THE HISTORY OF THE NEPALI EDITION OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE
January 14, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
From the time that we first arrived in Nepal in 1979, my wife and I had a burden to produce sound Bible literature in the Nepali language. There were no Bible study tools such as a concordance, Bible dictionary, or commentaries. We began looking into the possibility of making a concordance, but as we discussed the matter with Nepali pastors they were unanimous in the opinion that the Bible itself needed revision before a concordance was made. In the process of examining the Nepali Bible in 1979-80, I learned that it was based on the English Revised Version of 1885, that much of the language was seriously outdated, and that the translation overall was poor.
It was during this research that I learned about the textual side of the Bible version issue. I was particularly impressed with the book “The King James Bible Defended: a Space-age Defense of the Historic Christian Faith” by Edward F. Hills that I had picked up somewhere. The first edition of this was published in 1956. Hills had a doctorate in textual criticism from Harvard, but he approached the issue from a Bible-believing, faith position rather than from the modernistic position of the fathers of textual criticism. I wrote to the address on the book, hoping that I could communicate with him, but his widow replied and said that he had died earlier that same year (1981). She was very kind and gave me some copies of Hills’ book for distribution in South Asia. Another man that helped me a lot in those days was Bruce Lackey. He was the head of the Bible School at Tennessee Temple when I was a student there, and he graciously answered many questions for me on the Bible version issue. I also corresponded in those days with David Otis Fuller. He kindly replied to each of my frequent letters and to the many questions I had on the issue. (Lackey and Fuller died the same year, in 1988.)
The most impressive thing I learned was the textual issue. I came to understand that the modern versions since the Revised Version of 1881 have been based on a Greek text that was invented through the “science” of modern textual criticism and that favors manuscripts that originated in Egypt in the early centuries when it was a hotbed of theological heresy. The critical text shows clear signs of doctrinal tampering (we give more than 50 examples in our book Faith vs. the Modern Bible Versions) and was not used by Bible-believing churches for 1,500 years of church history. It differs radically from the Received Text underlying the old Protestant versions.
After much prayer, I came to a conviction that the Received Text is the preserved Word of God and that the King James Bible is a lovely translation thereof in English, and I was very sad that no such translation existed in Nepali. The first missionary translations in South Asia (e.g., India, Burma) in the 19th century were based on the Received Text, but in the 20th century these were replaced by versions based on the critical text, the Bible Societies being the chief culprits in this change.
I discussed the issue with the head of the Bible Society of Nepal and showed him the materials that I was studying, and he gave me the impression that he, too, was convinced that we needed a new translation of the Nepali Bible that was different in character from the old. I was therefore shocked when I learned that even while he was discussing the issue with me, the Bible Society of Nepal was printing a “common language” edition of the Nepali Bible based on the deeply corrupt Today’s English Version (also called Good News for Modern Man). The chief translator of this version in English was a modernist named Robert Bratcher, a Southern Baptist missionary who does not believe that Jesus is God and has refused to give a testimony of salvation in his seminars. Not only did he use the corrupt critical Greek text, but he also incorporated the “dynamic equivalency” method of translation that takes amazing and frightful liberties with God’s words. He further sullied the Bible by changing the word “blood” to “death” in key doctrinal passages such as Romans 3:25. He corrupted practically every passage dealing with the deity of Christ. For example, in Philippians 2:6, the Today’s English Version reads, “He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to become equal with God.”
I was so disturbed about the new version that I published a pamphlet in Nepali to warn the Christians.
About this time a team of young evangelists from Switzerland arrived in the country. They drove overland from Europe in Mercedes trucks and were very enthusiastic. For their gospel literature distribution program they purchased a quantity of the new Nepali common language New Testaments. We met soon thereafter and they spent some time at our home in Kathmandu. When they told me about their goals, the issue of the new Nepali New Testament came up and I told them some of the things I had discovered in my research. They were shocked. They were so shocked, in fact, that they went back to the Bible Society man and asked for their money back. When he refused, they burned the copies, being convinced that they were of the devil.
When this happened, we were in India getting new visas, and such a thing as burning Bibles (even corrupt ones) was something that had never crossed my mind. I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but the Bible Society head falsely blamed me without even talking to me about it. He got some of the ashes from the fire (allegedly) and photocopied a picture of them on a letter that he sent to all of the churches, claiming that “David Cloud burned the Bible.” To this day there are people that believe this lie. Soon thereafter the Bible Society leader was at the forefront of an attempt to get us to leave the country. He and leaders of other organizations (including the Nepal Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade, Youth For Christ, the Assemblies of God, and United Mission to Nepal) met together and formulated a letter charging me with “dividing the body of Christ in Nepal” and demanding that we stop all our works and leave the country. So much for non-judgmental tolerance!
It was at that point that I knew that there was no hope that the Bible Society would produce a pure Bible for the needy people of that land, and I began to pray earnestly for God to raise up men for that work. I prayed for three years, and to my knowledge I was the only person in the country that was seeking to do something about the need for a pure translation of the Nepali Bible. It was a lonely vigil. I prayed until I met a man named Daniel Rai. He was an evangelist with the El Shaddai group in Darjeeling, and I met him on one of his visits to Kathmandu. Upon our first meeting I was impressed that he was the man for the Bible translation work, and I asked him to pray about it. I also gave him materials on the Bible version issue to help him understand the textual issue and the fact that the existing Nepali Bible was corrupt.
There are three major qualifications for Bible translation work. The man must know Christ savingly and be Spirit-filled; he must be equipped educationally; he must understand and be committed to godly principles of Bible translation. I was convinced that Daniel was such a man. He had been a school teacher before God called him into evangelism. I was so burdened about the translation that I made a long, difficult trip all alone from Kathmandu to the border of Bhutan to meet Daniel and try to impress him with the urgency of such a project.
The trip was by bus, jeep, taxi, rickshaw, and foot. It began with an overnight bus trip across the mountains from Kathmandu to the southern part of Nepal. It is only 50 miles as the crow flies but requires many hours on a bus because of the steep mountains and treacherous roads. The buses are ill-maintained, to say the least, often with bald tires and bad brakes. The roads are barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass, and the one on the outside is dangerously near the edge of a sheer precipice. When maneuvering a hair pin turn the drivers take the middle of the road and there is always the danger of meeting another bus coming full bore down the steep mountain, also taking the middle. Such journeys are made worse by the screechy Indian cinema music that blares out of cheap speakers, by the constant swaying and shaking from the monster potholes, by the overcrowded conditions (not only with people but also goats and chickens), and by the smell, which is a mixture of vomit, diesel fumes, and the stench of long unwashed bodies and cheap tobacco. And the drivers drink.
Daniel was preaching in Bhutan, and I could not enter the country because of visa restrictions, but I got someone from his church to fetch him to the border, where I met him one evening. In a small room lit by a kerosene lantern, I begged him to pray seriously about the possibility of giving himself to the task of Bible translation, and he asked me to talk to his church leaders. The senior elder was his father-in-law, Brother Fudong, so I went to Kalimpong and met with him and other leaders of El Shaddai and poured my heart out to them. (I also went to Darjeeling on that trip and purchased a batch of Christian literature to use in our correspondence course ministry, and I was miraculously able to bring them through the customs shed at the eastern border of Nepal even though such a thing was illegal then.)
The result was that Daniel had peace about the project and his leaders gave him permission to come apart from his other responsibilities in order to pursue this new vision. He moved to Kathmandu in 1984 with his family and began the work.
I laid out the principles of translation as follows, and Daniel agreed to them. They were first printed on March 22, 1984.
1. Our goal is to produce a standard Nepali study Bible with notes and cross references, plus a companion concordance and dictionary.
2. The new Nepali version will be based upon the KJV and other accurate translations of the Textus Receptus, with reference to the original languages when necessary. Translations have been made into Hindi and Bengali from the Textus Receptus. These languages are kin to Nepali and will be helpful, especially Hindi.
3. The exact meaning of the original must be preserved.
4. Account must be given to every word and to the smallest detail of the original.
5. Even the sentence construction of the original should be maintained when possible.
6. If the translator feels a passage or word of the original will not be understood, he must use explanatory footnotes rather than change God’s Words.
7. As far as possible, the translation should be majestic in its reading.
8. The translation will be reviewed from three main angles--accuracy (the primary consideration), readability, and understandability. We want to use the simplest Nepali words possible which express the exact meaning of the original language, but we will not sacrifice accuracy for the sake of understanding. When it is not possible to find a Nepali wording which does justice to the original, we will use Hindi or Sanskrit. Footnotes will be used for explanations. We are preparing a Nepali Bible dictionary which can help define any difficult or non-indigenous words used in the translations.
Eventually Thomas Kaufmann joined the Bible translation project and was a major contributor. Other Nepali men also helped, but Daniel and Thomas were the main translators. The first edition of the New Testament was printed in the 1990s. As of this writing (2008) the Old Testament is nearing completion. Many things have happened to slow the work down, including sicknesses and the death of Daniel’s wife, not to speak of demonic oppression and various strange troubles that are always a part of such a venture.
This New Testament is far from perfect. In fact, it needs a lot of future revision, but it is textually sound and is a good foundation for others to build upon. Daniel and Thomas have labored in the heat of the day and given the Nepali people a great treasure. They are true pioneers. Those who follow and revise their work are traveling a road that has already been well prepared and is therefore much easier trod. The trees have been cut down; most of the stumps removed; the rivers bridged.
The perfecting of the English Bible took 230 years (from Wycliffe’s version of 1380 to the King James of 1611).
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