Ask the Anarchist Reverend is a weekly feature here on the site. If you have a question you’d like to ask, you can send me an email (anarchistreverend at gmail), find me on twitter, or submit your question using formspring.
Today’s question: You’ve lived some radical changes between your fundamentalist upbringing and now. Out of pure curiosity, what have the Bibles of your life been, and (how) have they related to those bigger changes?
This is a fun question!
I grew up reading the New International Version (NIV) pretty exclusively. There was some KJV thrown in there, but in my home and church we used the NIV. It’s funny because my grandparents were independent fundamentalist Baptists and used only the KJV. I thought our use of the NIV showed how “progressive” we were! I remember having a paperback version of the NIV Teen Study Bible that I had highlighted and underlined.
My NIV Bible. (This isn’t my beat up study Bible, I couldn’t find that one, but is another version with my underlining.)
I also remember struggling with the Bible throughout my teenage years. I knew I was supposed to read it every day (to have a daily quiet time) and to really cherish it, but I often struggled to read it with any regularity.
When I was in high school, Eugene Peterson’s The Message Remix: The Bible In contemporary Language
My “Message” Bible with either high school or college highlighting.
In college the New American Standard Bible (NASB) was all the rage for serious scholarly study. I bought a huge, leather bound version but could never really get into it. The language just left me feeling empty.
Before I continue, I want to detour for a second: I just finished reading The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book
“In 1959 the inerrantist Lockman Foundation enlisted a large committee to revise the American Standard Version. Twelve years later, it published the New American Standard Bible (New Testament 1963; whole Bible 1971). This form-driven, often very wooden translation quickly gained popularity over the Revised Standard Version in conservative evangelical and fundamentalist circles. It was the best-selling Bible in America in 1977, and it continues to be popular among inerrantists to this day. The following year, 1978, saw the publication of the New International Version (New Testament only in 1973), which has dominated the Bible market ever since. Like the New American Standard Bible’s translators, its large committee of biblical scholars and ministers were explicitly committed to biblical inerrancy and aimed to revise what many conservatives saw as problems with the Revised Standard Version (both, by the way, restored the virgin to Isaiah 7:14). But the more neo-evangelical leaving New International Version was dramatically different in that it moved away from word-for-word translation and toward the new functional-equivalence, or meaning-driven, approach.” (pg 143, paperback version)
I find this really interesting, as it’s clear that both of the Bible translations that were prized by my church (and my college was affiliated with my denomination) were translations that set out to prove a specific theological point. Of course, I wasn’t privy to any of this history growing up, but knowing it now certainly explains a lot.
After college, when I worked in an American Baptist church, I was introduced to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and still use that one to this day, especially when I am doing scholarly work.
This past year I have been using the new CEB Common English Thinline Bible with Apocrypha DecoTone Black
Now to the larger question of how each translation has related to my spiritual journey: I feel like I could talk for hours about how my relationship to the Bible has changed over the years and what it means to me now, but I’ll try to keep my remarks relatively short!
One of the things that Timothy Beal talks about in his book is the idea of the Bible as this ideal that we think will answer all of our questions and should be easy to understand. He talks about how when people read the Bible and it doesn’t answer questions or isn’t easy to understand that they get frustrated and walk away. That was definitely where I was in relation to the NIV and NASB. I thought the Bible was the inerrant Word of God meant to answer every question and to be followed to the letter (well, or most of the letter). And along with that belief also came the belief that I was hopelessly messed up and could never live up to that standard. Hell, I couldn’t even manage to make myself have a “quiet time” every day!
Reading through the portions of those Bibles that I have highlighted and underlined point to my own confusion and frustration and also my grasping to be, and do, better.
Once I left evangelicalism and fundamentalism behind, my faith got very intellectual (I’ve written about this shift before) and so it makes sense that I gravitated to the NRSV as it’s often used in churches and seminaries that prize higher criticism. And I am thankful for that time as it was necessary for me to unpack a lot of harmful theology I had internalized growing up. But still, I am thankful for my fundamentalist, evangelical upbringing because it did instill in me both a ridiculous knowledge of the Bible and a love for it. (I was able to test out of both Hebrew Scripture and New Testament knowledge courses in seminary without studying because of my upbringing!)
And now this shift to the CEB seems to fit with my shift to again reading the Bible devotionally (while also reading it as a scholar). It echoes my fusion of head and heart: knowledge and felt mystery.
My CEB bookmarked to where I left off this morning. (Yes, I am in Job. I’m a bit behind on where I should be to read the whole Bible in a year, but I am catching up!)
Learning all I have learned about the history of the Bible, historical criticism, the Jesus seminar, Roman context, etc. etc. etc. has not made me love the Bible less, instead it has made me love it more. I love it in its mystery and complexity. In its contradictions and problems. I still see it as a guide but not as an answer book. It’s like a love affair that changes and grows with time. And I am thankful to have been raised to love it in the first place.
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Awesome post. Thanks for sharing!
I grew up in the United Methodist Church, and we mostly used the New Revised Standard Version. However, as a teen I owned a couple copies of the NIV and the CEV.
Today, while I’m aware of translational issues with the NRSV, I still prefer it for academic study. Usually, when I’m speaking at a church, I’ll use a combination of the NRSV and my trusty Greek New Testament, together with a little bit of insight from the New Living Translation.
Peace,
EverydayRev.
I, too, grew up with the NIV. Often, when I’m looking for a particular passage or verse, I’ll search using the NIV because the language I’m remembering in my head is from the NIV! Amazing how that stuff sticks with you.
Believe it or not, I still use the NASB pretty regularly. Every time I run into a groan-out-loud moment with the NASB another 3 really good experiences happen, so I’ve stuck with it for study alongside the NRSV. I find it especially helpful in the New Testament where I think it captures the Greek better than the NRSV. (Note: I find the NRSV’s pluralization for the sake of gender inclusivity helpful, but sometimes I actually want to see, in English, that the subject is singular, not plural!)
I’m using the NLT as my reading Bible right now, though I’ll probably switch to the CEB in the near future. The NLT is good in so many ways, but the conservative theological persuasion of the committee comes out a bit too much for my liking.
Good stuff.
My own personal bible is The Inclusive Bible by Priests for Equality. The genesis of this project was work done by two friends of mine who were members of Dignity (Catholic) San Francisco, compiled in three-ring binders for their own use. A group of people, clergy and laity, academics and pew-sitters, across a wide swath of denominational traditions, worked on this new translation – first the gospels, then the psalms, next the whole new testament, and finally the remainder of the Hebrew scriptures. It’s not a paraphrase, but a new translation. They use expansive, non-gendered language for God and inclusive language for people. They also wanted to recognize and honor the oral tradition history of the sacred texts, so it’s written in a poetic yet accessible style. It’s certainly not perfect, but is a version I highly recommend. (Check. on abebooks.com or alibris.com.)
I have that one (it was given to me at work) but haven’t spent a lot of time with it yet!
I love the NRSV for worship; it’s got such beautiful language for a relatively accurate translation and I’m grateful for its egalitarian language. The New Jerusalem Bible is really good for scholarly work and research, though, because it *doesn’t* use inclusive language and has a very accurate translation – way beyond the NRSV or JPS versions. But because of that, it’s way too clunky for worship. (Oh, I also like that it uses “Yahweh” for the tetragrammaton, rather than “Lord.” It helps the reader remember that the authors probably used the divine name, and avoids the over-the-top kyriarchy inherent in the repeated use of “lord.”)
Great question, great answer – I always love hearing about people’s bibles.
I was raised Presbyterian (USA), and basically grew up primarily NRSV. A few study Bibles later, I still am. (Timothy Beal would call those study Bibles “value-added” – and he’d be right – but I started off intellectual, and they helped me to have faith rather than theological engineering exercises.)
Oddly enough, I’ve been reading a fair bit of KJV/NKJV of late, less for study or devotion than for cultural sensitivity. (It only recently dawned on me that the black churches my roomie’s family and friends grew up in are *very* loyal to King James. It’s made me kinda conscious about the relation between versions and traditions.)
I haven’t spent much time with the, CEB, and the times I’ve heard it I’ve liked the lyricism of the translation. However, from my more scholarly friends/colleagues, I’ve been hearing some concern or distrust of the CEB, especially around some sexuality issues, such as in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6.
I tend to use the NRSV, but I find The Message helpful when I need to break out of my scholarly/intellectual approach and get into a more reflective/devotional mode.
Yeah. I’m not sure I really trust any translations around those passages! I have been using the CEB in my read through of the Bible in a year and I find it very accessible. I still love the NRSV, though, for research, etc. I’m enjoying the CEB simply for ease of reading.
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