BACK TO BIBLE TRUTH!

A sermon by Dr. Walter A. Maier
Christian News, Vol. 51, No. 39, October 14, 2013
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. — Proverbs. 1:7
God, most mighty and compassionate: We raise thank-filled hearts this afternoon to praise the love and power that have preserved unto us Thy saving Word. But earnestly do we entreat Thee that this promise of salvation through the blood of Thy Son may continue its blessed work in our hearts, our homes, our churches, our nation. Rise up in Thy strength, O Lord of hosts, to defeat the hell-born counsel of those who would destroy the message of the Cross. Give to the education of the young devout leaders who are not ashamed of Thy Son and His Gospel. Grant unto us Christian homes, as fortresses of Christian faith; pious parents who will teach Thy truth to their children; faithful pastors who seek to please Thee and not to please men. And as this Word now speeds out into Thy firmament, endow it with the power of Thy Spirit, so that it may bless many with the Savior’s promise, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." We ask this in His blessed name. Amen.
THE recent brilliant gathering of American scientists in St. Louis forcefully reminded us that our age has sworn complete hostility to every form of ignorance. As the vast panorama of progress unfolds itself before us, we behold restless research penetrating far beyond the fringe of civilization. In the silence of an Antarctic night a dogsled mushes along, carrying an expedition that would wrest nature’s secrets from her frozen grasp. In a fever-infested jungle a doctor lies in wait to discover a new treatment for the ravages of epidemic. Archeologists remove the debris of the centuries from Mesopotamian mounds; astronomers camp on South Sea islands to observe a solar eclipse; physicists measure cosmic rays; chemists are on the quest of a new element, biologists scrutinize life cells; electrical wizards create superenergies. We are thrilled by the voyages into the stratosphere and by the submarine descents into the bathysphere; we read with astonishment of the revolutionary discoveries in sound and light transmission; and on all sides we behold investigations that daily extend the human horizon and help to make this the age of history’s greatest enlightenment.
The Church views all this as a special benediction from God. It does not hide its head in the sand of ignorance while the pageant of science marches on. Wherever the Cross of Christ is raised, ignorance is banished, and the arts and the sciences are systematically promoted. The greatest schools of the world were founded by the Church, just as the greatest minds of the ages have been Christians. It is only when human reason rules out God and blasphemously raises unholy hands to pull down the Savior’s Cross that the Church voices its uncompromising protest.
This rebuke must be reaffirmed today because avowed atheists are too frequently and too securely enthroned in the high and low places of American education. Your sons and daughters in the plastic age of high-school adolescence or in the four formative years of college life are sometimes exposed to the soul-blighting influence of men who go out of their way to lampoon the Christian religion. In hundreds of tax-supported schools the basic American principle that our public education is to be free from anti-religious influence is willfully swept aside. In hundreds of pulpits — and could any disloyalty more quickly invoke the wrath of God Almighty? — clerical unbelief joins in the away-with-God, away-with-the-Bible campaign to exalt the triumph of reason over religion.
My appeal to you this afternoon, based on the words in the seventh verse, first chapter, of the Book of Proverbs, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," asks your interest, your prayers, your action, for a wide-spread Christian awakening under the cry: —BACK TO BIBLE TRUTH! an issue which means far more to this nation and its eighth of a billion inhabitants than the absorbing events which mightily engage our attention. THE BIBLE AS THE BASIS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE There is no fear of God either in the beginning or in the end of much that is paraded as the assured results of modern investigation. We read the opening verse of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"; but before we have completed the verse, loud objections are raised. "God created the world?" we are challenged. ‘Why, any high-school teacher can tell you that we are too far advanced to believe in Genesis." "We know definitely," they continue, "that this earth came into being at least two thousand million years ago (the minimum figure according to the latest outline of science), when by sheer chance a wandering star approached too closely to the sun and tore off a cigar-shaped filament to form the earth."
We read on in the Scriptures to find man as God’s masterpiece, made in His divine image. But again the voice of denial taunts: "God created man? Don’t you know we have proof positive of man’s gradual ascent — again by purest chance — from primary organisms that clung to slimy rocks? Don’t you know that our natural-history museums offer exhibits which verify man’s ape ancestry?"
We turn to the second chapter of Genesis to learn that, as God’s supreme creation, man was endowed with the intelligent gift of speech. "But," we are warned, "if you believe this, you show a second-rate mentality; for investigation has proved that the first hairy apelike monkey-man could not speak and only accidentally learned to imitate the sounds and cries of his animal world."
As we turn each page of the Bible, new batteries of hatred are trained against God’s Word; and because even churchmen are straddling the issue or are bowing down before the gilded idol of "science falsely so called;’ as sponsored by men whose names leap from head-line to headline in our newspapers and showy magazines, this blatant atheism threatens to warp the mind of America’s rising generation and to hoodwink them into believing they must bid the Bible farewell if they would be enlightened, intelligent, and up to date.
The Church must mobilize; for this stabbing denial strikes deep into the vitals of our Christian faith. If we cannot accept the first pages of the Bible, how can we believe the last? Let there be no mistake about this basic fact: you cannot deny any one statement from Genesis to Revelation without weakening the entire authority of the Scriptures. It is either the whole Bible or no Bible.
What, then, is the Church’s task in this struggle between God and the brute, between the providential guidance of a heavenly Father and blind chance? What else can it be than to reaffirm its faith in the truth that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning" of all knowledge and to show the failure, the insufficiency, the deceit, that lurk in every theory that would pull God down from His heavens?
Remember there is no uniformity in the attacks led by the generalissimos of atheism. For instance, the Exhibit A, the star witness in the defense of evolution, is the Java fossils widely hailed as the remains of the first apelike man. Now, not I nor the Church, but the Smithsonian Institution in Washington lists fifteen major points on which scientists hold contradictory opinions concerning these three bone fragments. They are not even agreed that the fossils belong to one creature. Many hold that they are ape remains. In spite of this wide-spread disagreement and the suspicious way in which these bones have been handled they are employed by imagination, not by science, to construct a slinking, brutish, apelike man, who is to demonstrate that the Bible account of creation is an exploded myth. I ask the members in this audience, entirely apart from the religious issues, whether any court in the land could admit testimony as contradictory as this.
Glaring errors crop out on every page of scientific history. The great Huxley announced that he had found the primary living substance in slimy ooze at the bottom of the sea. Congratulations poured in upon him. The scientific world was agog for a decade or two, until it was found that this gelatine life which was to disprove divine creation and to establish brute origin was concocted when a quantity of alcohol was poured into a bottle of sea water. Medical anesthesia was denied by scientists; the action of microbes ridiculed, the telephone declared ventriloquism, railroad construction branded as an absurdity, meteors ruled out as impossible, the theory that the blood circulates through the body regarded as stupid twaddle.
A lecturer at the American Academy of Science derided the idea of piping water to the upper floors of a building. A German scientist of the last century declared that nerve impulses could never be measured; yet at the recent convention in St. Louis the biology department of Washington University exhibited apparatus that, besides serving other purposes, recorded exact nerve measurements.
Besides, this cutthroat criticism of the Bible has perpetually been marked by misrepresentations. The great Haeckel, who for years dominated scientific biological thought in Germany, stooped to falsehood and fraudulently used the same illustration to picture the embryo of a dog, an ape, and a man.
Now, my purpose in naming a few of these major blunders committed, not by dabbling amateurs, but by recognized research leaders, is not to discredit their work; for we profit even by mistakes and advance by trial and error investigations. I simply want to repeat what the greatest scientists themselves have declared, that a system which has wandered into so many blind alleys, which has repeatedly been marked by mistakes, cannot rightfully claim to offer us the absolute truth now nor demand that its findings be substituted for the eternal Word. Are you ready to build on shifting sands, to base your hopes on theories that are advocated to-day only to be discarded tomorrow? Or do you want that Word of which God Himself says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away"?
We must hark back to the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom; for without that reverence, crime and godlessness in our nation will run on to ruin. You cannot exile God without banishing morality, virtue, law, and order. Why is it that today crime has followed in the footsteps of each bold advance of atheism; that cold-blooded murder and bestial lust are taking the greatest toll in all American history? Is all this not because the philosophy of the brute has assumed the upper hand in many hearts and lives, because Wanton lecturers are invading our campuses to scream in one of their pointed slogans:
"Animals we are, and animals we remain"? Is it only a coincidence that the terrible World War was fought in an age of highest culture and intellectual advance? You know that behind every declaration of war lurked the obsession of power, the ambitions for profits (and true patriots serve without pay and without 30,000,000 dripping dollars’ commission), the whole cruel survival-of-the-fittest mania that helped to catapult nations into blood, misery, scurvy, starvation, insanity, suicide.
I ask you, the Christian men and women of America, to find in Christian education the first antidote to the double-strength poison. We must do more than train the mind; we must influence the soul, and for that, Jesus says, "without Me ye can do nothing." A college degree may be the evidence of mental cleverness, but it is no certificate to morality. An illiterate murderer kills with an ax and pays the penalty; but the college killer invents slow tortures for his writhing victims and cheats justice through unprincipled attorneys. You will often find that the men or women behind the lust and the filth of the sensuous novel or the debauch of cheap printed obscenity are college graduates. An unlearned thief, shivering in the breadline, will steal food from municipal headquarters; but the sleek, well-nourished college-trained extortioner will steal the city’s treasury.
Now, to provide for Christian education which not only will mold the mind, but strengthen the heart, and which emphasizes the fear of the Lord as the beginning of every branch of knowledge, the congregations of my Church have established almost 1,400 Christian day-schools throughout the nation, where the love of Christ and the principles of true Christianity are taught daily. The facilities of most of these schools are offered free of charge to parents who wish to give their children a moral basis in life, religious reverence, the spiritual hope that comes with Christ. I shall be glad to write to any of you personally and tell you how your children may enroll in these Christian schools, just as I shall consider it a privilege to give you further information on Christian colleges in which the fear of the Lord permeates the lectures and the lives of the instructors. THE BIBLE AS THE BASIS OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE In a much more exalted sense, however, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all spiritual wisdom; for it is only when men reverently and penitently approach God in Christ that they find the crystal-clear truth for their everlasting salvation.
Have you ever stopped to realize that there are only two kinds of religion? The one — call it by as many different names as you will, disguise it in as many different ways as you can, — a class of man-made religions, is solidly united in offering heaven as a payment, a reward for character and accomplishment, in demanding of its followers that they earn their way into heaven and pay for blessedness by good works, good intentions, and good resolutions. And on the other side, separated by an unbridged chasm, is that true soul wisdom which proclaims, "Christ died for our sins," and reaffirms the promise of God that, when the "bleeding Head and wounded" dropped into death with the gasp "It is finished," Christ earned all, gave all, paid all, so that His word holds for all the immeasurable glory of this free, unconditioned, unrestricted, unlimited Gospel faith: "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."
Other teachers have left their followers clutched by paralyzing fear of the hereafter; but it is the eternally blessed Christ who offers heaven as a blessed certainty, so that timid and weary souls can do more than yearn for heaven, pray for heaven, hope for heaven; they can rejoice in heaven, repeating the sacred conviction that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
Cold-blooded anti-Biblical science makes man a human accident. Under its cruel teachings life becomes a hard, unsolved mystery, full of question-marks, leading through heaped disappointments to a futile end. But Christ’s heavenly wisdom comes to the aid of millions who have felt the cold, hard impact of the last years to tell them that in Christ we are the children of God; that through faith in His redemption He becomes the guiding, strengthening, interpreting, atoning force in our hearts and lives; that whatever befalls us, even broken promises, accidents, sieges of sickness, bankruptcy, and impoverishment, all may serve, through Christ, to refine our faith, purify our desires, and strengthen our courage.
Now, we may not be able to understand all the sacred truths of the Christian faith — the profound mystery that Christ is both divine and human, that His blood is the cleansing power for all human sin, that the Holy Spirit works in human hearts to make new-born men and women. But are there not thousands of factors in our every-day life that we cannot understand and explain? You cannot account for the powers and processes by which a single seed of an elm-tree planted in the ground first decays and then sprouts forth to become a mighty tree, which in the course of its life may produce one thousand five hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds; yet you know that there are elm-trees and that they grow in this way. You cannot understand the processes by which my voice is brought to you through hundreds of miles in the fraction of a second; yet there is no doubt that you in this moment hear these words. Now, if we are surrounded by unnumbered facts, all far beyond the power of our analysis and understanding, yet each real and actual, would it not be a double folly, as Jesus reminded Nicodemus, to spurn the invitation of Christ’s mercies because we cannot explain them by the processes of our slow and narrow reasoning? You cannot prove the truth of Christ’s redemption by laboratory methods. His special blessing embraces those "that have not seen and yet have believed," who have the witness of the Spirit in their own hearts.
This blessing of unshaken confidence would I invoke upon your hearts as I ask you to join that great company of courageous witnesses who have heard Jesus say to His Father, "Thy Word is truth," and who believe it — men of world-wide renown like Virchow, the great pathologist, whose last prayer, spoken in the presence of his fellow-scientists, was the confession: — Jesus’ blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; Pasteur, whose revolutionary discoveries in preventive medicine have saved thousands of lives, yet who confessed: "The more I know, the more nearly my faith is that of a Breton peasant"; Brewster, physicist, showered with international honors, who declared: "It is presumptuous to doubt Christ’s Word"; Fleming, authority in electricity, whose inventions paved the way for broadcasting, who writes: "Nothing in the... facts or principles of science forbids belief in the Gospel miracles."
In the midst of this Epiphany season I ask you, then, to come with the mind of the Magi; and as these Oriental sages and scientists laid their tribute at the feet of the Christ-child, I beseech you in His name to offer the gold of your courageous faith, the frankincense of your abiding hope, and the myrrh of your increasing devotion. Amen. [This Lutheran Hour sermon first aired in January 1936]
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Posted by Christian News at
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Time for a Lutheran Translation of the Bible
“Can We Trust Modern Versions?” by Professor John T. Mueller in the April, 1948 Concordia Theological Monthly, published by The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and edited by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, said:
“The objection that we Lutherans should not use a Bible translation different from others no longer holds, since the various churches are divided in the use of various translations. Would, it then, not make for unity, rather than disunity to have a reliable Lutheran Bible translation?”
Mueller is the Editor of the 800 page Concordia New Testament with Notes published by Concordia Publishing House in 1942. His Christian Dogmatics, published by CPH in 1934, is a one volume epitome of Francis Pieper’s 3 volume “Christliche Dogmatik.” J.T. Mueller is the author of many books and hundreds of articles. In 1957 he asked his student, Herman Otten, to inform the top officials of the LCMS about what various liberals were teaching at Concordia Seminary. These reports led to the Concordia Seminary vs. Otten case. Mueller encouraged Otten to become a journalist and then supported Christian News.
Since 1948 many more new translations of both the New Testament and the entire Bible have been published. Scores of them have been reviewed in Christian News during the last 50 years. Christian News has published hundreds of articles showing that Beck’s AAT, while not perfect, is by far the most accurate and reliable modern translation of the Bible in the language of today and closer to Luther’s translation than any other translation. Beck noted that his translation was closer to Luther’s than any other not because he followed Luther, but because both he and Luther followed the Hebrew and Greek text. Some of the many articles Christian News has published on Bible translation are in the Christian News Encyclopedia and Christian Handbook on Vital Issues. The pages of CN have been open to anyone who tried to show Beck’s AAT was not accurate and in the language of today. Defenders of the RSV and ESV have declined to debate the ESV vs. the AAT.
The Cross
Both Luther’s and Beck’s translations more clearly than any other, particularly in their translation of key messianic prophecies, show that Jesus Christ is at the heart and center of both the Old and New Testament.
When Christian News published Beck’s AAT in 1975, CN placed this symbol on the cover CN included this explanation by Beck on p. iii:
This is the word for “cross” in papyrus 75, our oldest manuscript of Luke. It is found in this special form at Luke 9:23; 14:27; 24:7.
If you spell out this Greek word, it is stauron. But the letters au are omitted and their omission is indicated by the line above the word. Then r, which in Greek has the form of a p, is superimposed on the t so that we have a head suggesting a body on a cross.
“Cross” is the only word in the manuscript selected for such a special design. The Savior, crucified for us, is the reason why the Bible was written – and why it is here translated.
x x x
Beck was excited when more than 50 years ago he first showed CN this word for cross in papyrus 75. Beck was the LCMS’s leading textual scholar and combined Greek and Hebrew translator. He could read these languages as fast as he could read English. As the author of Bible Stories in Pictures, regularly mailed to thousands of Sunday schools, Beck used the language of today. When William Arndt died, Beck taught Arndt’s classes in textual criticism. “The Staurogram – Earliest Depiction of Jesus’ Crucifixion” by Larry W. Hurtado, in the March/April, 2013, Biblical Archaeological Review, the “World’s Largest Circulation Biblical Archaeological Magazine” confirmed what Beck wrote about stauron.
Acquainting Congregations With AATA Christian News reader in Minnesota recently wrote to Christian News:
“We spoke two weeks ago, at which time I inquired about the availability of an inexpensive AAT New Testament. I am enclosing a couple of examples of the N.T.s we are currently distributing for your examination. The ESV is available for $1.00 each in case lots; the little shirt-pocket NIV is approximately $1.75 each (both prices include shipping). I seem to recall that the NIV N.T.s were available in the past without the Psalms & Proverbs for about $1.00 each. An AAT version would be a valuable outreach tool, as well as an inexpensive means of acquainting a congregation with this translation.
As soon as funds permit, CN plans to publish an inexpensive paperback editor of the Lutheran translation of the New Testament plus Psalms based on William Beck’s An American Translation of the Bible.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Concordia Publishing House in 1963 published Beck’s AAT. An LCMS convention asked CPH to publish the entire AAT. CPH first said it would. Then CPH announced that a market survey showed that CPH would not make much money publishing the AAT. Liberals in the LCMS also wanted the LCMS to use the Revised Standard Version of the National Council of Churches. If the LCMS published its own translation of the Bible, liberals feared it would keep the LCMS out of the ecumenical movement. Christian News then published the AAT which CPH had intended to publish after CPH spent many thousands of dollars editing Becks’ AAT. Such confessional Lutheran editors as Rudolf Norden, Erich Allwardt, Reinhold Stallmann, and Elmer Foelber worked hundreds of hours at CPH on the translation. Once CPH declined to publish the AAT, they urged CN to publish the translation they had prepared for publication. Their advice was: Publish the AAT now and then invite others to submit revision. CN included in the first editor of the AAT various suggestions made by the LCMS’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations.
In 1975 CN sent a free copy of the AAT to every LCMS congregation. The editor’s preface concluded: “No translation is perfect. Suggestions for any future printing will be gratefully accepted and considered.”
LCMS President Attacks Beck and AATBeck’s AAT was well received in the LCMS. Some 250,000 copies were mailed from New Haven, Missouri. LCMS President Jacob Preus did not appreciate an independent press. He ordered Christian News to cease publication. He feared the AAT was putting “a feather in Otten’s hat.” When CPH published Beck’s New Testament, Preus registered no concerns about Beck and the AAT. After CN published Beck’s entire AAT, Preus went on a vicious campaign vs. Beck and the AAT. One of his public letters to Otten was 19 pages in length. Preus insisted Beck did not defend the scriptural doctrine of justification in his New Testament translation. Christian News published articles by confessional Lutheran scholars defending Beck.
Revision Committee Christian News formed a revision committee of leading confessional Lutheran theologians and laymen for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They met at Camp Trinity, New Haven, Missouri and evaluated the many suggestions Christian News had received for improvement. A good number of changes were made.
In preparation for the fourth edition of the AAT, CN asked Dr. John Drickamer, a qualified translator of Hebrew and Greek and an expert in the English language to go through the entire AAT, smoothing out some of the English and incorporating any valid textual changes that had been suggested by various scholars throughout the years. Dr. Robert Preus – former president of Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana and one of the scholars thanked in former AAT editions for translation contributions, highly recommended Dr. Drickamer as a well-informed scholar.
John Drickamer Dr. Drickamer wrote in 1999 in an article titled: “What Do You Want in a Bible?” “The beauty of the AAT is its simplicity. No other modern Bible translation can compare to it for combing in clarity and accuracy. Some are fairly clear but not very accurate. Some are fairly accurate but not very clear. Among modern translations only AAT is very clear and very accurate.”
Drickamer included in the Fourth Edition of the AAT valid improvements of Beck’s work made I The New Testament – God’s Word to the Nations edited by Phil Giessler and other confessional Lutherans.
Louis Brighton of the LCMS Few knew William Beck better than Louis Brighton, now a retired professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He is the author of CPH’s scholarly commentary on Revelation. When Beck died in 1966 Brighton wrote:
“Of all the learned essays and pronouncements and the thousands of words in print from the official offices and theological professional gatherings so little of it means anything at all or has any significant influence in the life of the Church. But the work and words and spirit of this man, William F. Beck, will long speak to the heart and needs of people.”
Henry Koch of the WELSHenry Koch of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, who taught for some years at the LCMS’s Concordia College, Bronxville, New York, earned his PH.D. at the University of Leipzig at a time when this university was at its height. Koch wrote when CN published the AAT: Dr. Beck “was a Christian scholar and I cherish his translation much more that nanny other, because he is at the same time a truly Lutheran and Christian scholar. For many other scientific renown means more than anything else. I want scholarly and truly Christian fidelity to the text. Dr. Beck serves this cause in every respect.
Dr. Koch wrote in an article titled “Why Lutherans Should Use the AAT – An Evaluation of the AAT and NIV Bible Translations” (The Christian News Encyclopedia, I. 111-3): “I heartily endorse the truly Lutheran translation of Dr. Beck together with the added improvements mentioned above, but I cannot endorse the NIV for reasons of conscience bound by Scriptures and mentioned in my evaluation. Here we have a chance of obtaining a Lutheran translation of our own minting. I hope that we can work together for an even better translation and edition whenever necessary. To me it seems as though our dear Lord of the Church is showing us a way of reaching the noble goal of a truly Lutheran translation of the Bible in these later days.”
Rudolph Honsey of the ELSRudolph Honsey is a retired professor of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s Bethany College. He was a member of the AAT revision committee and the author of the WELS’s Northwestern Publishing Houses’ The People’s Bible Commentary on Job. While the fine People’s Bible Commentary promoted by Christian News uses the NIV, it often points out the weaknesses of the NIV. Commenting on Job 19:23-27, Honsey writes:
“The NIV, in which the text for this book is given, translates the verb in the first line of verse 26 ‘has been destroyed.’ Most English versions translate it similarly. The King James Version adds the word ‘worms’: ‘Worms destroy this body.’ As the italics in the KJV indicate, that word is not in the Hebrew text. The translation ‘has been destroyed,’ as in the NIV, is surely a possible translation.
“Although most versions translate the verb with the meaning of ‘destroy,’ it can be translated differently. In his German Bible Martin Luther translates that word with the German expression ‘umgeben warden,’ which means be surrounded.” William F. Beck also translates it in that manner in his American Translation. That translation has support from two early translations of the Old Testament: the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, a few centuries before Christ, and the Latin translation known as the Vulgate, about A.D. 400” (132-133).
* * *
“The authors of one of our Lutheran confessions, The Formula of Concord, also understood that verb to mean ‘surround’ rather than ‘destroy.’ In his Popular Commentary of the Bible, Old Testament, Volume II, P. E. Kretzmann interprets that word to mean ‘surround’ rather than ‘destroy.’
‘The author of this volume of The People’s Bible also prefers the translation ‘surround.’ While it is certainly true that our bodies will decay and our skin will be destroyed in death, it is equally true that each of us will be raised up with the same body and one’s own skin, but in a glorified condition.
It appears to this w1iter that the entire verse (26) speaks of the resurrection” (133).
Jack Cascione Jack Cascione, who worked on revision of the AAT, wrote in “Unique Features of Beck’s Old Testament” (Christian News, August 22, 2001):
“First and foremost Dr. William Beck was an Old Testament scholar. His goal was to have readers gain a deeper understanding of the Biblical text in his An American Translation. Beck’s translation of Micah 1:8-16 is an example of his attempt to translate the meaning of a text rather than present a strictly literal translation. One of the arts of translation is to decide when God is intending a literal meaning versus a figurative or metaphoric meaning.”
“Beck is clearly an innovator. His insights into the Old Testament have no equal in 20th Century English translations, which is why the NIV and others of the borrowed his innovations and incorporated them into their own translations. His daring translation is partly due to the fact that he is more certain of his theology than other translators. We have yet to find a translator who captures the rhythm of the text and intended meaning of the Minor Prophets more than Beck.”
Diatheke Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20 1 Corinthians 11:25 AAT, Fourth Edition, KJV: “This is My blood of the New Testament” ESV, NIV, NASB, NKJV: “This is My blood of the covenant.”
Baptists, Pentecostals, and nearly all Reformed denominations say the word should be “covenant” instead of “testament.” One new translation of the Bible after another show the legalistic, law-loving, I-gave-my-life-to-Jesus Baptist/Reformed bias, by using the word “covenant.” “Is it ‘New Testament’ or ‘New Covenant’: What does Luther Say” by Jack Cascione, Luther Today – What Would He do or Say, pp. 92, 97: “We have to ask why Concordia Publishing House doesn’t publish a Bible that agrees with Luther on the Lord’s Supper? (Why Does Rev. Paul McCain and CPH now promote the ESV rather than the AAT?),” Jack Cascione. Note what the “New Testament – God’s Word to the Nations” (GWN) says about Diatheke, pp. 531-540.
Scott Meyer, Retired Attorney and President of the Concordia Historical Institute “•As a confessional and orthodox Lutheran layman, I confess the authority, inerrancy, efficacy, and sufficiency of the Bible, and that Scripture interprets Scripture. Hebrews 2:9 clearly teaches that the preceding verses 6-8 which it cited from Psalm 8:4-6, refer to Jesus. Therefore, the confessional and orthodox Lutheran interpretation of Psalm 8, as in Luther and AAT, must be that it teaches of Christ the “son of man,” rather than “man.”
“• The foregoing interpretation of Psalm 8 is consistent with the Confessions of the Lutheran Church, as seen from the Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article VIII, “Person of Christ,” The Book of Concord, Kolb/Wengert, p. 621. It is also consistent with the Missouri Synod’s leading dogmatician, F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. 11, The Doctrine of Christ,” at pp. 158-159, “Communicated Omnipotence” and p. 329, “Christ’s Session at God’s Right Hand.” According to David P. Scaer, Christology, pp.105-106, in Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, Vol. VI, Pieper is in agreement with what the ‘older Lutheran teachers-Martin Chemnitz, John Gerhard, John Quenstadt, David Hollaz’ -- have written on this issue. In summary, Christian News has it right.”
Ed. The LCMS’s CTCR and the ESV promoted through CPH in most LCMS churches disagrees with Luther and says Psalm 8 does not refer to Jesus Christ. It’s time for a Lutheran Translation of the Bible which uses Beck’s AAT as a start.
(Christian News, September 16, 2013)
A Comparison of Some Bible Translations
Genesis 4:1 AAT: “She said, ‘I have gotten a man, the Lord.”
ESV, RSV, NASB, NIV (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, KJV) “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.”
Luther: Ich have den Mann, den Herrn.”
Eve was mistaken that she was to be the mother of the Messiah but she correctly understood that Genesis 3:15 referred to Jesus, the coming Messiah.
Genesis 49:10 AAT: “The scepter will not pass away from Judah or a rule between his feet Till SHILOH (Man of Rest) comes whom the nations will obey.”
ESV, RSV, NIV: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him and to him shall be the obedience of the people.”
Psalm 8:5 AAT: “You make Him do without God for a little while: then crown Him with glory and honor.”
ESV, RSV, NASB, NIV: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”
Luther insisted that Psalm 8:5 referred to Jesus Christ. The LCMS’s CTCR in it’s The Creator’s Tapestry, supports the ESV and disagrees with Luther and says it refers to a human man and not Jesus Christ, (Christian News, April 26, 2010).
Proverbs 8:22 AAT: “The LORD became My Father at the beginning of His way. . .”
ESV, RSV, NIV, NASB: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work. . .”
Jeremiah 23:6 AAT: “This is the name that He will be called: The Lord-Our-Righteousness.”
ESV, RSV: “And this is the name by which he will be called: The LORD is our righteousness.”
Micah 5:2 AAT: “From you (Bethlehem) there will come out for Me, One who is to rule Israel Who comes from eternity.”
ESV, RSV, NIV: “From you (Bethlehem) there comes out for Me, One who is to be ruler of Israel, whose origin is of old, from ancient days.”
(We speak of the “ancient Egyptians” but they are not from eternity)
Hebrews 5:8 AAT: “Although Jesus is the Son, He learned from what He suffered what it means to obey.”
ESV, RSV, NIV, NASB: “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”
Philippians 2:5,6 AAT: “Think just as Christ Jesus thought: Although He was God: He did not consider His being equal with God as a prize to be displayed. . .”
ESV, RSV, NIV, NASB: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”
These translations make “equality with God” something that Jesus did not have; it is “a thing to be grasped” in the future. There is no future in the text, which clearly states that Jesus is equal with God without reaching for such equality.
Craig, one the RSV translators, reports that all nine translators of the New Testament agreed on this rendering without a discussion, and he comments on this passage, “ ‘Jesus is Lord’ – not God.” William Beck, We Need A Good Bible, Christian News, December 1, 1975.
John 1:3 AAT: “Everything was made by Him.”
ESV, RSV, NIV, NKJV (New King James Version) “All things were made through Him.”
“By” or “through” (Greek: dia) – While the Bible sometimes speaks of Jesus as the agent “through” whom the Father acts, it also presents Jesus as an independent Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. But in all the statements where Jesus is the Creator (John 1:3, 10; 1 Cor.8:6; Col. 1:16) the RSV has changed “by” as it is in the KJV to “through.” “Through” is incorrect as well as awkward language. “By” is correct and idiomatic. Other passages in which Jesus is the original cause but which the RSV translates with “through” are: Rom. 1:5; 5:17, 21; 8:37; 2 Cor. 1:20; Gal. 1:1.
The RSV translates this preposition when it is used with “prophet” and with “Jesus” as follows:
“by” “through”
Prophet 21 1
Jesus 8 46
Here the RSV clearly shows its bias. It uses “by” with ‘’prophet” in all cases except one in order to make the prophets independent, uninspired writers, as far as that can be done by a preposition. It uses “by” with Jesus only eight times and “through” forty-six times: This presents Jesus as far as possible as a dependent agent of God. (The RSV always uses “by” with angels.)
The ESV follows the RSV and similarly translates dia with “through” in John 1:3, John 1, 10; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1,16.
ESV also translates dia with “through” in Romans 1,5; Romans 5,17; Romans 5,21; Romans 8:37; 2 Cor. 1,20; Gal. 1:1.
The NIV translates dia with “through” in John 1:3; John 1:10; 1 Cor. 8:6; Romans 1:5; Romans 5:17; Romans 5:21; Romans 8:37; 2 Cor. 1:20.
The New King James Version translates dia with “through” in John 1:3; John 1:10; 1 Cor. 8:6; and Col. 1:16.
King James Version translates dia with “by” in John 1:3; John 1:10; 1 Corinthians 8:6; and Col. 1:16.
I sent Jack Cascione Beck’s “We Need A Good Bible” and asked him to use his computer skills to check how the various translations translate dia. He came up with 18 pages. Enclosed is a summary of his significant findings. They show that Beck’s criticism about the RSV translation of dia were valid and also apply to the NIV and other translations. How is it possible for the WELS to now promote the NIV?
Direct – Rectilinear Messianic Prophecy
Matthew 2:15 “I called My Son from Egypt.”
The AAT and NKJV mention that this passage refers to Numbers 24:8 and Hosea 11:1. The NIV, ESV, NASB only list Hosea 11:1. This passage is often cited by those like Paul McCain of CPH who ridicule defenders of direct messianic prophecy and observe that the context in Hosea 11 indicates that Hosea 11:1 refers to the nation Israel. However, as such ancient church fathers as Eusebius and Cyprian noted, the passage refers to Numbers 24:8. The fourth edition of the AAT at Numbers 24:8 cites Matthew 2:15. See “A Solution to a “Problem Prophecy” An Examination of Matthew 2:15” Christian News, March 23, 1992, Christian News Encyclopedia, p. 3321.
The Language of TodayThe preface to the Revised Standard Version of the National Council of Churches Says that “The Revised Standard Version is not a new translation in the language of today” (p. IX). The ESV uses the same archaic language as the RSV. A review of the ESV in the April 2005 Concordia Journal of our St. Louis seminary said that the “archaic English” of the ESV is not helpful and that “the AAT provides a more readable and understandable translation.” The Fall 2006 Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly said that the language of the ESV is “very archaic and hard to understand like the King James” and “In many places sounds quite stilted.” Mark L. Strauss of Bethel Seminary, San Diego, who has been a consultant for several Bible translations, says that the ESV “is not suitable as a standard Bible for the church. This is because the ESV too often fails the rest of ‘standard English’.” A survey (Christian News, August 24, 2009, pp. 16, 17) comparing the AAT and ESV showed that some 90% who responded preferred the language and doctrinal accuracy of the AAT over the ESV.” CN suggested that both the LCMS and WELS publish such a survey in their official publications to find out what more pastors and laymen in the WELS and LCMS say. Neither the LCMS nor WELS were interested. No leaders of the LCMS and CPH (Concordia Publishing House) or leaders of the WELS or NPH (Northwestern Publishing House) were interested in hearing the case for a Lutheran translation based on Beck’s AAT and why the AAT is far superior to both the ESV and NIV or any other modern translation. The LCMS leaders are pushing the ESV down the throat of the LCMS and the majority of the WELS leaders continue to promote the Reformed NIV.
With the approach of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation the time has come for The Lutheran Bible Translation even if the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod have refused to support such a translation and prefer the translations of non-Lutherans whose theology is reflected in the ESV, NIV and other translations.