A Rediculous Bible

Well, in the old days of fundamentalism (pre-KJO movement, which I put as starting in 1970), the line was drawn in two areas, two "L's" if you please:

(1) The area of liberalism. Rather than making their stand for one particular version, Fundamentalists strongly opposed versions that were translated by liberals with liberal renderings, such as the RSV (1952) with its rendering of the Hebrew and Greek for virgin as "young woman."

(2) The area of literalism. To Fundamentalists, you didn't mess with the actual meaning of the verbally inspired originals. You were obligated to translate with a method that was what was called "faithful to the originals." So Fundamentalists strongly opposed paraphrases like the Living NT (1967) and later the whole Living Bible (1971).

Oh and by the way, lest someone think there were no conservative "modern versions" in those days to oppose had Fundamentalists held a "one Bible" position, there were plenty: the ASV (1901), Weymoth's (1903), the Bible in Modern English (1909)--I could go on and on.

To relate this to the Bible mentioned in the OP, the old time Fundamentalists would have rejected it on the basis of the above-mentioned (2), its lack of literal translation, thus often obscuring the original meaning.

I believe this position is Biblical, and it works well for me in Japan, where we have no version in print translated from the TR or KJV. We use in our church the New Standard Japanese Bible (as almost all Fundamental missionaries and pastors do), the most conservative and literal Japanese Bible. And we publicly oppose the new Catholic and liberal cooperative effort, the Confraternity Bible.

On the other hand, the "one version only" stand does not work for me here. There are a few Fundamentalists who still use the old Japanese Classical Bible. I preached for one of these dear Japanese pastors this past weekend, and it would be un-Biblical and ridiculous for me to separate from him because we don't use the same Bible.:type: