Why is this book on the shelf? 3.5 Bibles

Book reviews II: A limited series

Miniature books, photo by Holly

In my tiny living space, everything I own needs a good reason to be kept.¹ Superfluous items will be eliminated. Even books must be culled to fit my limited shelf space. So why do I have three Bibles and a New Testament? Surely one good translation is enough to keep in printed and bound form? I have an e-reader I could use for extra copies.

I do have three Bibles on my e-reader. But as a verbal learner with a photographic memory, I recall printed information by visualizing words on their page. The pages of an e-book shift with font size changes, making it harder to relocate a text. The Bible is foundational to my faith, but it is such a complex document that I am perpetually studying it, rereading passages, turning back and forth between its books, and comparing translations. All that is simpler with physical copies.

1. King James Version, Clarion Reference, Cambridge University Press

I grew up with the King James Version (KJV) in a church with links to KJV-only fundamentalism. I learned all the arguments why new Bible translations were evil. As a teen, I believed them. The homeschool Program my family joined issued a KJV Hebrew-Greek Study Bible stamped with their logo. I was the proud young owner of a copy. As told elsewhere, a study note in that Program Bible threatened my faith and sanity.² The KJV was a bystander to my teenage torment. Why do I still have a copy?

I jettisoned the Program’s Bible years ago. To replace it, I needed a Bible that was printed in paragraphs, not double reference columns; a Bible that had no notes other than cross references and alternate translations or definitions of words; a Bible that didn’t print the words of Christ in red. I found the Clarion Reference edition, issued by Cambridge University Press for the 400^th anniversary of the KJV. It was very expensive and I had very little disposable income, but I scraped the money together.

Left to right: Poetic prophesy, Prose in paragraphs, & Completed paragraphs

When it arrived, I opened it and saw the Bible anew. Paragraphs sometimes ran across chapter endings and beginnings, where chapters had separated a complete thought. The poetry was printed in verse. The prophetic books of the Old Testament had always been turgid and dense in meaning to me. The Clarion edition showed large sections of the prophets were written in verse. Visualizing prophesy as poetry clarified its meaning for me.

The Clarion edition has the original introduction from 1611, ‘The translators to the reader’, which refutes latter day KJV-only sectarians who say the KJV is the only Bible translation:

Now to the latter we answer, That we do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English set forth by men of our profession containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God: as the King’s speech which he uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King’s speech, though it be not interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, every where.³

I loved the format of my new KJV Bible, but the language was too familiar. In my first quarter century, I had memorized large portions of the KJV, read it several times, and heard it read daily and preached weekly. When I recall a Bible verse, I usually speak it in the KJV. Yet the familiar phrases also recall how it was misquoted and misapplied to my torment.

This year, with

Karen Swallow Prior

, I began reading the poetry and devotions of John Donne.⁴ Donne wrote during the reign of King James I, who authorized the KJV. Reading Donne has shifted the KJV’s context. Instead of self-righteous and hypocritical 20^th century fundamentalism, I now see early 17^th century England. The reign of James I was as flawed as any time in human history, but for a brief moment, a new Bible translation attempted to unify Protestant factions. Renaissance scholarship met modern English as popularized by Shakespeare, who lived and wrote into James’ reign. John Donne, a literary genius in his own right, was an example of what a clergyman should be, genuinely repentant for past sin, generous and caring toward his congregation, faithful and loving to his wife and children, and ever growing in adoration for his God. The King James Version is not only a scholarly translation; it is also, like Donne’s poetry and Shakespeare’s plays, a beautiful work of English literature.

2. Christian Standard Bible, Holman Bible Publishers

Left to Right: Cover with nurse’s lamp, columns of prophesy, & columns of prose

I encountered new Bible translations on my journey as I attended new churches and met other Christians. As I listened to well known truths read with different English words, I was reminded of a quote by C. S. Lewis:

– we must sometimes get away from the Authorised Version [KJV], if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame or struck dumb with terror or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adoration.⁵

During the pandemic, my parents gave me an edition of the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) for nurses, stamped with my initials. There are a few devotions for nurses in the back, but otherwise, it is a regular Bible. Its small size makes it convenient to carry around. The text is in two columns, but the verses are arranged in paragraph or verse format. The only drawback is that the words of Jesus printed in red are harder to read as my eyes age.

The dynamic-equivalency translation method used for the CSB generally produces an accurate and readable translation. It often clarifies imagery that is obscure in the KJV, such as this passage in the prophetic book of Isaiah (22:25):

KJV: ‘In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it.’

CSB: ‘On that day”—the declaration of the Lord of Armies—“the peg that was driven into a firm place will give way, be cut off, and fall, and the load on it will be destroyed.” Indeed, the Lord has spoken.’

The CSB does sometimes soften harsh imagery, as in the story of David, Nabal and Abigail in the first book of Samuel (25:22):

“May God punish me and do so severely if I let any of his males survive until morning.”

The CSB marginal notes admit ‘any of his males’ in David’s angry oath is more accurately translated by the KJV:

“So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.”

One main argument I often heard against modern English Bible translations, was that they take out key passages in the Gospels. The KJV, its sectarians emphasize, is translated from the Textus Receptus, a critical text by Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536), compiled from Greek New Testament manuscripts available to him. Most modern translations use a critical text called the Nestle-Aland, compiled by a number of modern Greek scholars.

The Nestle-Aland critical text uses more Greek manuscripts than Erasmus had, some older than the ones Erasmus could access. These older manuscripts have raised questions about Mark 16:9-20, one of the Jesus’ appearances to his disciples after his resurrection, and John 7:53-8:11, the story of the woman taken in adultery. The passages are either missing or moved in older manuscripts. Neither passage is essential to core Christian beliefs. The CSB keeps these passages, merely noting they are not in all manuscripts.

0.5. Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ (The New Testament), United Bible Societies

As a Canadian child, learning another language was part of school. My mother used tapes and picture books to teach us basic French words and phrases. When my family joined the U.S.-based Program, the only language the material offered was Koine Greek, the original dialect of the New Testament. We memorized the Greek alphabet and some vocabulary, but learned little else. On my own, I ardently studied the first few chapters of Essentials of New Testament Greek before losing momentum. I grasped that Greek had case endings, but the uses of each case puzzled me.

When I attended university for a degree in nursing, I had to take elective courses in any subject outside my degree program. Among the courses I signed up for was Ancient Greek, a language useful for healthcare, since most medical terminology is derived from Greek. It was Attic Greek, the Athenian dialect of Plato and Thucydides, not the Koine of the New Testament. But once the professor shared the opening of the Gospel of John to make an obscure, skeptical, point about the preposition προς [pros]:⁶

Έν άρχη ήν ο Λόγος, και ο Λόγος ήν προς τον Θεον, και Θεος ήν ο Λόγος.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The point was a bit irrelevant since several centuries separate the Greek of ancient Athens and the Greek of Roman-occupied Palestine. But it was fascinating to read Koine. The course explained case endings better, although Attic and Koine have slightly different cases. I memorized the endings for the exams and promptly forgot them, but I learned to distinguish Greek pronouns from prepositions.

At the close of the pandemic, I worked with refugees in Greece for a short time. While there, I attended a Greek church. After two years of isolation, it was beautiful to share the αρτος (bread) and οίνος (wine). Living in Greek neighbourhoods, I began to learn new words. One of the first I learned was for thanks, pronounced efcharistό and spelt ευχαριστώ – in Roman characters, eucharisto – and I suddenly understood that Eucharist means thanksgiving.

When I returned home, I looked for a Koine New Testament. I did not want an interlinear, as a literal English translation running over the Greek lines is distracting. The first one I found turned out to not be in Koine, but in formal modern Greek, known as Katharevousa. I tried again and found a parallel edition in both the modern vernacular, or Demotic, Greek and Koine.

Left to right: John 1 in Koine, Katharevousa, & Demotic Greek

Here is the first verse of the Gospel of Matthew – “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” – first in Koine, then Katharevousa, and finally, Demotic Greek:

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ίησου Χριστου, υιου Δαυείδ, υιου Αβραάμ.

Βιβλίον της ιστορίας του Ίησου Χριστου, του υιου του Δαυίδ, του υιου του Αβραάμ.

Ο γενεαλογικος αυτος κατάλογος δείχνει πως Ιησούς Χριστός καταγόταν απο το Δαβίδ, απόγονο του Αβραάμ.

Even an untrained eye can see that Koine and Katharevousa are similar, while Demotic is completely different. Yet all three have words used in English. Βίβλος/ Βιβλίον [biblos/biblion] is book or bible. The word for ‘generations’ in Koine is γενέσεως [geneseos], whose root has birthed many words, from Genesis to generate to gene.⁷ In Katharevousa, ‘generations’ is ιστορίας [historias], which is self-explanatory. The Demotic for ‘book of the generations’ uses the words γενεαλογικος [genealogikos], as in genealogy, and κατάλογος [katalogos], as in catalogue. My accidentally tripled Greek New Testament is an etymological gold mine.

3. Santa Biblia, Version Reina-Valera 1909, Broadman & Holman Publishers

I have formally and informally studied five languages, but it seems whenever I begin to have linguistic success, something occurs to stop my learning. When I emerged at 19 from the Program with only the GED I earned on my own, it took time to settle on nursing. In the between years, I worked odd jobs and took evening community college classes in French and Spanish. I completed a French proficiency certificate, but the final level of Spanish was cancelled due to lack of registrants.

I used my Spanish once during that time, when I went with a team to help in northern Mexico. Colombian and Venezuelan instructors cannot really prepare one for Mexican street slang, but I could make myself understood. My family supported my language studies. One Christmas, I got a Reina-Valera translation of the Bible. The Reina-Valera could be described as the KJV of Spanish translations, as it was originally completed in 1569 and then revised in 1602. Since then, it has been repeatedly revised. I have the 1909 revision.

After my Spanish acquisition sputtered to a complete halt, I considered giving away my Reina-Valera, but I always hoped I had it for a reason. During the next decade and a half, I kept a partial reading comprehension of Spanish and occasionally looked up verses in the Reina-Valera. When I was in Greece, I met people from nearly every continent who had also come to help. The common tongue was usually English, but a favourite conversation topic was the other languages we spoke.

One day, I met a clergyman from Spain. After I haltingly told him I had studied Spanish, he talked to me in a mixture of Spanish and English. He wanted to know why I had studied his language and learned I had not used it for many years. At the end of the conversation, he slipped completely into Spanish. I had studied American Spanish, and he spoke Andalusian Spanish with its slight lisp on certain sibilants.

I cannot reproduce the Spanish words he spoke, but neither did I need to translate them into English as I listened. I simply understood his meaning. This is the sense of what he said:

Nothing is ever wasted. Sometimes we will not understand the purpose for something until many, many years later. There was a reason you studied Spanish. God will show it to you.

I never saw the clergyman again. Shortly after, I left Greece sooner than planned due to health problems. I keep my Reina-Valera in memory of his words.

1. Why is this book on the shelf? 'Blood Feud' & 'The Midwife’s Apprentice'

2. The Unseen Wound

3. The Holy Bible. Clarion Reference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

4. John Donne: "Death, Be Not Proud"

5. Lewis, C. S. God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids: Erdmans Publishing Company, 1970.

6. Apologies to Greek readers, my computer script did not have all the accents.

7. The root of γενέσεως, a feminine noun, means ‘source’ or ‘origin’ and is sometimes used to mean ‘birth’ in the New Testament.