Babel Revisited: Islam Comforted

The pages of The Voice have been visited by a debate over which is the superior version of the Bible. The debate has been close to heated and certainly emotional. Some claim superiority for the KJV (King James Version); others state that the newer NIV is superior. Of course, this ignores the plethora of other Bible versions that are readily available in today's marketplace: versions ad infinitum and ad nauseam. What has been overlooked is the serious impression that this debate has created among Muslims and prospective Muslims in America.

Long before the version debate seized the interest of would-be theologians, Islam was preaching to all who would listen that the Qur'an was a reliable word of God, but that Christians, conversely, had corrupted the Word of God (i.e., the Bible), so that the Qur'an was necessary to straighten out the world. Today, Islam is the world's fastest growing religion and a menace when practiced by those who hate. It is not an accident that Saudi Arabia's flag has a sword on it, nor that nearly all state seals of Islamic nations have crossed swords. Islam's appeal starts with debunking the Bible by claiming that Christians have made the Word of God unreliable. The multiplicity of Bible versions extant today simply feeds that impression.

In the days when one version predominated among Christian churches, this accusation was easily refuted. Today, however, it is far more difficult to combat the Islamic claim that Christians have corrupted their own sacred text. Most of our current versions were printed to make money for authors (in the case of single-person translations) or to enrich organizations which did the unthinkable: they copyrighted God's word so that they would get a royalty on every new version printed and sold. No matter what you may think of this, the multiple versions available and used in churches today are reminiscent of the Bible's story of the Tower of Babel, wherein God confused the languages of the world to prevent the arrogance of mankind from challenging God.

However, if it is "Babel" one craves, one should attend a Bible study wherein each person has a different version of the Bible and insists that theirs is more true to the original Bible language. People who are most adamant in so insisting this usually have a very limited knowledge of Bible languages and English.

Islam sees this "Babel" of versions as an affirmation of their claim that Christians and Jews cannot agree upon what God said or revealed. Thus, they conclude that Islam—and only Islam—can be relied upon to tell us what the God of heaven wants us to know, and the debate, carried on by people well meaning or ignorant of the Bible text, feeds Islam's claim.

Sadly, too many Christian leaders and believers are ignorant of what is involved in a translation process. The ideal aim of accurately translating the Bible from Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek is getting a single English word for each Bible language word. Many versions today, in a proclaimed effort to make God's word more understandable to our dumbed-down masses, have tried to explain what is being said by the original language texts. This is called interpretation, not translation.

Muslims will tell one that the Qur'an can only be read in Arabic. That is why so many new Muslim converts make the study of Arabic a must. What Muslims do not tell people is that variant readings of the Qur'an exist, but they are quickly dismissed and suppressed as totally irrelevant. Were the Muslim world more like modem Christians, Muslims would be publishing those variant readings for as much money as they could get and one might see disputes over which Qur'an is authentic.

It is too late for the Christian house to get itself in order. American Christendom is not about to learn Koine Greek or Old Testament Hebrew, but they certainly will argue the merits and/or demerits of one version against another. There is also a movement that presses for the supremacy of liturgy-laden eastern Greek manuscripts. Islam is delighted and comforted by this tendency, and the version debate most probably exists in some Muslim's file somewhere to "prove" to Christians that they have an unreliable Bible.

For seven years, I studied Koine Greek in seminary. I also studied Attic Greek: the Greek of Homer, Plato and the Old Testament Septuagint (LXX). I am by no means a Greek expert. However, I do know when some mistakes are made, and if they are repeated frequently enough, I try to correct the mistakes. It is not a welcome task. I have come to the conclusion that many people are "married" to the Bible version with which they feel most comfortable and believe that anyone who disagrees with them certainly has a foot in hell.

The version question would be much more clear and unarguable were we to teach our children, as used to be done in America, Bible languages and English. Meanwhile, newer versions will appear periodically to accommodate our people who are too lazy to learn, and, in their zeal to help matters, make a "Babel" out of the Bible to the delight of fundamentalist Muslims.