Bible Translation

I've been sitting in my study this afternoon, musing over the inaugural sermon I have written and the process by which it is created. Of course, when I say "I have written", that might obscure the truth that the entire thing was inspired in me by the Holy Spirit. And therefore if anyone disagrees with it, they are disagreeing not with me, a mere conduit of heavenly truth, but with the One who gave me the message.

I have read a few times, because they still amaze me, the thoughts of Eddie Arthur on Bible Translation. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I think that teaching everyone English will obviate the need for translation. After all, in some nations it would be more culturally sensitive to get them all to learn French, Spanish or even German.

But if we could save the considerable time needed to learn unimportant languages, often spoken by only a few million people, then we could concentrate on the important job of producing more English versions. I currently only have seventeen different translations, and I find that when I'm trying to express what the Spirit has given me, it's useful to be able to find support for my - sorry, the Spirit's - opinion in some obscure translation or another. It impresses the people in the pew, and helps me to sound learned.

And it's not just a way of crow-barring my own opinions in against the plain reading of Scripture, whatever the cynics may say. To take an example - 1 Sam 25:22 in the New International Version just appears to be just another example of our loving God's occasionally genocidal tendencies. But read it in the King James Version, and it becomes quite obvious that what God is really condemning is the antisocial behaviour of some drunkards wandering back from the Crown and Cushion on a Friday night.