Almost everywhere I’ve gone the last two or three weeks, someone has asked me: “What do you think of the new Bible?” Sometimes the question has come from some of you, members of this church; sometimes from strangers. The postman brought an envelope bulging with newspaper clippings telling about all the things being said and done by those who thought well and those who thought ill of the new Bible. There was the story of a Bible burning ceremony in one church, and another story of a controversy among ministers in a certain city over the merits and demerits of the new Bible. A man who came to deliver merchandise at our house also left a pamphlet of a sermon someone had preached telling why he could not accept the new Bible.

Why all the uproar? What are people so stirred up about over the Bible? On September 30, 1952, a new version of the Bible in Modern English, called the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, was released for distribution. Sales were tremendous. Over a million copies were printed in the first edition and all were sold long before publication date. Never in the history of bookmaking has there ever been anything like it. Even yet — nearly three months after publication date, production and distribution has not caught up with sales demands.

But there has also been a swelling tide of criticism and opposition to the “New Bible,” as it is called. The objections most frequently heard are three: first, the new Bible doesn’t contain the Christian doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Second, the new Bible has been translated by modernist scholars who do not reverence the word of God and have tampered with the sacred text. Third, the new Bible is copyrighted — is essentially a moneymaking scheme, and one publishing house is getting all the profits. On the face these are serious charges. Can anything be said in answer to such objections to the new Bible?

The criticism that the new Bible destroys the doctrine of the Virgin Birth rests solely on the reading of Isaiah 7:14. The familiar wording of the King James Version reads: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” The R. S. V. or “New Bible” reads: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” The new Bible changed the reading from “virgin” to “young woman” because “young woman” is a more correct translation of the word in the original Hebrew. But to say that by the change of this one word the new Bible destroys the teaching of the Virgin Birth is utter folly. For the new Bible has the story of the Virgin Birth in the gospels of Luke and Matthew with all the facts recorded: the annunciation to Mary, the appearance of the heavenly hosts to the shepherds, and the genealogies, just as they appear in the Old Bible.

The second objection to the new Bible, that it is produced by modernist scholars who do not reverence God’s word and have tampered with the sacred text is not so easily answered, as it involves the motives of men, and no one but the Almighty can search and know the hearts and intents of men. But this can be said: that united Protestantism, all the major denominations of America, selected their very best Biblical scholars, their most learned men, and commissioned them to work on this new revision of the Bible. Men like Edgar Goodspeed of the University of Chicago Divinity School, Dean Weigle of Yale, the learned and saintly James Moffatt and a score of others, worked over a span of years, from 1937 to 1952 — without remuneration — devoting their time and talents free — to the end that the word of God might be made available to man and to the churches of our time in as accurate a translation and as understandable a form as possible. What their motives were, only God can know, but if ever there was a labor of love and faith, to the glory of God, if I’m any judge, these men have performed it.

The chief objectors to the new Bible and its board of scholars have been persons from churches and denominations who will not unite with, nor cooperate with, other Christian groups. These do not approve of Protestantism’s great uniting agency — the National Council of Churches of Christ in America. And when the National Council sponsored the publishing of the new Bible, these groups and individuals sent up a loud protest. They do not like the organization, and therefore, they do not approve of its product.

The third objection to the new Bible is that it is copyrighted — that men are making money out of the sale of God’s word, and that one publishing house has the monopoly. It is unfortunate that the word of God must be printed and distributed in a manner subject to arrangements, including profit and loss, but such is our human condition. But how, under the capitalistic system, in a huge business venture like this one, which involves the expenditure of millions of dollars, how can it be done in any other way? A sponsor for the project was sought — but none was found. The publishing house, which was willing to hazard the publication and risk its funds, should surely in all justice have some safeguard. Therefore, a 10 year publishing right was granted in order that the publishers might have some assurance they would be able to pay the printers and bookbinders and staff who have worked faithfully to put the book in print. So much for the objections and their answers. Now for the Bible itself.

What do you think about the new Bible? When folks ask me that, I feel like saying: “I’d rather tell you what I know about this new Bible and what any intelligent person will know, if he bothers to investigate the facts.”

First, I know that this is not a new Bible. Some people act as if the newly published Revised Standard Version of the Bible were an imposter, a rival, a supplanter, of an old and trusted friend. Some talk about the King James translation or “Old Bible” as if it were handed down; leather bound — direct from heaven, and that changing the wording from archaic to Modern English was tampering with the word of God.

There is no new Bible. The R. S. V. is the same old Bible, God’s blessed, saving, redeeming, transforming word in a new translation or revision, slightly changed from the King James to perfect some of the obscure meanings and obsolete language by making intelligent use of many ancient manuscripts and the best literary skill of our modern day. Because of its closer fidelity to the ancient manuscripts of the Bible, discovered since the King James Version was published, the so-called new Bible is really more old than the King James. It gets us back closer to the original meaning of God’s word.

Here’s a second thing we all ought to know about this so-called new Bible: that it is just one of the many translations of the scripture. The King James Version was itself a translation and revision of the Bible and way down the line, at that. The King James was new in 1611, when first published. Its immediate predecessors, the Genevan, the Bishop’s Bible, and the Great Bible were the old Bibles when the King James Version was first released.

Jesus himself used a translation of the scriptures when, at the beginning of His ministry, He read the prophet Isaiah’s word in the synagogue at Nazareth. It was the Septuagint version — which had been translated out of the original Hebrew into Greek — and translated again into Aramaic, the language the Jews were speaking in Jesus’ day.

Language is a living, changing, moving thing, and consequently, any book which is to speak to men where they are, must undergo repeated translations and revisions. C. S. Lewis says: “There is no such thing as translating a book into another language once and for all, for a language is a changing thing. If your son is to have a new suit of clothes, it is not good buying him a suit once and for all: he will grow out of it and have to be re-clothed.”

Another thing I know about this new Bible is that it is not the first new translation folks have objected to. Jerome’s translation of the Bible into Latin made in the 4th and 5th centuries, even though commissioned by Pope Damascus, was at first met with harsh antagonism. It was declared to be heretical. The learned theologian Augustine at first had grave doubts about it. But ultimately, Jerome’s Latin Bible, Vulgate, as it was called, became the official version of the Roman Catholic Church.

Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible into English, the first English translation, was condemned by high church officials in England. Even after Wycliffe died, the council of Constance condemned the works of Wycliffe and ordered both his books and his bones to be dug up and burned.

The first copies of Tyndel’s New Testament had to be smuggled into England in bales of other merchandise and secretly sold.

Why do objections always arise when new translations or versions of the scriptures are attempted? Because there is something in all of us that rises up in resistance to change. The older we get, the greater is this tendency. The old and the familiar are the comfortable. In matters touching religion, our resistance to change is well neigh adamant.

The scholars who gave us the King James Version of the Bible back in 1611 were well aware of this human tendency. They foresaw some of the storm of opposition that their new Bible was sure to provoke and wrote quaintly, prophetically, in the preface: “was there ever anything projected that savored any way of newness or renewing, but the same endured many a storm of gain-saying or opposition? . . For he that meddleth with men’s religion in any part, meddleth with their custom, nay with their freehold, and though they find no content in what they have, yet they cannot abide to hear of altering.”

For most of us here this morning, the wording of the Revised Standard Version will never take the place of the King James in those passages we have memorized, whose words have become a part of our interpretation of life’s most intimate experiences. God’s word has entered into our life in that particular phraseology and nothing can shake it. But the R. S. V. can serve us in helping to interpret those sections of God’s word we have never before understood, those obscure passages never before made clear in Modern English. After all, there is no compulsion about the R. S. V. It will have to make its own way. If it is not worthy to live — it won’t. Public opinion and use will be the final judge.

Here’s something else I know, and you do too, if you stop to think for a moment, the strength of Protestant Christianity springs from an avid devotion to God’s word, one manifestation of which has been the current and recurrent translation of the scriptures. One of the battle cries of the Reformation was: “Give the Bible to the people in their own language.” This was Martin Luther’s monumental and most influential work — the translation of the scriptures from the Latin of the Vulgate, which only the clergy could read and understand, into the broad German which any literate layperson could read and understand. (For this same zeal and devotion the Englishman William Tyndale spilled his blood.) The Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is undercut and destroyed unless this faith in trustworthy scholars to translate and re-translate the word of God lives on in the Church. When the Protestant church ceases to translate the scriptures into the living language of men, Protestantism is dead.

This also I know, and you do too, that the missionary and evangelistic work of the church can never be done apart from the translation and distribution of the scriptures. The American Bible society has translated portions of the Bible into 1,049 different languages and dialects. How can the unevangelized peoples of the world hear and receive the gospel of eternal salvation unless it comes to them in their own language? The first task that confronts a missionary in going to a people or a race who have never heard the gospel, is the task of learning that nation’s language and transmitting in spoken and written form the word of God, which becomes then the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.

Bishop Neill, of the World Council of Churches Commission on Evangelism, says that the evangelistic task of the church in our modern world is much the same as the missionary going to a strange foreign country where he does not understand the language. Ours is a pagan world to whom the ancient Biblical English of the King James Version is a strange and difficult speech. It’s thous and thines, its believeth and goeth and doeth and involved phraseology, a harassed, jet-propelled generation will not bother to wade through. You and I who were nurtured in the Biblical language of the King James can perhaps get its meaning by reading. But what of a pagan world with no such heritage and nurture? One look at the Bible and they are through. The Revised Standard Version is a book which will speak to modern man, in language he uses and understands, the truth of the eternal gospel. It is the man of today — unreached, unclaimed for Jesus Christ, about whom I am most concerned. And the new R. S. V. is beamed at him. The old saints will still cling to their cherished King James and that is well and good, for its message speaks home to their hearts of peace and comfort and salvation. The glory of the New Translation is that it is framed to bring that same peace and comfort and salvation to a new day and a new age.

Finally, this also I know about the new Bible — I know you can’t translate into action and character the spiritual principles of godliness enshrined in God’s word unless God’s word is translated into language understandable to you. At a summer young people’s conference, I heard a beautiful girl, the product of a consecrated Christian home, say in a vesper service she was leading: “The Bible is not a readable book to me. I hope that someday it will become a readable book. Now it yields its message to me only after much laborious study.” The R. S. V. is an attempt to make the Bible a readable book — its message not quite so hard to get and apply to Christian action and grow into Christian character.

When Ezra and Nehemiah led the Hebrew people back to Jerusalem and release from their Babylonian captivity, they found the Holy Temple in ruins, the walls of the city broken down, and the houses in decay. A long, tedious program of rebuilding lay before them. One of the earliest acts in the reconstruction of the city and the rebuilding of the national life was the calling together of an assembly of all the people. They gathered in the street, for the temple was in ruins. The purpose of the meeting was to hear the reading of God’s word. The scribe got up on a little improvised lectern and began to read. All day long the people stood reverently to hear and receive the divine message. And Nehemiah, who records the incident, says: “They read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the meaning.”

This is the way God’s word should always be read; distinctly, to get the sense, and understand the meaning. That’s the way always to begin in the re-building of any nation — in the remaking of any blasted life. But how can people read the Book of Books distinctly, get the sense and understand the meaning if its message is couched in archaic words and stilted phraseology?

The Revised Standard Version is God’s word translated into the living language of modern Americans ready to be translated into godly actions and Christ like character. Whatever version of the Bible best helps you to achieve this end — use it. Whatever translation of the scriptures makes the Bible a readable book to you — read it. For though what you think about the New Bible or the Old Bible is important, what you do with either Bible is more important still.