and the years. 15 Let their light shine down upon the earth.” And so it was. 16 For God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, to shine down upon the earth. The greater one, the sun, presides during the day; the lesser one, the moon, presides through the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the heavens to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 This all happened on the fourth day. 20 ¶ And God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every sort of fish and every kind of bird. And God saw that it was good. 22 Then God blessed them, saying, “Let the fish multiply and fill the oceans. Let the birds increase and fill the earth.” 23 This all happened on the fifth day. 24 ¶ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of animal—livestock, small animals, and wildlife.” And so it was. 25 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to reproduce more of its own kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 ¶ Then God said, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life—the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals.” 27 ¶ So God created people in his own image; God patterned them after himself; male and female he created them. 28 ¶ God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals.” 29 And God said, “Look! I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food.” And so it was. 31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. This all happened on the sixth day.	1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 ¶ Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. 6 ¶ Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day. 9 ¶ Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. 10 God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened. 12 The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day. 14 ¶ Then God said, “Let great lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years. 15 Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. 16 God made two great lights, the sun and the moon—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day. 20 ¶ Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fifth day. 24 ¶ Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened. 25 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 ¶ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 ¶ Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” 29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. 31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

One thing you'll notice if you read the passage in parallel, is that practically every verse has been changed. Further, in spite of the aforementioned desire for conciseness, the NLT2 passage is actually longer! It's longer because there has been a return to more traditional language. And repetitiveness of the Hebrew style that had been condensed in the NLT1 has been retained in the NLT2. Look at the second sentence in v. 5 in each of the versions. The NLT1 simply has "Together these made up one day." The NLT2 has the more traditional "And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day." Is this an improvement upon the original? I'm not so sure. In v. 27 the more traditional, literal and certainly theological phrase "image of God" has been retained in both versions. Although there has been endless debate regarding the exact meaning of this phrase, the NLT1 attempted to make plain the sense of this concept (to some degree) with the phrase "God patterned them after himself." This has been removed from the NLT2 in favor of more traditional wording.

I had Kathy, who reads the NLT1 as her primary translation and is much more familiar with it than me, compare the two editions. She spent an hour the other night comparing multiple passages. She has a mixed reaction. She acknowledged that some of the changes--poetic forms, more active voice, certain tighter passages (although she prefers Rom 3:25 in the NLT1)--to be an improvement. But she doesn't care for the passages where the translators have attempted to opt for more traditional wording.

I'm not exactly sure why the translation committee made certain passages more traditional. Perhaps they wanted to make the NLT more mainstream. The Tyndale website boasts that the NLT is the fastest growing translation, so maybe the changes have worked. But at this point, I'm a bit on the fence. As I've said--for how I've used the NLT, the freer style of the original better suited my purposes. To me, the changes in the second edition move it closer to the NIV and further away from Kenneth Taylor's "Living" tradition.

Nevertheless, I will acknowledge that the NLT is an extremely valuable translation that most often speaks the Bible's message in a manner like "real" people actually communicate without resorting to paraphrase (most of the time). And the second edition is extremely noteworthy in the history of English Bible translations. Never before have I seen a revision (not just a minor update) come so fast after the initial release (eight years total) and never have I seen changes this extensive between editions.

How I use the NLT. I don't use the NLT that much in personal study, so when I do use it, I use the NLT primarily as a tool in communicating the Bible's message to others. In Sunday School at church, I have Kathy with me, and I often call upon her to read from the NLT, especially when I note that members of the class aren't quite catching what the more traditional translations are saying. I have, on occasion, taught from the NLT, especially when dealing with very familiar passages such as the Sermon on the Mount. I found that a translation like the NLT will help even experienced Christians hear the Bible in a fresh way. I know that when I read the NLT1 for the first time a decade ago, it was so refreshing. I look forward to familiarizing myself with the NLT2 and eventually reading through it as well.

The NLT makes a great Bible to give to an unbeliever or a new believer. A few years ago when I coordinated a specifically seeker-targeted outreach, we ordered NLT's by the case to give away to visitors. I would have no problem giving or recommending the NLT to a believer at any level of growth.

The last few days spent with both editions of the NLT has renewed my interest in the translation. I may have to find excuses to use it more often in a variety of ways.

What edition of the NLT I primarily use. I should have noted already that I have electronic copies in Accordance of every Bible version I've written about so far. When I am writing a blog entry such as this, Accordance is often my tool of choice over a bound copy because with an electronic text, I can cut and paste. I only recently added the NLT to Accordance in preparation for writing this blog entry. I noticed in the Accordance discussion forums that the first edition was no longer going to be distributed on future CD's, so I went ahead and unlocked a copy of it. The upgrade to the NLT2 was only a $10 upgrade on top of that. Now I will be able to use both on my PowerBook.

As for print Bibles, in the NLT1, I have the original yellow marbled hardback that I received free when the NLT1 was first released. I also bought a burgundy bonded leather Touchpoint edition a few years back for public use. Currently, I only have a basic pew/text edition of the NLT2. Kathy uses a burgundy bonded leather Life Application Bible in the NLT1 for her main Bible. She has no immediate plans to "upgrade" to the NLT2.

For Further Reading:
- A User's Guide to Bible Translations by David Dewey, pp. 178-181.
- New Living Translation Website
- New Living Translation Frequently Asked Questions
- Translators of the NLT
- NLT Wikipedia Page
- Bible Researcher NLT1 Page
- Bible Researcher NLT2 Page
- Better Bibles Blog NLT Page

- Addendum to This Review (Added 6/23/06)

Next in series: Eugene Peterson's The Message

Tags: NLT, Top Ten

Tonight, I will wrap up a class I am teaching at IWU, "Philosophy and Christian Thought." In our discussion we will look at 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche--who to me (perhaps in a twisted way) is always a bit of a fun figure to discuss. We will cover the basics--his life, the ideas of herd vs. master morality, the Übermensch (overman/superman), will to power, his influence upon those who would come after him and all that. Nietzsche is always controversial and certainly never boring.

Nietzsche often wrote things that were shocking, not only in his day, but also in ours. Consider his oft-quoted statement,

I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed--as the greatest and most impious lie...
I decline to enter into any compromise or false position in reference to it--I urge people to declare open war with it.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell when Nietzsche literally meant what he said, and when he was merely being hyperbolic. He seemed to revel in making such shocking statements. But I imagine he may have been quite serious when he wrote the words quoted above.

I'll admit that I'm drawn to Nietzsche--not because I agree with him, but somehow because I feel for him. Of course, he would probably think I was weak for any such sentiment! But I often wish he and I were not separated by time. I want to engage Nietzsche. I want to think of him as that neighbor down the street who is difficult to get along with, but over time and with persistence, we can build a genuine relationship of trust and mutual respect. I want to sit down with Nietzsche and have conversation over coffee. I want to hear him and get to know him, even if it means in the end that I cannot change his mind. At the very least, I want to to try to break his mental image of what he considers to be the worst in Christianity.

In many ways, Nietzsche had great influence on the culture that would come after him. His influence can still be felt today. Maybe he often is the neighbor down the street after all.

What do you think about Nietzsche? Love him? Hate him? How do you deal with him?

[I found conflicting information regarding the original work for the quotation above. If someone knows for certain the source, please let me know and I'll edit this entry with the correction.]

Tags: Nietzche

"Yes, I am Nacho...the luchador!" --Ignacio (Nacho) in response to his secret being discovered at the monastery.

And, yes, we saw Nacho Libre this weekend.

Plot summary from the IMDB page: "Nacho (Jack Black) is a young man who was raised in a Mexican monastery in Oaxaca and now works there as the cook, and takes it upon himself to rescue the holy place from financial ruin by joining a local Lucha Libre tournament and becoming one of the "Luchadores." Naturally, Nacho isn't acting out of purely altruistic measures, as he wishes to help Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), a beautiful Mexican nun who has recently arrived at the monastery, as well as the gaggle of young orphans who live there."

Believe it or not, the movie is loosely based on the life of Mexican priest Fray Tormenta who spent 23 years as a luchador (wrestler/fighter). Nacho Libre is written and directed by Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame. This movie has the same kind of humor as in Hess' earlier movie, so however you felt about Napoleon, you will probably feel about Nacho. The humor is hard to describe. It's not the insultingly stupid Dumb and Dumber variety. Rather, Nacho is the kind of unlucky buffoon that an audience can root for while shaking their head and laughing at the same time.

There is much to like here. Outside of Black, all the actors are Mexican, and most of them seem very real, not your usual Hollywood fare--perhaps this will become Hess' trademark: the use of "real" looking actors. If little Chancho were, in fact, a real orphan, I think Kathy and I would just have to adopt him. Further, the movie's fairly clean outside some slightly off-color boyish humor. I don't really remember any profanity at all. Black portrays Nacho as a dimwitted, but likable would-be hero.

The movie has a number of memorable quotes that I'm sure will be repeated ad nauseam in Mexican accents over the next few months just as they have been for Napoleon Dynamite. But the best lines aren't just in the movie: I encourage you to listen to the words in any of the songs playing. They are hilarious all by themselves, especially "My Love Is Like the Nectar" (sung by Black himself) which runs during the end credits. As of this writing, I can't find a CD soundtrack, but if one is eventually released, it would be fun to have.

Don't get your hopes up too high for this film, or you may be disappointed. But if you want to laugh for a couple of hours, Nacho Libre makes for a good escape.

"I was wondering if you would like to join me in my quarters this night... for some toast." --Ignacio upon meeting Sister Encarnacion.

A Guest Retrospective Review by Andrew Wells

I spent a week recently at a beach house that had HBO, which showed Batman Begins one night. (I stand by my original review, although now I think the whole movie is over-edited, not just the action scenes.) The next day they showed the 1989 Batman, and that got me thinking about the whole series.

If Star Wars and Jaws were the beginning of the summer blockbuster, Batman was the perfection—everything we know about hype, tie-ins, media coverage, quick video turnover, etc. starts there. As much as I remember the movie, I remember the hysteria surrounding it even more. I’d seen movies before, but it was the first time I really started to become interested in them.

As a film, it holds up well, even with Jack Nicholson doing his umpteenth variation on Jack Nicholson. (Has he really done any real acting since The Shining?) Michael Keaton still proves to be a good casting call; the film is still a benchmark in production and design. Still, you can tell everybody was trying to figure out how to make a new type of comic book movie, something really different then before.

I've dissected Batman Begins elsewhere. Batman Forever should only be noted for helping to boost Jim Carrey’s career. The less said about Batman and Robin, the better.

Which leaves Batman Returns. It came out after people had grown accustomed to comic book movies, but before the glut set in and everybody became familiar with the types (origin stories, etc.). The brief synopsis: Batman (Keaton again) must save Gotham City from the diabolical plans of The Penguin (Danny DeVito) and his new partner Max Shreck (Christopher Walken). The wild card is Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) who wants revenge and Batman, but not necessarily in that order.

I believe only about twenty people in America like Batman Returns, which confounds me. Not only is it a good movie in its own right, it’s an important cinematic forefather to all the comic book movies we have now.

With Returns, I think director Tim Burton took his dark cinematic visions about as far as he has ever been able to go--with the exception of his Claymation productions, he hasn’t done anything like Returns since then, not even Mars Attacks!, which is more juvenile than subversive. As much as it is inspired by comic books, Returns is inspired by past films (especially early German and Art Deco films, like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari) and nightmares. Circus people, trains, rubber ducks, cats, penguins and even snow: Burton puts so much menace and dread into childlike and innocent objects in this film, it’s amazing he got away with it.

More amazing still is that everyone working with him seems to get it too, and rises to the challenge. The movie has a totally different look from the first one, but is probably more in line with what Burton imagined originally. It’s probably one of the visually darkest movies ever, as if they shot it with a dust-covered lens. It has some dumb, probably studio required humor--do we need Batman to be a DJ?--but most of the movie heads straight into darkness.

And the actors seem to be letting their inner freaks lose. Keaton seems more comfortable with the role, and adds shades of grey to the character that weren’t there before. Devito overplays his part some, but that’s probably due more to the writing and makeup. Devito can be a good actor when he wants to, and he has some great scenes, especially when he pays respect at the graves of his human family. Pfeiffer, however, is playing Catwoman on a whole other level. She manages to show all the sides of the character, from Catwoman’s before and after transformation to the zeal with which she terrorizes Schrek to her struggle with loving Bruce Wayne/Batman. I’d argue it’s one of the best acted parts for a comic book character ever, and, it’s a standard most actors in comic book movies have been unable to achieve.

As a sort of comic book Rosetta Stone, Batman Returns has even more significance. By the time it came out, people were starting to become familiar with the new “darker” tone that Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and others had established with comic books in the 1980s. Batman started the trend that continues to this day, even as comic book movies have gone from fantastical to more “real-world” settings, like the worlds of Spiderman and the X-men. Returns, in fact, hinges on an interesting point in American cultural history, between a happy we-beat-the-bad guys ending in our fight against Communism and the darker physical, social, political and emotional reality that started with Tianammen Square and has continued ever sense.

This new reality really comes out in the characters. Batman beats the bad guys and saves Gotham, but he isn’t very happy about it, because the personal price is high. The reality of his need to fight evil conflicts with his love of Catwoman. The Penguin and Catwoman are villains of the piece, but are also to some degree sympathetic, which is routine now, but was very new then. We are supposed to be amused at Nicholson’s Joker, but we are never suppose to feel sorry for him the way we are for the Penguin and (especially) Catwoman. Even Schreck can now be seen as a prototype for future comic-book villains, such as the Kingpin. All the characters are multi-sided and complex, given the capacity to do good or evil, usually for some kind of personal gain rather than “because it’s the evil thing to do.” This trend has spread to other types of movies, such as the later James Bond films.

So there is my case: Batman Returns is a good movie and an important one. Go rediscover it. In the meantime, let’s hope they can get an actor who can bring real menace as the Joker, and an editor with a steadier hand, for the inevitable Batman Continues.

Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.

Tags: Andrew

"Patience"

Oh
Lord,
in this world
of instant coffee
grant me the blessings
of a time-brewed cup
              (.)

--Fred Elasser, Cornerstone Magazine, Vol. 14, Issue 77

We haven't had a good political blog entry on This Lamp in quite some time. Thankfully, Andrew Wells has submitted this very timely reminder about the problems inherent with over-reliance on surveys of public opinion. And he doesn't mention it, but my doubts about the polling process, especially the political polling process , is that they are only representative of people willing to answer them. Generally, I'm not one of those people, and therefore the polls don't reflect me or, for that matter, people like me. --Rick

---

A Guest Blog by Andrew Wells

No doubt we will be hearing a lot about polls between now and the November elections. I’m already reading about polls concerning the 2008 elections.

It’s more than politics though. Polls seem to dominate every area of our lives. Sixty percent of people believe in the power of prayer. Forty percent think Tom Cruise has gone crazy. Twenty-five percent think we eat too much. Fifteen percent would fly to another country to have an important operation because it would be cheaper. Eighty percent of people in the Middle East hate the U.S. And so on and so forth.

How can the opinions of a hundred or a thousand people correctly represent the millions of people in this country, or the billions of people on this planet? It’s just not possible.

But there are other things that bother me about polls. Consider the words of David Mamet, who wrote an essay called "Poll Finds" nearly twenty years ago, when polling wasn’t as ingrained into the culture as it is now:

We know that polls are inaccurate and unjust. We are drawn to them not because of their ability to predict the future, but because of their ability to relieve us of the responsibility of individual thought...the person who answers the poll has no responsibility, they are asked how they feel at any given moment.

I believe that most people are savvy enough today to take any poll with a grain of salt. But we let the polls become self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, we hear enough polls about what voters want to hear, and the next thing you know, candidates are talking about those issues. There is a new book by Joe Klein called Politics Lost that argues that polls and the consultants who interpret them have derailed our entire voting process. Mamet argues that saying a "poll finds" can also mean a "poll rules; i.e., it proclaims what the majority of people are thinking or should be thinking. And because we don’t like "the responsibility of individual thought"--which could lead us to look unpopular against the crowd--even though we don’t believe in the polls, we accept the results as current truth, as what the majority of people think.

But again, consider: "A poll can only discover what the polled believe at that instant to be true. The difference between what many people believe to be true and what may in fact, be true is often and perhaps most times vast."

David McCullough’s excellent biography Truman goes into great detail about his 1948 re-election as President. Phillip Dewey, his contender, acted heavily on what the polls said—that Americans did not like Truman or his actions, and would happily vote him out of office. Dewey and his associates were so confident, they didn’t even bother to campaign. Truman went on a whistle-stop campaign—going town to town by train, stopping at even the smallest communities—and emerged with a very different picture of what Americans were thinking about him and the state of the country. Truman, of course, went on to win, even when everyone was saying Dewey would win, right up till Election Day. Thus, we have the famous picture of Truman smiling, holding up a newspaper that says "Dewey Defeats Truman." The story is worth telling to emphasize the problem with polls: they rarely represent everybody, and all of us need to stop taking them as gospel and start speaking up for ourselves.

Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.

---

One last comment from Rick: I can't help adding to Andrew's post the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:19 (as rendered by Eugene Peterson):

"I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riff-raff.
Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
(Matt 11:19, The Message)

Tags: Andrew

In the comments on my post regarding the New American Standard Bible, I was asked why I would refer to the New Living Translation as "a fairly extreme meaning-driven translation" when the chart I displayed earlier in entry shows the NLT to be right in the middle of the range of Bible versions. The chart repeated below is from the Tyndale House Publishers website, the owners of the NLT.


First of all, I didn't mean anything negative when I called the NLT an extreme meaning-driven translation. But perhaps I am guilty of poor communication. All I meant was that on the scale from very literal vs. very free, the NLT would be on the extreme side from the NASB. And for what it's worth, I was NOT factoring in paraphrases at all. In reflection, I may have made a poor choice in selecting a chart from a publisher's website. If you notice the chart above, what it does is place the NLT directly in the middle which gives the impression that the NLT is a "middle-of-the-road" translation. Personally, I don't think it is. To me, the NIV is a better candidate for the middle position. Of course, Tyndale refers to the NLT as a "thought-for-thought" translation, too, and they've put that in the heading of their chart which might also be a way for them to equate the NLT as the standard for all meaning-driven translations. I would not personally construct a chart quite like this, but then again, I'm not trying to market a Bible.

Anyway, in part of my response in the comments, I referred to a similar-in-concept, but different-in-result chart on p. 66 in David Dewey's book, A User's Guide to Bible Translations. Below is a scan of Dewey's chart regarding the span of Bible versions. If you have trouble viewing it, a larger version can be found at this link.


In looking at Dewey's chart, I came across something that intrigued me even more. Although I had seen this chart before, I never noticed that Dewey categorizes the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version as paraphrases. While I would consider the GNB and CEV very free dynamic equivalent or meaning-driven translations, I would have never thought of them as paraphrases, proper. In fact, although I haven't spent as much time with the CEV and can't speak for it as much as I could the GNB, I would have placed the New Living Translation to the right of both of these on the scale as being even freer. In my reading, the NLT comes closer to being a paraphrase at times than these other two, although I would still categorize all three as translations.

All of this begs the question as how one distinguishes between a translation and a paraphrase. It's almost like the famous quote from the Supreme Court justice who said in regard to pornography, "I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it!" To me, the GNB and CEV do not rank with what I think of as paraphrase (and neither does the NLT, which again, in my view is freer than these other two). However, the other three that Dewey includes in his chart--the J. B. Phillips NT, the Living Bible, and the Message--certainly do rank as paraphrases in my mind (although the JBP less than the other two).

So how does one designate a work as a paraphrase in distinction to "an extreme meaning-driven" paraphrase? On p. 42 of Dewey's book, he writes, "Strictly speaking, a paraphrase is not a translation from one language to another, but a rewording in the same language." Of course, Dewey admits that this definition doesn't cover Phillips' NT or Peterson's The Message since they were both rendered from the original languages. To allow for this, Dewey then further defines a paraphrase as "any free rendering, regardless of whether it was made from another English version or from the Greek and Hebrew." I suppose that such a broad definition would then allow one to include the CEV and GNB as a paraphrase, but then again, why not the NLT, too? The real question for Dewey would then have to be how he is defining "free" in the qualifying definition. Interestingly, in his section about paraphrases on pp. 42-43, Dewey does not include the CEV and GNB in his discussion, but he does mention the Living Bible, The Message, and J. B. Phillips' New Testament. On p. 203, Dewey says that a paraphrase such as the Message should never be used as a principle Bible, but if he considers the CEV and the GNB to be paraphrases as well, would he say the same thing about these versions? Many people do, in fact, use these two "translations" (my designation) as their primary Bible.

Perhaps, indeed, the Supreme Court justice's words do apply to this. What do you think? How does one distinguish between a translation and a paraphrase? Are freer translations like the GNB, CEV or NLT suitable as a primary Bible? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments.

Incidentally, although I'm nitpicking Dewey's definition of a paraphrase, I highly recommend this book as being one of the most current surveys available for all the options in Bibles out there today.

Tags: Translations

I can't ever imagine a day when I will engage in serious Bible study and not have the New American Standard Bible close by.

The NASB has been my close companion for over two and a half decades. Perhaps we have spent so much time together, that like a spouse or a good friend, I have trouble seeing the flaws that other more objective individuals might see more clearly. This is my desert island Bible. This is the translation from which I have memorized Scripture, the first translation I read all the way through, the first translation I ever preached from, the translation I have most often used to check my own translation from the original languages. The NASB is the first Bible that really spoke to me--the first one in which I really began to hear God.

In spite of a longtime practice of comparing translations in my personal Bible study, appreciating other translations and reading through them, the S in NASB was just that--it set the STANDARD in my understanding of God's Word. This is why it was such a big deal for me to drop the NASB a few months back in favor of the HCSB and TNIV for public use. Rest assured, I did not make such a change for myself, I made it for those whom I teach.

Brief History of the NASB. Like the NIV, the New American Standard Bible came about as a reaction to perceived liberal bias in the Revised Standard Version of 1956. I won't go into those issues here, especially since many of them now seem much more trivial than they did a half-century ago. The RSV had been a revision of the 1901 American Standard Version, and since the copyright of the ASV had expired, the Lockman Foundation of La Habra, California began work on its own revision in 1959. The entire Bible was published in 1971, and the translation was updated again in 1995.

Almost every evaluation I've ever read of the NASB rates it as the most literal of the major modern translations, and from my experience I would certainly agree. Every chart comparing various translations puts the NASB at the extreme of the form-driven Bible versions. Below is an example from Tyndale House Publishers' website:


The Lockaman Foundation itself makes no bones about this standing. With the 1995 update came the slogan, "The Most Literal Translation is Now More Readable." Having used both the 1971 edition and the 1995 edition, I can vouch for this fact. The original NASB still retained archaic words such as "thee" and "thou" for any texts that addressed deity. The 1995 update removed these words and updated other language as well. An example from the Lockman website provides a good example of the kinds of changes that were made:


The 1995 update also brought in some minor updates regarding inclusive gender, but nothing as far-reaching as the NRSV, NLT, or TNIV. Ultimately, the NASB primarily uses masculine universals, including 3rd person masculine pronouns. However, one example of such a gender change in the NASB is demonstrated in Matthew 5:15--

Matthew 5:15
NASB 1971	NASB 1995
Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house.	nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

In the example above, also notice the change from "peck-measure" (which I always thought was an odd translation) to simply "basket."

Personal History with the NASB. As I have stated elsewhere, I initially had access to three versions of the Bible in my childhood. I had a copy of the King James Version which was given to me in my third grade Sunday School class so that we could follow along with the pastor. We had multiple copies of the Good News for Modern Man (TEV) paperback New Testament. And my grandmother gave me a children's edition of the Living Bible. Even at a young age, I stressed about what Bible to take to church. Although I could understand the Living Bible and the TEV, I was embarrassed about the word "Children" in former, and the latter looked like a paperback novel. I don't know why I've always wanted a Bible that "looks like a Bible," but such an obsession evidently started quite young. The KJV certainly looked like a Bible, but the Elizabethan English that it contained never communicated to me as a child.

In 1980 when I was thirteen, a friend of mine showed me his Thomas Nelson Open Bible (handsize edition) in the NASB. I pored through his copy during an entire worship service. Not only did I like some of the reference features (the topical index in the front of most editions of the Open Bible is still one of the best I've ever seen included with a copy of Scripture), but more importantly, I could read the translation and it made sense to me. People criticize the NASB for being overly literal and wooden, but it's readability to me, a thirteen-year-old (and granted, I was a strong reader) was light years away from the old King James Version which often came across as unintelligible. Consider also, that this was before so many of the translations that we have now, some of which are specifically aimed toward young readers. For me, my friend's NASB spoke English I could comprehend. This was the Bible I had to have.

The next week, I got off the school bus downtown and made my way to our small little Christian book store. I held $10 in my pocket that I had received earlier as a gift. Once in the store, I walked right up to the counter and told the clerk that I wanted a copy of the Open Bible: New American Standard, in bonded leather. It was in stock AND they could put my name on the cover for free. Everything was set until I went to pay. It was $40, much more than what I expected. In fact, I had assumed that I'd have change left over after the transaction. Seeing my disappointment, he suggested that I put my $10 down and let them hold it as a layaway.

So, I put my Bible on layaway and went home. Later I recounted the story to my parents, and later in the week my father went to the store and paid the rest of the price. There were, after all, worse things that a thirteen-year-old could spend his money on.

For the next 25 or so years, the NASB was my primary translation of choice. I memorized it, studied it, preached and taught from it. I went through four different editions of it during that time, the latter two of which were the standard side-column reference editions. I came to the point around 1990 that I didn't want someone else's study notes in my Bible. I preferred to write my own notes in the margins after my own careful study. I did not initially switch from the older NASB when the update came out in 1995. All of my old notes were written in the Bible I had been using! However, I had begun at some point translating "thee," "thou" and "thy" to "you" and "your" on the fly as I read aloud from it. However, around 2001, I read a passage without making the change, and a ministerial friend kidded me about using such an "old" Bible. So in 2002, I switched to the updated NASB and began a tedious process of transferring my old notes. They still aren't all transferred, and frankly, I don't know if they ever will be.

Evaluation of the NASB. The Lockman Foundation, also the sponsors of the Amplified Bible and two translations in Spanish, promote a "Fourfold Aim" for all their publications:

1. These publications shall be true to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
2. They shall be grammatically correct.
3. They shall be understandable.
4. They shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place, the place which the Word gives Him; therefore, no work will ever be personalized.

These four aims are presented right at the beginning of the Foreword, found in all editions of the NASB. I would think that it's fair to judge the NASB on these criteria.

Starting with the fourth aim, although I've seen these statements countless times, I realized today that I have no real idea what's being communicated here, especially in the statement, "no work will ever be personalized." What do they mean by this? I could find no commentary on the Lockman website for these aims, but I sent them an email asking about it this morning. Perhaps someone reading this blog entry will have some insight. Usually statements like this are in reaction to something else. Was there a translation at some time that did not "give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place"? Was there a translation that was "personalized"--whatever that means?

Points 2 and 3 can be taken together. In my opinion the NASB met these aims better in 1971 than perhaps it does today in light of the explosion of English translations that we've seen since that time. Compared with the King James Version, for me, the NASB certainly was understandable. And grammatically, it fared better then than now. The KJV doesn't use quotation marks for direct quotes, and the NASB did. However, the NASB as a product of its time does two things that can be particularly aggravating to me. I wish that when updating the translation in 1995, they had chosen to cease the outdated use of italics for words not found in the original languages, but added to give meaning in the English translation. As everyone knows, the problem with the use of italics is that in modern usage, it indicates emphasis. I've actually heard people reading from translations that still use italics for added words put stress on these words which usually makes for a nonsensical understanding of the passage. I understand the desire in a strict form-driven translation to make some kind of indication for added words, but perhaps the half-brackets used in the HCSB (which I find totally unnecessary in that translation) would be better suited in the NASB.

Secondly, I would personally prefer that a translation not capitalize pronouns referring to deity. Granted, most of the time, the context makes such a practice clear, but there are some places--especially in the Old Testament--where this would be open to interpretation. In the end, there's no real grammatical warrant for capitalizing such pronouns. Such practice, in my opinion, seems to be left over from the days of retaining "thee," "thou," and "thy" for deity (which also has no grammatical warrant).

There are other uses of language that could be pointed out. For instance, the NASB still regularly uses "shall" and "shall not" even though these words are becoming less used in contemporary English. One can occasionally find odd uses of words such as in Job 9:33, "There is no umpire between us, Who may lay his hand upon us both." Now granted, the word "umpire" is older than the game of baseball and has the meaning of one who is an arbiter, but this seems like such an unusual choice to use in an Old Testament text when the average reader is going to have a mental image of a sports official. Okay, I admit that I've used this verse in just such illustrations, but that's beside the point!

The strength of the NASB lies in the first goal of the Lockman Foundation, that it would be "true to the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek." For what it is, as a form-driven, literal translation in the Tyndale/KJV tradition, the NASB cannot be bettered. This is where its value lies. To get a close, but readable, English translation of what the original languages state, the NASB does the job. This is also why I personally favor the NASB over the ESV. I'm not going to use either for public reading, but for personal study, the NASB is simply more literal than "essentially literal."

However, having said that, the NASB's strength is also its weakness. It is so literal that most do not recommend it for public reading. I heard that accusation for a long time before I admitted to it, let alone stopped using the NASB in public. Again, I have used the NASB for so long and am so overly-familiar with it, that I tend (even now) not to notice its literary weaknesses.

And it's worth noting that while I used to be convinced that a form-driven translation is the most accurate kind of translation, I am no longer so easily convinced of that fact. That's been a philosophical change that's been slowly evolving in my thinking. This is evidenced by my use of the HCSB (which uses both form- and meaning-driven methods--what they call "optimal equivalency") at church and my increasing use of the TNIV elsewhere. Clearly, in some places, a form equivalent translation simply does not communicate an intended message. Look for instance at a passage like Genesis 4:6--

Genesis 4:6
NASB	TNIV	NLT
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? "	Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?"	"Why are you so angry?" the LORD asked Cain. "Why do you look so dejected?"

The NASB accurately translates the literal sense of the text when God asks Cain why his "countenance has fallen." But there are a number of problems with this. First, will the average contemporary reader even know that the word "countenance" refers to one's facial expression? The TNIV is a slight improvement by using the word "face" instead. However, the verse speaks of a downcast face. Is this the way the average person speaks? Has anyone ever noticed you were in a bad mood and asked why your face was so downcast? Probably not. The New Living Translation, a fairly extreme meaning-driven translation, at the other end of the spectrum from the NASB, communicates the meaning of this phrase best by having God ask Cain, "Why do you look so dejected?"

To be fair, in many passages of the Bible, this kind of issue does not come into play. However, a form-driven translation like the NASB is weak when it comes to ancient idioms such as a "fallen countenance" that aren't in use in our culture today. Personally, I like knowing the original idiom, but I also know what a phrase like this means. Many readers may not. This kind of example is especially amplified in poetic sections of the Bible where metaphors and idioms abound. My opinion is that there's room for both form- and meaning-driven translations. And often ones that are somewhere in between, using the best of both translation philosophies, are best suited when reading in public.

I always considered the NASB to be an extremely accurate translation (as far as form-driven translation goes), but I noticed as I began pulling the HCSB into my Bible study alongside the Greek text and the NASB, that often the HCSB seems to be more accurate. I've written about this briefly before, and may have to say more at a later time.

If nothing else, the NASB, which was a great alternative for me to the KJV 25 years ago, seems to suffering from being a representative of a previous translation generation with its uses of things like italics and capitalized pronouns, while at the same time vying for a place with a whole new generation of versions such as the NLT, ESV, HCSB, and TNIV. For what it's worth, the NASB still outsells both the ESV and the TNIV, but how long it will be able to do this is questionable.

I always say that a sign of a translation's acceptance is it's availability in various study Bible editions. Currently the NASB is available in more study editions than at any point in its history. NASB versions of the MacArthur Study Bible and the Scofield Study Bible have been recently released. And the NASB is also available in the Life Application Bible, Zondervan's NASB Study Bible (the equivalent of the popular NIV Study Bible) and Student Bible, Ryrie Study Bible, Inductive Study Bible from Kay Arthur, and a host of other editions.

One final trivial point, this translation is officially known as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), not the New American Standard Version (NASV). I occasionally see this error, even in print. And the worst offense was an entire edition of the Open Bible, published by Thomas Nelson a few years back that had the incorrect designation printed on the spine.

How I Use the NASB. Currently, I use the NASB in my personal Bible study, usually along with the original languages and a more contemporary translation such as the HCSB, among others. I rarely get to go to a class or study led by others, but when I do, I often carry the NASB because that's where most of my handwritten notes are! As mentioned, I am no longer reading from the NASB in public except on rare occasions. I still find it extremely valuable for personal use.

What Edition of the NASB I Primarily Use. I currently use a burgundy wide-margin, Side-Column Reference edition in genuine leather (ISBN 0910618496) published by Foundation Publications (the press of the Lockman Foundation).

For Further Reading:
- David Dewey, A User's Guide to Bible Translations, pp. 156-157, 173.
- Lockman Foundation NASB Page
- List of Translators (scroll to bottom of the linked page)
- Bible-Researcher NASB Page
- Better Bibles Blog NASB Page

Feel free to suggest other links in the comments.

---

Update: Since first posting this entry, I received a reply back from the Lockman Foundation in regard to my question above regarding the 4th Aim:

Dear Mr. Mansfield,

Thank you for contacting the Lockman Foundation.

In response to your inquiry, I have found the following information in our files:

It was F. Dewey Lockman’s policy that in translating the Word of God, praise should not accrue to men, but that all praise should go to the One of Whom the Bible speaks.

For this reason the names of the translators in the past had not been publicized. This thinking followed in the tradition which can be seen in the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, and others; that a version could stand in quality on its own merits and not on the fame of the translators. However, The Lockman Foundation was continually asked, even years after Lockman’s death in 1974, for the names of the translators. So in the early 1980s, this policy was loosened somewhat, and an all-inclusive list of the translators was given out on a request-only basis. Over the next several years, The Lockman Foundation still fielded a large number of these requests so that a policy was finalized to address people’s curiosity and concerns as to the names of the translators. Thus, the names of the translators publicly appeared in several different distributed brochures detailing the NASB and were, soon after, accessible via our web site at www.lockman.org

As a general policy, The Lockman Foundation continues to not provide background information on their translators such as their individual degrees and positions held with respect to Mr. Lockman's wishes, specifically stated in the Fourth Aim in The Fourfold Aim of The Lockman Foundation: “[These publications] shall give the Lord Jesus Christ His proper place, the place which the Word gives Him; therefore, no work will ever be personalized."

Hope this information is helpful.

In His Service,
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx
The Lockman Foundation

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On deck: The New Living Translation (Top Ten Bible Versions #4)

Tags: NASB, Top Ten

There's been some good discussion in the comments regarding my post on Today's New International Version. I should have the third post in the series (covering the New American Standard Bible) before the end of the week.

In case you haven't been able to follow the comments, there have been two significant threads of discussion. First Jeremy Pierce has challenged my assertion that no major English grammars allow for the use of plural pronouns for singular antecedents. He submitted the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum. Be sure to read Jeremy's blog entry, "The Singular 'They'" and my comments.

Then, Peter Kirk challenged my suggestion that an inclusive rendering of Psalm 34:20 was a regrettable choice. I've stated on a number of occasions that although I am accepting of a translation that uses inclusive language toward human beings when the context of the passage warrants it, I would prefer that messianic prophecies in the Old Testament retain a traditional (masculine) rendering.

In the interest of presenting both sides of the discussion, I would encourage you to not only read Peter's comments, but I thought I would also repeat here the "official" rationale from the TNIV website for the rending of Psalm 34:20:

The change from "his bones" to "their bones" reflects the concern of the translators that a passage that has in view both men and women (which this passage has; its reference to "the righteous" is generic, not, as claimed, to "an individual righteous man") be "heard" by contemporary English readers to have just that meaning. The Hebrew pronoun here is masculine singular, but that is simply in accordance with how ancient Hebrew writers treated generics. The Hebrew of the OT has grammatical gender whereas English has only natural gender. That is, in Hebrew (and Greek) many words are rather arbitrarily assigned grammatical gender. For instance, Hebrew nephesh (traditionally often rendered "soul") is feminine, while Greek pneuma (often rendered "spirit") is neuter. No conclusions about a "soul" being feminine or a "spirit" being a "thing" are to be drawn. And Hebrew also uses masculine singular pronouns to refer to masculine singular generic nouns (which are usually masculine) that refer to both men and women alike—which is certainly the case here. This is seen in the fact that Psalm 34 itself moves back and forth between plural generic forms (vv. 15-16) and singular generic forms (vv. 19-21). Clearly the singular forms are as generic as the plural forms and are intended simply as an alternative way to speak of righteous persons in general (including both men and women). So, consistently with their desire to present the Bible in gender accurate language, the TNIV translators have turned the masculine singular generic pronoun of the original Hebrew here into a generic plural.

But it is alleged that this has created an inner-canonical problem, since this verse is quoted in John 19:36 as applying to Jesus—that it is "fulfilled" in Jesus' experience. However, it should be noted, first, that it is not certain that John quotes Ps. 34:20. He may be referring to the provisions for the Passover Lamb, as found in Exod. 12:46 and Num. 9:12. But even if Ps. 34:20 is being quoted, the connection between the two passages is still clear enough. That Jesus is preeminently the Righteous One, and so fulfills the description of "the (generic) righteous" of Psalm 34, experiencing with them God's care for "the righteous," should be obvious to all careful readers of the Bible. Moreover, quotations of the OT in the NT are generally not exact, so that the shift from the plural of the TNIV of Ps. 34:20 to the singular of John 19:36 should not obscure the connection. Note, for example, how NT writers occasionally change OT singular references to plurals (compare Isa. 52:7 with Rom. 10:15; Ps. 36:1 with Rom. 3:10,18; Ps. 32:1 with Rom. 4:6-7). Do such changes "obscure" the connections between the OT and NT passages? Of course not. Moreover, entirely apart from the gender issue, the shift from singular to plural in this verse is actually a gain in that it makes clearer to the reader that the reference in Ps. 34:20 is generic rather than particular, and that in John 19:36 the author of the Gospel was applying this generic statement about "the righteous" to Jesus as the supreme Righteous One.

Fair enough. I understand and appreciate the reasons why the TNIV Committee on Bible Translation made this choice. I would have merely made a more traditional choice for this verse. I well remember back in 1991, in my first semester in seminary, taking John D. W. Watts for Advanced Old Testament Intro in which he made us write exegesis papers treating OT passages in their original context with absolutely no references to the New Testament. That's a great exercise, and I usually try to do this even today as an initial step in understanding an OT passage before I look at it in the whole context of the entire canon. However, in the end, as I stated in the comments, "...as a believer, I read [OT] passages ... through Christological lenses. I have no problem with translators making legitimate decisions to render a passage with this understanding. To me this is in keeping with Luke 24:27, 'And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself' (TNIV)." My disagreement over this or that rendering in no way takes away from my regard, use and recommendation of the TNIV.

Finally, I came across an unusual and questionably archaic word choice in the TNIV last night:

“He brings princes to naught
  and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.”
       (Is 40:23 TNIV)

I would guess the translators use "naught" as a stylistic choice so that "nothing" is not repeated in the English, although these are two different words in the Hebrew (אַיִן and תֹּהוּ respectively). But I wonder how many TNIV readers use the word "naught" on a regular basis, and I wonder if young readers even understand the meaning of the word? This is the only occurrence of the English word "naught" in the entire TNIV. Incidentally, the original NIV and the NRSV also use "naught" in this verse.

Tags: TNIV

To be honest, I'm tired of The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps now that the book's gone to paperback and the movie is old news, it can all start to fade into history.

I had an unusual conversation with an unbeliever (he told me so) this past Friday night. In the course of the overall discussion, he asked me if The Da Vinci Code offended me.

Does it offend me? Good question.

I said that it didn't offend me in my conversation with this gentleman. But I've reflected on his question since the conversation. What are my feelings toward the book?

In the end, I don't think The Da Vinci Code offends me so much as it annoys me.

I'm annoyed at a few things. I'm annoyed at Dan Brown, who is a fairly entertaining writer, for producing a story that is so openly hostile to Christianity. What's the deal, Dan--did the nuns smack your knuckles too hard with the ruler when you were a kid and you're getting your revenge now?

I believe that Brown's book is irresponsible because it completely rewrites known history. A lot of folks say, "What's the big deal? It's fiction!" But it's a big deal because Brown starts on p. 1 of his book with a page entitled "Facts" in which he lists three supposed facts in two paragraphs. Unfortunately, two of the three facts are simply not true. The so-called Priory of Sion is a mid-twentieth century fraud.

But what I believe annoys me most is how gullible some Christians were in regard to Brown's nonsense. Too many Christians said that the books "shook their faith" and made them question the things they thought they believed. And I even heard some folks call into a local radio a couple of weeks ago show who claimed to be Christians but asked what the big deal would be if Jesus actually were married.

This tells me that too many Christians do not know three things as well as they should: (1) their Bible, (2) Christian doctrine, (3) and church history (or perhaps history in general).

If there was ever a question as to the need for ongoing discipleship in our churches, I believe The Da Vinci Code has sadly made the case for it. In one sense, the church responded very well with all the seminars on the subject. We talked about all the evangelistic opportunities that the book and movie brought to us. However, the reality is that we had to scramble to get our own church members up to speed on issues that should have been of an elementary nature.

The church at large needs to completely rethink the way it does discipleship. We need to do more than simply hold weekly Bible studies. We must address all three of the issues I mentioned above.

Tags: Da Vinci Code

I assume most people realize that Today's New International Version (TNIV), released in complete form in 2005, is an update to the New International Version (NIV). Therefore, I'm not going to spend much time on history. Further, I realize that there's still an air of controversy surrounding the TNIV. And I also knew that when I selected it as the #2 choice in my picks of favorite that I would raise a few eyebrows in some of the circles with which I interact. The fact that there's controversy at all saddens me. Personally, I believe the TNIV to be a very good evangelical translation of the Bible, and I honestly think that any controversy is overblown. The fact that I can list the HCSB--a translation that meets the Colorado Springs Guidelines--as my #1 pick and then I can turn around and list a Bible that does not meet those guidelines as #2 demonstrates my personal belief that there is room for both of these kinds of translations, and that they can both find use and purpose in the Kingdom of God.

In light of my willingness to use the TNIV, I believe it's only fair to describe here why I would be open to the use of a gender-inclusive translation--or as the TNIV translators call it, a gender-accurate version. Further, as I was looking at Wayne Leman's TNIV links page in comparison with his HCSB links page, I was reminded how much has been written in response to this new translation of the Bible. In fact, so much has been written regarding the TNIV, it's somewhat overwhelming. Therefore, I believe this is a good time to remind readers of my blog that my purpose in this series is not to provide exhaustive analysis of any of these versions. That has been done elsewhere by others more qualified than me. This series is merely my subjective take on a small sample of the large number of Bible translations in print, specifically ones that have been meaningful to me or have been used by me in one manner or another.

Why I find value in a "gender-accurate" translation. A month or so ago, a friend of mine (you know who you are) asked my opinion regarding a potential new Bible purchase. He was especially interested in all the recent translations that have surfaced over the past few years and thought I might have some insights. We discussed the positives and negatives of a number of them, but when I brought up the TNIV, he very quickly held up his hand and said, "I'm not interested in any of that Father-, Mother-God stuff." To say that there's a huge amount of misunderstanding regarding the TNIV's use of inclusive language would be an understatement. Even more disconcerting is that my friend is seminary-trained with a Master of Divinity degree. If he's been influenced with such disinformation, what does that say for the average Bible reader?

I suppose my first experience with an inclusive language translation was the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) published in 1989. Although I bought a copy, I did not use it all that much. However, when the first edition of the New Living Translation (NLT) was released in 1996, every student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was given a copy. A number of the faculty members at SBTS (at that time) had a hand in this translation, including Daniel I. Block, Robert Stein, Gerald Borchert, and Thomas R. Schriener. I immediately read through the NLT over the next few months, and also introduced it to my wife, Kathy, who uses it to this day as her preferred translation. Looking back, the inclusive gender issue in the NLT, and the NRSV before it, was not all that controversial--at least in my experience and in my circles. However, that changed in regard to the inclusive NIV (often referred to as the NIVI) released in Britain with plans for eventual release in the United States. There was a major uproar over this. I well remember reading the World Magazine "stealth Bible" issue. I ordered an NIVI from WH Smith, which at that time was billed as the Amazon.com of Great Britain, paying in the end about $40 for a text copy after international shipping was applied. Although I don't remember all the particulars now, in examining the inclusive NIV, I felt that it was actually more conservative in its approach to inclusive language than the NLT had been. What was all the fuss about?

To this day, I still don't quite get what all the fuss is about. Inclusive language has not been applied to God in any of these versions. Rather, when the audience or subject of a passage includes both males and females, an attempt has been made to make sure the translation reflects that in its language. For instance, it has long been noted that a Greek word like ἀδελφοί (adelphoi), often used by Paul in his letters and traditionally translated "brothers," also included women. Even more conservative recent translations such as the English Standard Version often acknowledge this in the footnotes with the comment "Or brothers and sisters" (see notes for Rom 8:12, 1 Cor 1:10, Gal 3:15, etc. in the ESV). Of course, part of the difficulty is that our language is changing. At one time words like "brothers," "men," and even pronouns like "he" and "him" could refer to both genders, but as a culture we have begun to move away from this. And sometimes it seems very much like a common sense issue. If you have two male siblings and two female siblings and you all have dinner together, would you say, "I ate dinner with my brothers"? Of course not. Some will counter that universals such as "brothers" or "men" in the Bible should be understood as referring to both sexes if the context warrants it, but could one then make the case that such use requires that the reader must then mentally translate meaning from a text to really understand it?

To be fair, the Colorado Springs Guidelines (which were originally drawn up in response to the NIVI) allow for quite a bit of inclusive language. If the context warrants it, translators may render ἄνθρωποι (anthropoi) as "people" instead of "men," τις (tis) may become "any one" instead of "any man," and pronouns such as οὐδεὶς (oudeis) can be translated "no one" rather than "no man." Why then do masculine 3rd person pronouns have to remain so in translation if the context clearly warrants a broader meaning? Many have noted, too, that certain Latin-derivative languages such as French and Spanish don't run into this problem in their translations because they have neuter pronouns that are used in reference to persons.

Further, I don't understand why the TNIV has received so much criticism for its use of gender-inclusive language when I don't remember the same amount of criticism anchored against the NLT, the NRSV, the Message, or even the second edition of of the Good News Bible, all of which employ gender-inclusive language for humans to one degree or another. And why would a bookstore chain not carry the TNIV when it carries these other versions? In fact, my copy of the NRSV that I bought in 1990 was published by Holman Bibles. Nor do I feel that it's fair to accuse the TNIV translators of trying to emasculate the Bible. Are scholars such as Douglas Moo and Bruce Waltke (both of whom are among the TNIV translators) really trying to feminize God's Word? I seriously doubt it.

I won't deny the fact that as someone with a degree in English, I was initially resistant to the changes we are witnessing in our language. What helped me on both an academic and an ecclesiastical level was D. A. Carson's Book, The Inclusive Language Debate: A Plea for Realism. This book was written in response to the controversy over the NIVI, and although I wish Carson would update it for the TNIV, his arguments are still applicable. To familiarize myself with both sides of the argument, I've also read Wayne Grudem and Vern Poythress' The TNIV and the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy. In the end, I'm more persuaded by Carson's line of thought.

In my opinion, this is not a liberal vs. conservative issue. With endorsements of the TNIV from D. A. Carson, Douglas Moo (a translator), Darrell Bock, John Stott, Philip Yancy, Tremper Longman III, Klyne Snodgrass, Timothy George, Lee Strobel, Craig Blomberg, and a host of others, no one can make the case that embracing the TNIV is a theologically left-wing move. Nor is this a Complementarian vs. Egalitarian issue because many of the supporters of the TNIV are Complementarians. Ultimately, this is a difference in translation philosophy, primarily word-for-word translations vs. meaning- or thought-driven translations. Differences of opinion in this regard are fair enough, but accusations against the motives of those who translated or support the TNIV seem uncalled for.

I do have one main reason for finding value in the use of a "gender-accurate" translation and it came from my five years experience teaching high school students. From 2000 to 2005 I served as chaplain and Bible teacher at a private Christian prep school. Three, maybe four years ago, I was teaching a sophomore class (15-year-olds) an Old Testament survey. While studying creation, one day we read Genesis 1:27, probably in the NIV.

Genesis 1:27
NIV	TNIV
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.	So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

A female student in the back of the class raised her hand and made the comment, "Mr. Mansfield, I didn't know women were made in God's image!" I stared at her incredulously.

"What?" I asked.

"I didn't know that women were made in God's image until I saw the second half of this verse. All I've ever heard is that 'MAN is made in God's image.'"

I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. Was she kidding or serious? Was she just not the sharpest tack in the box? So I asked the rest of the class, "How many of you thought only men were made in God's image?" At least a third of the class (of probably around 24 or so students) raised their hands, and most of them were young ladies.

You should also know regarding this school that in general, these were very smart kids. They always ranked in the top five schools of the county in regard to their test scores, including the public schools. I was amazed that these sharp kids wouldn't realize that when they heard "Man is made in God's image" that it referred to both males and females. Unfortunately, our language has changed. We can't take for granted anymore that everyone--especially those in younger generations--understands masculine universals. Can you imagine what it did to these young ladies' concept of self to think that their male peers were made in God's image, but they were not? Such misunderstandings are extremely disturbing to me.

And that's the issue--this is a misunderstanding based on language. We already have the task of bridging God's Word across language and culture. My greatest concern is that we can communicate the Bible clearly and effectively. It doesn't matter if personally I would tend to be a bit conservative in my use of language. It doesn't matter if my preference in Bibles is a formal equivalent version. What's important is that my audience with whom I'm trying to teach God's Word doesn't have any extra impediment to their hearing the Gospel message. They need to hear it clearly and effectively in language, words, and terms that they understand.

Why I Like the TNIV. In 1993, D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge published a great little book called Letters Along the Way. This book is a collection of fictional letters spanning over a decade's time between a seasoned Christian professor, Paul Woodson (a combination of Carson's and Woodbridge's names) and a fairly new believer, Timothy. In one of the early letters, supposedly written in December of 1978, Dr. Woodson makes a comment to Timothy regarding what then would have been a newly published New International Version:

I read through the NIV New Testament when it came out a few years ago and resolved then that I would switch to the NIV when the whole Bible became available. It still feels very strange to me, but I am convinced we must use twentieth-century language to win twentieth-century people. I do not know what Bible you are using, But I do urge you to buy a modern translation.

This statement, merely by itself would be applicable to the TNIV (and to be fair, a number of modern translations). But listen to what the real Dr. Carson has said in support of the TNIV:

The TNIV is more accurate than its remarkable predecessor, the much-loved NIV, while retaining all the readability of the latter. I am deeply impressed by the godliness, linguistic competence, cultural awareness and sheer fidelity to Scripture displayed by the translators. Thirty or forty years from now, I suspect, most evangelicals will have accepted the TNIV as a ‘standard’ translation, and will wonder what all the fuss was about in their parents’ generation--in the same way that those of us with long memories marvel at all the fuss over the abandonment of "thees" and "thous" several decades ago.

Why do I like the TNIV? I like it (and support it) because I agree with Dr. Carson that it has great potential to become a standard translation not only in this generation, but perhaps even in the one to come. I believe that it will speak to a contemporary audience just as the NIV did over the past two and a half decades.

I'll be honest: I never completely bonded with the NIV--probably from my infatuation with the New American Standard Bible for so many years (to be detailed in the next post). However, I really like the TNIV the more I read it and use it. Some have said that the changes made to it (excluding the gender-inclusive issues) have actually made it a bit more literal than the NIV, and I've wondered if perhaps this is why I've warmed to it as I have. Regardless, it is still extremely readable and as mentioned above, I believe it has the best chance of speaking to American culture in the days to come.

A number of significant changes (beyond gender issues) have been made in the TNIV distinguishing it from the NIV. David Dewey, in his book A User's Guide to Bible Translations, notes the following improvements:

There are small alterations that make the TNIV more precise and generally crisper than the NIV. Some of these remove remaining archaisms; for example, Mary is said to be "pregnant" rather than "with child"; the "sixth hour" becomes "noon"; and the vocative "O" (as in "O Lord") is omitted. Others relate to advances in scholarship and the understanding of technical expressions. So for instance, the "basic principles" of the world become "elemental spiritual forces" (Col 2:8). "Christ" often becomes "Messiah" where this functions as a title; "saints" often becomes "people of God"; and "the Jews" becomes "Jewish leaders" where this is the sense ... One survey suggests that of all the changes made, other than those relating to gender, three out of four move the TNIV toward "a more essentially literal rendering" in comparison with the NIV.

I keep stumbling upon changes made in the wording as well. Note the differences in Phil 3:8--

Philippians 3:8
NIV	TNIV
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ	What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ

Besides the minor alterations ("compared" becomes "because"; "greatness" becomes "worth") note the Greek word σκύβαλον (skubalon), which carries a fairly crude meaning in the original, is updated from "rubbish" to "garbage." This is certainly more natural language. In my entire life, I don't think I've ever personally known anyone who used the word "rubbish." I don't even think it was widely used in the U.S. in the seventies when the NIV first came out. More than likely, "rubbish" was probably thought of as more suitable for a Bible translation than a word like "garbage."

The other day, I stumbled across Prov 4:23:

Proverbs 4:23
NIV	TNIV
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.	Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

Now, granted, "wellspring of life" is certainly more poetic, but how well does it communicate to a contemporary readership? The newer reading in the TNIV leaves very little to question.

Concerns regarding the TNIV. Overall, because I believe the TNIV is an improvement over the NIV, and because I believe it fulfills the purposes its translators had for it, I don't have a whole lot of issues to complain about. What bothered me in the NIV, still bothers me in the TNIV, and that is primarily its simplified language. But that has more to do with me than the version itself. I'm assuming that the TNIV, like the NIV, is on or about a seventh grade reading level (the national average). This was done on purpose and word choices are made accordingly.

The TNIV, like the NIV before it makes minor interpretive choices for the reader that I don't always care for:

Proverbs 5:7
HCSB	TNIV
for we walk by faith, not by sight—	We live by faith, not by sight.

In the above example, there's a wonderful metaphor in the Bible in which one's life is compared to a journey. This is found throughout both testaments, and especially in Paul. There's nothing inaccurate in the TNIV to state "we live" instead of "we walk," but I've always felt something was lost in that translational/interpretational choice.

I've stated before elsewhere, that if I were a translation editor, I would be slightly more conservative than most gender-inclusive translations by leaving messianic prophecies referring to Jesus in their traditional form. Note for example Psalm 34:20, which is quoted in John 19:36:

NIV	TNIV
he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. (Psalm 34:20)	he protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken. (Psalm 34:20)
These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” (John 19:36)	These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” (John 19:36)

The use of inclusive language blurs the prophetic nature of the passage. In my opinion, the choice to alter a verse like this is a distraction and brings unnecessary criticism to the TNIV. I've heard the opposing viewpoint--that an Old Testament passage needs to be treated in its own context, and I respect that. But I also read the OT as a Christian, and it's exactly these kinds of verses that root Christ throughout the Scriptures. I'm also aware that many quotations are slightly different anyway because most often the NT writers tend to quote the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew Scriptures; but again, I would leave such passages alone if I were running the committee.

From a grammatical standpoint, one of the most controversial aspects of the TNIV's implementation of inclusive language is the use of plural pronouns for singular antecedents. This is in keeping with the way we informally speak, but technically it's a grammatical error. Let me demonstrate with Rev 3:20 by using the original NIV, an early inclusive attempt in the NRSV, and then the TNIV:

Revelation 3:20
NIV	NRSV	TNIV
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.	Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.	Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.

What you'll notice in the original NIV is that "him" and "he" are both singular pronouns for the singular antecedent "anyone." The NRSV in its attempt to be inclusive of males and females, changes from third person to second person with the use of "you." One could ask if a certain amount of meaning is lost in the NRSV by changing "anyone" to "you." Typical of the TNIV solution to this dilemma, the third person is retained, but note that "them" and "they" are plural and do not agree in person with the singular antecedent, "anyone."

Now, if it took you a minute to catch this, it's because we tend to naturally talk this way. Most of the time, we often avoid specifying a masculine pronoun in our speech when referring to an inclusive antecedent. However, by all modern English grammars with which I'm familiar, this is still incorrect English. I actually even used this as a teaching tool in a writing class recently.

And yet, having said all that, I'm aware--as I've said earlier--that our language is changing. It won't surprise me if in a decade or so major grammar guides begin to allow this mixing of person. Like I said--we already do it in informal speech. Yet it was still a bit shocking for someone like me who has taught writing on and off for a decade when I first saw it. And I've told my students that until I see such usage accepted in a grammar book, I'll still mark it off on their papers!

In regard to marketing, the TNIV came out with a pretty strong push, albeit much was defensive in nature due to the controversy; however, much now has died off. There is a TNIV blog, like the ESV blog, but it has not been updated since last December. In February, I left a comment at the TNIV website asking if there would be future blog entries. An unnamed person responded by saying there hadn't been anything new recently to add to the blog, but there would be forthcoming product announcements in the upcoming weeks. However, as of this writing, nothing new has materialized. I can't imagine that there's nothing to blog about in regard to the TNIV. Like I said of the HCSB, they could learn a lesson from the ESV Blog in this matter. They could put ME in charge of their blog, and I could give them three or four TNIV related entries a week!

The other complaint I've had about TNIV marketing is the lack of Bible covers that don't look like they were designed for a teenager. Although I finally found one, it's difficult to find a simple one-color leather Bible currently in the TNIV. However, there are some very nice leather editions available from Cambridge Bibles in the U.K. Unfortunately these will not be sold by Cambridge in the U.S. (I inquired) because of agreements with Zondervan. There are also currently no major study Bibles available in the TNIV, although the TNIV version of the classic NIV Study Bible is set to be released this Fall.

Finally, the greatest hindrance to the acceptance of the TNIV may not be the controversy over gender-accuracy; nor is it competition from other new translations of the Bible such as the ESV or HCSB. Instead, it's the NIV itself. Personally, I believe that the International Bible Society made a mistake when they promised to keep selling the NIV as long as there was a demand for it. I know that there was pressure from those opposed to the TNIV for the IBS and Zondervan to make this move. However, I would guess that the real factor is monetary. Anytime one looks at the current sales rankings for Bibles, the New International Version is still at the top. That's not near the top, but the very top. The NIV has become the new KJV.

IBS & Zondervan could learn a thing or two from Tyndale Press. When they released the New Living Translation, they moved quickly to phase out the original Living Bible. In fact, as far as I know, the only copy of the Living Bible still in print is the old standard green hardback. Zondervan should do the same thing and keep only a text edition or two of the NIV in print. I'm sure it was very costly for Tyndale to discontinue it's Life Application Bible with the Living Bible text as this had been a huge seller. However, such moves were necessary to move onto a better text. Realistically, though, I don't expect Zondervan to make such a move. The NIV so far outsells other translations, the immediate loss of revenue would be great, even if it was helpful in the long run for gaining acceptance of the TNIV.

How I use the TNIV. I've been using the TNIV with groups that tend to be in settings outside of church. In a Bible study at church, I might have 45 minutes to walk a group through twenty verses, but I don't always have that luxury in other settings. When using the Bible devotionally such as with my night classes that I teach at IWU, I find that the TNIV makes a natural choice. I also used it when I spoke before graduating high school seniors a couple of weeks ago.

What edition of the TNIV I primarily use. I finally found a one-color leather edition of the TNIV. I'm using a TNIV Thinline XL (Larger Print Edition, ISBN: 031093494X). It's black, bonded leather with silver trim. It's not perfect, but it feels good in the hand and has a readable typeface. Like all thinlines, text on other pages can be seen too easily through the paper.

For further reading (links to a variety of opinions regarding the TNIV may be found below):
• Wikipedia Article on the TNIV
• TNIV Website
• About the TNIV
• TNIV Endorsements
• Wayne Leman's TNIV Links Page
• Better Bibles Blog TNIV Page (again, note especially the comments)
• Bible Researcher TNIV Page
• CBMW TNIV Resource Center

• Follow-Up Regarding the TNIV (Added 6/7/06)

Redacted June 3, 12 PM.
Proofed June 4, 6 PM.

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Of Related Interest:
- Follow-Up Regarding the TNIV
- My Review of Zondervan's TNIV Study Bible

Tags: TNIV, Top Ten

This Lamp is created using RapidWeaver--not just the blog, but the whole site. They've released a public beta this morning of a new version to the software, and considering I've already found some bugs, it's definitely betaware. Regardless, the template I was using for the site was third party and has not yet been updated to v. 3.5. So I'm temporarily using one of the new RapidWeaver templates. I don't really like this one, but of all the new ones, it was the only one with a white background (other than that one with a skateboard). It seems like there's some problems with the comments in a few places. Hopefully, I can figure this out soon.

One good thing though is that I finally have true permalinks. I've been inserting them manually since November for folks who occasionally might want to link to a blog. I think the old links will still work, but I'll also gradually be removing my old permalinks. Look for the new ones at the top of the post.

I've also had to consolidate my menu structure because this template only supports menus on top (yuck) and then only one row. Everything's still here. You might just have to look around.

As soon as my former template is updated or if the RapidWeaver folks release some different templates, I'll change again.

Tags: RapidWeaver