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October 22, 1996 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is an excerpt from an article which will appear in O Timothy magazine, Volume 13, Issue 11, 1996 --
In July 1996 the New Living Translation (NLT) by Tyndale House Publishers became the latest edition to an already bewildering array of English versions. The NLT is a remake of Kenneth Taylor's Living Bible, which first appeared in a complete Bible in 1971 and which has sold more than 40 million copies. The advertisements tell us that "The New Living Translation provides a wonderful balance of readability and authority. ... due to the careful work of 90 leading Bible scholars, it is accurate to the original Greek and Hebrew text."
The cover jacket of the NLT contains enthusiastic recommendations by Billy Graham and Josh McDowell. The NLT was featured positively in the October 28 edition of Christian Today in an article, "The Living Bible Reborn."
The list of names for the NLT Bible translation team includes many well-known evangelical scholars and authors. Some of the NLT translators also worked on the New International Version, the New King James Version, and the liberal Good News for Modern Man or Today's English Version (TEV). One of the reviewers of the NLT, F.F. Bruce (deceased), denied the eternal fire of Hell, promoted the damnable annihilation theory of judgment, and supported "form criticism" and its unscriptural theory that the gospels are based on secondary "sources."
The NLT Bible translation team represents AN ECUMENICAL STEW. Denominations represented include Episcopalian, Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, Reformed, Presbyterian, Anglican, Mennonite Brethren, Catholic, Nazarene, Free Methodist, and Conservative Baptist. Schools include Oral Roberts School of Theology, Moody Bible Institute, Fuller Theological Seminary, Asbury College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, Calvin College, Oxford University, Liberty University, Canadian Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Trinity Episcopal Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, Wycliffe College (Anglican), and Seattle Pacific University.
It would require a book to document the theological heresies which are rampant on the campuses of these schools.
WYCLIFFE COLLEGE is a member of the Toronto School of Theology, an ecumenical education consortium which includes three Roman Catholic schools--Regis College (Jesuit), St. Augustine's Seminary, and the University of St. Michael's College.
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY IN AMERICA is not only Roman Catholic, it is so liberal that it supported priest Charles Curran in 1986, when the Vatican disciplined him for his views on morality.
FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY has a strong representation on the NLT translation committee-- David Hubbard, Donald Hagner, Robert Guelich (deceased), and Marianne Thompson. Hubbard was president of Fuller from 1963 to 1993. It was under his direction that Fuller weakened its stand on biblical inspiration in 1970. The new statement of faith allows for the position that Scripture is infallible in its teaching on matters of faith, but not necessarily in all that it says about history and science. This is documented in Harold Lindsell's book The Battle for the Bible (Zondervan, 1976) and is affirmed in Richard Quebedeaux's The Worldly Evangelicals (Harper & Row, 1978). Lindsell was vice president at Fuller and witnessed this firsthand. Lindsell's book contained a foreword and recommendation by Fuller co-founder and first president, Harold John Ockenga.
In a special edition of Fuller Seminary's Theological News and Notes in 1976, Hubbard said: "Where inerrancy refers to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like the chronological details, the precise sequence of events, the numerical allusions we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate."
This is unbelieving double-speak. If the Bible is not inspired and inerrant in its history and chronologies and numbers, it is not inspired and inerrant at all. It stands or falls as one Book. It claims to be the inspired Word of God. Either it is, or it isn't. If it is, it is wholly inerrant. If it is not, it is a lie. The Lord Jesus Christ did not cast a hint of doubt over the authority and authenticity of even one word, yea, not one jot or tittle, of the Scriptures. Those who deny the perfect inspiration of Scripture, deny the Jesus Christ of Scripture.
We do not believe that men representing schools such as this have the spiritual discernment necessary to translate the pure Word of God, and their work confirms this opinion.
There are two standards whereby a Bible translation should be judged for its faithfulness: One, the purity of its text. Two, the accuracy of its translation. The New Living Translation (NLT) fails miserably on both counts. It is based upon the undependable Westcott-Hort type text. It is an inaccurate paraphrase even of this corrupt text.
According to the Introduction to the NLT, its underlying HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT is the Masoretic Text in the Old Testament (with many changes based on Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, Latin Vulgate, etc.) and the United Bible Societies (UBS) fourth edition Greek New Testament. (The NLT does not always follow the UBS Greek text. It is actually a little more conservative than the UBS text and includes in the text some passages which are omitted in the UBS.)
The UBS Greek Testament is basically a modification of the Westcott-Hort version of 1881 which was published in conjunction with the English Revised New Testament. Though there are many differences between the Westcott-Hort Greek Text and today's UBS text (one of the features of modern textual criticism is its unsettled, constantly shifting nature), both represent a rejection of the Reformation Received Text, and both lean upon the same type of corrupt manuscripts which were preferred by Westcott and Hort--chiefly the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus manuscripts and their friends.
This is no light matter. If the Bible societies are correct in their assumption that the text of the Protestant Reformation was gravely defected, the great work of God during the hundreds of years prior to this century--the mighty revivals, the extraordinary pioneer missionary endeavors, the mass evangelism which changed not only multitudes of individual lives but the very character of nations and communities-- was based upon a corrupted Bible. If, on the other hand, the Bible societies are wrong about this matter, it is their Greek text which is the corrupted one, and they are responsible for distributing to men a corruption of God's Word. What could be more serious?
This is only a small sampling of the textual corruptions evident in the New Living Translation. It is true that many of these omissions are mentioned in footnotes in the NLT, but the fact remains that these weighty portions of Scripture are omitted from the text. At best, these Scriptures are seriously questioned in the mind of the readers. The New Living Translation could not be accurate, even if it used sound translation methodology, because it is founded upon the wrong text.
The NLT claims to be more than a paraphrase. It claims to be a faithful translation of the Word of God. It is a "dynamic equivalency" or "thought-for-thought" translation which professes to "produce in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the message expressed by the original-language text." This is the most popular form of Bible translation today and is used by the United Bible Societies and the Wycliffe Bible Translators in languages throughout the world. The New Living Translation is merely another in a series of dynamic equivalency English versions which have appeared in recent years. The Today's English Version (American Bible Society, 1976) was a dynamic equivalency translation, as was the Contemporary English Version (American Bible Society, 1991), and The Message (Eugene Peterson, NavPress, 1993).
We have documented this in our book Myths about Modern Bible Versions (Way of Life Literature, 1999).
A dynamic equivalency translation, while claiming to be faithful to the text upon which it is founded, is not faithful because it does not simply translate what God's Word says in the original languages. It renders, rather, what the translator thinks God intended to say. That is the chief reason why a dynamic equivalency or thought for thought translation is so far removed from the King James Bible. It is not that it merely uses modern English terminology. It uses an entirely different METHODOLOGY of translation, and this new methodology cannot possibly result in accuracy. It is far too subjective for that. We will see this in the examination of the New Living Translation.
The following examples are selected to represent the character of the New Living Translation throughout. These are not exceptional or unusual examples; they are representative of the whole. We will only use a few verses, because only a few are required to demonstrate our point.
KJV: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
NLT: "Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven."
The NLT claims to be an accurate translation. It claims to be more than a mere paraphrase. That is a deception. In my estimation, it is NOTHING MORE than a paraphrase, and it is not even an accurate paraphrase. In this one verse, the NLT translators have added an entire sentence which is not in the Word of God--"Not all people who sound religious are really godly." That is an addition to what Christ said. The NLT changes "every one" to "all people" and "he" to "they," thus making the passage much more general and less personal than it was intended to be. The NLT subtracts one "Lord," thus lessening the impact of the verse. The "Lord, Lord" is addressed to Christ, but the NLT translators claim it merely refers to Christ. Further, the NLT adds the words "the decisive issue."
KJV: "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work."
NLT: "And if they are saved by God's kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God's wonderful kindness would not be what it really is--free and undeserved."
This powerful, momentous passage has been horribly mutilated in the New Living Translation. Translating the Greek word "charis" in reference to salvation as "God's kindness" is weak and inaccurate. The grace offered in Jesus Christ to the needy sinner is much more than God's kindness. It is, as Webster so wisely defined it, the "unmerited love and favor of God" which is given to us because of the atonement purchased by the blood and death of Jesus Christ. Romans 11:6 is the very Scripture which Webster used in his 1828 masterpiece to illustrate the definition of grace. One of the most serious doctrinal battles which has raged for 2,000 years is that surrounding the term grace. Is salvation by grace or by works? Is it by grace plus works? Is it by grace alone without works? If by grace, what does grace mean? In today's confused ecumenical climate, this battle has reached fever pitch. Consider the document "Evangelicals & Catholics Together," which insisted that evangelicals and Catholics should find common spiritual ground, and the former doctrinal barriers are no longer necessary. The biblical definition of grace destroys this ecumenical gesture. Biblical justification is by Christ's grace alone through faith alone. Rome's justification redefines "grace to require sacraments. Rome's doctrine of justification is not grace without works; it is grace with works. This kind of error cannot be effectively defeated with a weak Bible translation, and we are convinced that one of the reasons for the doctrinal weakness evident among supposed evangelical churches in this present hour is caused by the multiplicity of corrupt translations. The reader of the NLT cannot even find the honorable English term "grace" in his Bible. After few decades, those who are reared on "dynamic equivalency" versions will not even be familiar with the great doctrinal terms such as grace, propitiation, and justification.
A generation which cares little for the purity of the Bible itself certainly will care little for the purity of doctrine based upon that Bible.
KJV: "Do not err, my beloved brethren."
NLT: "So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters."
In the last half of the verse "brethren" suddenly becomes "brothers and sisters." This is an example of the NLT translators' desire to be politically correct. They dislike "gender-inclusive" terminology, and they think they have the authority to change God's Word to make it conform to the thinking of this present silly generation. In the Introduction to the NLT, the translation committee claims that the Bible "was originally written in a male-oriented culture." This would make one think they do not believe in the inerrant inspiration of Scripture. Do these NLT publishers and translators think the Bible writers wrote from their own imperfect human understanding, that what we have recorded in Scripture was subject to the weakness of the particular culture of those days? They would have us believe that Moses and Paul used "gender-inclusive" language because of the culture in which they lived. The Bible tells us, though, that Moses and Paul and the other authors wrote as "they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). The Scriptures were not written in the words chosen by the human authors, but in the very words chosen by the Holy Spirit.
The NLT translation committee tells us that "The translator must respect the nature of the ancient context while also accounting for the concerns of the modern audience." We believe this is a serious error. We DO NOT have authority to change the Word of God to conform to today's society or culture. That is not the Bible translator's task. It is his job to translate the Bible accurately so the reader can trust that he is reading exactly what God gave to the holy men of old. It is then the teacher's job to explain those holy words in such a way that the modern reader can understand them and apply them to his situation.
NOTE THAT NONE OF THESE VERSES ARE PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND IN THE KING JAMES BIBLE. These changes cannot be justified simply on the basis of modernizing the Bible. The claim that the KJV is impossible to understand, that it is hopelessly antiquated, is a deception based upon half truths. The KJV does not read like the morning newspaper, but neither does the Hebrew and Greek text upon which it is founded. Of course it contains some antiquated terminology, but studies have demonstrated that it is written on a simpler level than many of the modern versions, including the New International Version. It uses a simpler vocabulary. The problems in understanding the KJV are easily solved with a concordance and a dictionary. I know many people who speak English as a second language who prefer the KJV to the modern English versions. Many of the men we work with in our county jail ministry have a weak education and are functionally illiterate. I have found, though, that many of them love the King James Bible better than the modern versions and are able to understand it with a little help with some of the antiquated words. I would much rather have an accurate Bible that requires study than an inaccurate Bible that requires no study.
Some protest, "But the KJV uses thee, thou, thy, thine and ye, you, your, and yours." This is in its favor. These terms are not used in the KJV merely because it is an old Bible, but because it seeks to make a crucial distinction in English between the singular and plural of the second person pronoun, a distinction made in the Hebrew and Greek, but not made in the modern English versions. The English Bible student who uses the KJV can see exactly what the Greek pronouns are, whether singular or plural.
Consider Matthew 26:64, for example -- "Jesus saith unto him, Thou [singular] hast said: nevertheless I say unto you [plural], Hereafter shall ye [plural] see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."
This pronominal accuracy is lost in the modern English versions because they have cast aside the older, more precise form of English which gives such a distinction.
In the King James Bible we have the correct Hebrew and Greek text translated into accurate English. It is dependable. The New Living Translation reads like the morning newspaper, but it is not dependable textually or translationally. The modern dynamic equivalency method of translation is evil because it robs the people of God's words. Though the older modern versions, such as the ASV and the NASV, were based on the wrong manuscripts and therefore contained textual corruptions, at least they sought to render a faithful translation of the text which was before them. The dynamic equivalency translator is convinced he has the authority to change everything. Who has given him this authority? We believe this is a very fearful thing, and we would not participate in it for all the money in the world.