Christian scholars wonder whether that popularity can sometimes be a bad thing, as a major new translation and waves of books marking the 400th anniversary of the venerable King James Bible inundate the market this fall.
The many translations and “niche Bibles” (think, “The Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing Edition”) sow confusion and division among Christians, invite ridicule from relativists and risk reducing God’s word to just another personal-shopping preference, the scholars say.
“I think we are drifting more and more to a diverse Babel of translations,” said David Lyle Jeffrey, former provost of Baylor University and an expert on biblical translations. Jeffrey thinks Americans need a “common Bible” — a role the King James version played for centuries — to communicate the grandeur of Scripture without reducing it to “shopping-center-level” discourse....
Brian Edwards | 7/17/2008
