 |
| Didn't we all have a copy when it came out in 1966? |
 |
| Nida was involved with the Church of Rome once he broke with SIL-Wycliffe. |
Today’s English
Version – Good News for Modern Man – Bad News for the Bible
Modern translations do not sprout on their own. Someone
must decide a direction for them and find the money for the project and initial
printing. When Robert Bratcher got in trouble, as a Southern Baptist missionary
teacher, for arguing against the Trinity, Nida hired him.
O
Jornal Batista, on July 9, 1953:
“Jesus
Christ would not enjoy omniscience. That is an attribute of God.”
“…Jesus
did not claim He and the Father to be one—which would be absurd.”[1]
Bratcher got into so
much trouble with the American Bible Society, for similar taunts that he
resigned from the ABS while moving to the United Bible Societies. He is given
credit for guiding the translation of Today’s English Version, often called the
Good News Bible.
Bratcher
Obituary
Working
for the American Bible Society, employing an approach to translation known as
“dynamic equivalence,” and rendering the text in simple, everyday English, Bob
Bratcher produced an English translation of the New Testament that was
published in 1966 as Good News for Modern Man: The New Testament in Today’s
English Version; by 1971 it had sold 30 million copies, and by now over 100
million copies have been distributed. Bob went on to chair a team of scholars
that translated the Old Testament in the same accessible style, leading to the
publication of The Good News Bible in 1976. These translations have been deeply
meaningful to many around the world; they also have been controversial among
some fundamentalist Christians. Bob Bratcher’s contributions to Biblical
studies extended far beyond his initial translations. He made extensive
contributions to a common-language Brazilian Portuguese translation of the
Bible, published in 1988. Working with United Bible Societies, he wrote or
co-wrote numerous “Helps for Translators,” each one focusing in detail on
issues involved in translating a particular book of the Bible, including
Psalms, The Gospel of Matthew, and Revelation. He also wrote scholarly essays
on translation issues, among other works, and lectured all over the world. Bob
was a faithful and active member of Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill since
he moved to the area in 1975. He served the Binkley community as a teacher,
preacher and wise elder, and will be dearly missed. He also was a strong
proponent of compassion for the less fortunate, justice for the oppressed, and
world peace.[2]
Those who object to
hiring and honoring such infidels are given a story about “he no longer works
here” or “has that damaged your faith?”
Eugene Nida United Protestants and Roman Catholics
The story of Today’s English Version - also called
Good News for Modern Man, and the Good News Bible - is wrapped up
in Nida’s efforts to combine all church bodies in unified efforts, using his
dynamic equivalence dogma. Consider this fact – that Nida worked with the
American Bible Society, the Unified Bible Societies, and Nestle
Aland Greek text editions. Not only were all translations unified under Nida,
but the Wescott Hort text was given the textual apparatus and dignity of German
scholarship. Therefore, the actual meaning of the Majority Text no longer
mattered, and the fanciful invented text could be erased and modified on a
regular basis.[3]
Nida did not accomplish this alone, but took advantage of
the mood and money available to unify all church efforts through para-church
agencies. The Church of Rome had a growing problem with being centered in
staples of Medieval dogma – veneration of Mary, presenting Jesus as the angry
judge, and placing the Pope over the Scriptures, which made the Bible almost
unknown and unknowable – with hierarchy being the only guide. Although the
Church of Rome is “ever the same,” it used ecumenism to soften its image and to
move into Protestant plans, as shown by Rome’s three-year lectionary and its parament
colors used by the ELCA, LCMS, WELS, and ELS. Both the Scripture change and
parament pivot happened without a fuss among all the congregations. There were
reasons to object as a witness against Rome’s false doctrine, Mariology, and
Purgatory, but the Lutheran bishops love to enforce their will just as much as
the Vatican does. Thus, the little Antichrists aid and abet the Antichrist, the
Papacy.
Wikipedia
says this about Nida in 1968, but the dates are earlier for the start of work
with Rome. Communications started 15 years earlier, scarcely by accident.
Nida was instrumental in engineering the joint effort between the
Vatican and the United Bible Society (UBS) to produce cross-denominational
Bibles in translations across the globe. This work began in 1968 and was
carried on in accordance with Nida's translation principle of Functional
Equivalence.[4]
His own account of the start of cooperation with Rome began in
Hong Kong, 1953, the year when he resigned from SIL and Wycliffe, where the
doctrinal stances of its leaders were being examined closely:
On
one visit to Hong Kong I had a telephone call from a local Roman Catholic
priest that I had met a year or so before. He and his colleagues were anxious
to talk about the possibility of cooperation in translating the Bible into
Chinese because the existing text, called the Union Version and influenced
heavily in exegesis and style by the English Revised Version, was not adequate
for either Protestants or Roman Catholics. He then proposed that we meet for a
week the next time I was in Hong Kong in order to explore possibilities of
cooperation.[5]
The marks of unionism
(often called ecumenism) can be seen in these changes, making text and
translation projects Catholic, Lutheran, and Protestant:
·
A difference in doctrine which hitherto
has been regarded as divisive, is suddenly made to lose its divisive
significance.
·
Differences in doctrine are made to lose
their divisive significance with a view to uniting hitherto separate churches.
·
A formula of unification is found which
each of two hitherto separate churches may accept but which each of them
interprets differently. An external bond is found for internally divided
groups.
·
The unionist declares that every one may
continue to hold his own private convictions and merely needs to respect and
tolerate those of another.[6]
There is no better
description of the tactics used by Protestants today, including the
conservative Lutheran groups who work with ELCA.
Leaving
work at SIL-Wycliffe work allowed Nida to pursue bigger projects with the Roman
Catholic Church. The old barriers were down for Nida and the United Bible
Societies, which became the World Council of Churches for the ecumenical
Scriptures. UBS consists of 150 Bible societies. The World Council of Churches includes
these full member groups:
·
Eastern Orthodoxy
·
Lutheran Churches
·
Anglicans
·
Mennonites
·
Moravians
·
Reformed (Calvinist)
·
Baptist
·
Methodist
·
Pentecostal
·
The WCC has a working group to support
partnership with Rome. However,Rome is not a full member of the WCC because
would be a demotion for the “One True Church, The Indefectible Mother of Us
All.”
Members of mainline
churches may not know they are contributing offering funds to the World Council
of Churches and the radical, similar (American) National Council of Churches.
For many years, the local Hunger Walks supported the NCC, but the local
sponsors denied it…more than three times.[7]
One parish pastor yelled on the phone that I was lying. I said, “Even if I
supported it, and I don’t, the parish council would refuse.” The phone was
slammed down hard in those good, old days when my obstinacy was punished with a
phone in the cradle slam.
This leads into the real Nida production of a
Protestant-Catholic Bible, before that magical 1968 date “when he began with Rome”.
He went along with a moderate revision of a respected Spanish Bible called the
Reina-Velara in 1960. That led to the Version Popular, the Spanish
exemplar for Good News for Modern Man: The New Testament in Today’s English
Version, 1966. The Spanish version came out in May, and the English in
September, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the American Bible
Society. There was great excitement and discussion about this new Bible and its
Spanish heritage. “It is simplified for anyone to read,” and incredible numbers
sold, because Rome was also involved in its production and promotion.
[1] Why
They Changed the Bible, p. 105. Denial of the Holy Trinity is common among
apostates, who dishonestly play the role of a Christian while undermining
Biblical teaching.
[2]
Obituary, Dr. Robert Bratcher, 2010. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newsobserver/obituary.aspx?n=robert-g-bratcher&pid=144069874
[3]
Aland wrote haughtily in his book that the Greek words of the text were taken
away one year and added back on the next year.
[5]
Nida, Fascinated by Languages, cited in Why Did They Change the Bible,
p. 64.
[6]
John Michael Reu, Unionism, https://www.lutheranlibrary.org/580-reu-unionism/
[7] Annual
reports of denominations disclose a certain amount of information, but they hide
the most radical use of offering and endowment funds.
