James Challen: Resurrection, New Earth and the Christian Hope

Few preachers were as well known in the Stone-Campbell Movement in his day as James Challen (1802-1878). Challen was a skeptic early in his life but he came under the influence of the great Baptist preacher, and frequent correspondent with Alexander Campbell, Dr. James Fishback of Lexington, KY. He was baptized into Christ at the hands of Fishback on January 18, 1823. While a student he was called to preach for the Enon Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Challen had been drinking from the wells Campbell had dug in the pages of the Christian Baptist and by 1828 the Enon Baptist Church had become the Eighth and Walnut Streets Christian Church ... one of the first churches to convert to the Stone-Campbell plea. Alexander Campbell's debate with the Roman Catholic Bishop Purcell would be conducted within this church building. Challen would move as preachers do but he would spend his senior years back in Cincinnati. He was widely published in restoration journals and wrote numerous respected books.

Four years before his death James Challen looked back and reflected on the promises of the "current reformation." In that year of 1874 he still firmly believed in the "plea" but thought that we had, perhaps, lost focus. What was the evidence of this loss of focus. He locates the evidence in two realities:

1) we had failed to unify the Christian world
2) we had failed to convert the world.

For James Challen these were, like for Thomas Campbell in the very beginning, eschatological themes. But to designate them eschatological was not to deem them esoteric rather they were essential to the plea itself.

Though Challen does not use this term it is clear he believes a certain modernism or secularism is invading the disciples plea. What evidence did he have for this ... the growth of belief in a "spiritual millennium!" He scores this notion by point to the two realities of continuing division and the failure to evangelize the world. He writes,

"Each party remains intact; and the more influential and numerous the sect, the more tenacious of the ground they occupy. Even the Baptists and the Disciples can not coalesce ... The spirit of the sect is too strong for the spirit of union."

"Surely the world is not doomed with its unsaved millions ..."

The disciples of Christ have gotten off track according to Challen. We have begun to wrangle among ourselves and we have forgotten the engine that has driven the plea from the beginning: the eschatological Christian hope, THE hope!

That hope, James Challen is crystal clear, was not some nebulous spiritual existence or spiritual millennium. It was nothing short of the "personal advent of the Messiah" and what happens with that advent that "has been the hope of the Church from the beginning."

Now those who believe in a "spiritual millennium" conceived of the message and mission differently. Dying and going immediately to heaven is not the Christian hope. It is not the End of the Story. "It is not our entrance into the invisible world, in spirit, of which the Scriptures speak as the hope of the Gospel. This is not the period of anticipated blessedness reserved for the saints."

Challen stressed that indeed it may be, in some ways, a blessing to be released from the struggle against sin, temptation, and toil. But such a departure that Christians see frequently is a departure to the "intermediate state" and is "never called the hope of the Gospel." According to Challen this distinction was common knowledge in the days when the "plea" spread so "mightily."

Though Paul was, after a long hard fought life, ready to depart. Challen says Paul never believed that that completed his journey. What Paul looked forward to, even if he was in the presence of the Lord, was nothing short of the resurrection from the dead. Citing Philippians 3.11 Challen reminds his readers that Paul "counted all things but loss and of no value, if by any means he might attain the resurrection of the dead." Dying and immediately appearing in the presence of God is not what the Bible means by resurrection of the dead.

When Paul would depart, Challen said, he would be in the same situation as the "SOULS" under the altar in Revelation 6.9-11. Challen stresses the word "soul." Souls minus flesh. He asked a logical question of those who believe in this spiritual millennium, if we are in the place God desires when we enter the "invisible spiritual existence" how do we explain the complaints of the souls who are already there?

"Thus 'the souls' of those who had been slain for the word of God, were seen under the altar by John; and they were waiting for the day when their blood should be avenged on them that dwell on the earth, and until their fellow-servants and their brethren should be killed as they had been, and their number should be completed. To pacify them, and as an earnest of their reward, a white robe was given to each of them. This was a most tender and touching act of sympathy and kindness shown them on the part of the Savior. These heroic witnesses, who had been slain for the word of God, lay beneath the altar, UNFLESHED [my emphasis] and unrobed, restless and anxious for the day of the expectant reward at 'the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.'"

What is it that Paul and the "SOULS" under the altar look forward too? According to Challen the Stone-Campbell Movement knew the secret from the early days but was now forgetting ... as evidenced by our disunion and failure in mission. As Challen frames the question

"why these longing desires [of the SOULS], these anxious expectations? Are they not already with the Lamb? Is not their work done? We answer that they have not as yet received their full reward. They have not received ALL [sic] that has been promised them."

The hope of the Gospel was what Paul anticipated, the hope of the Gospel was what the SOULS cried for. But what was, and is, that hope? What is being hoped for is their full "adoption; to wit the redemption of their bodies."

The coming of Jesus brings with it the first resurrection. This will be "the era of resitution." It will usher in the "new heavens and the new earth, and the coming of redemption." Commenting on this restitution, this redemption, James Challen calls it "the jubilee of the ransomed."

"It will be the ushering in of 'the new heavens and new earth,' and the coming of redemption,' for which 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now.' It will be the jubilee of the ransomed - the day of release of the captives, ushered in with the sound of the resurrection trumpet, and accompanied with the songs of the redeemed. No day like this has ever dawned upon our sin-cursed earth. It will be a day of restoration of our lost inheritances; of reward of prophets, of martyrs, and all the saintly dead."

That glorious day in which the saints will be raised from the dead, when the SOULS of those departed will be reunited with their redeemed body accompanies full redemption of God's beautiful creation.

"The coming of the Lord will not annihilate the earth, or to depopulate it, but to restore its pristine beauty and order; to make the wilderness and solitary places glad; to bless and renew it; to judge the nations, and to bring them under his government."

Far from annihilating his creation, the advent of Jesus will see him subdue his rebellious creation to his personal rule and authority. "He will come to restore the Jewish race (loved for the father's sake) ..." In fact Jesus will reign from Mount Zion and rule over redeemed creation.

Challen knows full well those who have bought into the platonic spiritual millennium notion will retort by saying these things in Scripture are mere figures or metaphors. And Challen admits that the "Scriptures are full of metaphors and symbols!" But he responds "Ay, surely; but they have their meaning. They rest upon a basis of truth. They refer to things real and veritable. They are not simply rhetoric. They had such power on prophets and apostles as to make them tremble, and to fall as dead men to the ground."

The real problem is not metaphors or symbolic language. The real problem is nothing short than a failure to be believe and a misplaced trust in human progress and technology.

"A spiritual reign before the King comes, is the dream of enthusiasts. It is but an 'old wives fable.' It is the outgrowth of a supposed 'outpouring' connected with revivalism. It is the faith in human progress and of better days, and not a faith in God's Word. It is science run mad, philosophy turned prophet, and human reason as the regenerator of the world. It is as baseless as a dream. It has neither experience, observation, nor revelation to rest upon."

Faith in human progress has, according to Challen, replaced "this great hope." Two things Challen believes are true and cohere with the vision of the hope of resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of the sin ruined creation. The first addresses the two failures he observed in the Stone-Campbell Movement. He says that in light of what God intends to do through Jesus at the Advent then ...

"How little do our schemes of life and enjoyments, our party strife and ambitions for pre-eminence, our spiritual millenniums, our revivals, ... appear, in comparison with the great day of the Lord! And how utterly impotent all known agencies, past or present, to usher it in ... There is an imperial grandeur in the potencies [sic] connected with the advent ..."

Position. Power. Privilege. All of these pale in light of the promises of God. In light of God's work our pettiness and confidence in our own systems is severely misguided Challen declares.

But Challen also sees the Stone Campbell Movement itself was stagnating and no longer performing its goal because it had lost faith in the hope. We exist for unity and from unity flows purpose for mission. Thus Challen reminds his younger readers,

"Never was our plea so mighty and successful as when we kept this great hope constantly before the people ... In connection with the Gospel restored and revived, it will yet prove mighty through God in pulling down the strongholds of error and turning sinners to God ..."

For James Challen the doctrine of the second coming of Christ is directly connected to resurrection of the dead and the salvation of God's creation. In fact Challen claims that this is the Christian hope to which the Gospel itself speaks. Challen rejects the spiritualization of the Christian hope. If resurrection is real then so is our hope of a renewed creation.

Challen published his essay, "The Millennium" in The Christian Quarterly 6 (April 1874), pages 247-255.

I have placed Challen's essay on Hans Rollmann's Restoration Movement page.

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden 2 - Song of Songs and the History of Denying Sexuality

"While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh
that lies between my breasts."

Most of us reading the quotation from Song of Songs 1.13 probably did not know that it is really not talking about a woman's perfumed body with her lover lying on top of her. Rather this text is really about the "grace of baptism." Yes baptism! Or at least that is what one of the greatest scholars in the history of Christianity believed. Origen argued for this interpretation in his massive 10 volume commentary on the Song of Songs [1]. As strange as it may seem but readings from the Song of Songs were frequently part of baptismal liturgies in the early church. How can a text that appears to be plainly about the physical desire and intimacy between two lovers in covenant "really" be about baptism? In a word: allegory! For much of its history in the Christian era the Song of Songs has been the victim of allegory. But why?

Ancient Pre-Christian Interpretation

Allegory is the invention of Plato. In the fourth century BC, Plato raised questions about the worthiness of the Greek gods as Homer had portrayed them in the Greek "Bible" - the Iliad and Odyssey. Allegory became the vehicle by which platonic philosophers were able to salvage their legacy and save the gods. In the second century AD both Christian and Jewish scholars employed allegory in interpretation of the Song of Songs. But the question remains, why? Allegory is rooted foundationally in a worldview that is alien to the Creator God of the Hebrews at its very core.

It is easier to raise the question than answer it. It seems clear that allegorical readings of the Song do not pre-date the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. If Plato invented allegory to "save" the gods because he was embarrassed by them we may be able to make a parallel that Christian allegory of the Song was likewise an attempt to "save" a sacred text because the interpreters were embarrassed by it. This embarrassment says more about the interpreters however than it does the God of the Bible.

The earliest interpretation of the Song of Songs by Jews is actually the translation we know as the Septuagint. The Song had been translated into Greek by the second century BC and displays little if any interest in allegory or "spiritualization" of the Song. In fact the translators often bring out an even more blunt and erotic sense than the Hebrew original. For example in 1.2b the text reads "for your love is better than wine." The LXX renders the text "for your breasts are better than wine." This same phenomena is followed in the LXX at 1.4; 4.10; 5.1; & 7.12. [2]. Breasts replace love, certainly a heightened sense of sexuality rather than a distancing from it.

Origen (AD 184/5-253/4), and the early rabbis, were well aware that the Song had a more historical and literal beginning. Origen knew the Song was in fact a "wedding song." Keel, likewise, points to three rabbinic texts from the first and second centuries AD to show that the literal meaning of the Song was understood and widespread in Judaism. Most interesting, for my purposes, is Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel (AD 140ish) who ties the Song to an ancient dancing tradition in Israel that goes all the way back to the time of the Judges (Judges 21.20ff). The Rabbi says

There were no days better for Israelites than the fifteenth of Ab [in August] and the Day of Atonement [in October]. For on those days Jerusalemite girls go out in borrowed white dresses – so as not to shame those who owned none. All the dresses had to be immersed. And the Jerusalemite girls go out and dance in the vineyards. What did they say? “Young man, lift your eyes and see – choose what you want! Don’t look for beauty, look for family.” … “Go forth you daughters of Jerusalem and behold King Solomon with the crown with his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart” (Cant 3.11)” (Mishnah Ta’an 4.8)

Origen and Rabbi Yohanan

It is almost certain that the allegorical approach to the Song began among the Jews after the destruction of the Temple. Again the question is why? The Jews appropriated allegory for reasons the church did not but for the same purpose. Both "Judaism" and "Christianity" were facing serious and world shifting crises in the period of AD 70 to beginning of the third century. First, Judaism (if it were to survive at all) had to come to terms with the question of identity. Second, Judaism had to define itself against the "upstart" group that laid claim to the historical heritage of Israel - the church.

For the church's part it likewise had to deal with the issue of identity - 'we" are "Israel" not 'them". We are the Bride, not them. God divorced them and married us (are you getting the feeling that Song of Songs might be useful for this kind debate). The church also had an internal battle going on. In the second century there were those that not only wanted to say God had divorced the Jews, but that their entire heritage was of no value - this included the "Scriptures" the church had appropriated. So the rabbis are doing 'exegesis' on two fronts and so are the Church Fathers. Both are reading in the context of polemics against the other group - we cannot miss how important this is.

This historic battle defined Christianity as we know it. Song of Songs and its interpretation was one of the battlefields. We see this in Origen and one of the great Jewish exegetes of the day, Rabbi Yohanan. Both men set the course for interpretation for centuries. Both flourished in Palestine in the 240s, both were the leaders in their respective communities, both were giants of learning, both spent a great deal of time in Caesarea. Origen wrote/preached his Commentary on the Song in the 240s and Yohanan did too. These men probably heard each other speaking publicly but at the very least we know they knew each other's arguments. Each is engaging the Song through polemics against the other and not simply reading the Song itself. In a very enlightening study Reuven Kimelman notes that one can parallel Origen and Yohanan using the same arguments, on the same verses, to undo the others exegesis. The issues are complex: the oral law literally takes on the function in Judaism that the NT does in Christianity. That is the teachings of the oral law interpret and apply and at times supersede the written Torah, Jesus functions that way in Christianity. Here is a short list of the issues as they are hammered out:

1) Covenant mediated by Moses versus one negotiated by him
2) NT versus the oral Torah
3) Christ versus Abraham
4) The heavenly versus the earthly Jerusalem
5) Israel being repudiated versus Israel being disciplined [3]

For the rabbis the tool of allegory became the way they could argue that God had not cast off his people but that the Song tells the story of his continuing love for Israel. Israel has been disciplined but not divorced and the Song, allegorically understood, assures Israel that the Messiah will come and redeem her. The rabbis are not Platonists but they use a platonic tool.

The early church had the same struggle as Judaism. Christians had to justify their own existence in the world and did so in opposition to Judaism. Christianity claimed to be the legitimate heir to the people of Israel prior to the destruction of the Temple.

This justification, I remind you, took place after the destruction of the Temple and for the most part in the second century, continues to shape and mold how people think about a myriad of issues. Origen, and others, told the same story as the rabbis from the Song but about the church! The church is now Israel, the church has replaced Israel. This view, hammered out in the midst of severe struggle - often with the blood of martyrs near by - where extremes are often proclaimed, cannot be reconciled with the NT view shared in the first century that Gentiles are grafted by the grace of God into Israel, they did not replace Israel.

Two other considerations shape Origen and most of these early Church Fathers. The rabbis were not platonists. Origen, I am sad to say, was. His cultural worldview was platonic. Like Plato before him he found some things "objectionable" in his sacred text and through allegory was able to "save" the text by finding the "true spiritual meaning" in the text.

Origen, likewise, had to do battle with the Marcionites - that internal front I mentioned above. The Marcionites were true Platonists, like Origen, but their solution was to simply cast the Scriptures of Israel aside. Reject them altogether!

Origen knew that could not be done so he needed a method to remove what the platonic world found objectionable. We actually owe Origen and many other Church Fathers a debt of gratitude - though thoroughly children of their times (as we all are) they saved the Scriptures of Israel for the church from the Marcionites. This is a historical fact and we are and have been shaped by their legacy in ways that most Christians simply, and quite literally, have no clue [4].

It is often difficult to be calm when the parties involved are struggling for their very lives. In circumstances like that perspectives and positions are taken that likely would not be in the calm noon-day sun. But Origen did not live in that noon day sun neither did Rabbi Yohanan. Sadly many still embrace their rhetoric in far less trying times.

Neo-Platonism and the Song of Songs

In reference the Song of Songs, the objectionable material was precisely its content: sexuality. When the message of Jesus and the Kingdom of God crossed into Gentile fields many people embraced the faith that were culturally Greek and essentially Platonic. The church would struggle with this on multiple levels. Platonic thought, as good a story teller Plato was, however is fundamentally anti-biblical.

Platonism is anti-biblical because it is anti-Creation. This worldview asserts that physical matter and the physical body, with its needs is by nature, base, unspiritual, and ultimately evil. True spirituality, in the Platonic worldview, is liberation from the body and its degrading "needs." This worldview was at the root of the denial of the physical incarnation of the Word of God to be literally flesh but only "seemed" to be flesh. This worldview lay at the heart of the Gnostic denial of the physical bodily resurrection of not only Jesus but of all the saints. This worldview rather promotes the immortality of the soul and the pure spiritual state all Greeks longed for rather than a resurrected and renewed earth. This worldview is pagan to the core. Sex is a very physical function that Platonic love wishes to eschew. It is sad, very sad, the church embraced this pagan notion that has haunted Christians ever since. C. S. Lewis notes quite well the impact of this view on sexuality even within marriage in the Christian faith. His focus is on the medieval period,

The views of the medieval churchmen on the sexual act within marriage ... are limited by two complementary agreements. On the one hand, nobody ever asserted that the act was intrinsically sinful. On the other hand, all were agreed that some evil element was present in every concrete instance of this act since the Fall.

Perhaps it was not the act itself but ...

the emotion which is the efficient cause [of sex], remains guilty. But the concrete sexual act, that is, the act PLUS its unavoidable efficient cause [i.e. the desire for sex], remains guilty. [5]

It isn't difficult to see how, or why, one enmeshed in a Platonic worldview would have a nightmare reading the Song of Songs. The Song does not simply talk about the things of the body ... it celebrates them! While it is true that the Bible condemns lust for another person's wife or husband the Bible never describes sexual desire as evil - rather sexual desire is good!!

For centuries the church, because of Platonism, promoted virginity and celibacy as spiritual ideals. The heroes of faith were those who renounced the body and its sexual desires (monks, priests, nuns, etc). The Desert Fathers fled to the remotest parts of the world to seek refuge from the female body - but separation from women hardly delivered these men from the power of sexuality.

These ideas swirling around about the Song of Songs, Platonism and sexuality are hardly harmless ideas that cause Christians to have unbiblical views regarding creation, the body and sex. There are profound day to day ramifications not least of which has been the demonization of the female members of the human race by those who claim to be disciples of Christ. "She" becomes the very symbol of the evil from which the chaste monk wishes to flee! Not only will Platonism bear fruit in outright doctrinal heresy but its pragmatic fruit is the legacy of women being the target of oppression, as the handmaids of Satan, and all manner of such stuff.

The Persistence of Allegory

Origen's commentary, forged in a life and death struggle for survival and identity, set the agenda for Christian exegesis of the Song for all practical purposes till the modern period. The polemic against the Marcionites became a forgotten memory, the debased nature of sexuality became an assumed maxim, and the cross fertilization with Judaism continued even if often unrecognized. The greatest expositor of the Song in the medieval period was Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153)[6] and I plan to treat him alone in a separate blog.

By the high middle ages Rashi, the Jewish theologian, had tweaked an interpretation of the Song that reflected a historical narrative of Israel. Nicholas of Lyra (AD 1270-1349) one of the few medieval churchman who knew Hebrew became heavily influenced by Rashi and basically took his interpretation of the Song and Christianized it. In his rewriting of Rashi the "narrative" in the Song looks like this

1) The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt (1.1-10)
2) Journey through the Desert (1.11-4.6)
3) Entry into the Promised Land (4.6-16)
4) God's Love for the Wayward People (ch's 5-6)
5) The Coming of Christ (ch 7)
6) The Early Church till Constantine (ch 8)
Concluding with a brief look to the conversion of the "synagogue to Christ." [7]

Nicholas' understanding was carried into the infant English language through John Wyclif who authored two commentaries on the Song and gave the English their first version of the Song (for more on Wyclif and his Bible see HERE).

Wyclif and his disciples disliked the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Allegory was termed "goostli vndurstondyng" in their writings. In the Song of Songs, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate into "English" between 1370 and 1390, rides a very fine line between allegory and literal understanding of the book. It is through the Wycliff Bible that the word "spouse" became an English word and lent itself to a more allegorical interpretation. On the whole, however, Wyclif's Bible leaves it to the reader to interpret the text and in the words of Mary Dove, "the Wycliffite Bible Song of Songs ... is more literal than any English translation made during the Reformation" [8].

The most common reading of the Song has come to English readers through the King James Version and allegorization of the Song through hymnody based upon that version. The KJV continues, sadly, what I have come to call "sanctified Platonism" by misleading the reader of the Song through the use of headings. Throughout the KJV the Song never refers to the historical woman or the historical man rather Christ and the church are the only voices that are heard in the Song. "The church's love unto Christ," "Christ awaketh the church," "Christ's love for the church," and "Calling all Gentiles" are among the interpretive headings that mislead the reader of the text. One of the hymns I can remember from my earliest days shows both the power of allegory and its ability to cause the disciple of Christ to miss what the Holy Spirit actually wrote. "Lily of the Valley" is based on Song of Songs 2.1 where the female lover speaks. The Song unambiguously identifies the female lover as the speaker of these words who identifies her as "the rose of Sharon," yet the hymn identifies "lily of the valley" as Jesus. Some may object and say this is rather innocent but if we never actually hear what the Spirit said then there is a real problem.

Wrapping Up

The Song of Songs was, until the modern period, one of the most popular and important works in the canon. It cannot be denied that it furnished many Christians with deep Spiritual insights and a basis for lectio divina. This is simply the Holy Spirit blessing us and working within our flawed understandings and ever flawed hermeneutics. In the modern, post-Enlightenment period, many Christians have continued to surrender creation (and the body) for some form of semi-pagan piety mistaken for Spirituality. Biblical Spirituality is, without exception, creation affirming. Yet several things the modern period has forced upon us as disciples of Christ are

1) the recognition that many interpretations were never grounded in the actual biblical text rather they were grounded in the existential situation the readers brought to the text

2) the recognition that there was a "history" to the Song of Songs before the history of allegory and it seems to have entered the canon without allegorical help.

3) the recognition that even as the early church struggled with the issue of sexuality on its blind side, it confessed that the Scriptures of Israel are in fact the Word of God and that creation was "good" thus the continued rejection of Gnosticism as heresy.

4) One of the great theological values of the Song of Songs, as God gave it, is that it quite literally forces us to wrestle with the question of the goodness of the physical. If forces us to see the physical as actually Spiritual! That is creation issues forth from the creative work of the Triune God and filled with the Holy Spirit's glory.

The Song of Songs is about the things the Platonist regards as degrading, embarrassing and evil. It is about the the joy of physical beauty. It is about kissing. It is about desiring our mate. It is about the bliss of sexual union. It is about passion and communion. The Song of Songs declares that these things, far from being embarrassing, degrading or evil, they are holy, Spiritual, and of God himself. They are very good.

The monks did not completely miss the boat they understood that the "this" is about "that." The problem is that they failed to see the Flame of Yahweh (8.6c) himself imaged and mirrored in the passionate love of the wife and her husband - this is the glory of the Song of Songs.


NOTES:

1] See Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 411.

2] Weston W. Fields, "Early and Medieval Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs," Grace Theological Journal 1 (1980), 223-224. See Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress 1994), 7-6

3] Reuven Kimelman, "Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation," Harvard Theological Review (1980): 567-595.

4] A very readable introduction to these momentous issues is Ronald E. Heine's excellent book Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2007) especially the chapter "The Struggle concerning the Law in the Second Century," pp. 47-74. For a broadly illuminating look at the struggles of the "elder brother" and the "younger brother" see Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP 2002), 225-274.

5] C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 14-15.

6] See the sympathetic overview by Wm. Loyd Allen, "Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs: Why they Matter," Review and Expositor 105 (2008), 403-416.

7] Mary Dove, "Nicholas of Lyra and the literal senses of the Song of Songs," in Nicholas of Lyra: the Senses of Scripture, ed. Philip Krey and Lesley Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 129-146.

8] Mary Dove, "Love ad litteram: The Lollard Translations of the Song of Songs," Reformation 9 (2004), 1-23. Quote from p. 22.

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden - the Song of Songs, Sexuality & Spirituality

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
Your love is more delightful than wine;
delicate is the fragrance of your perfume ..."
(Song of Songs 1.2, Jerusalem Bible)

"For in all the world there is nothing equal to the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings [i.e. Scriptures] are Holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies." (Rabbi Akiba, Mishnah, Yadaim 3.5)

"Holy love is the only subject treated in this Song. We must remember that love reveals itself, not by words or phrases, but by action and experience. It is Love which speaks here, and if anyone wishes to understand it, let him first love. Otherwise it would be folly to read this song of love, because it is absolutely impossible for a cold heart to grasp the meaning of language so inflamed." (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 70.1)

Song of Songs: Entering the Holy of Holies

The Bible. Sexuality. What word comes to mind next? Very few people I know, Christian or otherwise, would exclaim "Spirituality." Indeed though, as Richard Davidson has massively shown, "Sexuality is writ large on the pages of the OT" [1] the church, long infected with virus of Platonic dualism, has often made the assumption that Spirituality and sexuality are polar opposites. Because the church has viewed it this way the world has no reason to disagree!

The Song of Songs has always been a dangerous book for many precisely because it so viciously attacks any notion of dualism and is so unabashedly ... erotic. Erotic is the correct word - not pornographic - but erotic. And it is in the Bible. Which by its very nature demands we examine our, often, not only unbiblical, but anti-biblical assumptions about Spirituality and sexuality. Those are two notions that lie at the very core of being a human. Churches, and the world, are hurting deeply for the lack of witness of the Song of Songs.

Though many churches/Christians act as if they are embarrassed by the Sublime Song of Songs (echoes of the notion that sexuality is somehow tainted or less than holy - dualism!) it has historically been one of the most important books in the Christian canon. In another post I will give a brief overview of the history of the book, but for now we can say that during the medieval period the Song was viewed as a sort of Fifth Gospel! There are more surviving Latin manuscripts of the Song of Songs than any other biblical book. There are more medieval sermons from the Song than any other biblical book except the Psalms. Origen produced a massive 10 volume commentary on the Song. For comparison purposes there are 32 surviving Latin commentaries on the Song from the 6th to 11th centuries while Romans is represented by 9 and Galatians by 6. Bernard of Clairvaux (of whom I will say much more later) spent eighteen years studying, singing, praying and preaching through the Song ... and only made it to the beginning of chapter 3. The Jews have historically affirmed a very high view of the Song as witnessed by Rabbi Akiba and that the Song is read publicly as the text for the holiest worship day of the year - Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

Today the Song is, honestly, practically ignored among Christians. It is true that much of the history of interpretation of the Song has been allegory but the church was not afraid to read and preach the Song. However as Roland Murphy has pointed out, with Bernard specifically in view, "it is paradoxical that Bernard, for all his allegorical flights, often captured the literal meaning of a passage ON THE LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE" [2]. The monks understood on an intuitive level that God was in the mix - even in sexuality.

Yet it was the cancer of Platonic dualism drove many to view sexuality itself as nothing more than a "necessary evil." Thus the Song could not actually be celebrating something that was merely a necessary evil - that is needed for procreation. It was believed that to be truly "spiritual" one had to transcend the body, its functions and its needs/desires. This same worldview, and doctrine, moved some early Christians to deny the reality of the physical incarnation of the Logos and the Gnostics to deny the physical bodily resurrection of Christ and  of believers. The Song is a neo-platonic ascetic nightmare! It had to be "fixed!" For many that solution was allegory but we will see that Bernard though he embraced allegory never de-sexed the Song.

Modernists with a "modern" worldview often claim the Song is "secular." This is even the view of many Christians who radically misunderstand their own faith and worldview. These readers fail to grasp the worldview of ancient Israel - NOTHING WAS SECULAR in ancient Israel! These Israelites did not walk around dividing their days into sacred and the secular as the heirs of the Enlightenment do. They did not have "spiritual" time and "secular" time. Instead they viewed life holistically. Love is a human passion that is God inspired. Those readers who do not see "God" in every line of the Song have a malady that is largely self-inflicted. For the Israelite every moment of life was "infected" by God and this included sexuality. There are many "echoes" in the Song of other biblical stories so much so that ancient Israelite would in fact have seen sexuality, marriage, and burning desire for you mate as sacred. There is no dichotomy: Sexuality is Sacred precisely because it is from God ... and because that passionate intimacy mysteriously mirrors God's own Trinitarian passion. More on that later too.

Returning to Eden

There are many connections between the Sublime Song and the first three chapters of Genesis and I will argue for these as my blogs move forward [3]. In the Garden of Eden, the Bible remembers a paradisaical world. It was a world of love, a world of shalom, a world of mutuality, a world lacking shame. The Fall, Genesis 3, reveals that this world of beauty has been vandalized, even raped. The world in which Israel actually lived, that you and I live in, is a post Genesis 3 world. A world full of sub par relationships on every level. The "symphony of love" begun in Eden becomes the "cacophony of abuse" in the Fallen world. But I submit to you that the Song of Songs pictures the redemption of that symphony of love ... the Song is God's call for a return to Eden in the most holy relationship known to humanity - that between a husband and a wife. In the sexual relationship the Song loudly and proudly proclaims Paradise Regained. Even in the Fallen world we can experience Eden in our relationships - that is the vision of the Sublime Song. As we will see the Song does not see the couple as the "first couple" from Genesis. The Song is deeply aware that we live in a Fallen world but it shows the the woman and the man rediscovering Edenic values in even the most intimate area of their relationship. They relish one another.

In light of my conviction that Akiba was right, that the Song of Songs is inherently Spiritual, and inherently theological, I offer the following seven themes as a mini-Song of Songs theology of Sex as we move into these blogs. I believe these are all the Edenic values that God desires to be in our marriages. Each of these could be expanded greatly but for now I offer just brief commentary.

First, and this is so important, Sexuality is GOOD. Underlying the Song of Songs is the same profound Doctrine of Creation that permeates all of the Hebrew Bible. It is this high view of creation that biblical Spirituality will revel in. The Song of Songs is the verbal photo commentary on Ecclesiastes 3.11 that God "has made everything beautiful in its time." The Song extols and exhibits the creation of sexuality by God in Genesis 2.

Second, Sexuality is for Couples. Some have proposed various roles for Solomon, the shepherd and the woman. I have doubts that Solomon has any real role in the Song at all rather I see the woman calling her man "Solomon" is ancient flattery like a woman today bragging on her husband saying he is hotter than Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or even Batman. This kind of ancient flirting is actually paralleled in the Ancient Near East as seen vividly in Egyptian love songs. In a return to Eden this couple is utterly "in to each other" and they make no Platonic apologies for it. May more wives and husbands embrace this biblical Spirituality.

Third, Sexuality, contrary to the Fall, is egalitarian. The Sublime Song represents a complete reversal of the values of the Fall. The woman in Song of Songs is hardly a passive docile "lady" in the Victorian Ideal. The egalitarian note is sung in 2.16 "my beloved is mine and I am his!" In fact the Woman Lover is the dominant personality in the Song. She carries on the majority of the dialogue (81 verses to 49). She initiates the meetings for lovemaking, she extols his "beauty" passionately ... in fact the man has no extensive voice until chapter 4. One of the most interesting questions in the Song is whether or not 7.10, "I am my lover's and his desire (tesugah) is for me" is a commentary of sorts on Genesis 3.16, "your desire (tesugah) will be for your husband." In the relationship, as God created it and as God desires it and the Song pictures it the man and woman in a mutual joyful love.

Fourth, related to the above theme, Sexuality is about wholeness. We are not creationally "whole" by ourselves. This theme is graphically shown in the Song by the anxiety the lovers feel during periods of the mate's absence (3.1-3; 5.6). Absence brings out the meaning of "presence" for the lovers. Lovers need each other to be whole. Each is capable of being independent but they have become "one flesh."

Fifth, Sexuality is multidimensional. Perhaps we can see the passionate love in the Song as a "live performance" of Genesis 2.24-25. The man is free and unfettered in the Song, and so is the woman. The woman and the man are in a free and spontaneous relationship. Within the Song they are in love for the sake of love. They find joy in mutual physical attraction with unapologetic, and sensually explicit, praise for one another as well as inward qualities of one another. Their relationship is total. After making him feel like he is Mr. Universe she turns and says "this is my beloved and he is my friend" (5.16). The Song reveals fidelity, loyalty and devotion to ones lover. The relationship is God's creational gift in its totality.

Sixth, Sex, is by God's design and intent, Pleasurable. Christians with a biblical worldview (as opposed to a neo-platonic, even neo-Gnostic, worldview) should not shy away from this. But sexuality is not simply intercourse but we need not be platonically ashamed or embarrassed of the goodness and "fun" of sex in our covenant relationship. Too long have we in the Church given the impression that a husband or wife are somehow less than Spiritual, holy, or godly if they are sexually excited by their spouse. They are supposed to be!

It is overlooked often so it needs to be stated forthrightly ... and in light of what many have claimed in the past ... sexuality is not by God's design fundamentally about procreation. That belief is a concession to Platonic dualism. The Song of Songs contains not a single reference to the procreative function of sexuality. As in Genesis 2, the sexual relationship between the Lovers is not linked to any utilitarian agenda. Sex in our covenant relationship does not need any justification to a "superior" end. The union of the lovers - the intimacy - alone is the joy and purpose of sexuality. The Song is not hostile to babies coming but that is not presented as the purpose of sexual intimacy. The Oneness, the intimacy, points beyond itself and mirrors our union with God himself. No wonder it is rapturous!

Seventh, finally, Sexuality is beautiful. Sexuality itself is presented in the Sublime Song as wholesome, good, enjoyable, something that is desired, that is enjoyed without the slightest embarrassment ... it is beautiful! As in Genesis 2, the Lovers in the Song are "naked and ... NOT ASHAMED!" Far from shame they relish it!

In the Song of Songs, though we live in the Fallen world, we have returned to the Garden of Eden. Though in a sinful world Lovers, even after the Fall, can still bask in the beauty of Paradise. The vision of the Song of Songs for our marriage relationship is nothing short of breathtaking. It is a vision we need to teach, preach, proclaim ... and model.

God knew what he was doing when he gave Israel the Song of Songs ... Rabbi Akiba was right. Bernard was right! One will never understand such passionately, even erotically, "inflamed" language if he or she is not first a lover. The plain, literal, sense of the Song of Songs is fraught with Spiritual and theological significance. From the "Old Testament" perspective God is everywhere involved in the Song and his creatures are shown enjoying his good gifts. They are shown basking and demonstrating Yahweh's own passionate love. Their love is just a reflection of that divine love. At the climax of the Song we read

"For Love is as strong as death,
passion as fierce as the grave;
The flash of it is a flash of fire,
a flame of Yahweh (salhebetyah) himself!"
(8.6, my translation)

The passionate love of humans is actually a flash of God's own love. Our experience of Love, as Bernard correctly (inspite of allegory) suggested points to the Lord of Passionate Love! Such is the theology and the gift of the Song of Songs for the church so horribly mired in platonic dualism.

Now here is a thought to think upon: What if when Lord commanded us to "love him with all your heart, with all your soul and all your might" (Deut 6.4) he had something like the passion revealed in the Song of Songs in mind!? I think he did.

Blessings as we read the Song of Songs together.

NOTES:

1]Richard M. Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 1. Davidson's study is far and away the most exhaustive study of sexuality in the Hebrew Bible measuring 700 pages of text and 150 pages of notes and bib. I disagree with Davidson on some particulars but this book is foundational now.

2] Roland Murphy, "The History of Exegesis as a Hermeneutical Tool: The Song of Songs," Biblical Theology Bulletin 16 (1986): 89

3] See especially Francis Landy, "The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden," Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979), 513-528; Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 145-165; Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh, pp. 545-632

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Words Easy to Understand: The Restoration Movement and the King James Version

"In Words Easy to Be Understood"[1]

As we move further into the twenty-first century it is interesting to note some of the changes in perspectives that have occurred among "us" over the last two hundred years. One particular shift is quite a radical one, at least in some quarters. It is a shift from call for radical revision of the 1611 King James Version, or its total replacement, to irrational defenses of the King James as the only true Bible. It is a shift from demands for contemporary vernacular translation based on the most up to date critical Greek & Hebrew texts to retreat to the Textus Receptus. This reorientation became most visible with such giant luminaries as Foy E. Wallace Jr., one of the most influential men among Churches of Christ[2]. Wallace published a massive tome with the intimidating title A Review of the New Versions: Consisting of an Exposure of the Multiple New Translations in which he sets up the KJV as supreme and rabidly attacks all modern translations - including the ASV[3].

In the Introduction to Wallace's work, George DeHoff praises the KJV as brightening the "Golden Age of Literature"[4] and dares to say "the King James Translation of the Bible brought the church to us. It was the translation of the Restoration Movement." Wallace goes further in his own Preface to say that the KJV was the Bible of the Movement. He claims the KJV was the Bible for Campbell, Franklin, Harding, Lipscomb and then pointedly says "the statement that the King James Version was not the Bible of the Restoration is a stupid statement"[5]. I plan on exploring that "stupid statement" in some detail, are DeHoff and Wallace correct in their claim?

Alexander Campbell and the Search for Clear English

By the time Alexander Campbell immigrated to America, European civilization had occupied the land for over 200 years. In that time a plethora of translations had been made available to the reader. French Bibles and Luther's German Bible were available and read in North America [6]. In the British colonial period the first English Bible in America was the Geneva Bible[7]. Yet by Campbell's arrival the common version of the people was the King James Version.

The young Campbell was, however, quite dissatisfied with the "Authorized Version"[8]. Early in his reforming and publishing career, Campbell began calling for a revision or the outright replacement of the common version. For Campbell, reforming the church was historically linked to God's word being put afresh in the vernacular of the common people. He wrote in his journal, the Christian Baptist, "it is a remarkable coincidence in history of all the reformers from Popery, that they all gave of the scriptures in the vernacular tongue of the people whom they labored to reform"[9]. In four brief articles Campbell sketched out the history of the English Bible from "Wickliffe" through Tyndale, the Geneva Bible, the Bishop's Bible and finally the King James Version[10].

Reformation, according to Campbell, simply could not take place because the KJV was no longer in the clear language of the people and it contained many translation errors. Citing James MacKnight as his authority, Campbell argued the KJV frequently departed from the Hebrew to follow the Septuagint or the Vulgate in the "Old Testament. The Common Version had too many "Latinisms" to be intelligible to the ordinary reader and, interestingly enough, it was too "literal" in translating Hebrew and Greek idioms. He declared that the translators allowed the King's notions of "predestination, election, witchcraft, familiar spirits" to influence their work of translating. Many passages, Campbell said, were simply mistranslated and finally the division of verses into individual paragraphs severely hampered following the flow of thought for the ordinary reader [11]. The only way to remedy "those evils" in the KJV "so long and so justly complained of," was to issue a new translation of the New Testament[12]. This is exactly what Alexander Campbell proposed to do using the works of "Doctors Campbell, MacKnight and Doddridge" as a base and revised in the light of Johann Jakob Griesbach's critical Greek New Testament.

The New Version: Living Oracles

On April 19, 1826, Campbell announced to his readers that the new version, that is The Sacred Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ, Commonly Styled the New Testament, translated from the original Greek by George Campbell, James MacKnight, and Philip Doddridge, Doctors of the Church of Scotland, with prefaces to the historical and epistolary books with an appendix, Buffaloe, Brooke, Co., Virginia, Printed and Published by Alexander Cammpbell, 1826 was now available[13]. This version became known simply as "The Living Oracles" though to my knowledge this title never actually appeared on the title page until the Fourth Edition in 1835[14].

In his General Preface to the Sacred Writings, Campbell gave an apology for this new translation. His argument consists of two parts: English has changed since 1611 and the KJV is not only hard to understand in places but also simply wrong in many. Campbell's language argument is that living language is like clothing fashions "at one time current and fashionable" and then "awkward and obsolete"[15]. The first example he gives drives home the point with clarity. Referring to 2 Corinthians 8.3 "we do you to wit," Campbell says "this was, no doubt, a correct and intelligible rendering ... to the people of that day; but to us it is as unintelligible as the Greek original"[16]. Then he lists more examples such as "conversation," "double-minded," "prevent," among many more and more that could be listed but he refrains.

In his second argument, Campbell addressed the long noted reality that the KJV was anything but a perfect translation. He cites the special influence of Theodore Beza [17] upon the 1611 translators giving the version a clear "sectarian" character [18]. His final argument is from the advance in biblical studies especially the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. He notes that special character of NT Greek, with the LXX influence, has the "body of Greek but the soul of Hebrew" as he correctly put it. The translators of 1611 did not recognize this aspect of New Testament Greek and approached the subject as a classical scholar might. Some may say the translations are literally correct but, according to Campbell, "the King's translators have frequently erred in attempting to be, what some would call literally correct. They have not given the meaning in some passages, where they have given a literal translation"[19]. Campbell ended by arguing that Christians now have a more accurate Greek text from which to translate than was available in 1611.

The version by Campbell was a daring enterprise for the day. The Sacred Writings has been called the "first modern translation" [20] because of its dependence on the critical Greek text and its move toward current modern English. Because Campbell intended to maximize readability and comprehension the text of the new version was divided into paragraphs which omitted verse numbers except at the beginning of the paragraph [21].

The shift to current English in the Living Oracles can readily be seen in passages like Philippians 3.20 where the KJV reads "our conversation is in heaven" but Campbell rendered it "but we are citizens of heaven." Romans 14.1 in the KJV reads "but not to doubtful disputations" and Campbell translates "without regard to differences of opinions." Campbell avoided special ecclesiastical words in his version. One looks in vain for "church" or "baptize" instead we read "congregation" and "immerse." "Repent" becomes "reform" and "hell" becomes "hades." In the first edition Campbell rendered parakletos as "Monitor" but rejects this in the second edition using the term "Advocate departing from the KJV's "Comforter." Campbell thus anticipated twentieth century versions in his translation: the RSV reads "Counselor," NEB reads "Advocate," the Jerusalem Bible reads "Advocate," the NIV reads "Counselor," and the NRSV reads "Advocate."

Just as with many twentieth century translations that depend upon the critical Greek text, it was Campbell's commitment to textual criticism that embroiled him in bitter controversy. He rejected the "Received Text" as inferior asserting that "Griesbach's Greek Testament is the most correct in christendom"[22]. This commitment to presenting the authentic wording of the text in translation led Campbell to print many passages in italics that Griesbach regarded as doubtful. These doubtful texts range from a single word to entire passages, including John 7.53-8.11[23]. Passages omitted from the Living Oracles were the Doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6.13, KJV); the Ethiopian's confession (Acts 8.37, KJV); the phrase "through his blood" in Colossians 1.14 and the Three Heavenly Witnesses in 1 John 5.7[24]. Ultimately three hundred and fifty seven readings were relegated to the table of "Spurious Readings."

Campbell's rejection of the reading theos in favor of Lord in Acts 20.28 brought charges of denying the deity of Christ, Unitarianism and Socianism. An anonymous "Friend of Truth" wrote to Campbell that "this has long been viewed as a powerful text in opposition to those who deny the proper divinity of Christ ... I am sorry that Mr. Campbell makes the change." The Friend of Truth insinuates that Campbell may be guilty of Unitarianism himself![25] Campbell defends the the reading of Lord on the basis of Griesbach and an appeal to Irenaeus. For Campbell, the Friend of Truth, did not want to deal with the textual evidence for the reading so he had to resort to casting aspirations upon Campbell's orthodoxy. Our pioneer Bible reviser writes pointedly,

"For although I am as firmly convinced of the proper divinity of the Saviour of the world, that he is literally and as truly the Son of God as the Son of Man, as ever John Calvin was, I would not do as this 'Friend of Truth' insinuates I ought have done, made the text bend to suit my views" [26]

Campbell argued there was nothing to fear from new translations. "The weak minded only are afraid of new translations" he wrote. New versions do not add to or take away any cardinal truth of Christianity nor threaten Christians by producing heterodoxy. Rather he told the readers of the Christian Baptist that "the illiterate have stronger faith who read many translations, than the same class who have read but one"[27]. One "weak minded" person actually acquired a copy of the Living Oracles and then proceeded to literally burn it after he compared it to the "common version" or the King James Version [28]. Another congregation had teachers who refused to read the new version because it was not "the word of God"[29]. Campbell responded with tongue firmly planted in his cheek to these misguided disciples:

"Your teacher was certainly right, and you should all passively submit to his determination. For the common version is the word of God, but the new one is not. The reason I will tell you. The common version was made by forty-nine persons authorized by the king, and paid for their trouble by the king, and when their work was published the king ordered it to be read as the word of God in the public assemblies and in families, to the exclusion of every other version ... You see there are two things necessary to constitute any translation the word of God; first that it be authorized by a king and his court; and again, that it be finished by forty-nine persons ... by such arguments as these my dear sir, we prove the common version to be the word of God and the new to be the word of man. If any man has any better arguments than these to offer, we shall cordially thank him for them" [30]

Alexander Campbell believed these disciples to be badly mistaken to think that only the King James Version was the word of God. Surely such people, Campbell argued, just had not thought through their argument. He asked them, if the KJV is truly the only word of God then "have the French, the Spanish, the Germans, and all the nations of Europe, save the English, no Word of God?" Then the Translator states "I would thank some of those ignorant declaimers to tell us where the Word of God was before the reign of king [sic] James!" [31] He goes on in bold language "taken as a whole, it [KJV] has outlived its day at least one century, and like a superannuated man, has failed to be as lucid and communicative as in its prime" [32].

C. K. Thomas in his extensive study of Campbell's Living Oracles prepared a chart comparing it with the RSV showing its decided tendency towards current English [33]. I have edited the chart to include the NIV for contemporary comparison. (I am trying to figure out how to insert this table ...)

(Chart to be here later)

The chart clearly demonstrates movement to modern and intelligible speech.

Reception of the Living Oracles Among Disciples

The Living Oracles clearly reveal Alexander Campbell's fundamental attitude toward the King James Version. His work was welcomed among those in the Restoration Movement going through six editions from Campbell's press and reprinted numerous times after that. Two episodes may be noted to show how popular this translation was among the Disciples of Christ. The famous preacher "Raccoon" John Smith was called to give an account of his preaching before the Baptists Association Meeting at Cane Spring in 1827. Smith was charged with breaking three tenants of the Baptist tradition. I will list only one pertinent to our point here. The charge reads,

1. That, while it is the custom of Baptists to use the the Word of God King James translation, he [Smith] had, on two or three occasions in public, and often privately in his family, read from Alexander Campbell's translation. [34]

John Smith's response to the charges was "I plead guilty." When Smith was allowed to defend himself he addressed a certain elder who had declared the King's version to be the only word of God and asked him if he really meant it. Williams narrates the story,

"Yes,' said the elder bravely, 'I said so, and I still say it.' 'How long, my brother,' said Smith, 'has it been since the king made his translation?'
'I don't know,' said the elder, defiantly ignorant. 'Was it not about two hundred and twenty years ago?' Smith asked of the clerk, who, perhaps had read more than his brethren.
'I believe it has been about that time,' he replied.
'Then is it not a pity,' continued Smith, that the apostles left the world and the Church without any Word of God for fifteen hundred years? For, as these intelligent citizens around me know, they wrote Greek, without the least knowledge of the language into which King James, fifteen hundred years afterward, had their writings translated! But if nothing is the Word of God but the King's version, do you not brethren pity the Dutch, who have not that version, and who could not read one word of it, if they had it'"[35]

The incident involving 'Raccoon' John Smith provides some insight into how widespread the use of Campbell's new version was. It also helps us understand the official censure of the Baptists in the Appomattox Decrees. The Decrees were aimed at stifling the influence of Campbell's reforming ideas among them. So prevalent was Campbell's version among disciples and apparently some non-reforming churches that it is singled out for mention in the Decrees. It reads, "Resolved, That it be recommended to all churches in this Association, not to countenance the new translation of the New Testament"[36]. The string of evidence we have examined so far shows that DeHoff's and Wallace's conclusion is nothing but rhetoric. The King James Version was not the Bible of the early Stone-Campbell Movement rather it was what became known as the Living Oracles [37]. This was recognized by David Lipscomb who wrote in 1890 these words,

"it is a mistake that the reformation was based upon it [KJV]. Alexander Campbell rejected it, adopted MacKnight and Doddridge's and did more to bring about the late revision [the RV of 1881] than any other man on earth" [38].

The American Bible Union Years

Throughout the 1830s, Campbell defended his new version from attacks, especially those of O. Jennings. These articles explored the proper understanding of faith in Ephesians 2.8[39], the proper translation of ekklesia [40], and the proper rendering for baptizo [41]. The series ends with Campbell discussion the proper translation and the textual variants of Acts 20.28 and Titus 2.13[42].

In 1835, Campbell continued his quest for a readable and accurate English Bible in a series of articles exploring "Mistranslations" in the King James Version. It was Campbell's opinion that the KJV provided many opportunities for skeptics to attack "the inspired authors"[43] of the Scriptures when the fault was really the 1611 translators who mistranslated the text. Focusing on the first book of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, Campbell lists a number of mistranslations that had given skeptics much delight. I will highlight two of them. Genesis 1.6 in the KJV reads "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." The King's translators followed the Latin Vulgate and not the Hebrew argued Campbell. The Hebrew rakeea properly means "the expanse or space." The modern philosophists, as Campbell calls them, laugh at the false teaching of this verse in Genesis 1 of the King James Version. But Moses, Campbell declares, teaches "the true wisdom, saying, 'And God said, Let there be an expanse [or space or atmosphere]in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters"[44]. It is worthy of note that the NIV reads "Let there be an expanse between the waters ..." confirming Campbell's linguistic skill.

Another passage that has been extensively used in our debate tradition, Genesis 6.14, comes under Campbell's microscope. The Genesis text reads in the KJV, "Make thee an ark of gopher wood." This is not even translation Campbell exclaimed! It is simply the Hebrew word in English letters [45]. The Septuagint rendered it as "squared timber" (not any particular type of wood at all!). The Hebrew gopher meant simply "cypress." God had told Noah to use a broadly defined family of trees, cypress trees, and that is exactly what ancient shipbuilders used according to Campbell[46]. Again it is worthy of note that the NIV renders the word exactly as Campbell suggested in 1835, "make yourself an ark of cypress wood." These are just a few of Campbell's many examples from Genesis that he believed warranted a fresh translation of the Hebrew Bible into English.

Walter Scott threw his weight behind the plea for a new version of the Bible too. Looking at the history of "Old Testament" translation pointing out some of the new versions by Pagninus that were "extremely literal, and by this means, are rude, barbarous and often obscure" [47]. Others however are not even based upon the Hebrew, he argues, but on Latin.

Scott pointed out that 200 years of learning had passed since the KJV was received off the press and regardless of its merits, knowledge has in fact progressed and surpassed the state of the question in 1611.

"In all respects of biblical criticism, much has been developed and redeemed with that period [i.e.1611-1832]. The Original languages, the languages kindred to them, are now much better understood than in the days of King James. Manuscripts and editions are better known and more numerous ... The Scriptures themselves in all circumstances of scope, design, occasion, doctrine, morals, manners and customs are better comprehended" than in 1611[48].

Scott proposes to do for the "Old Testament" what Campbell had done for the New Testament. He proposed that Christians should avail themselves to the best of modern scholarship as represented in Kennecott, Michaelis, Horsley, Lowth, and other scholars for a new version of the Hebrew Scriptures. Robert Lowth's Isaiah, Horsely's Hosea and others should be bound in a single volume for a new Old Testament[49]. A new version was simply imperative for American readers [50].

The Stone-Campbell Movement's involvement with the American Bible Union and the Association for Revision throughout the 1850s is another giant piece of the puzzle of restoration attitudes towards the King James Version. Sadly this part of "our" story is frequently not even mentioned in standard histories[51]. The ABU was the result of a fracture in the American Bible Society over supporting Adonirum Judson's translation into Burmese. Judson's version rendered "baptism" as "immerse" causing discord in that body. When the American and Foreign Bible Society was formed the following resolution was adopted:

"Resolved, That it is not the province and duty of the American and Foreign Bible Society, to attempt on their own part, or to procure from others, a revision of the commonly received English version of the Sacred Scriptures" [52]

This resolution led to the immediate resignation of Spencer Cone, the President, and the withdrawal of many delegates; these men then formed the American Bible Union. The ABU stated in its constitution that its main object was to "procure and circulate the most faithful versions of the Sacred Scriptures in all language throughout the world." This included English. During decade of the 1850s[53] the Millennial Harbinger carried numerous articles calling for the revision of the King James Version and reports on the work of the Bible Union[54].

From time to time notices were published of Scripture portions that had been revised and had become available. Campbell, for example, wrote excitedly about Dr. Conant's new version of Job. He wrote "We recommend it as a specimen to our readers and to the world, as an INCONTROVERTIBLE argument in FAVOR of the value and IMPORTANCE of the New Version" [55]. S. E. Shepherd published a note on the revision of 1 Peter 2.13-14, a passage that bears the mark of royal influence in the King's version designed to make it favor the "supremacy of the king" [56].

In the summer of 1857 a revision of the Epistle to the Hebrews was issued and carries this remark from Campbell, "we pronounce it to be a careful, learned, and greatly improved version of the second greatest epistle to be written by the greatest Apostle" [57]. Campbell shows his concern for accuracy and understandability in his review of this revision. He argues that diatheke should be rendered institution rather than covenant or testament. "Institution" says Campbell is the "most appropriate and representative in our vernacular" [58]

The Restoration Movement did more than talk about revision in the decade of 1850-1860 rather they led the way hands on. Representatives of the SCM were heavily involved with whomever would join them in the cause of revision - especially Progressive Baptists. Both Tolbert Fanning, President of Franklin College and founder of the Gospel Advocate and B.F. Hall were signers of the Constitution of the American Bible Union[59]. Alexander Campbell, James Shannon, John T. Johnson, Philip S. Fall, James Challen, and Tolbert Fanning all served as Vice-Presidents ... this is a list that reads like a Who's Who in the Stone-Campbell Movement! Walter Scott was a manager and Ben Franklin addressed the ABU in 1854 [60]. Jacob Creath, Jr was one of the many famous preachers in the SCM who became a field agent for the Bible Revision Association [61].

James Challen addressed the 1852 Bible Revision Convention held in Memphis on the subject "The Necessity of a New Version and the Means of Procuring It." Challen argued that the need for a new and better translation, "one that will express the mind of the spirit with more perspicuity and force, with greater accuracy and precision" simply could not be denied[62]. For this famous Cincinnati preacher, God's Providence was involved in the work of the Bible Union. He told his fellow delegates,

"The origin and existence of the American Bible Union is a providential one. Such a society as this has never before existed ... It has not sprung into existence by chance. It is the offspring of him who said, 'Let there be light, and light was.' As God is seen in history, I see his hand in the several steps, which originated this blessed institution."

Why was the Union so blessed? Because it refused to allow the standard of authority to be anything but the Greek and Hebrew originals. He asserted that all versions should be measured by and conformed to them - not the King James Version [63]. Challen repeats a theme that has been visible many times in this study, the Bible should be understandable and in plain contemporary English. He waxes eloquent upon this theme,

"The Bible translated,' is our motto, not the Bible hid in the past, buried in the tomb of an obsolete, and forgotten language, but the Bible trembling all over with the spirit of life; the Bible full of eyes before and behind, like the living creatures in the Apocalypse. And as the ocean reflects the image of the sky with all its brilliant jewelry, so to a world shrouded in darkness, the lights of the spiritual firmament may be mirrored forth by true and faithful translations of the oracles of God" [64]

However there was considerable opposition to the work of the ABU among the Baptists but there is not a trace of it from Disciple writings of the period. The Amity-Street Baptist Church in New York City opposed the revision on the grounds that the KJV was already the best translation in the world. Rev. Williams, the author of the church's letter to the ABU, also censures the group for allowing Alexander Campbell and other SCM leaders to be involved - people guilty of heterodoxy [65].

A. C. Coxe published an Apology for the Common English Bible in 1857 in response to the interest in revision. His argument in favor of the KJV revolve largely around emotions and appeal to style. He writes

"even the antiquated words of the English Bible will never become obsolete, while they are preserved in the amber of its purity ... He who would rub off those graceful marks of age which adorn our version, vulgarizes and debases that venerable dignity with which the first ideas of religion came to the youthful mind and heart from the old and hoary Bible." [66]

Coxe goes on to argue that revision would destroy trust in the Bible as God's word [67]. He even opposed the American Bible Society's effort to simply eliminate divergent readings and spelling errors that had long been noted in the King James Version. He writes,

"Why is it necessary to spell ERROUR without the U, which belongs to it by every law of etymology, seeing our Latin comes to us through the Normans? Why is it necessary to modernize the antique spellings which one loves occasionally to meet, amid the leaves of his Bible, and which the humblest reader is willing to see there, though not in his newspaper?"

These minor modernizations and corrections are, he charges, "changes in the sacred text"[68].

The Stone-Campbell Movement rejected this type of "logic." F. M. Carmak confronted the kind of argument made by Coxe head one. He wrote in the Gospel Advocate about the love of the style of the KJV,

"This sacred regard for the phraseology of the old version arises from a superstitious reverence for things that are old; hence it is too often the case, I fear, that the professed friend of the Volume of Truth looks upon it as a relic of antiquity, like some quaint old Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman ballad, than as the living word of God, adapted to the moral and spiritual wants of the present age" [69]

Carmak states that this desire to keep the style of the Bible antiquated actually hinders the growth of spirituality in young people. "Why is there," here asks, "so little interest manifested by the young in reading the Bible? Is it not attributable, in part at least, to its style? Its haths and its doths, its ye's and its eths, give it a heavy lifeless style, and cause aversion to the reading of the best of books" [70]

Robert Richardson responded to the idea that new versions will cause doubt towards the Bible or create division. He argued instead of Bible study suffering from revision it will be enhanced. "Lovers of Divine Truth," Richardson wrote, "will delight to find in the clearer language of the new version, the solution of many difficulties which have been created by the obscurities and imperfections of the common translation." Multitudes who previously had no desire to study will not do so with the arrival of the new version[71].

Restoration involvement with the ABU culminated with Alexander Campbell's revision of the Acts of the Apostles. Campbell having addressed the convention on at least four occasions regarding various aspects of Bible translation into the vernacular [72] published his revision in 1858. Campbell's revision retains much of the vigor of the Living Oracles. Campbell retained the reading "Lord" in Acts 20.28 giving his reasoning in his Notes [73].

From the Civil War to the Dawn of the New Century

While Campbell was in his golden years and America was torn apart by a bloody conflict, many disciples still continued to dream of a current speech translation. Henry T. Anderson was one such dreamer. Anderson was a scholarly preacher from Harrodsburg, KY and he published a fresh translation of the NT. He says in his Preface that he made his translation with no thought to the phraseology of the KJV. He did not feel bound by Greek structures but wished to express the "sense of the Original" in "good English" [74]. The New Testament is printed in paragraphs with good spacing between the lines. Moses Lard states the volume was "one of the most elegant and appropriate in appearance we have ever seen" [75]. There are no footnotes of any kind however page 568 lists current values for money. Anderson's version was excitedly received by leading lights of the day being praised by Robert Milligan, J. W. McGarvey and Ben Franklin. David Lipscomb used Anderson's version along with the Living Oracles, the Bible Union Version along with the KJV during his family devotionals [76].

Lard gave Anderson's Translation a lengthy review in which Ben Franklin thought he was overly critical [77]. Indeed Lard does pretty much focus upon minor points in his review such as the rendering of hades, paraclete and Anderson's retention of some "verbal fossils." What is important for our purposes is that Lard praises Anderson for understanding proper translation theory in that,

"the sense of the sacred text should be expressed in the fewest English words that adequately convey it to mind. These words, let me add, should be arranged with no reference to the order of words in the original. The usages of the English and modes of English thought alone should determine the form the English sentence should take."

Put into practice this principle aims for simplicity in translation,

"Anderson has certainly aimed at simplicity in his translation; and we are glad to say he has, in the main, succeeded well. Still in very many passages we think it decidedly at fault in this respect. We should always prefer two or three or even more simple easy words to one learned or unfamiliar one, in making a translation" [78].

Anderson's version aimed at being a completely fresh and modern language New Testament. Lard's minimal quarrel with Anderson is that it was not simple and modern enough.

Lard published a lengthy article in 1864 on the subject of "Translations and Revisions." The article is really about translation theory and is, perhaps, the only only article in the 19th century written within the Stone-Campbell Movement on translation theory. Lard greatly criticizes the translation rule of the ABU that directs that translation be done with "corresponding words and phrases." This rule, apparently adopted by the 1611 translators too, leads to all manner of false readings. Lard says "whether the sense of a sentence in one language shall be translated by corresponding words and phrases of another is a circumstance which can never in the least enhance the excellency of a translation, but may very seriously injure it" [79]. Too literal a rendering of one language into another obscures meaning rather than enhances it. Exactitude in translation is the goal, but that means the sense of the original being understood in the receptor language [80].

Many translators, however, follow this rule of corresponding words and phrases to the detriment of the common English reader. Lard censures these translators, including those of 1611,

"The practice of some translators literally stuffing their translations until every sentence on the like a bloated thing can not be too severely reprehended. With such every kai, and de, and men and ho must have some corresponding representative. Thus the ease and perspicuity of the English are lost in clumsy attempts to make it walk on Grecian stilts" [81].

The SCM continued to seek replacement for the KJV. Charles Louis Loos announced in the Millennial Harbinger the planned major revision of the KJV in England. Loos writes this has been Restoration Movement's plea from its beginning, now "we have many reasons to rejoice." The revision will not be as thorough as the SCM had advocated but "it doubtless will be a great improvement" [82].

James Lillie wrote on the need for "Bible Revision" and spared the 1611 KJV the usual flattering statements. To Lillie the translators were really hirelings and falsifiers of God's word. He accuses them of being "stealers" of another man's labor - William Tyndale and claimed it as their own [83].

W. K. Pendleton, in 1870, published excerpts from R. C. Trenche's On The Authorized Version of the New Testament concerning the necessary distinctions that are hidden in the KJV. In this short article, Trench demonstrates in numerous passages that the 1611 translators had mistranslated the text [84].

When the Revised Version was finally published in 1881 it was hailed by leading thinkers in the RM as the best ever. J. W. McGarvey told preachers in 1883 that they were on dangerous ground if they continued using the 1611 King James Version. He proclaimed,

"...we must by all means use the best version. The Canterbury revision of the English Bible should now totally supplant the King James version, not only because it is a great improvement as a version, but because it is the only representative in English of the corrected Greek text. A man is not safe venturing upon exegesis of a single passage by the aid of the old version until he shall have compared it carefully with the new; and rather than be continually making these comparisons, it is better to at once adopt the new into exclusive use" [85]

Many preachers followed McGarvey's advice. James A. Harding in his great debate with J.B. Moody in 1888 on Christian Baptism frequently refers to the RV in his arguments. Harding within a few years adopted the RV/ASV into exclusive use in his writings. He writes in The Way,

"I can most heartily advise all who are interested in Bible study to get the 'American Revised Version' and read it. I believe it to be the best translation of the Holy Scriptures ever made into the English tongue. The quotations made by the editor in his articles in The Way are from this version" [86].

Conclusions from our Survey

With the dawn of the twentieth century and James A. Harding I bring this essay to a close. Looking back however we see from the first articles by Alexander Campbell in the Christian Baptist to The Way there has been a consistent voice in the Stone-Campbell Movement. That voice was united in declaring the King James Version as an inadequate translation in need of drastic revision or complete replacement with a fresh translation. Many "denominationalists" opposed revision of the KJV. They published books, articles and even eventually destroyed a good thing in the American Bible Union.

Yet the most striking fact to emerge from my study of the many journals and many articles that have not been referred to due to space is this: there is not a single defense of the King James Version written by a member of the Stone-Campbell Movement whether "liberal" or "conservative" in the nineteenth century! From the Millennial Harbinger, to the Evangelist, to Lard's Quarterly, to the Christian Record, to the Gospel Advocate, the Way, the Protestant Unionist, and the Christian Standard there is not one single article written protesting the revision and/or replacement of the King James Version on the basis of modern critical Greek texts or putting it into into "Words Easy to Be Understood." I think this is a significant fact.

The very first article I have located defending the King James Version as the best version was published by David Lipscomb Jr (a nephew not the son of DL) in the January 7, 1926 Gospel Advocate. Lipscomb's argument runs counter to the entire nineteenth century heritage he received including the opinions of the one whose name he bears. He argued that the KJV was superior to the ASV on stylistic grounds. Then he argues that no one ever thought to revise or update "Hamlet" or "Julius Caesar," so why should the English Bible be tampered with? He closes his article by saying "If any one contemplates sending me a Bible as a New Year's present, let it be the Authorized Version, the one that has been for three hundred years satisfactory to people of all classes"[87]. But our study has shown it has not! And David Lipscomb Jr did not go unanswered. Our heritage has rather shouted "Give us the Bible in words easy to understand."


Notes:

[1] The phrase "in words easy to be understood" comes from a speech by James Shannon at the Bible Revision Convention in 1852. These words of Shannon encapsulate the almost unanimous voice of the 19th century Stone-Campbell restoration movement's demand to have an accurate, clear and understandable English Bible. See "The Importance of Procuring a Pure Version of the Scriptures," in Proceedings of the Bible Revision Convention, Memphis, Tennessee, April 2, 1852 (Louisville: Hall and Brothers, 1852), 48.

[2] Richard T. Hughes, Reviving the Ancient Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 160-166.

[3] A Review of the New Versions, 3rd edition (Fort Worth: Foy E. Wallace Jr. Publications, 1973, 1976).

[4] ibid., XV. It is not infrequent to hear writers attribute to the KJV with having a great impact upon the English literary tradition. C. S. Lewis does not agree with George DeHoff however. He writes of that the KJV "as a strict literary influence" is far less than supposed. See C. S. Lewis, The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 26.

[5] Wallace, p. XXV.

[6] P. Marion Simms, The Bible in America: Versions That Have Played Their Part in Making the Republic (New York: Wilison-Crickson, 1936), 65, 68ff. Simms notes that the first printed Bible in America was Eliots Indian Bible printed in 1663 (pp. 189-192) and the first Bible printed in a European language was the Saur German Bible in 1743 (pp. 120-125).

[7] ibid., 89-90.

[8] Alexander Campbell, "King James Instructions to the Translators of the Bible - With extracts and remarks," Christian Baptist 2 (1 November 1824), 104-105. All references to the Christian Baptist: Seven Volumes in One, ed. Alexander Campbell and Revised by D. S. Burnett.

[9] Alexander Campbell, "History of the English Bible, No. 1" Christian Baptist 7 (7 February 1825), 130.

[10] Alexander Campbell, History of the English Bible, No 2-4," CB 2 (7 March 1825), 136; CB 9 (4 April 1825), 66-67; CB 2 (6 June 1825), 160-161. It is fascinating to see that in Campbell's article on Tyndale he asserts that Tyndale did not translate from Greek but from Latin into English, "Tyndale translated, as Wickliffe before him, from the Vulgate Latin and not from the Greek." "History of the English Bible, No. 2" CB 2 (7 March 1825), 136. Campbell even if he had never seen a Tyndale NT was familiar with John Lewis' A Complete History of the Several Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English, 3rd (London: W. Baynes, 54, Paternoster Row, 1818). Lewis reprints Tyndale's Prologue to Matthew on p. 81, "I have looked over againe now with all diligence and compared it unto the Greke ..." Campbell seems to have been dependent upon James MacKnight who asserted Tyndale did not know Greek, "it is commonly said that Tindale [sic] made his translation of the New Testament from the Greek; but no such thing is said in any of the editions published by himself or Joye," MacKnight, Epistles (Grand Rapids: Baker Reprint, n.d) Vol. 1, pp. 13-14.

[11] Alexander Campbell, "History of the English Bible, No. 4," CB 2 (6 June 1825), 82.

[12] ibid., 161.

[13] Title Page

[14] See C. K. Thomas, Alexander Campbell and his New Version (St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1958), 19.

[15] Campbell used the term "Living Oracles" in the General Preface, p. iii.

[16] ibid., iv.

[17] The influence of Theodore Beza has been noted by 20th century historians as well. See the thorough work by Irena Dorota Backus, The Reformed Roots of the English New Testament: The Influence of Theodore Beza on the English New Testament (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1980). She shows convincingly for this influence of Beza especially through the 1602 Bishop's Bible printed by Robert Baker.

[18] Campbell, General Preface, pp. v-vii. One of the major "shifts" on this point is that 19th century restoration leaders did not hesitate to identify the "sectarian" qualities of the KJV whereas today many simply deny they exist!

[19] ibid, vii.

[20] Edward J. Goodspeed, Problems of New Testament Translation as quoted in Frank Pack, "Alexander Campbell the Scholar," Restoration Quarterly 30 (1988), 128.

[21] The Third Edition of the "Family Testament," included verse numeration in the margin for the sake of reference, Alexander Campbell, "Historical Sketch and Progress of the New Translation," Millennial Harbinger (June 1832), 270.

[22] Alexander Campbell, NO Title, CB (5 March 1827), 318. The scholarly instincts of Campbell are clearly seen in his commitment to Griesbach's text. Bruce Metzger writes "The importance of Griesbach for New Testament textual criticism can scarcely be overstated. For the first time in Germany a scholar ventured to abandon the Textus Receptus ..." The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 2nd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 121.

[23] In the Third Edition Campbell appears to have stopped using italics, cf. Alexander Campbell and His New Version, pp. 38, 53. The use of italics to indicate doubtful readings anticipates the RSV printing of John 7.53ff and Mk 16.9-20 in an italicized footnote. Campbell, after the Third Edition, put these spurious readings in an Appendix at the end of the Volume.

[24] It is interesting to note that Foy Wallace in his Review of Modern Versions heavily criticizes the RSV for changing and deleting God's word in each of the places just listed except 1 John 5.7. In reference to the Doxology, Wallace's final climatic argument for retaining it is the "king's translators" had all the manuscripts needed to be "sufficient for plenary translation" ... whatever that may be (p. 328). On Col 1.14 Wallace says "through his blood has been cast out without even a marginal note." Wallace asserts this reading is "word for word in the interlinear, and it is evidently in the manuscripts which produced our Bible ... there is no reason for expunging it by the later versions" (pp. 447f). It is true that this reading is in Stephen's Text of 1550 which reads dia tou aimato autou, The Englishman's Greek New Testament Giving Stephen's Text of 1550 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970). Greisbach's text reads en ho echomen tan apolutrosin, tan aphesin town amarpon, with a footnote explaining the omission "through his blood" was due to mss evidence. The modern critical text omits the reading without a footnote.

[25] A Friend of Truth, CB 4 (6 November 1826), 286.

[26] Alexander Campbell, "A Refutation of the Foregoing Misrepresentations," CB 4 (6 November 1826), 287.

[27] Alexander Campbell, "The New Translation," CB 4 (2 April 1827), 68

[28] Cited in Thomas, Campbell and His New Version, p. 70

[29] Candidus, CB 4 (7 May 1827), 345

[30] Alexander Campbell, "Reply to the Foregoing Letter," CB 4 (7 May 1827), 345-346.

[31] Alexander Campbell, "The Word of God," CB 6 (6 April 1829), 540

[32] ibid

[33] Thomas, Campbell and His New Version, 41-42.

[34] John Augustus Williams, The Life of Elder John Smith (Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1956), 146.

[35]ibid., 150-151.

[36] "The Appomattox Decrees," Millennial Harbinger 1 (7 June 1830), 261

[37] The Living Oracles was the better choice. Marion Simms while characterizing Campbell's version as a "sectarian" translation and calling it an "immersion version" still passes on high praise for the Living Oracles.
"Campbell was a man of scholarly attainments, and it was the unsatisfactory character of the King James Version that chiefly inspired his effort to provide a better text, and while at it he translated baptizo as he interpreted it. This was unquestionably the best New Testament in use at the time" The Bible in America, p. 249.

[38] David Lipscomb, "The Two Translations," Gospel Advocate 32 (9 April 1890), 231

[39] Alexander Campbell, New Version Defended and O. Jennings, D.D. Exposed, No. 1," Millennial Harbinger (September 1832), 455-459.

[40] Alexander Campbell, "The New Version Defended and O. Jennings, D.D. Exposed, No.2," Millennial Harbinger (October 1832), 505-508

[41] Alexander Campbell, "The New Version Defended and O. Jennings, D.D. Exposed, No. 3," Millennial Harbinger (November 1832), 534-537.

[42] Alexander Campbell, "The New Version Defended, No. 6," Millennial Harbinger (May 1834), 204-208 and "New Version Defended, No.7," Millennial Harbinger (June 1834), 274-277. These two articles again reveal Campbell's courage to follow what he believes to be the evidence regardless of the charges of heterodoxy.

[43] Alexander Campbell, "Mistranslations, No.1," Millennial Harbinger (February 1835), 49.

[44] ibid

[45] Alexander Campbell, "Mistranslations, No. 3," Millennial Harbinger (April 1835), 150

[46] ibid

[47] Walter Scott, "A Plea for a New Version of the Old Testament Scriptures," Evangelist (6 August 1832), 170f.

[48] ibid., 172

[49] ibid.

[50]Walter Scott, "A Plea for a New Version of the Old Testament Scriptures, No. 2," Evangelist (3 September 1832), 193-198; "A Plea for a New Version of the Scriptures, No. 3," Evangelist (3 December 1832), 274-277. Scott includes a sample of current Jewish translation of the Hebrew in his No.3, p. 276.

[51] Donald Jackson, The Place of the American Bible Union in the History of the Restoration Movement, Unpublished Guided Research Paper, Harding Graduate School of Religion, 1979. Jackson's work is an excellent place to begin for information on the Disciples involvement in the ABU.

[52] "Origin and Progress of American Bible Societies," Millennial Harbinger (May 1858), 280

[53] C. L. Loos writing in 1870 recognizes this decade as full of agitation for revision of the King James Version. He writes, "after the high wind of excitement of the subject of Bible revision that passed over us from 1850-1860, a calm followed," Millennial Harbinger (November 1870), 617. The primary reason for the "calm" was the unsatisfactory course the ABU itself took with its revision ... and the Civil War.

[54] It is curious that Barton Stone's journal, the Christian Messenger never carried any articles dealing directly with versions. This is true over the life of the journal (1826-1844).

[55] Alexander Campbell, "The Translation of the Book of Job - By Dr Conant," Millennial Harbinger (February 1857), 112

[56] S. E. Shepherd, "I Peter II:13-14," Millennial Harbinger (January 1857), 43

[57] Alexander Campbell, "The Epistle to the Hebrews Revised," Millennial Harbinger (July 1857), 389

[58] ibid., 391

[59] See Proceedings of the Bible Revision Convention held at Memphis, TN, April 2, 1852 (Louisville: Hull and Brothers, 1852), 8

[60] Proceedings of the Bible Revision Convention held at Nashville, April 7, 8 & 10, 1854 (Louisville: Hull and Brothers, 1854). Franklin's address is not recorded in the Proceedings but is said to have given "an exceedingly able address in favor of our enterprise," p. 19.

[61] Jacob Creath, Jr, "Mr James Taylor, the Common Version and the 24,000 Errors, No. 1," Millennial Harbinger (January 1858), 32-34.

[62] Proceedings 1852, p. 23

[63] ibid., 27

[64] James Challen, "Address of Elder James Challen," The Bible Union Quarterly, No. 7 (February 1852), 318

[65] "Correspondence Between the American Bible Union and Rev. William R. Williams, D. D.," The Bible Union Quarterly, No. 9 (August 1852), 357-367

[66] A. C. Coxe, An Apology for the Common English Bible (Baltimore: Joseph Robinson, 1857), 8-9.

[67] ibid., 15

[68] ibid., 31, 34. A more recent writer within the Churches of Christ makes a similar argument regarding modern language versions. He writes, "Each student who is at all familiar with the new Bibles would expect to have this challenging danger point out somewhere in a study like this. On a scale never before imagined,' the Bible reader is confronted with, 'A TOTALLY DIFFERENT TYPE OF LANGUAGE." The writer further asserts that if it doesn't sound like the Bible then it is "not the Bible." Robert R. Taylor, Challenging Dangers of Modern Versions (n.p. n.d.), 49, his emphasis.

[69] F. M. Carmak, "Bible Revision," Gospel Advocate (April 1857), 102.

[70] ibid., 104

[71] Robert Richardson, "The Revision Movement," Millennial Harbinger (February 1857), 84

[72] Campbell addressed the Bible Union on Oct 3, 1850 on the subject "Improved Version of the Bible," Millennial Harbinger (October 1850), 553-586; again in 1851, "The History of the English Bible, An Address by Alexander Campbell," The Bible Union Quarterly, No. 3, (November 1851), 118-152; again in 1852 on "The Importance of a Pure Version of the Christian Scriptures," Millennial Harbinger (January 1852), 5-42, and "Address by A. Campbell," Proceedings of the Bible Revision Convention, 1852, pp. 134-159.

[73] Alexander Campbell, Acts of the Apostles translated from the Greek, on the Basis of the Common English Version with Notes by Alexander Campbell (New York: American Bible Union, 1858), 138. Campbell shows himself to be aware of, and makes use of, the best scholarship of his day, including German critics in English translation. For more on the context of Campbell see Thomas H. Olbricht, "Alexander Campbell in the Context of American Biblical Studies, 1810-1874," Restoration Quarterly 33 (1991): 13-28.

[74] H. T. Anderson, "Dedication and Preface," to The New Testament translated from the Original Greek. The title page is missing but a date of March 1864 appears in the Preface.

[75] Moses Lard, "H. T. Anderson's Translation," Lard's Quarterly 2 (January 1865), 178

[76] Robert Hooper, Crying in the Wilderness: Being a Biography of David Lipscomb (Nashville: David Lipscomb College, 1979), 176

[77] Ben Franklin, "Lard's Notice of the New Translation," Lards Quarterly 2 (April 1865), 318-322

[78] Moses Lard, "H. T. Anderson's Translation," pp. 190, 191.

[79] Moses Lard, "Translations and Revisions," Lard's Quarterly 2 (October 1864), 79.

[80] ibid., 81

[81] ibid., 83. One hundred and seven years after Lard, J. W. Roberts subjected the "Principle of Literalness as a Criterion of Bible Translation" to a shorter critique than Lard but comes to similar conclusions. Such a theory is "literary checkers." Restoration Quarterly 14 (1971), 155-167.

[82] C. L. L. "Revision of the English Scriptures," Millennial Harbinger (July 1866), 367

[83] James Lillie, "Bible Revision," The Christian Quarterly (July 1874), 337-359.

[84] "Real Distinctions Effaced in the Common Version," Millennial Harbinger (September 1870), 527-531

[85] J. W. McGarvey, "Preachers' Methods," in The Missouri Christian Lectures, Independence, MO, July 1883 (Rosemead, CA: Old Paths Book Club, 1955), 93

[86] James A. Harding, "Scraps," The Way (1 October 1899), 1

[87] David Lipscomb, Jr. "Which Version of the Bible is Best?" Gospel Advocate (7 January 1926), 3-4.

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