Post Series:
1—Imperialism of the Present
2—Reformers as Proto-Postmodernists
3—Ad Fontes, Erasmus, and the NIV
I’ve written a few posts in the past weeks in light of IVP launching their new Reformation Commentary on Scripture series with their inaugural title Galatians & Ephesians
This post comes in light of a recent post written by a member of the CBMW that suggested the updated NIV translation harms women. (In the interest of disclosure, my wife works for Zondervan Bibles.) I’m not going to repeat the arguments here or even link to it, because to be frank the post and it’s accompanying statements were silly and juvenile, certainly not beholden of a seminary professor that’s for sure. Scot McKnight quoted the post at his blog and in the comment section was this wise observation: “The NIV is the most Reformed bible on the market bar none! It takes koine (street) Greek, and changes it into the English spoken by the average person. What could possibly be wrong with that?”
This is incredibly ironic because the CBWM is decidedly Reformed in its orientation, yet has no problem attacking a translation that firmly sits in the inspiration of the Reformation itself. I was reminded of this great legacy—this movement to place the Text in firmly in the hands of every person in their own language in their time—after reading chapters 2 and 3 of Reading Scripture with the Reformers.
Chapter 2 begins with this realization of the Reformation phenomenon: “The Reformation was about the Word of God, but it was also about words, millions of them, human utterances from pulpit, pen and press. Sermons, lectures, disputations, catechisms and commentaries poured forth from the presses of Europe along with a flood of Bibles both in traditional Latin and in the emerging vernaculars of the time. The study of the Bible in the Reformation era was both a scholarly and popular phenomenon.” (44) Part of what makes the Reformation the Reformation was the desire and outright movement of getting the Bible into the hands of ordinary people.
The chapter is titles ad fontes, which means “back to the fountains” or literally “back to the source.” In this case, back to the Word of God. And that was possible in light of several historical factors: renaissance humanism trumpeted the individual, especially regarding the right and opportunity to study, and also saw the rise of vernacular literature, ensuring a cultural ethos that fostered the type of lay bible study the Reformation had come to be known by; Lorenzo Valla set the stage for a return to the Bible’s source texts in Greek and Hebrew—which dovetailed with an increased appreciation for trilingualism in these languages plus latin— even if that meant criticizing Jerome’s Vulgate latin translation and opening the Bible beyond this institutionally mandated text; and finally, of course, the printing press “brought about an explosion of knowledge, the expansion of literacy, and a revolution in learning that touched every aspect of European civilization, not least the Church. (61) It was this last cultural and historical piece that empowered your average street person to return back to the Source (Bible) in ways that just weren’t possible before.
Beyond these cultural and historical forcers were people who had a tremendous impact on the way in which the average street person engaged Scripture. In many ways Desiderius Ersasmus represents those people who embodied the biblical humanism of the time for the sake of the Church. Erasmus is most known for his scholarly work and his celebrated Novum Testamentum, which gave the church the New Testament in the Greek in print for the first time. What many don’t realize is that Erasmus pleaded for vernacular translations of the Bible so that the mysteries of Christ could be accessible to all. Listen to his plea:
I would that even the lowliest women read the Gospels and the Pauline epistles. And I would that they were translated into all languages so that they could be read and understood not only by Scots and Irish, but also by Turks and Saracens…Would that, as a result, the farmer sings some portion of them at the plow, the weaver hums some parts of them to the movement of his shuttle, the traveler lighten the wariness of the journey with stories of this kind! (91)
It was this plea that anticipated the Reformation doctrine of the spiritual priesthood of all believers, while also acting as a forerunner to the Reformers themselves. As the saying goes “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.” It was Erasmus’ Greek text that gave Luther his “evangelical breakthrough” that helped him realize a massive mistranslation in the Vulgate of Matt 3:2—”do penance” was a mistranslation of the Greek that is instead “repentance”—and later enabled both Luther and Tyndale to translate the NT into German and English “for the farmers, ploughboys, pimps and prostitutes of Germany and England.” (99, 101) Thanks to the work of these Reformers, which I include Erasmus here as a outside participant,
Which brings us back to the NIV. Rather than having a “politically-correct translating agenda” as some have charged the Committee on Bible Translation who is responsible for the updated NIV, these translators are working in the same spirit and inspiration of the Reformers themselves who seek to bring the Holy Scriptures into the modern, 21st century vernacular of every farmer, mechanic, prostitute, business executive, retailer, and on and on in order to help them encounter the living Christ.
I can imagine Doug Moo, the chairman of the CBT would echo Erasmus’ words, which reverberated throughout the Reformation, when he said, “Do you think that the Scriptures are fit only for the perfumed?” (92) So for that reason alone I agree with the commentor at Jesus Creed: the NIV is the most Reformed bible on the market because they stand in the great tradition of the Reformers themselves by translating Scripture with the Reformers so that people, real street people, can read the Scriptures themselves in their own language.
