TRUE LUTHERANS SHOULD PUBLISH OWN TRANSLATION OF BIBLE

Koch Showed the Way for the LCMS-WELS-ELS
TRUE LUTHERANS SHOULD PUBLISH OWN TRANSLATION OF BIBLE
Christian News, December 6, 2010 Vol. 48, No. 47

The New NIV 2011 Bible is more acceptable to those who support the ordination of women. It changes “have authority” in 1 Timothy 2:12 to “assume authority,” the translation preferred by those who support the ordination of women. Beck’s AAT has “have authority.” The publisher of the NIV is phasing out the NIV 1984 version. Note “Major Group Says It Cannot Endorse NIV 2011 Bible:” in this issue, page 1.

There is no reason for the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod to use The New International Version for its fine People’s Bible series or the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to use the English Standard Version which is copyrighted by the National Council of Churches and is 91% the work of theological liberals who produced the RSV.

The CN editor and Edwin Palmer, who was the first executive of the NIV, were good friends. Palmer urged others to subscribe to CN. Yet Palmer and the CN editor recognized that the NIV was basically the work of Reformed scholars whose theology influenced their work, while the AAT is the work of Lutherans, primarily Dr. William Beck. Only Lutheran scholars from the LCMS, WELS and Evangelical Lutheran Synod helped improve later editions of the AAT.

Dr. Henry Koch warned his WELS not to use the NIV. Koch earned his Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1919. CN knows of no Lutheran theologian who has studied under so many of the great Greek, Hebrew and textual scholars of the 20th Century as Henry Koch. Koch’s “Why Lutherans Should Use the AAT – An Evaluation of The AAT and NIV Bible Translations” is in The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History’, pp. 291-300. Unfortunately, the WELS did not heed Koch’s warning about the NIV. Some WELS bureaucrats pay no more attention to whatever appears in CN even by such great scholars as Koch, Siegbert Becker, Raymond Surburg, William Beck, Robert Preus, Kurt Marquart, Paul Burgdorf, etc. than LCMS bureaucrats. Koch wrote in a letter dated November 8, 1978 on p. 322 of The Christian’s Travel Guide:

“I am very glad to see in your last Christian News that you could enter our travelogue on Rotenberg and Luther. I hope to send others and also to correlate them with the work and history of the Church in the Land of the Reformation. You also printed the article in the Northwestern by Prof. Kuske on Beck’s translation. I wrote to him and thanked him for his comments and told him that he hit the nail on the head, when he stated that Beck’s translation was the only true Lutheran one, while all the others including the NIV were in the Reformed camp and that Dr. Becker and others are forming a committee to send in suggestions for the Beck translation. I shall urge Becker to continue the good work. I think it was a very fine move on your part to have improvements in the wording of Beck’s to be added in later editions. Thus the essence of Beck’s translation is maintained and upheld and the unfavorable criticism of its lesser readability is weakened.”

Koch, like Luther, maintained that Lutherans should “not mingle with Reformed denominations” when it comes to Bible translation. He insisted that working together on a Bible translation was more than cooperation in externals. (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History p. 323). Koch wrote on November 15, 1979 (The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 325): “There are many things that I cannot approve of within our own ranks such as favoring the NIV over the AAT. I am objecting to it and opposing it wherever I can.”

Paul Burgdorf
Koch wrote to Paul Burgdorf, editor of the confessional Lutheran and the father of the head of the Schwan Foundation, on October 22, 1983 (“A Christian’s Travel Guide” p. 239): “I have little hope that Missouri will ever return to its former clarity and purity. The lack of proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking. In our Wis Synod I fear that our use and toleration of the NIV translation is the hole in the dam for us just as the tolerance of the 44 statementarians in Missouri under Behnken was the hole in the dam there. Proper church discipline in doctrine and practice is lacking in our midst. We politely say that we have not adopted the NIV, but will use it. This is our hole in the dam. Let’s not forget what Luther said. ‘Das Evangelium ist wie ein Platzregen, der nicht wieder dahin kommt, wo einmal einst war,’ [The Gospel is as a passing shower that does not return where it once was] is still true. Think of what has happened to Eastern and Western Germany and look at the sad plight of Lutheranism in our country, where it could unfold and practice freely. I think it was Walther who also said, ‘So lieb uns das Evangelium ist, so lasst uns uber unsere Seminarien wachen.’ [So dear as is the Gospel to us, so let us watch our seminaries]. How true! Keep up your clear message and warning. They may not like to hear it, yet repetition is etiam et mater studiorum.”

Koch wrote to Burgdorf on November 15, 1979, The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, p. 330):

“I am also glad to note your noble defense of P. Otten, whom official Missouri has maltreated badly. Eagerly they accept his congregation, but him they reject without proving their charges. They demand instead a flat Pater Peccavi! How inconsistent can we not be. I also am glad to note that some charges against WELS are being also voiced against our WELS regarding the NIV for instance. I have asked for clear proof of false doctrine in the KJV. It has not come. I can prove false however, in the NIV, for instance: Acts 3:21 Christ must be retained in heavens, not received as in the KJV. There they back Zwingli, who claimed that Christ cannot be in heaven and on earth at the same time and Luther rejected fellowship at Marburg on that very score. I could point to others. I warned our WELS men and told them they were digging their own graves adopting the NIV, but my warning fell on flat ears. NIV refuses to budge seemingly. It does not hurt our WELS men to hear that criticism against their stand on NIV is being challenged and not accepted.”

Armand Boehme, a former member of the LCMS’s Commission on Theology and church Relations, wrote in an analysis of the NIV published in the Logia (Vol. X, No. 1, Christian News, February 10, 2003): “A confessional Lutheran denomination that regularly uses the NIV will suffer damage to its sound biblical and confessional heritage.” Koch said the same thing for years to deaf ears in his WELS.

LCMS’s Use of ESV
Many fine pastors and scholars in the WELS wrote the excellent commentaries in the WELS’ People’s Bible. Yet again and again some of them had to correct the NIV translation. Here is an example: Wayne Mueller of the WELS writes in his People’s Bible commentary on Revelation 20:5: “The NIV translation is not accurate” (p. 196).

What Koch said about the use of the NIV in the WELS applies far more to the use of the ESV, which is based on the RSV, in the LCMS. Many fine scholars in the LCMS worked for years on The Lutheran Study Bible. But just like the WELS should have used the AAT rather than the NIV so the LCMS should use the AAT rather than the ESV. Appendix A, pp. 349-251 in Koch’s The Christian’s Travel Guide to World History, shows the doctrinal weaknesses and archaic, stilted language in the ESV. It is in the November 22, 2010 CN.

It is unfortunate that bureaucrats in both the LCMS and WELS rejected the plan which CN proposed after first publishing the AAT in 1976. CN sent free copies of the AAT to churches throughout the LCMS, WELS and ELS. CN invited them to submit suggestions for improvement. The editor said in his preface: “No translation is perfect. Suggestions for revision in any future printing will be gratefully accepted and considered.” LCMS President Preus was miffed. He was determined to break CN financially. He spread untruth about Beck and the CN editor. The widespread initial appeal of the AAT was supposed to be “a feather in Otten’s hat” which Preus could not tolerate. Preus had the big money on his side.

CN then formed a committee of leading confessional Bible scholars from the LCMS, WELS, and ELS to evaluate the suggestions for improvement. They were then incorporated in future printings. This was precisely the kind of program the great Greek, Hebrew, Latin and textual scholar Henry Koch recommended. His advice should have been followed. About 250,000 copies of the AAT were sold. Contrary to critics, CN made no money on the publishing of the AAT.

There is no reason Lutherans have to rely on the work of Reformed, liberal, and fundamentalist scholars for the Bible translation they use in their commentaries and study Bibles. The LCMS, WELS, and ELS could have helped make the AAT, which is already the most accurate translation in modern English, even better.

CN would gladly have turned over, with the approval of the Beck family, the entire Bible publishing project to CPH and the WELS’s Northwestern Publishing House. CN’s plan was to have a board of confessional Lutheran Scholars be in control of the translation and any revisions. When a member of the board died or was no longer able to serve then the remaining members of the board would select a replacement. This would have enabled the translation to keep up with any new textual findings and changes in language.