I have been giving a quick read to Peter Enns’s latest book, How the Bible Actually Works, in Which I Explain How an Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers — and Why That’s Great News (HarperOne, 2019). I have to think there was a contentious meeting or two at the publisher’s office about that lengthy title, but it does serve as a good introduction to the book. Enns is trying to counter the popular churchy notion that the Bible is “holy, perfect, and clear,” which sounds good until a churchgoer actually reads it. I think the problem applies to Mormons as much as to other Christians, compounded by the “as far as it is translated correctly” disclaimer that Mormons attach to the Bible. After a paragraph each on the ancient, ambiguous, and diverse part, drawn from his discussion in the first chapter of the book, let’s think about whether a good study bible can solve the problem.
Ancient. A lot changes in two or three thousand years. Languages come and go. Words change their meanings, sometimes drastically. Cultural and religious contexts disappear. Enns refers to the world of the Bible as a “distant and utterly foreign world.” Enns suggests that in addition to the problem of translating the ancient text and rendering comprehensible various puzzling practices and references, there is also the challenge of updating or at least adapting the stories, directives, and meaning of the text for our day. Enns notes that the Bible itself contains ample evidence of such updating by subsequent generations within its own pages.
Jews and Christians throughout history have always known that this ancient Bible cannot simply be “followed” like a recipe. It takes creative imagination to bridge the ancient and modern horizons. And, as we will see in due course, that process is already happening — I can’t stress this enough — within the pages of the Bible itself. (Emphasis in original.)
Ambiguous. Enns claims, “When it comes to the details of what it means to live a life of faith, the Bible doesn’t hand out answers just because we are pounding at the door” (p. 8). Furthermore, he suggests this is not a fault but intentional. “This isn’t a drawback or a problem. This is by design.” Think about that for a moment. First, he is suggesting that we need to apply our own moral reasoning and inspired reflection to come up with our own details that fill in the gaps of the values and principles found in the Bible, whether personally or institutionally. Second, by extension, we will almost certainly arrive at some answers (again, personally or institutionally) that differ from the answers we receive through our own faith tradition, whether familial or institutional, from five or three or even just one generation back. To put it bluntly, if ambiguity is built into the Bible, then a spectrum of answers is to be expected from almost any honest biblical inquiry. That idea disturbs a lot of Bible readers.
Diverse. By diversity, Enns means the Bible “does not speak with one voice on most subjects, but [with] conflicting and contradictory voices.” Another curve ball for those who want the Bible to give simple, clear answers to every question. It’s not that God wants to confuse everyone, it’s because “the Bible was written by various writers who lived at different times, in different places, and under different circumstances and who wrote for different purposes.” That’s why, for example, a teacher’s manual for a Sunday School class provides the teacher with background information and cultural context to understand the material covered in the lesson. Or not.
You and Your Study Bible. I have found Thomas A. Wayment’s The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints to be a marvelous resource for reading through the New Testament this year. (FYI, you’re supposed to be doing this as part of the new Come, Follow Me program.) Any good study bible will be helpful, but Wayment’s is particularly good for an LDS reader. The standard LDS Bible has lots of footnotes and references but is surprisingly un-helpful for bridging the comprehension gap present for so many Bible narratives.
A question or two about Mormons and the Bible to wind things up. First, why are so many Latter-day Saints so attached to the KJV when they have such a tough time understanding it? Or even reading it? Second, why hasn’t the LDS belief that the Bible has problems (“as far as it is translated correctly”) led more Latter-day Saints to seek out better translations and supplementary materials to overcome, as far as possible, those problems? Perhaps some think the Joseph Smith Translation solves the problem. That’s a different post, of course, but simply reading most JST additions should disabuse most readers of that notion.
Wheat & Tares 
Nicely done! This is one of my irritation points with our (LDS) study of the Bible. As an over-60 member, and having listened to many, many lessons on both the Old and New Testaments, I have basically learned nothing but the base incidents and (some of the) characters names. I think I understand why the church stays with the KJV, but otherwise, there is precious little real discussion of the morality, context, and the reasons why. I guess maybe it’s just me, but I have always been one who wants to know why, and thus my interest in alternate translations and me buying my own copy of Clarkes commentary and Oxford study bible in my 20’s. Yeah, I’m often that guy in Sunday School that tries to dive a little deeper into the meaning of the stories, where they came from and really why they might be important…. and yeah, gets talked down by the teacher or others who just want to get through the canned spiel from the lousy manuals.
I really do like the Wayment approach, but again, since it is written to an LDS audience, it still has to sort of “toe the line”. Unfortunately, we have had such an agenda with our teaching from the bible that we simply can’t or won’t really study it. I have sat through decades of non-study in Sunday School, and finally with the internet available on my phone I can spend the 50 minutes of class acually learning more about this interesting book.
Also, very clever, I saw what you did in the Diverse section! 🙂
“First, why are so many Latter-day Saints so attached to the KJV…? “
It is a Standard Work. Nobody will look at you suspiciously at church with your KJV. But as you go round the classroom reading verses and you whip out a NIV and start reading, people will mutter, “What are you reading? I do not see those words in my bible!”
“Second, why hasn’t the LDS belief that the Bible has problems led more Latter-day Saints to seek out better translations and supplementary materials to overcome, as far as possible, those problems? “
If *I* do not feel that the bible has problems then I do not have a motivation to do something. Why would I? That my neighbor thinks the bible has a problem does not motivate me to study the bible; it might motivate my neighbor.
For what it’s worth, I have a Strong’s Concordance and its pretty good for cultural context but lacks revelation to explain more obscure references.
All translators inject their personal beliefs into the translation Consider some of the arguments here by various commenters:
https://www.quora.com/Which-Bible-verses-have-very-different-meanings-in-different-translations
The addition of a comma, and where to put it, makes a big difference: https://biblehub.com/luke/23-43.htm
Paul Orbinson writes Luke 23:43 And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
The greek language did not use commas and so the placement of it in the above changes its meaning in some part. If the comma is placed before the word today then the sentence would mean that the thief went to paradise THAT very day!
1. However this does not agree with other texts that show that Jesus himself did not go to paradise THAT day. He died and was buried and in fact was raised in three days but did not ascend to heaven till some 40 days after.
2. No one has ever been resurrected to heaven before Jesus was. Even those old faithful ones like Abraham and David. How do I know this? Careful consideration of the bible reveals it to be so and I cite the texts.
Paul Orbinson has decided that (1) Paradise is Heaven and (2) there is no spirit world; there is only mortal world and resurrection which won’t happen until the end of times. Therefore the scripture is wrong when rendered with the comma before “today”. Most translations are pretty much in agreement, the comma is before “today” and that means that the same day that Jesus spoke the words, both Jesus and the thief will be in “Paradise” without explaining what exactly that is. So if by revelation or belief you accept that spirits exist after death and before resurrection, they must be somewhere, and that somewhere is “Paradise” at least for some spirits.
My copy of the JST is highlighted in four ways: Additions, Alterations corrections, and differences in verse numbering. It allows me a better study flow. The Church does not have all the changes within its KJV footnotes/appendix. All students interested in Mormonism should have the JST as part of their Biblical collection.
I bought a Harper Collins Study Bible (base text is NRSV) and it has deepened my understanding considerably, especially in OT and Pauline epistles. The text is difficult enough to understand without adding an obscuring filter of 500-year-old English.
Regarding diverse and ambiguous, we have this well-known comment by Joseph Smith: “The teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.” So yeah. The LDS are great at cherry picking verses. Our treatment of the “marriage verses” in the NT last month is a great example. We just skip/ignore the stuff that doesn’t match our theology. Even if it is translated correctly, which nearly all of it is. (Scholars have shown that modern bibles match up to the oldest manuscripts-including the Dead Sea Scrolls– more than 98% of the time.)
Markablog, the JST is not a translation as the word is commonly defined. He spoke neither Hebrew or Greek, and there were no manuscripts in the original language. I prefer “Inspired Version” as being a more accurate description for the process.
“First, why are so many Latter-day Saints so attached to the KJV when they have such a tough time understanding it? Or even reading it? Second, why hasn’t the LDS belief that the Bible has problems (“as far as it is translated correctly”) led more Latter-day Saints to seek out better translations and supplementary materials to overcome, as far as possible, those problems? ”
I would say few church members deviate from using the KJV because they believe to do so would not be sanctioned by Church leaders.
For example, if the bible ie the KJV is the “word of God” only so far as it is “translated correctly,” woudn’t using a different translation increase the risk of errors?
But, Thomas Waymant’s bible is sold at Deseret Book so one would think it would be approved for use by church leaders.
(I once told a friend I was going to use something different from the KJV, because it would be easier to read, she acted like I told her I was going to
start drinking alcohol).
I am the kind of person who, had I lived a few decades earlier, would have certainly bought one of more study bibles.
But today, in the age of the internet? No need. At any moment I can pick up my phone, go to biblehub.com, look up any verse, and within seconds I’ll see that verse in all the principle translations, along with the original Greek or Hebrew text with every word hyperlinked: click on a word, and it goes straight to the concordance, where I can see a list of every other occurrence of that Greek or Hebrew word.
And once I realize I have a resource like that, I can hardly be bothered to read through in a translation other than the KJV – in my experience, they’re generally inferior from a poetic standpoint, the lack of thee’s and thou’s is grating to someone used to scripture having an archaic tone, and most of the nuances in the Greek or Hebrew that don’t make it into the KJV don’t make it into the other translations, either.
Occasionally, there is a passage that is rendered more clearly in other versions, but if, for instance, I come across the word “man” in the Old Testament and want to know which of four! different Hebrew words it translates (Adam, Enosh, Ish, or Geber) I have to go to BibleHub.
Reading the interlinear translation can at times be amusing, for instance, when I realized that the “great voice” which John hears over and over in Revelation is a translation of the same combination of Greek words that gave us the word MEGAPHONE, or when I read the passage where Jesus says “whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death,” and saw that the word “curse” is actually KAKOLOGON, and a more literal translation would be “whoso badmouths father or mother, let him die the death!” And it can be insightful, for instance, when I saw that one of the words for sorcery is PHARMAKEIA – certainly not a Greek root that I was expecting to come across, but it made immediate sense that altering someone’s personality or mental state with drugs would be seen as a form of sorcery.
I feel quite blessed to live in the day and age I do and have access to this kind of thing. But if someone is expecting to sell me a big, expensive paper volume whose covers contain only a small fraction of the alternate readings, translations, concordances, and commentaries already a click away, then it seems like the time for that has passed.
The post ends with two questions being asked. First why are members attached to the KJV, and second, why don’t members use other translations and supplements. I will give my thoughts on the two questions and lets see what everyone thinks.
Why the KJV of the Bible? Because it is the version the church uses, when the church leaders quote scripture they 99.9% of time use this version. Church publications use this version, it is generally better if everyone uses the same text and by default it is the KJV. So members use what the Church uses. My opinion is that most people have a hard time understanding the Bible in any translation, it is just plain difficult to read and understand. I personally do not find the KJV difficult to read or understand, and to me, the sound of the old English is spiritual in nature. It just sounds “right”.
The second question, why don’t members use other translations or supplements. Or in other words why don’t members study the scriptures deeply and scholarly. Because most people (in or out of the Church) don’t have a desire to study that much or that deeply. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to become a bible scholar and that is what you are really asking people to become. People can only be experts in so many areas and most people do not really want to be a biblical scholar. In the end most people just want to know God’s plan for them and what is expected of them and what they should do to be better people, with the hope that they can be right with God in the end. And you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to do that.
Believing Joseph, great plug for biblehub.com! It is my go to site when I am studying the OT and NT, a dozen and more translations and supplements, Greek and Hebrew meanings of words and a quick reference on other places in scripture using those same words. Many of the most common commentaries all on the same page, verse by verse. No reason to limit myself to one or two translations went I can have them all (or most of them anyway).
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Paul said, ” I have sat through decades of non-study in Sunday School.” I can feel your pain. I thought the new curriculum might be a step or two in the right direction. I’ll give it a thumbs up for encouraging members to do more personal study, but I’m not sure the manual does the teachers any favors.
Other Clark, I like the Harper-Collins Study Bible and the Oxford Study Bible. I’ve got both on devices, which is a little unwieldy if you are checking a reference or looking for maps, but handy in the sense that I take both to church every week.
Lois, the Wayment NT being sold at Deseret Book is a real step forward, for sure. I’ll bet there are thousands of mainstream LDS who have purchased it there and have upped their NT game as a result. I think it will be even more helpful as the Sunday School curriculum moves into the Pauline epistles. I wish that, at the next Conference, an apostle would challenge all Latter-day Saints to read Romans rather than the standard “read your Book of Mormon, one more time” thing. Calling Pres. Uchtdorf …
I like the New Interpreters’ Study Bible, an NRSV translation I picked up about four years ago. Along with the Oxford Bible, it’s pretty much my go-to and I annoy people by quoting from it in GD rather than the KJV. I like it because it usually tells me when alternate translations, manuscript versions, and so on exist for a particular passage. For a person like me who doesn’t read in the original languages, it seems pretty comprehensive.
It also weighs approximately as much as my car. There’s always a downside.
I read an article recently, and I can’t recall where (BCC?) on how LDS attitudes have changed from “The KJV is OK since it’s all we’ve got” to something approaching a “KJV-only” stance in recent years. It was quite interesting. The process could be a sort of “type” (to use the Mormony term) for the general ossification of inquiry, study, and expansion of knowledge in the Church in the last few decades.
A few random thoughts.
Around 70-80 years ago, I believe, the First Presidency issued a letter to the effect that the King James Version of the Bible is the most inspired, correct, etc. of them all. This partly accounts, I believe, for the Church’s reluctance to embrace any other translation. There are also legal/financial issues associated with switching to another translation: the KJV is just about the only major translation that is not subject to copyright restrictions.
Brigham Young, by contrast, was a bit more open minded on the subject: “If [the Bible] be translated incorrectly, and there is a scholar on the earth who professes to be a Christian, and he can translate it any better than King James’s translators did it, he is under obligation to do so, or the curse is upon him. If I understood Greek and Hebrew as some may profess to do, and I knew the Bible was not correctly translated, I should feel myself bound by the law of justice to the inhabitants of the earth to translate that which is incorrect and give it just as it was spoken anciently. Is that proper? Yes, I would be under obligation to do it.” Journal of Discourses 14:226-227.
Also, in recent years I have heard a few GAs quote, in their General Conference talks, other translations of the Bible. So, the long, dead hand of the KJV is starting to lose its grip. (Having said this, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the KJV. While not the most accurate, it is perhaps the most lyrical and poetic.)
In addition to the other study bibles and translations already mentioned, I recommend the Jewish Study Bible and the Jewish Annotated New Testament. The latter provides some very useful insights into the meaning of Christ’s teachings and the culture and customs of his audiences.
David Bentley Hart, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, a couple of years ago published a new translation of the New Testament that is really quite good, especially for a single-author translation.
Peter Enns is one of my favorites. After you cut your teeth on “How the Bible Actually Works” and “The Bible Tells Me So,” take a look at his more serious works, such as “The Sin of Certainty” and “Inspiration and Incarnation.”
Dave B., I believe you once said that the “Come Follow Me” manual is little more than Mormon Socialization 101, a collection of scriptures and stories from the New Testament—many of which are misconstrued and/or taken out of context—selected in order to reinforce the character traits and virtues that SLC believes every good Latter-day Saint should possess. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. But, as you noted, its one redeeming quality, for serious students of the scriptures, is that it tells us, in Lesson One, that we are all responsible for our learning.
Eric, the David Bentley Hart translation certainly sounds interesting. I just read a review of it – apparently, he is very literal, so that passages of bad Greek are translated into bad English: i.e. “A revelation from Jesus the Anointed, which God gave him, to show his slaves what things must occur extremely soon.” It’s definitely something that I’ll look into more.
I primarily use the HC NRSV (which had much more on the Divine feminine and theosis than the LDS KJV) and the Wayment Translation.
I think we use the KJV because it’s the language of the restoration that we didn’t t so much quoting and intertextuality with the D&C and BoM.
The blog post asks, “[W]hy are so many Latter-day Saints so attached to the KJV when they have such a tough time understanding it?”
No discussion of this question is complete without reference to J. Reuben Clark. He was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve when he published his book, “Why the King James Version?” in 1956 (and became a member of the First Presidency just a couple of years later.) The book specifically defends the KJV in the Church, and also tears down other then-contemporary translations.
Phil Barlow wrote an excellent (and not long) article in Dialogue about this. Barlow says Clark’s book was so influential that it “must be considered a crucial factor” in the LDS evolution in favor of the KJV, and also explains how the book took on “quasi-official status” with members of the Church.
The article is a quick read: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V22N02_21.pdf
It’s not available online yet, but the latest issue of The Religious Educator (a journal published by BYU’s Religious Studies Center) has a great article by Daniel McClellan, “‘As Far as It Is Translated Correctly’: Bible Translation and the Church.” It delves deeply into all the issues being discussed here and is very much worth reading.
Minor point, Hunter, but J. Reuben Clark was already a member of the First Presidency at that time. He was actually called as an apostle after serving in the First Presidency for about a year.
Here’s the reason: the Handbook clings to the KJV with a death grip. Section 21.1.7 of the 2019 updated Hanbook 2 STILL says:
English-speaking members should use the Latter-day Saint edition of the King James Version of the Bible. This edition includes the Topical Guide; footnotes; excerpts from the Joseph Smith Translation; cross-references to other passages in the Bible and to the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price; and other study aids. Although other versions of the Bible may be easier to read, in doctrinal matters, latter-day revelation supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations. —-end—-
In my view, Church scripture culture cannot easily get past this fence, or perceived fence. This to me makes Wayment’s publication feat almost a miracle. Maybe some day English-speaking LDS will look back on his effort as a pioneering one… the first step, perhaps, in a very long trek.
I use his NT and Harper-Collins NRSV, as well as Biblegateway. Also, James Faulconer’s works have profoundly influenced my scripture study, especially his book Life of Holiness, an exposition of six chapters in Romans.