Honest Christian Science Theology sticks with KJV for Bible Lessons - Excellent article by Jon Larson

[RV Roseville]

August 5, 2010

 

CRITIQUE OF THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION OF THE BIBLE

 

Background

 

While having lunch at Principia College during an Adult Summer Session, I criticized The New King James Version, NKJV, of the Bible. Subsequently a number of people at the table who had degrees in religion urged me to write a critique of the NKJV and share it with the C.S.P.S; and so I did.  The NKJV is in the Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible, which the C.S.P.S. promotes and distributes.  The C.S.P.S. may be under the impression that the NKJV is an innocuous modernized version of the KJV; but that is not the case: the NKJV is laden with fundamentalist theology.

 

The late Dr. Arthur Farstad was the chairman of the NKJV Executive Review Committee.  Farstad graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and taught there.  Dallas Theological Seminary is the West Point of modern American Fundamentalism.  Fifteen years ago, when I spent many hours incognito with religious fundamentalists, Christian Science was considered a cult, and Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Scientists were considered agents of Satan.  The Bible scholars who worked on the NKJV were mostly conservative Baptists, but there were some conservative Presbyterians.  (The designation Aconservative@ is their characterization of themselves.)

 

General Background on the Aggressive Fundamentalism of the NKJV

 

The NKJV is an aggressively fundamentalist Bible. The NKJV was translated and edited by persons who are sure that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.  Retrojected into the NKJV is the fundamentalist position that all writers of the books of the New Testament knew that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were members of the Godhead and clearly expressed this fact as the occasion arose.  Thus, all pronominal references in the NKJV to Jesus and the Holy Spirit are capitalized just as pronominal references to God the Father are capitalized.

 

The aggressively fundamentalist position of the NKJV is in accord with neither Christian Science nor modern liberal Bible scholarship, which has determined that a number of early New Covenant (Testament) books did not portray Jesus as God.  Thoughtful Christian Scientists attempting to use this supposed Aupdate@ to the KJV will find it, at the least, unsatisfying if they are Biblically literate.

Mrs. Eddy honored God and distinguished between God and Jesus by capitalizing all pronouns referring back to God, while leaving pronouns referring back to Jesus un-capitalized.  On the contrary, the NKJV, for example, rendered Mark 1:40, speaking of Jesus, Then a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean. (Underlining is mine for emphasis.)  A Scientist reading this verse is forced to concur with the theology of the NKJV and read this verse as if Jesus is God, or un-capitalize all pronouns referring back to Jesus.  I hardly ever refer to my copy of the NKJV because I do not want to have to un-capitalize all the pronouns referring back to Jesus.

 

The Holy Spirit

 

The NKJV emphasizes its position that the Holy Spirit is in the Godhead in the following example.

 

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things."

 

Note that the pronominal reference to the Holy Spirit is capitalized, and that the Holy Spirit is given the male gender.  In a number of modern translations, "He" is un-capitalized or left out of the verse.

 

Translation from late manuscripts

 

 In 1611 the KJV translators translated from late manuscripts because early manuscripts of the New Covenant had not yet been found. Because the manuscripts were late, errors had crept into them.  The NKJV translators used basically the same manuscripts the KJV translators had used. The NKJV translators did not incorporate into the NKJV the massive data gained in the past four centuries of research, but retained most of the KJV mistakes. So the NKJV translation is not a reliable or respected translation among most Biblically literate Christians.

 

Conclusion

 

The NKJV was translated against good scholarship and is hostile to the theology of Christian Science and the theology of some of the earliest written books of the New Covenant, which hold that Jesus was the Son of God and not God the Son.  Christian Scientists who use the NKJV will be confused and eventually regret having used it.

 

The NKJV consistently capitalizes ALL pronominal references to Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit from the beginning to the end of the New Covenant, which is consistent with fundamentalist theology, but not with Christian Science theology or the Greek manuscripts underlying the New Covenant.

 

It is hoped that the C.S.P.S., after confirming the truth of this critique, will reconsider the promotion and distribution of the Essential Evangelical Parallel Bible, and will realize that it may be impossible to find any parallel Bible which does not include some Bible which has a theology strongly opposed to the theology of Christian Science.  Before deciding on Bibles to promote and distribute, the C.S.P.S. may wish to consult one or more Christian Scientists who hold higher degrees in religion, and who have made modern translations a part of their focus.

 

                                        Jon L. Larson, M.B.S.