WHY NOT TO BE DIVERTED  
FROM OUR PURPOSE 

Stephen Reynolds, Ph. D.

There has been placed in the hands of the founder of the Lorine L. Reynolds Foundation an article with the suggestion that the Foundation might republish it. It is "Why So Many Translations?" by Pastor Tony Cowley.¹ He disapproves of this idea for the following reasons. While our journal should be open to different authors and may even present contrary opinions, but never without rebuttal, this article does not adequately deal with the problem of errors in ethics in previous Bible translations which is the major reason for the existence of this Foundation.

That this article was suggested for publication alerts the founder to the very real danger that when he dies the foundation may become so involved in problems of style and whether certain passages which do not greatly affect faith and practice, or doctrine and ethics, belong in the Bible, that the main purpose of the Foundation could be lost.

He therefore requests with great solemnity that this article "Why Not To Be Diverted From Our Purpose" be published in our first complete issue of the Journal so that in days to come when all those presently connected with the Foundation will have passed away, there will always remain published in the first issue a clear call to hold fast to the true purpose of our Foundation.

The original inerrant word of God is not always easy to understand. See II Peter 3:15‑16. This passage refers to the writings of the great apostle Paul which in some places are very difficult and translators have distorted their meaning. Other inspired writers also wrote things hard to understand. Faulty human beings (all mankind falls under this classification) have distorted the meaning God intended to place in His revealed Word and in so doing have done great damage to the faith and practice of Bible readers. This foundation is unique in being dedicated to the proposition that the Bible must be translated with the primary concern being to work hard with many prayers and spiritual groanings, to dig out truths buried sometimes by centuries of distortion and sometimes by quite recent distortions. The truths we² must bring to light are primarily where God's high calling to moral excellence has been changed to allow for greater laxity. We should not be indifferent to errors that do not touch on faith and practice, but as others concern themselves with these matters our primary concern shall always be faith and practice, that is, sound doctrine and Christian ethics.

The founder, a very imperfect Christian, not strong in learning, wisdom, faith and practice, is nevertheless convinced by the testimony of the Holy Spirit that he has this call. He must seek to get others to recognize this. 

He has therefore settled the Foundation and prays that it may continue true to this commitment until the end of the age. Other foundations have been turned from the purpose their founders intended. Great universities founded to exalt Christ and His kingdom are now serving Satan with great zeal. I charge us all that we keep the work of the Foundation on course. We must continue in patience to labor until a Bible translation is produced which will correct those errors damaging to the faith and ethics of people who turn to the Bible for guidance. This Purified Bible must not only be produced but must be placed in the hands of people and in the pulpits of Christian churches. 

There may be those who will say this calling is a false one and may seek to influence the trustees to divert the income from the Foundation to some other cause, as for example to advance the work of propagating Bible translations containing the errors the founder has sought to expose, denounce and correct. 

The founder charges the trustees and all connected with the Foundation in any way and in any century that we may never lose sight of our particular goal. This is to hold fast to the fundamental Christian doctrines and wherever translators have slighted and distorted these by incorrect translations to be persistent in our efforts to present the Bible in purified form‑ We must rightly divide the meaning of words where others have failed to do so. That is, the true multiple meanings of homographs must be given. When others have wrongly divided the meaning of words we must correct these errors. 

We must in translating make clear whether or not people are to drink alcoholic beverages (Prov. 23:31), whether or not unbelieving spouses of believers are sanctified and whether or not children of one believing parent are holy by reason of this believing parent (I Cor. 7:14). We must translate in such a way as to show that a Christian should have a new and improved conscience when he is confronted by another person whose understanding of an ethical matter is different from his (I Cor. 10:29). We must show that the narratives which tell of the first day of the resurrection of our Lord show that the first day of every week is the Christian Sabbath. In defense of the unborn we must show that if properly translated Exodus 21:22‑23 proves that one who sinfully aborts an unborn child should lawfully be put to death under the Old Testament law. 

As for the article by Pastor Tony Cowley mentioned at the beginning of this article, much that is in it is good. I trust that all people connected with the Foundation will agree with him that formal equivalence³ rather than dynamic equivalence should be our goal. I hope they will agree with him that the Greek texts of Nestle-Aland and of the United Bible Societies are not necessarily correct in rejecting the readings of the majority (or Byzantine) Greek manuscripts in favor of a few early uncial manuscripts. The founder is in general agreement with the New King James Version but is firm in his opinion that it too needs correction. He agrees with Pastor Cowley that the "attempt of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the New World Translation, is horribly bungled." It may be a project of the Foundation to publish a detailed criticism of this work. 

Pastor Cowley's paper criticizes the New English Bible (NEB). The founder is by no means a supporter of this translation, but he recommends that criticisms not be unduly severe. Pastor Cowlev wrote: "The NEB is criminal in Gen. 1:1-2 ‘In the beginning of creation, when God made the heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void with darkness over the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the surface of the waters.’ This changes ‘created’—a verb—into a noun ‘creation’ and makes the story sound like a primitive superstitious myth." 

It is true that the word "created" is a verb in the Hebrew, but Mr. Cowley is too severe in calling the translation of the NEB "criminal." The word reshith is understood to be in the construct which would naturally be followed by a noun. The idea that the meaning is "when God began to create" first appeared in the writings of Rashi (1040-1108), although some scholars think it was older. Rashi is regarded as an orthodox Jewish scholar and he certainly did not subscribe to the idea that this is a primitive creation myth. 

The rendering of the King James Version: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth", may give rise to the question in the reader's mind, the beginning of what? This was not the beginning of God's activity. He chose the elect before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) Our finite minds are not able to comprehend what God was doing before the creation of the heavens and the earth, but we ought not assume that this was the beginning in an absolute sense. It was only the beginning of the creation and perhaps it was the beginning of time. The TANAKH, the translation of the Jewish Publication Society has it, "When God began to create heaven and earth." This has the advantage of making create a verb and does not use the noun creation to which Mr. Cowley objects.⁴ The difference between the two translations is not as great as Mr. Cowley suggests. It is probably not true that people think of a primitive superstitious creation myth when they read the NEB or the TANAKH, or that they think there was no eternity past when they read the King James Version. The difference in translation may be a matter of doctrinal indifference, but there remains a question of syntax. 

1 The Covenanter witness, March, 1995

2 The word "we" is here used to mean all who are now or who will be in the future in any way responsibly connected with the Foundation.

3. Another term for what we must strive for is "optimum equivalence."

4. John Skinner in a "Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis" in The International Critical Commentary on pages 12-15 presents a well-balanced treatment of what he admits is "a troublesome question of syntax which affects the sense of every member of v. I."