"I'll be working my way back to you, babe

. . . with a burning love inside" (The Spinners, Love Trippin', #2 March, 1980).


I come from a very King James Bible background. You know, if it was good enough for Paul . . . So now that I am grown up and educated, I have a confession to make. I almost did it. I almost traded in my Oxford wide margin for one of the modern versions.

Hey, I'm working my way back to you, babe
And the happiness that died
I let it get away (Do, do, do, do, do)
(Been paying every day) Do, do, do, do, do

After all, it seems to me like the tradeoff is between readability and accuracy. Take my NIV for instance (please, take my NIV). The philosophy of translation followed is not word-for-word. It's called a “dynamically equivalent” translation, That means it's more thought-for-thought. They are more concerned that the ideas get across than they are that the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages are translated literally.

When you were so in love with me
I played around like I was free
Thought I could have my cake and eat it too
But how I cried over losing you

Problem is, it is eminently readable; it's just not accurate. Let me give you a great example from the book we've been conversing about: Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. Out of 2 Cor 11:23 he selectively isolates not just one verse, but only a phrase out of that verse. In the process of boasting of his sufferings (for the benefit of his Corinthian readers)(1), Paul admits that in defending his apostleship this way, "I speak as a fool" [KJV], or "I am talking like a madman" [ESV]. Bell provides the NIV translation and says that Paul is saying "I am out of my mind to talk like this," just so he can then ask the question, "So is it [Paul's] word or God's word? Is God out of his mind? Is God out of Paul's mind? Is Paul out of God's mind? Or does it simply mean that Paul is out of Paul's mind?"(2)

See I'm down and out
But I ain't about to go living my life without you
Hey, every day I made you cry
I'll pay in, girl, till the day I die

So Robbie takes an inaccurate translation in order to instill doubt. Sorry, but that's what he's pretty good at. This is repainting the Bible through the unflattering color of dishonest exegesis. But wait, or you'll be getting mad too soon. Bell immediately quotes the NIV translation of 1 Cor 7:12: "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord) . . . ." Then he asks, "So when a writer of the Bible makes it clear that what he is writing comes straight from him, how is that still the word of God?"(3) We think Bell knows exactly what he is doing here; and we think we know why he uses the NIV to do it. Paul is simply being clear to the Corinthians that Jesus did not deal with the issue of a believing husband having an unbelieving wife, but that Paul himself was taking up this topic (cf. 7:10). Yet it is clear from verse 40 that even though this was coming "straight from Paul," he considers it to be authoritative writing(4) given under inspiration.(5)

Oh, I used to love to make you cry
It made me feel like a man inside
If I had been a man in reality
You'd be here, baby, loving me

Elvis notwithstanding, I was still about to chuck my KJV for a * * V (or is that a - - -V?). Then I started reading the latest issue of the Westminster Theological Journal. I figure, if House keeps up on his medical journals, I don't want to look like a Scrub, and since I deal with so many problems in the ER, I better keep up with "the literature."(6) Be professional and all that. And do you know what I found? S. M. Baugh wrote an amazing article on "The Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews 11" (pp 113-132). He discusses the favorite "life verse" of many of us: Heb 11:1, and how we have been led into a common (mis)interpretation by "highly questionable traditional renderings of key terms . . . which continue on in newer English versions despite well-founded objections in lexical and scholarly authorities." You see, where the KJV translates objectively and concretely that faith is "substance" and "evidence," all modern translations render the Greek subjectively as "faith is being sure . . . and certain" (NIV) or having "assurance" and "conviction" (ESV), "faith is the confidence . . . it gives us assurance" (NLT). Since "the universal scholarly conclusion from lexical studies" is that this is incorrect, Baugh comments that "it is therefore puzzling that newer English versions" translate it this way. Indeed (get this), "the proper rendering of Heb 11:1 was given long ago in the KJV."

Now my nights are long and lonely
And I ain't too proud, babe, I just miss you so
Girl, but you're too proud and you won't give in
But when I think about all I could win

So here's what I discovered. The first complete English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe in 1380. But printing hadn't been invented yet, so each copy was its own handwritten manuscript. Wycliffe did not know Hebrew or Greek, so he translated from the common clerical version of the day: the Latin Vulgate. Not the ideal thing, but

I'll keep working my way back to you, babe
With a burning love inside
Yeah, I'm working my way back to you, babe
And the happiness that died
I let it get away (Do, do, do, do, do)
(Been paying every day) Do, do, do, do, do

Then there were seven major printed revisions starting with William Tyndale's work in 1526. Because printing had now been invented, these translations were made from printed Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT) texts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_Bible_translations
It started with Wycliffe's manuscript translation of the Vulgate. Then,
1. Tyndale
2. Coverdale's Bible, 1535
3. Matthew's Bible, 1537
4. Great Bible (Cranmer's Bible), 1539
5. Geneva Bible, 1560
6. Bishop's Bible, 1568
Six printed revisions. The seventh was the King James Bible in 1611. After that the process stopped for 270 years. Psalm 12:6 (as my friend Ken Hutcherson would say, “Ouch!”).

My road is kind of long
I just gotta get back home
Whoa, I'm really sorry for acting that way
I'm really sorry, oh, little girl for telling you lies for so long

It was a long road. All the way from the Vulgate to the AV, and in 1881 back again.(7) So now, it seems like modern translations are striving to be more literally accurate (like the ESV), and in doing so they are actually working their way back to the KJV.

Oh, please, forgive me, girl, come on (Give me a chance)
Won't you forgive me, girl, hey, (Let's have romance)
Ooh, forgive me, girl (Let's try again)
Come on, forgive me, girl, I want you over
And over and over and over and over again

So I say to my Oxford wide margin (Cambridge as well): I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I recognize now it was a "One of a Kind (Love Affair)" #11, June 1973. So I asked myself, "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love?" #4, 1972. Wow. I almost threw away my Bible. "Then Came You" #1, Oct 1974. I sort of feel like "The Rubberband Man" #2, 1976.


1. Barnett calls this Paul's "fool-speak" and states, "In the Fool's Speech proper Paul . . . 'boasts' of his 'weaknesses,' which is the 'foolishness' and 'madness' of Christ himself," Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 534.
2. Bell, 42.
3. Fee notes what is happening here: "Since such concerns lay outside the province of Jesus' own life-setting, Paul himself speaks to this matter, not the Lord." Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 298.
4. Barrett says in the Black's New Testament Commentary, "Paul distinguishes sharply his own judgment from a pronouncement traceable to Jesus, but this does not mean that he regards his charge here as having no authority, or even significantly less authority than that of verse 10." C.K Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 163.
5. According to Craig Keener, "Although Paul states his 'opinion' (NASB, TEV) much less strongly than he proclaims the words of Jesus (7:10-12), he does not for this reason think it any less authoritative. The Spirit was normally associated with the prophets of the past, and Paul here claims that he believes he writes under inspiration as a prophet would (cf. 14:37)." Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downer's Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), 573.
6. (In no particular order) Westminster Theological Journal, Trinity Seminary Journal, Themelios, JETS (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society), Master's Seminary Journal, Bibliotheca Sacra, Western Buddhist Review (just kidding)
http://www.dts.edu/media/bibliothecasacra/
http://www.tms.edu/journal.asp
http://www.tiu.edu/trinityjournal/
http://www.etsjets.org/jets/jets.html
http://www.uccf.org.uk/yourcourse/rtsf/themelios.php
There are many, many more out there, but I try to keep up with these right now.
7. After 1881 all the modern translations were based on critical eclectic texts that have, in many ways, gone back to readings found in the Vulgate of old (Greek manuscripts Aleph and B, A.K.A. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus). Actually it is not old readings so much as old “un-readings,” in that the modern text has more omissions and almost no additions.