(This month we conclude our review of the new REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible, which began in this column last month. The Lord willing, the two parts of this review will be printed as one article in pamphlet form, and be ready for sale shortly.)
We shall now come to a fragmentary review of the Old Testament of the new Revised Standard Version. Here we shall say at the outset that we find it more objectionable than the New Testament. Perhaps we can discover a reason for this in some observations of the list of scholars who worked upon it. The revision committee was larger than the one which worked on the New Testament. It was almost entirely composed of liberals and modernists, and even included a Jewish scholar, Harry M. Orlinsky, of the Jewish Institute of Religion, New York. This is a reform Jewish seminary, which corresponds to the thoroughly modernist theological schools among the Protestants.
The Old Testament would furnish many opportunities for the opponents of all the truth of God that centered in the revelation of Himself in the Person of His Son, who was to come as the seed of the woman, and of the seed of Abraham, through J a co b, Judah, a n d David, for it abounds in its prophetic and typical testimony to Him The allusions to Him are clear and unmistakable, and that without a discordant note. Every section of the book points forward to Him in perfect unison with every other part.
When the Lord Jesus came into the world according to the prophecies that went before, He was forthwith rejected by the very people to whom these oracles were entrusted. They looked for a Messiah to come in power, but failed to believe "all that the prophets had spoken"; they overlooked His first coming in humiliation; and His rejection took place as foretold. Even when the Lord was here, the Jews were incensed at His claim to deity; and those who at this day still look for the Messiah, look only for an outstanding man-not One who is Jehovah as well.
Jewish opposition to the prophecies concerning "Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write" is well known, and very deep-seated. Jewish scribes, translators, and expositors have worked unceasingly at changing the wording or altering the obvious meaning through dexterous manipulations. Some of their reasonings to explain away the self-evident truths concerning the Lord Jesus are "not violent merely, but pitiable" (quotation from W. Kelly).
This deeply ingrained antipathy toward the prophetic word concerning Jesus of Nazareth would be natural to a Jewish scholar, and it would find a like spirit in the anti-Christian modernists among Protestants. Now these men, even though they had good intentions of rendering an honest translation, would be inhibited by their predilections. Handling an older language than the New Testament Greek, these Old Testament scholars had more difficulties with a dead language, and also found a great variety of manuscripts and translations that had undergone tampering in past centuries. All this added up to some difficulties, and to others that were difficulties in their own minds. A Spirit-taught Christian with less scholarship would have had less occasion for stumbling.
In our judgment, when these difficulties, or supposed difficulties, arose, there was a tendency with these revisers to resolve them along the line of their natural bent—a thing quite understandable, a n d even excusable, if it were not so serious.
One change from the King James Version which t h e R.S.V. revisers did not make, was one that had been adopted by the American Revision in 1901, and prior to that by J.N.D. New Translation in 1881, also W. Kelly followed it; that was, using a translation of the Hebrew name by which God revealed Himself to Israel—"Jehovah." King James has used "Lord" instead, except in four places, and the R.S.V. adopts "LORD" exclusively. This we believe to be a mistake. The Hebrew word probably was "YHWH" before the vowels were added to make it "Yahweh." It is a precious part of the divine truth that God chose thus to reveal Himself to His earthly people with whom He had made a covenant; the meaning of that name is basically, "Who is, who was, who is to come"—the one unchanging and unchangeable One. How precious that God should deign to thus certify to Israel that He who had made a covenant with them would never change. The name of God, "I AM," found in Exod. 3:14, expresses the same thought; compare also Exod. 6:3 where King James uses "Jehovah," but the new R.S.V. adopts "Lone."
A book we have reviewed, The Story of Bible Translations, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, calls the 1901 revision's use of "Jehovah," "a questionable innovation." Now we read in the preface to the R.S.V. that one reason they did not use "Jehovah" was that "the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from which he had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church." What if it was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era? Shall we give up the correct translation to please the Jews who dislike it, and who dropped it 2000 years ago? God used it in His inspired Word, and that should settle the matter. But here we trace the effort to blend Judaism and Modernism of Christianity into one pattern. It reminds us that when the lying prophet comes to Jerusalem claiming to be their Messiah, apostate Christendom will also accept him to their ruin. (See Dan. 11:36-45 and 2 Thess. 2:9-12.)
In the Old Testament the R.S.V. likewise uses thee, thou, thy, and thine in addresses to deity, and carefully avoids the use of such pronouns when the Lord Jesus Christ is addressed prophetically. This can be seen in the Psalms; for instance, "You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron." Psalm 2:7-9. "The LORD says to my lord: 'Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.... You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' " Psalm 110:1-4. And in that beautiful psalm that describes His glory as the coming King, Psalm 45, we read in R.S.V., "You are the fairest of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword upon your thigh, 0 mighty one [not "Most High"], in your glory and majesty," and so on through the 9th verse. This has been done in another Messianic psalm—the 91St—you and your are used 21 Times in direct address to Him.
A very strange and incomprehensible application of the rules concerning these pronouns is to be found when some of these verses are quoted in the New Testament. The revisers of the New Testament followed the same plan of not addressing the Lord Jesus as deity when the 91St Psalm is quoted to Him by Satan in the temptations (see Matt. 4:6 and Luke 4:11), but then in quoting from Psalm 110 in Acts 2:35, thy is used, and thou in Heb. 5:5, 6, and 7:17, 21; also in quoting from Psalm 2 in Acts 13:33 and Heb. 1:5 and 5:5, thou is used.
A regrettable change has been made in Psalm 2 In this psalm the Lord Jesus, when He came into the world as man, is addressed by God as His Son; then the kings and rulers are called upon to be wise and to "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." v. 12. The R.S.V. changed "Kiss the Son" to "Kiss his feet," evidently harking back to the word "Lord" in verse 11. The context should have made any difficulty in translating the Hebrew quite clear-it is the Son whom the rulers are called upon to honor. The word could not possibly mean "feet."
Why the R.S.V. should have changed Psalm 8:5 from "For Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels," to "Yet thou hast made him a little less than God" is not understandable. The psalm speaks of the same glorious Person, but in that special character as Son of man-a much broader title than Messiah. He was made a little lower than the angels; that is, He became a man, and that (as we read in Heb. 2:9) for the suffering of death. The quotation from the 8th Psalm in Hebrews 2 is correct-"a little lower than the angels."
The 22nd Psalm which so graphically sets forth the sufferings of that blessed One on the cross, is changed in verse 21. As it is in King James and J.N.D. New Translation, God's hearing Him at the end of His sufferings is noted—"Thou hast heard Me"—and He is answered (in resurrection) and immediately He speaks of declaring the Father's name to His brethren; but the answer from God is deleted from the verse in the R.S.V.
Another serious alteration is made in Psalm 45:6. The coming King is addressed as God in verse 6, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever," in King James, J.N.D., and Douay versions, but the R.S.V. has removed His deity by rendering it, "Your divine throne." Yet, the quotation of this verse in Heb. 1:8 is correct. This is one case where the Old Testament revision seems to deliberately err, but it is in keeping with modernistic thoughts. A true Christian—one whose eyes were anointed with eyesalve (Rev. 3:18)—would have no difficulty here. The Spirit of God makes it clear in Heb. 1:8, what is meant and to whom it was addressed: "But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God," etc.
Another objectionable change is found in Psalm 69-a psalm of the sufferings of the Lord just before and on the cross- where "Save Me, O God; for the waters are come in unto My soul," is altered to read, "For the waters have come up to my neck." Surely the idea of waters coming up to the neck is not the same as the Lord's sorrows entering into His soul. We have checked a number of other psalms where the same Hebrew word nephesh is found, to see how the revisers translated it elsewhere, and in all cases which we noticed they translated the word nephesh, soul. Some of these are, "My soul is also sore vexed" (6:3); "The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul" (19:7); "He restoreth my soul (23:3); "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" (42:5, 11); "Bless the LORD, O my soul" (103:1, 2, 22). It is quite obvious that the word neck would be out of place in any of the above quoted passages, as also in Psalm 69:1.
Lack of spiritual understanding was abundantly evident in the way the revisers handled Psalm 102. The psalm declares the rebuilding and glory of Zion, and then the Messiah (the Lord Jesus in His humiliation) says, "O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." Was Jerusalem to be re-established and the Messiah to be cut off? Then God answers Him: "Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end." vv. 24-27. What a beautiful answer to His prayer about being cut off-He was the Creator, and His years would have no end. There can be no reasonable doubt to any open-minded child of God that this is the meaning of these verses, but the R.S.V. by a clever manipulation changes t h e whole meaning, and again removes a clear statement of the deity of Christ. It reads, "O my God, I say, take me not hence in the midst of my days, thou whose years endure," etc. Thus the Messiah is made to address God as the unchanging One, rather than to be addressed as such.
We must pass over other points in the Psalms and come to the book of Proverbs for a few comments. Pro. 8:22-36 has long been enjoyed by believers as setting forth the eternal place occupied by the Lord Jesus before coming into this world. He is doubtless referred to as Wisdom personified. Here, however, we meet with an affront in the R.S.V. All other translations which we have checked render the 22nd verse thus: "The LORD [or, Jehovah] possessed Me in the beginning of His way"; now R.S.V. changes possessed to created-an entirely different thought. If it be Christ who is referred to, then certainly possessed is demanded, for He cannot be referred to as having been created. R.S.V. also has altered the wording and meaning of the next verse -the 23rd-so that instead of saying, "I was set up from everlasting" (King James), or "I was set up from eternity" (J.N.D. and Douay), it reads, "Ages ago I was set up." Ages ago has a beginning, but not eternity.
We shall now come to Isa. 7:14. Here we find R.S.V. has changed "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel," to "... Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son." W. Kelly says of this verse: "It is well known that the Jews have made desperate efforts to evade this luminous testimony to the Incarnation in their own prophet." Jews and rationalists have made much out of the difference between two Hebrew words, be thuwlah, and almah (used here). The former is often used for a virgin, but not exclusively so; the latter is seldom used, but beyond question it is used for a virgin. Both words are used of Rebecca in Genesis 24—one in verse 16 and the other in verse 43. Both refer to the same person, and evidently virgin or maiden is intended. Almah is also found in the Hebrew text of The Song of Solomon 1:3 and 6:8, and it is worthy of note that the R.S.V. uses an equivalent of virgin in both of these verses; that is, maiden. The word be thuwlah which the R.S.V. wants to be exclusively known as virgin is used in Joel 1:8 where the meaning could not be virgin.
Now when this verse is quoted in Matthew 1, the R.S.V. does give it as virgin, but this may not reflect any credit to it, for the New Testament quotation was made from a Greek translation of the Old Testament, often called the Septuagint, and it definitely gives parthenos, or virgin. A translation of the Greek of Matthew 1 Could only be virgin from the word parthenos.
The Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament was completed in or before the second century before Christ, so that it cannot be said to have been influenced by Christianity in so translating almah as parthenos, or virgin. The Hebrew scholars who worked on translating the Hebrew of the Old Testament into Greek, understood the word to mean virgin.
Ponticus Aquila, a Greek proselyte to Judaism in about 138 A.D., translated the Old Testament, and utilized the Septuagint in his work. He, as was his bent, changed virgin of Isa. 7:14 into young woman, so the R.S.V. is not alone in doing this; but the weight of evidence is against them and it.
Another point to consider is, in the words of W. Kelly, "In the present instance the context requires the sense of virgin with the utmost precision; for in a young married woman's bearing a son, there
is no sign or wonder." This was to be the sign God would give of His interposition on behalf of Israel. And the virgin's Son was to be Immanuel, or "God with us."
The wonderful prophecy of the "seventy weeks" in Daniel 9 has been altered somewhat from what it is in King James Version, where the time for the appearance of "the Messiah the Prince" is foretold. R.S.V. reads instead, "an anointed one, a prince." This is in line with what we have discovered elsewhere in the version. We know that Messiah means anointed, but the use of the indefinite articles before anointed one and prince indicates the disposition of the scholars who worked upon it, for in the 26th verse, after speaking of the Messiah's being cut off, it goes on to a Roman prince, and there uses the definite article—"the prince who is to come."
In Mic. 5:2 it was foretold that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, but the Spirit of God hastens to add: "Whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting" (King James Version); Mr. J. N. Darby, and Douay, translate the last clause, "from the days of eternity." A wonderful safeguard against any misunderstanding about the deity of the Christ—His goings forth have been from the days of eternity. Here again we find the R.S.V. in conflict with the testimony of the other capable and trustworthy translators, for the R.S.V. says, "Whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." Here we have the revisers dropping in again (as in Proverbs 8) the thought of His beginning- "whose origin"; that is, His beginning, or creation (which is utterly false)—and then bringing it down from an unknown and unknowable eternity to merely "ancient days." Much more could not be done to this plain prophetic utterance of the deity, and eternity of being, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We shall glance at one more book-Zechariah-to see some twisted references to the Person of the Lord Jesus. In Zech. 11:13, after giving a prophetic picture of the Jewish leaders making a bargain with Judas for the betrayal of the Lord for thirty pieces of silver, the prophet was told to "Cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD." We know how accurately this was fulfilled, and the Jews bought the field, called the potter's field, in which to bury strangers. But the R.S.V. has dropped any mention of the potter from this verse.
The coming of the Messiah in lowliness and humiliation, when He came the first time, is adjusted in Zech. 9:9, for instead of rendering it as others do, "Thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation," the R.S.V. says, "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he." That is the way Israel looked for Him, but the prophets also foretold of the sufferings of Christ as well as of the glory that should follow.
Also in chapter 12:10 the R.S.V. has changed the wording to that which is pleasing to Jews and liberals. Jehovah speaks of the day when the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem shall see the One whom they pierced, and says, "They shall look upon ME whom they have pierced." What could be plainer than that the lowly Jesus of Nazareth was Jehovah Himself. Israel shall yet see Him thus, and believe this very truth. But here the R.S.V. followed earlier doubters, and rendered it, "When they look on him whom they have pierced"; they thus remove the statement that the One who was pierced was Jehovah. W. Kelly comments on the same change made at earlier dates: "The reading of the Keri 'on him' instead of `on Me,' seems evidently to bear the stamp of a correction designed to remove an apparent anomaly from the construction as well as to get rid of the plain truth, as the text stands, that the pierced One is Jehovah. Hence the correction has crept into the text of not a few manuscripts.... The truth is that these tamperings with the reading and the efforts of others to enfeeble the translation only show the deep moment of what is here written by the Holy Spirit."
Then in Zech. 13:6, "What are these wounds on your back?" has been substituted for "What are these wounds in Thine hands?" The marks in His blessed hands, which were put there through the wickedness of men, on the cross, shall yet be apparent. The change to "on your back" strikes at the crucifixion.
Perhaps it should not be overlooked that the R.S.V. says, "And there shall be a priest by his throne" (6:13), instead of His being a priest upon His throne. The thought of combining priesthood and kingship in Him did not enter their minds, but that is precisely what is meant, and many scriptures give support to this truth. It is then that He shall act in His Melchisedec, or royal, priesthood character.
Now, Christian reader, we leave these observations with you and trust you may weigh them in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom, but not of the wisdom of this world. We had hoped we might find a useful version that we could recommend, but alas, it is otherwise. We feel it would be a great mistake if the Revised Standard Version should replace the King James Version for one's regular reading of the Word of God. While there are mistakes in the King James, as we said, yet it is free from liberal bias and slanted renderings which wrest the Scriptures.
Perhaps this new revision may be helpful to some when used strictly as a reference book, but even then the user should be on his guard, and he should be one who is able to discern both good and evil. We strongly advise reading regularly and diligently the King James Version, and we feel that the reader would be wise to check any difficult passage with a more literal translation from God-fearing men, such as J. N. Darby and W. Kelly.
Perhaps God may overrule and permit the publicity for this R.S.V. Bible to promote the reading of it by some who may therein find the way to repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. He is sovereign and can do as He pleases, and if He blesses unsaved people through it, to Him be the praise.