Prayer in the Apocrypha 3: Judith's Psalm of Praise

"Therefore this is a fine, good, holy, useful book, well worth reading by us Christians. For the words spoken by the persons in it should be understood as though they were uttered in the Holy Spirit by a spiritual, holy poet or prophet who, in presenting such persons in his play, preaches to us through them." (Martin Luther, "Preface to the Book of Judith," in Luther's Works, vol 35, pp. 338-339).

Judith of Bethulia, Most Blessed of All Women

Few biblical characters have fascinated Jews and Christians as much a Judith of Bethulia.  As early as the first century Christian, Clement considered the "blessed Judith" to be a model of God given virtue and piety (1 Clement 55). Prudentius' "massively influential" Psychomachia (written about AD 405) inculcated the traditional Christian virtues of chastity, temperance, justice, fortitude, wisdom and humility through iconography of Judith [1].  Psychomachia remained very influential throughout the medieval period.  The lore of Judith found its way into sermons, Passover haggadah, Purim liturgy, Christian liturgy, prayer, plays, poems and art of the period molding and shaping of Judeo-Christian values.  Judith was a feature of one of the greatest "silent" movies of all time, Judith of Bethulia by D.W. Griffith in 1913.  She was a revered woman until the age of then Enlightenment.

Judith falls into two basic parts.  The first part describes the war of the Assyrians against the Jews (chapters 1-7); the second relates the deliverance wrought by God through Judith (chapters 8-16). [2]

Hostilities had broken out between the Assyrians and the Medes.  Nebuchadnezzar, who is pictured as ruling the Assyrians, calls on the western nations to help him against his enemies, however, they refused (1.7-11).  Angry and vowing to take revenge on them – including the Jews.  After defeating the Medes (1. 12-16) Nebuchadnezzar decides to destroy those who wished his downfall in the west.  He sends out his General, Holofernes, with 120.000 men and a further 12,000 cavalry.  Soon the nations were frightened into submission.

Meanwhile in the city of Bethulia the citizens, fearful that the Assyrians would defile the holy Temple of God, decide they will not acquiesce to Nebuchadnezzar.  The store provisions in anticipation of siege.  They seek God’s favor through prayer and fasting in sackcloth (4.1-15).  After thirty four days of siege with supplies running low the inhabitants of Bethulia began to loose heart and call upon the city elders to surrender to the Assyrians.  A leader, Uzziah, plead with them to hold out five more days, “By that time the Lord our God will show us mercy, for he will not forsake us utterly” (7.30).  Nevertheless, he agreed to capitulate to the Assyrians should help not come (7.19-32).

At this crucial point we are introduced to the Unlikely Source of God’s salvation for the Jews: a woman named Judith.  Her name simply means “Jewess.”   She is what all of God’s children ought to be.  Having heard what Uzziah has decided she steps way out of her “traditional” bounds as a woman.  She summons him and the elders and upbraids them for their lack of faith – and for attempting to force the hand of God with the time limit on him.  She says,

“Listen to me, rulers of the people of Bethulia! What you have said to people today is not right; you have even sworn and pronounced this oath between God and you, promising to surrender the town to our enemies unless the Lord turns and helps us within so many days. Who are you to put God to the test today . . .You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his though?” (8.12-14).

Judith volunteers for a dangerous mission – to be used by God to defeat the mighty Assyrian army.  She prays.  She emphasizes her weakness and vulnerability but also expresses amazing confidence in the God who is “God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak” (9.11).  She concludes her prayer by bringing to expression the main issue, her (and the author) the manifestation of who truly is God in this world (9.14). 

Judith ends up using the weakness of Holofernes, his arrogance and his desire for her beauty, to bring him down.    In one of the most painted scenes in western art, Judith decapitates a drunken Holofernes. Judith frankly acknowledges, “It was my face that tricked him to his destruction, and yet he committed no act of sin with me, to defile or shame me” (13.16).  Thus God wrought a powerful victory through the most unlikely of place for his people.  It is a delightful book with a powerful message.  Craven's conclusion is worth quoting,

"She is a widow in the midst of arrogant, cowardly, and uncompromising people. Her strength is striking precisely because it opposes the weakness of those around her.  Her heroism in Part II is in counterpoint to the hubris of Assyrian pride and Israelite presumption and despair in Part I." [3]

You can read more on the story of Judith in this "Judith: Radical Woman of God."

Brief Look at "Modern" Critical Issues

In the "modern" period Judith has suffered considerably at the hands of enlightened Protestant critics.  Totally reversing even the opinion of Martin Luther himself, noted in the opening, Judith has been turned into a liar, a sexual predator, a murderer and simply a dangerous woman!  Protestant scholarship of the Enlightenment till prior to World War II reflects not only the prejudice of those times but frequently is blatantly anti-Semitic (see deSilva's kind, in my opinion, of E. C. Bissell's to frequently quoted Introduction) [4].  The "problems" with Judith are not unique to her and often are simply problems because we do not understand the cultural issues involved in an honor/shame society [5].  I need not dwell on these issues.

The fascinating character Achior should be mentioned briefly.  Achior is the leader of the Ammonites (5.5).  When Holofernes is seeking counsel on how to defeat the Israelites of Bethulia in the quickest possible manner Achior delivers an amazing speech.  Achior reviews this history of God with Israel from the call of Abraham down to the Exile. Sounding like summaries of God's faithfulness through Samuel's Farewell Speech (1 Sam 12), Nehemiah's Prayer of Repentance (Neh 9), and Stephen's speech (Acts 7) Achior testifies that as long as the Israelites are faithful to "the God of heaven" (5.8) the Assyrians can never win.  Ironically this pagan has more confidence in the God of heaven than the ready to surrender inhabitants of Bethulia! Achior is ridiculed by Holofernes men and they declare, "We are not afraid of the Israelites; they are a people with no strength or power for making war. Therefore let us go ahead, Lord Holofernes, and your vast army will swallow them up" (5.23-24).  Achior is expelled from the Assyrian camp and is captured by the Israelites.  Later in the in the book, after Judith has slain Holofernes he "converts" to Israel.  "When Achior saw all that the God of Israel had done, he believed firmly in God. So he was circumcised, and joined the house of Israel, remaining so to this day" (14.10).  The author makes a direct parallel with the Abraham story in Genesis 15.6.  The expression episteusen to theo occurs only in two places in the Greek Bible (LXX) that is in Judith 14.10 and Genesis 15.6. Thus as Roitman has correctly noted, "according to the book of Judith, the righteous pagan who converts to Judaism would also have, as the native Jew has, Abraham as his model or 'father.'" [6] Such a perspective would be important in the Jesus movement embracing Gentiles on the model of Abraham. 

Judith's Psalm

 Prayer is an integral part of the story of Judith just as we discovered of Tobit [7]. In the tradition of Moses, Miriam, and Deborah, Judith leads the children of Israel in praise and worship of God through a "new psalm." What else can be done when God has delivered us and through the most unexpected means, but praise him.  Judith continues the long line of piety in the Hebrew Bible especially in the Psalter.  As with other biblical literature there is the rich use of previous biblical literature to nourish the Spiritual well being of God's people in a new day and situation.

"And Judith said, 
Begin a song to my God with tambourines,
and sing to my Lord with cymbals.
Raise to him a new psalm;
exalt him, and call upon his name.
For the Lord is a God who crushes wars; 
he sets up his camp among his people; 
he delivered me from the hands of 
my pursuers.
(Judith 16. 1-2b)

Judith, like the Prophet Miriam (Ex 15.20) and the young ladies in procession in the temple (Ps 68.25) grabs a tambourine and assumes the role of worship leader.  In the Bible, God's fresh act of grace demanded fresh praise.  We do not just sing the old song but now in light of God's new act we sing our own song of worship and praise.

The call to a psalm of praise is grounded in what God has done and is doing.  God "crushes" war.  Those drunk on the liquor of combat will be disappointed because the Lord simply will put an end to all war.  The vision or dream of the prayer is for a world without any more Holoferneses. What a day that would be.

But not only does Judith call to praise because God destroys war but because "he sets up his camp among his people." Following the destruction of God's enemies (i.e. war, etc) Judith praises God for one of the great blessings attested to throughout the Hebrew Bible, God lives with his people.  It is a vivid image that God "camps" with us.  God himself is the desire of the redeemed.

After narrating magnitude of Israel's dire straits from the Assyrian threat in verses 3 and 4, Judith gives God glory for the unbelievable way in which salvation was granted.  Only God could have accomplished salvation through a woman!

"But the Lord Almighty has foiled them
by the hand of a woman.
For their mighty one did not fall by the
hands of the young men,
nor did the sons of the Titans strike
him down,
nor did tall giants set upon him;
but Judith daughter of Merari
with the beauty of her countenance
undid him." (vv. 5-6)

The Lord God is given total credit for the unusual means of deliverance from the tyrannical Assyrians.  Judith does not even give God's enemy, Holofernes, the honor of being named he is just the "mighty one" who suffers the unbelievable (in that culture) of being done in by a woman, a widow no less! The irony drips form this portion of the psalm.  God did not use the demi-gods known as the "sons of the Titans," nor the legendary "giants" of the land.  God used a weapon fit for the occasion that undid the arrogance of an insatiable oppressor.  The beauty of an old lady (what delicious irony).  Should God not be praised?

Judith continues to narrate in the psalm how the God inspired actions of a widow had cosmic consequences.  The Persians and the Medes "tremble" with the news of what God has accomplished through one regarded so helpless (v.10).  Kicking into high gear Judith continues her "new song" of praise to the Lord.

"I will sing to my god a new song;
O Lord, you are great and glorious,
wonderful in strength, invincible.
Let all your creatures serve you,
for you spoke and they were made.
You sent forth your Spirit, and it
formed them;
there is none that can resist your 
voice.
For the mountains shall be shaken to
their foundations with the waters;
before your glance the rocks shall 
melt like wax.
But to those who fear you
you show mercy.
For every sacrifice as a fragrant offering
is a small thing,
and the fat of all whole burnt
offerings to you is a very little thing;
but whoever fears the Lord is great forever.

Woe to the nations that rise up against 
my people!
The Lord Almighty will take 
vengeance on them in the day of 
judgement;
he will send fire and worms into their
flesh; 
they shall weep in pain forever."
(vv. 13-17).

Judith has unwavering faith in the majesty and uniqueness of our God.  He is the Creator of all things.  Through the instrumentality of the Spirit life is given and the world is made. God's all powerful word (voice) cannot be resisted by his creation. Those in rebellion against his lordship (like Holofernes) will find themselves missing their head but mercy is the lot of those who walk the dangerous road of faith.

Judith warns her listeners that simply going to church and performing perfunctory acts of religious service like sacrifices, the "five acts" of worship, etc have no manipulative power over God.  Far from being some legalism Judith sees that such acts of worship are "little things" when divorced from the heart that "fears the Lord" has standing (and mercy!).

What Jesus and the Early Church Heard

It is exceedingly unlikely that Jesus did not know the story of Judith.  The very epitaph of Uzziah for Judith was applied to his own mother, "O daughter you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women ..." (13.18; Lk 1.42).  It is irrelevant if he believed it was or was not Scripture, though obviously many people of the day did.  But the story was one of those things that "filled the air." Through the story of Judith, Jesus heard that God overcomes insurmountable obstacles through the most extraordinary means.  He heard that God can accomplish things even through scandalous means.  Jesus and the Jews of his day learned from the story of Judith that women were people in an unique relationship with God and not mere appendages. Jesus and the Jews around him knew of stories of how God used women to do what no man could do.  Jesus heard that women were incredible prayer warriors and were inspired to not only deliver by His power but to lead in the worship of fresh new praise to the King of Kings.  Jesus and Jews of his day learned in the story of Judith that crises, oppression and suffering may be a means of divine testing rather than punishment [8].  Jesus learned through such stories as Judith that trust in the Lord is foundational, fundamental, and primordial basis of life.

These are not things that Jesus alone heard.  The first century church did as well.  We do not know when or by whom but Christians in the city of Rome knew the story of Judith even as John was penning his Gospel.  They assumed the Christians in Corinth knew who Judith was as well.  It is difficult to believe that Clement learned this on his own.  He almost surely learned if from an earlier disciple ... I realize I cannot prove that but it is certainly a reasonable supposition. Clement was asked to respond to a letter from the same church Paul had had so many issues with, that letter is known as 1 Clement and it is contemporary with the writings of John.  He exhorts them to unity and many other things.  A model of selflessness, graceful courage, and prayer is held out to the Corinthians.  It is one they surely already know, Judith.  I close with Clement's words for this is what the early church heard, just as Jesus had.

"Many women being strengthened through the grace of God have performed many manly deeds. The blessed Judith, when the city was beleaguered, asked of the elders that she might be suffered to go to the camp of the aliens. So she exposed herself to peril and went forward out of love for her country and of her people which were oppressed; and the Lord delivered Holofernes into the hand of a woman" (1 Clement 55)

Judith's daring act of faith, her willingness to sacrifice herself, her psalms of prayer and praise were among the things the Corinthians needed to appropriate to themselves.  Judith what a blessed woman she is.

Here is the movie, Judith of Bethulia, which was on of the most extravagant of films from the Golden Age of Silent Film.  Enjoy.

Notes:

1] See the richly textured study by Margarita Stocker, Judith Sexual Warrior: Women and Power in Western Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press 1998), quotes from pp. 24ff. 

2] Toni Craven has shown that Judith is an exquisite work of literary art.  The book falls into perfectly balanced halves where Judith emerges as the counterpart of the hubris of Assyrian pride and Israelite presumption.  See "Artistry and Faith in Judith," Semeia 8 (1977): 75-101.  

3] Craven, "Artistry and Faith in Judith," p. 95.

4] David A. deSilva, "Judith the Heroine? Lies, Seduction, and Murder in Cultural Perspective," Biblical Theological Bulletin 36 (Summer 2006), 55-61.  deSilva writes "Bissell was particularly disturbed about Judith's flirting with the ruing of her own sexual purity, going so far as to claim that she would have gone all the way with Holofernes if he didn't oblige her by passing out before consummating his desires ... Perhaps we should not be to surprised to find Bissell in a manner typical of late 19th century thinking about Judaism, condemning the religion of the author, which was able to stomach - indeed to bless - deception, teasing, and murder, but not the violation of the ceremonial law" (p. 56).  deSilva squashes this point of view for the make believe that it is. Luke certainly thought enough of Judith to use her as a model for Mary herself and probably Anna.  See the comparisons and contrasts in Brittany Wilson's excellent "Pugnacious Precursors and the Bearer of Peace: Jael, Judith, and Mary in Luke 1.42," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68 (2006): 436-456.

5] In addition to the case specific study by David A deSilva mentioned in note 4 I recommend the very user friendly intro to the issues of "honor and shame" in the Eastern cultures in Randolph Richards and Brandon O'Brien's Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), 113-136.

6] Adolfo D. Roitman, "Achior in the Book of Judith: His Role and Significance," in No One Spoke Ill of Her: Essays on Judith, (Scholars Press 1992), 40, See p. 45 note 54 on Judith 14.10 and Genesis 15.6 in the LXX.

7] Toni Craven, "From Where Will My Help Come?: Women and Prayer in the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books," in Worship and the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of John. T. Willis, ed Patrick Graham, Rick Marrs and Steven McKenzie (Brill,    ), pp. 105-108.

8] Carey A. Moore, Judith: Anchor Bible (Doubleday 1985), 63. 

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Paul and the Unquestioned Authority of the "Old Testament"

This is a revised and slightly expanded version of a "note" I had placed on my Facebook. May it bless you as we wrestle together with the significance of the canon of Scripture for our faith. We need to remind ourselves that the "Old Testament" makes up more than 76% of the Christian Bible. To functionally take it our of canon for doing Christian reflections is equivalent to the government taking 76 pennies out of every dollar you earn; you having four out of five words of a letter blacked out from your wife; of living 100 years but only being "awake" once every five years.  You get the picture.  Willfully ignoring and minimizing 76% is a huge loss and makes actually understanding very difficult.  To the revised note ...

I grew up in a religious tradition with a "love-hate" relationship with the "Old Testament." In our debates with "the denominations" we would frequently undercut the argument of our opponent by denying the authority of the Old Testament for Christan faith and practice.  Our approach to the Old Testament was therefore mostly reactive to what we perceived as false practices and beliefs in "the denominations" or among the "apostates." Thus when Christian Church folks would defend the use of instrumental music from numerous Old Testament texts it was easy to dismiss the entire argument by asserting that the Old Covenant was "nailed to the cross and done away with."  When a person would argue for the authority of tithing/sabbath, etc among Christians we resorted to the same tactic. 

The result of denying the authority of the OT in our polemics convinced the "denominational" world that "we" in Churches of Christ "do not believe in the Old Testament."  This was a frequent characterization of "us" by others in my growing up years in Churches of Christ in North Alabama.  We of course denied that.  We believe in the inspiration of the OT. But our polemics bore poisonous fruit.  We rhetorically said we believe in the OT but practically and dogmatically denied our rhetoric.  Yes the OT was inspired but we never actually used the OT for anything relating to Christian faith ... except for appeals to Noah's "gopher" wood, Nadab and Abihu getting fried, Uzzah being toasted for touching the ark and Moses for striking the rock.  From time to time there were moral lessons drawn from the stories of Joseph and Hannah.

But the sad fact remains for most in Churches of Christ the Old Testament is simply irrelevant to their faith.  Outside of the sermons I have personally preached or lessons I have taught I know of only a handful of sermons in my life from the first 76% of the Bible. I know of no preacher/elder among Churches of Christ who cites the Old Testament as his scriptural authority for 1) believing something or 2) doing something.  Indeed when such takes place it is shot down with - I have personally witnessed it - these words "that is the Old Testament;" or "we are not under the Old Testament."  This just does not jive with our rhetoric to believe in the Old Testament. 

Growing up, I had no idea how absolutely, and completely, contrary to the apostolic example of Paul our contemporary practice was regarding the "Scripture" (Paul never uses the phrase "Old Testament").  Paul's entire framework for understanding God, Christ, the Gospel, redemption, faith, and yes even the church/people of God comes from the "Old Testament."  My initial journey down the road to realizing the NT itself does not see itself as 1) supplementing or 2) outright replacing the "Old Testament" came in 1988 through reading a dry tome called New Testament Interpretation edited by Howard Marshall in a Stephen Broyles class at IBC. The chapter, "How the New Testament Uses the Old Testament" (pp. 199-219), made me put on a new pair of glasses. There are better places, I now realize, to begin thinking on this matter than that essay but at the time it was a real eye opener. Paul is more saturated with the "Old Testament" than a sponge fresh from the sink!

When Paul has a question he naturally turns to the Scriptures (not the Old Testament) for the answer. Rarely does Paul say "I" declare this by the authority given to me as an apostle.  Paul simply does not do that.  Paul uses, and argues from, Scripture for everything.  Just a few interesting statistics to tickle your fancy and as an effort to just show how frequently Paul does resort to the 'Old Testament."  In many English translations it is hard for the reader to know that Paul is not using his own words but those of the first 76% of the Bible.  It would be helpful if a modern translation put every direct quotation in a different font or italics.

In the epistles with Paul's name on them, however, there are more than 180 quotations or references to the "Old Testament" by the apostle.  That is a lot but even that does not give the full extent of the story.  The single book of Paul's that many preachers assume shows that Paul is doing away with the Old Testament, Romans, has the highest number of references with 84.  The second highest is the one that some preachers still believe Paul wrote (but didn't) is Hebrews which has 83 quotations or references to the "Old Testament."   Beloved that is a lot of Old Testament.  Certainly way more Old Testament than what I am exposed to in most restoration or evangelical pulpits. When was the last time you heard a sermon with 84 quotations from the "OT?"  First Corinthians (if I am counting right) has 26. Galatians has 14 and Ephesians has no less than 12.  Craig Evans in his Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation lists 31 pages of quotations, references, and allusions to the OT, what Protestants call the Apocrypha and related writings in the NT ... that is 31 pages! (see Appendix Two, pp. 190-219).  That is a lot of information Paul and the other writers of the NT are using and expect their readers/hearers to know.  Even if one argued with the validity of this or that reference the sheer cumulative evidence demonstrates that Paul, and the rest of the "NT" writers assumed that their readers/hearers would catch a large number of ideas that simply go unnoticed by us today ... its like having only one out of every five words not blacked out to us! We get so used to only seeing every fifth word that we actually begin to think it makes sense. 

Here are some very specific examples of Paul using the "Old Testament" as his authority for a Christian belief or Christian practice.  Again I point out that I use the word "Christian" for our sake because one of the shocks that comes to us if we actually read the NT is that Paul does not imagine himself as having converted to a new religion.  This is a serious misreading and seriously flawed assumption.  Paul, shockingly for us "Christians," never once uses the word "Christian" to describe himself or his faith in Christ. 

1) Paul roots both the practice and doctrine of the Lord's Supper in the "Old Testament" in 1 Corinthians 10. A careful study of that text pays rich rewards.  First even though most of the Corinthians converts are likely former pagans Paul places them squarely in the linage of Israel (10.1, "our ancestors").  They were "baptized EIS Moses!!" they "drank the SAME spiritual drink" (v.4).  Paul applies that history directly to the practice and faith about the communion table. We no more share in a pagan table and the Lord's table than they.  If this is not clear enough for us the apostle says - in relation to the practice of the Supper - "consider the people of Israel" (v.18).  The sacrifices of Israel are then explicitly appealed to as a model for table etiquette in the Corinthian "church of God."  We could expand on this point.

2) Paul roots the doctrine of Christian baptism in the "Old Testament" specifically to show that God has kept rather than repudiated his covenant.  Oh, beloved when we hammer out our doctrine in polemics rather than Story of God it will be seriously distorted.  Since I was a young man one of the proof texts drilled into my noggin to use on Baptists was Galatians 3.27.  I memorized that text. I quoted that text.  And I believe that text.  But I had no clue how that text functioned in its context.  I likewise did not grasp that Paul's issue and concern is not baptism but God's faithfulness to Abraham!!!  Baptism serves the "Old Testament" covenant with Abraham.  I did not know that.  It is true that Paul makes is clear that a Gentile does not have to become a Torah observant JEW in order to be God's heir.   Rather they become an heir in the same manner that Abraham himself became one.  The purpose, the goal of baptism, in Galatians 3.27 is not baptism.  It is not even belonging to Christ!!  The text declares that clearly but that is not the point of the argument.  The point of the argument is Paul's climatic declaration in v.29 aimed at Gentiles, "if you {plural!} belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring according the promise." This is the point. This is the goal.  Baptism does not simply put is "in Christ" but baptism makes us children of Abraham and God is still fulfilling the Old Testament covenant with each person who expresses faith in Christ - the offspring of Abraham - and makes them one of Abraham's own children.

3) Well we looked at two "biggies."  Let me look at a rather mundane matter.  Is it "Scriptural" to pay an individual who works in preaching and teaching?  This is a matter of "Christian" practice.  This is a concern for authority for the "church."  When this question is asked we are surely surprised by how Paul answers the question. The biblical authority for paying ministers in the "Church of Christ" is none other than the book of Deuteronomy!  "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; for SCRIPTURE says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The laborer deserves to be paid."  Paul quotes form Deuteronomy 25.4.  Why did he not simply declare it was ok? He roots the practice of paying those who preach and teach in the Law of Moses.  This is, on the face of it, simply fascinating.

I could provide numerous other specific examples of Paul's apostolic example on using the unquestioned authority of the "Old Testament" to support his Gospel and the practice of his congregations. I have already made this musing longer than I intended so I will bring it to a close.  But we must realize that every time we read Paul we are reading his own interaction with Scripture on a multitude of levels.  His practice shows he believed the words he penned to Timothy regarding what we call the Old Testament but he simply called "Scriptures."  Our practice and his practice are as far removed from one another as east is from the west ...

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3.14-17, NRSV).

P. S. We have not even touched what I have come to believe is even more important that explicit quotations for Paul and the rest of the NT.  That is how the conceptual world of the Hebrew Bible shapes quite literally the faith of the "New Testament."  Blessings.

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Barton W. Stone & the Debate Culture

I grew up in a "debating culture" or perhaps it was a "sub-culture."  If the minister did not like what was going on a mile down the road then a public challenge was issued.  At times this was done through the local paper.  I recall debates on various aspects of the Holy Spirit (indwelling to tongues), orphan homes, real wine on the table (but never what kind of bread!! but I will never forget the statement 'can we have meat and potatoes on the Lord's table?'), what version you can use and the like.   I vividly recall a debate between a Nazarene minister and a minister from the Churches of Christ about "who" was the real church.  I know I will get abused for saying this . . . but I ALMOST became a Nazarene that day purely on the basis of the spirit demonstrated that day.  It was not a pretty sight!

I must say that I am not opposed to debates on philosophical grounds.  Yet, I am very resistant to engage in them because I find them often to be places where the sinful nature is fed . . . perhaps it exposes my own weaknesses.

From my reading of the NT Paul never engaged in anything like what I have been exposed to . . . discussion is not necessarily debate.  Barton W. Stone, a man of great passion and conviction, expressed (in 1842) near the end of his life what he thought debates had done to our Movement and what they continue to do to Christianity.  This was important to Stone and shared his concerns in his advice to young preachers, near the end of his life.  Reflect on his words and see if they do not "ring" with truth:

"It is a common saying among the preachers of this day, "Old men for counsel young men for war."  This is often advanced in justification of the public debates . . .  Do they [i.e. old men] counel you to engage in such debates? . . .  I will fearlessly answer, that no old man of piety, and intelligence, will give such advice, unless in an extraordinary case. For they know by long experience that such debates tend to strife, deaden piety -- destroy the spirit of prayer -- puff up the vain mind, annihilate the tast of the marrow, and fatness of the living word, and destroy the comforts of true, heavenly religion."

In Stone's view, few men had enough Christianity rooted deep in their souls to engage in religious debates.  He observes a fact that I find to be a truism (at least in my own experience):

"Seldom do we see in the same person, a warrior and a humble devoted christian.  Rara avis in terra. Such acquire a controverial habit and temper . . .

Then Stone address the opinion that the Apostles gave us a positive example in this manner:

"I know it is said in justification of such debates that Paul disputed in the synagogue at Athens, the School of Tyrannus, with the Jews and others.  Read the verse correctly, and the force of the objection is removed -- He reasoned or dialogued with them.  This should be the constant practice of every faithful minister of Christ.  Would to God, it were the practice of all our young preachers, to reason out of the scriptures on the important things of the gospel!

"But 'young men of war.' What war? not against flesh and blood, . . . but against the powers of sin and hell, with spiritual weapons afforded to us from above -- not against men, but against their sins . . ."

(Barton W. Stone, "To Young Preachers," Christian Messenger 12 [August 1842], pp. 316-317).

I may be wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I think Brother Stone was on to something here.  I agree that debates tend to strife, deaden piety -- destroy the spirit of prayer -- puff up the vain mind. How many debates do we see on the necessity of prayer? What could be closer to the Christian walk. I have had challenges to public debate and when I asked the challenger to pray with me they refused.  Do they appeal to the carnal nature: lust for victory, the thrill of defeating the foe . . . Just my opinion.  But we can "reason" together like saints and people filled with the Fruit of the Spirit and the the spirit of war.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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Nothing but Faddish Songs! A Musical Meditation

He had not been brought up in a church-going family. In fact, his life prior to conversion had been, using his own words, that of a "profligate and libertine." Indeed he was one of the most despicable kinds of folk on the planet - a slave trader! Yet he was found by God even in that blackness. He was forever grateful to the Messiah for his grace. He had a lot of growing to do in the Lord.  Some of his old evils were shed more slowly than others.  And he, like us, made excuses but change he did.

He became a non-conventional proclaimer of the Word of Christ. Because of his background he was inclined to minister to those looked down upon by proper church folk. Part of the power of he developed in preaching was directly traceable to the fact that he courageously broke with with preaching conventions of the day and spoke freely of God's power in his own life.

You know him through the rich spiritual treasure he has left western Christianity. What you probably do not know is that his music was as cutting edge, and contemporary, as was his preaching style. Against the formal 'high church' tradition of the Church of England he put the good news in simple everyday language.  He sang that message to what were considered "pop tunes" that people would sing in the local bar with intoxicated friends.

While preachers like George Whitefield left the Anglicans, John Newton stayed.  For that, he endured frequent harsh criticism from traditionalists for his preaching and musical innovations. He was the subject of denunciations for tampering with sacred worship practices and traditions and promoting irreverent worship styles.

You no doubt remember many of his irreverent tunes.  Today, ironically, they are no longer thought of as faddish or unfit for congregational worship as they were in his day.  Now they are considered the classical style for hymnody, the kind that many traditional church members find comfort in. He no longer offends as he did 250 years ago.

Newton gave us such cutting edge, and irreverent, hymns as "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken" and "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds." Perhaps the most well known song in history comes from his pen and was considered unfit for worship in his day: "Amazing Grace!"

Sometimes we wonder if the people of God, the church, have learned anything from its history.  How different Newton may have been viewed in his own day if his contemporary critics could see into the future.  We often resist the blessings that God sends even when they show up with ribbons!  We live in a time when beautiful and moving music is being written afresh in honor of the the Triune God.  Sometimes these very writers are accused, like Newton, of tampering with our worship traditions.  But perhaps God does not simply want to hear the same Top 40 year after year.  He wants to see the creativity of his people thus he blesses us with artists who give us new songs ...

"Sing God a brand new song!
Earth and everyone in it, sing!
Sing to God - worship God! ...
(Psalm 96.1, The Message)

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Gospel Bullets: "Piety vs Pugilism" in Church of Christ Preaching

Several years ago David Edwin Harrell characterized the Churches of Christ  as "the spirited redneck offspring of the Disciples of Christ." Some took considerable exception to his words and they are, perhaps, inflammatory. But it is a fair question to ask if there was any truth to his observation. My own perspective is that he was probably not far from the truth. The rumble tumble of religious conflict from the first two thirds of the 20th century provides the social and theological context for the ministry and critique of K. C. Moser.  Debates were one of the primary modes of religious communication. Consider the following well known preachers and the number of debates they had: L. S. White (1867-1949) had over 150; C. R. Nichol (1876-1961) had 350; J. D. Tant (1861-1941) amassed 350; Joe S. Warlick (1866-1941) is the champion with a whopping 399!

Preaching was often cast in combat images. Speakers spoke of "gospel bullets" instead of "gospel facts." Satire and ridicule were share among these preachers (not limited to Churches of Christ either). This kind of preaching was called in the literature "manly" or "plain."

R. L. Whiteside wrote in early 1932 for the need of more "straight gospel preaching." Apparently some were complaining about the unpleasant image of the church in the community.  For Whiteside, though, "the faithful preacher knows" such preaching "makes it the more binding."

Preaching that stressed the love of God was frequently referred to as "sissyism." Rather than being "real men" these preachers were weak and feminine -- they were called "soft."   "Let us forever have done with pop-Gun irrelevant sermonettes [sic] on pifling, sub-minor topics, which can have no more weight against sin and the world than peas shot at a mountainside."

A classic example of this tendency is Hugo McCord's evaluation of a sermon preached by R. H. Boll in 1936. The name of the article is telling: "Piety Versus Pugilism." McCord summarizes Boll's message in a paragraph then makes these comments,

"The spirit of the discourse was certainly spiritual and devout, and no Bible believer could deny that every word was true."

But McCord is not satisfied with this. Boll did not stick it to the "sects." It never stressed "man's side" of salvation. Hear McCord,

"True, it was a devotional service, true, it was emphasizing God's side rather than man's side of forgiveness. But any sermon that treats God's forgiveness of man is surely perverted if it doesn't give the conditions which man must comply ... Such a sermon, though good in reverence, and in exaltation of God did more harm than good ... Bro. Boll's sermon was purely faith only as far as practical purposes are concerned ... Boll was niceness gone to seed."

Fred Rowe, long time publisher of the Christian Leader, invited J. Edward Meixner to do a meeting. After several rather pugnacious sermons, Rowe (over dinner) asked JEM to preach a sermon on the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. After hesitating a minute Meixner said, "Brother Rowe I cannot do it, I have never studied the subject."

Of course not all preachers were guilty of this.  However we get a gloomy picture of the state of preaching in Moser's day. It was militant. It was issue oriented. And, if K. C. Moser is to be believed, it was frequently "crossless." There are wonderful exceptions ... Boll was one of them but look how he was castigated for that exception by Hugo McCord no less. The "spirit" of Moser's teaching was cutting against the grain. He became the embodiment of "sissy" preaching.

I began with Harrell's characterization of our being rednecks.  I end with an observation by Price Billingsly about preaching in 1920. Billingsly is protesting the education of preachers because that only resulted in the perversion of the true militant gospel.  He would rather be a "M  A  N" in God's sight than have an "M  A."  He continues,

"But I will hope they will excuse me, VERITABLE RED-NECK and born insurrector [sic] that I am, for inquiring as to just what they intend to do with these degrees ... I am a little doubtful of such equipment making them more effective gospel preachers."

Moser stands out in bold relief.  Perhaps when we step inside the world Moser actually lived in we come to understand his criticism of preaching within Churches of Christ.  The Gospel of Christ is not preached with bullets but with surrendering love.

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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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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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