Not long ago, a friend sent me a link to an article by Nathan Deatrick in which he argued for a move away from the King James Version in English-speaking congregations. He expressed his opinion that modern English congregations, not only in different countries around the world but also in the United States, were increasingly incapable of understanding when it comes to the outdated language of the King James Version. His article was expressed as a “plea,” a defense of the less educated. To represent those less educated people, he chose William Tyndale’s famous representative of the 16th Century, the plowboy.
After reading his plea, a fear arose in my mind. This fear is nothing new, but needs to be expressed in the light of any man who assays to take up the plowboy’s cause.
In expressing this fear, I will make several fundamental assumptions regarding Mr. Deatrick. First, I will assume that he has done excellent research. According to him, he has spent 18 months looking into this issue alone. Based upon my knowledge of him in the past, he is an excellent scholar. Second, I will assume that Nathan Deatrick has the gifts and calling of a pastor. While not in the pastoral ministry at the time of the writing of this article, he nevertheless has proven himself as a shepherd to a group of people called a church. Hereafter, I will refer to him as Pastor Deatrick. Third, I will assume that Pastor Deatrick is a friend. We have known each other since college, and I have watched his ministry from a distance with gratitude. Certainly, there are men who are closer friends to me than he is, but he is a friend nonetheless.
The idea of Tyndale’s plowboy has occupied the minds of many in recent years as they call for change in the way the Bible is rendered. For those unfamiliar with the allusion, consider the following explanation from Pastor Deatrick:
“For me, however, one of the most poignant scenes of Tyndale’s life took place when he challenged the blasphemous statement of a learned Roman Catholic, who had just boasted, ‘We were better without God’s laws than the Pope’s.’ Tyndale’s passionate reply echoes in my soul 500 years later:
‘If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the scriptures than thou dost.’
His heart yearned to translate the Bible into such a simple vernacular that the plowboy of England could read and understand the very words of the living God.”
From this incident in Tyndale’s life comes the idea of the plowboy, a man without formal education but with a great understanding of the Bible because he can read it in his own language. By extension, the reasoning goes that the old King James Version has become so outdated in its language that it needs to be replaced for modern readers to understand it. The 21st Century plowboy cannot understand the KJV, thereby preventing him from hearing the Gospel or growing in the Lord after salvation. Pastor Deatrick’s sincerity and love for the Bible are not in question, nor is his desire for people to be saved and grow in the Lord. Yet as I read his words, a fear rises in my heart.
This is not a fear for the maintenance of tradition, nor for political acceptance among others. It goes far deeper to a philosophy and a direction in which that philosophy takes us. My fear is two-fold: first for accuracy and second for personal education.
The King James Version is naturally more accurate due to its adherence to old English, particularly in the use of pronouns. Passages that are clear in the old King James are ambiguous in modern versions simply because modern English is more ambiguous. Two options are available to the updater. First, he can retain the archaic renderings and the precision that comes with them. Second, he can utilize the modern English and explain the true meaning in a footnote. Either way, there must be an element of education.
In all the talk about the Bible, the element of education seems to be missing. This omission is curious to me, especially from Pastor Deatrick because he is Baptist historian. He of all people should know the premium placed upon education in the foreign mission fields of the world. This education is a natural corollary of Christianity. God inspired a book, not a painting, sculpture, or film. A book requires a level of education to benefit from it.
Even in Tyndale’s day, most boys behind plows could not benefit from the translation work for which he gave his life. The reason was not Tyndale’s fault, nor was the solving of the problem Tyndale’s responsibility. The reason was that most boys were illiterate—more than 2 out of 3, according to Pastor Deatrick’s statistics. The problem required education on the individual’s part.
This idea of education is by no means foreign to the Bible. The unnamed Ethiopian eunuch was returning home after a trip to Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 8. If you were to ask 10 conservative pastors and learned Christians what is the best passage from which to lead a man to Christ from the Old Testament, they would answer Isaiah 53. It was precisely here where the eunuch was reading. Upon this scene came Philip with the greatest question: “Understandest thou what thou readest?” To which the eunuch replied, “How can I except I have a modern translation?” The eunuch could not say this because he was reading from a recent translation of Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. Instead, he highlighted his need for person-to-person education: “How can I except some man should guide me?” The need was for further education so that he could be saved. The Bible was not enough in this case. There had to be a laborer, someone called by God to come along and explain the meaning of the sacred texts. In the later words of the Apostle Paul, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” He did not say, “How shall they hear without a Bible in the modern vernacular?” For the eunuch, Philip was the preacher without whom he could not believe. While there are some that have been saved by simply reading the Bible, the emphasis of the New Testament is on one person educating another.
Similarly, the Great Commission, which Pastor Deatrick uses as a reason to update the Bible for the less educated, demands person-to-person education. According to Matthew 28:19, Jesus said, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.” This is not a page-to-person activity; it is a person-to-person activity.
The Old Testament, too, provides great precedent for the transmission of learning, not from the printed page but from one person to another. The inspired narrative contains a long span of time during which the people of God spoke the Hebrew language. Nehemiah is one of the last heroes of the Old Testament chronologically. There were approximately 1,000 years between the giving of the Law and Nehemiah’s effort of rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall. During that time, Hebrew was a living language subject to the changes in grammar and vocabulary that accompany it, similar to English today. Since the captivity, some in Nehemiah’s day spoke partly in the Jews’ language and partly in another language. Perhaps saying that they spoke Hebrew as a second language is a stretch, but they were evidently gaps in their understanding of Hebrew. In this environment, the people gathered to hear the words of the Law. The narrative makes much of the element of education. “So they read in the book of the law distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” (Nehemiah 8:8) They read distinctly, gave the sense, and caused them to understand. Is there a greater description for New Testament discipleship today? The point of all of this is that the burden of communication in any difficult text falls upon those who have been taught. Those who know are to instruct those who do not.
While He walked this earth, our Lord bemoaned the lack of laborers. That need still exists today. Throwing a book at people, even if that book is the Bible, will not do the job that God desires to do in the hearts of men. Of course, the Bible is necessary, and if it is available in the language of the people, all the better. In this discussion of updated language so that increasingly uneducated people can comprehend, we forget that it is still the responsibility of the laborer to educate. Once the disciple has been properly instructed so that he understands, the text of the Scripture then takes the place of the teacher.
My fear in the whole discussion of modernizing the Bible is that eventually we begin to sacrifice accuracy for readability. This back and forth is a common struggle in the realm of old literature in addition to the Bible. When I was in the 5th grade, I came upon a series of books called Illustrated Classics. One title in the series was The Count of Monte Cristo. I could assert that I read this classic work in the 5th grade, but there is a caveat. The Illustrated Classics were each small books, slightly bigger than a man’s wallet. Each was approximately 150 pages in length, although that number is misleading because on every other page, there was a monochrome drawing illustrating something in the book. The editors had made the great French classic readable for me in the 5thgrade, but at what cost? Purists would argue that some of the nuances were lost in translation from French to English. They would further assert that much of the character development could not possibly exist in so short a rendition. The point is that for the literary purist, accuracy had been so compromised that some would argue that what I read was not The Count of Monte Cristo at all. What I read was readable, but it was not accurate.
Whether or not I read the real novel by Dumas is of little concern to me. The Bible, though, is of great concern. Pastor Deatrick bemoaned the statistics of modern American readers who are increasingly incapable of reading as they once could. He cites this dark reality as reason to change the wording of the Bible so that the less educated can comprehend the Word of God. How far should the man of God give in to declining education? Is there ever a time for him to light an educational candle? Should he insist that all eyes become accustomed to darkness?
Some years ago, I heard Pastor Deatrick preach a message in which he asserted, “I don’t have to wonder where the current fascination with Calvinism will lead.” He meant that his study of history had shown him the fruits that this philosophy would eventually produce. He could produce quotes from the life of William Carey to show the actions that this theology motivates. He was correct in every way.
Now, in a similar vein, I assert this: I do not have to wonder where the current wave of giving in to lesser education will lead. You see, I have been to Italy. I have seen the statues commissioned so that the common people could understand spiritual truth. I have beheld the paintings rendered for the same reason. The Catholics did not want to educate the people; instead, they simply gave in to the lack of education around them. In doing so, they eventually abandoned the concept of an inspired Book of God altogether. Why bother when the people lacked the education to understand it? Pastor Deatrick would vehemently disagree with the idea of abandoning an inspired book. For him, the Bible is essential to life and godliness. But when we begin down the path of changing the book for those who lack education, who is to say when we stop? Neither Pastor Deatrick nor any other author I have encountered in the same stream seems to have an answer.
Pastor Deatrick correctly admits that he is not very qualified to speak for the plowboy because he has a history of 40 years reading the King James Version. This admission is fair, and one that would apply to me as well as to him. Since neither of us can speak for the plowboy, I will allow one to speak to this issue directly.
David Hannah dropped out of the 8th grade so that he could go to work construction, in which field he still labors. He always hated school, preferring to work with his hands. By the time most were graduating from high school, he was becoming a skilled laborer having spent some years on the job while others sat in class. He had gotten into alcohol and was a self-described drunk when he heard the Gospel and trusted Christ. As God does with believers, He began to change David Hannah after his salvation. He was in an independent Baptist church that used the old King James Version. He was in local church discipleship as well as the all the scheduled meetings of the church.
One day in May, David Hannah came to me clearly bothered by something. As his friend, I was ready to listen to what he had to say. He had attended a high school graduation the previous week at a local Southern Baptist high school. His frustration stemmed from two things. First, they employed very few Scripture verses at all during the ceremony; and second, those that were used were from other versions. The other version reality bothered David the most. “I am just a construction worker who dropped out of the 8thgrade, but I have no problem understanding that book. Furthermore, I resent anyone who assumes that I am too ignorant to understand it.” According to him, it did not take very long in reading the old King James before he not only understood it, but loved its mode of expression. Are there unfamiliar words? Are there different sounding phrases? Of course. But David Hannah approached the Bible after his salvation with a mind to embrace the education required to be able to understand the old book. It did not take him 40 years to do so. It might have required 40 days.
In this debate, the learned academicians should find more real plowboys to inform their positions. They will find that there are far more David Hannah’s in this world than they previously realized: plowboys who will readily embrace the accuracy of the old Bible if they can only be given a man to guide them through it at the first.
Copyright © 2024 Paul Crow. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
