In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible (Religion in America) ebook download

In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible (Religion in America) by Peter J. Thuesen

In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible (Religion in America)

Download In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible (Religion in America)


In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible (Religion in America) Peter J. Thuesen
Language: English
Page: 256
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0195127366, 9780195127362
Publisher:

From Library Journal

As indicated by the title, this book chronicles the vicious debates between American Protestants over the translation and publication of different versions of the Bible, particularly the American Standard Version (1885) and the Revised Standard Version (1952). Limited to this topic, Thuesen does well. But the title is misleading; much of this book deals with other translations and with the Protestant/Roman Catholic controversy over the Bible. If the author had wished to write a longer history of problems with Bible translation, he could easily have found disagreement as early as the fourth century, when Jerome picked and discarded extant Latin texts as he prepared the Vulgate translation; or he could have given more detail about the work of the King James translators. The achievement of this book is that it demonstrates that the historical and literary discoveries of the 19th century became the theological controversies of the 20th century. Many new discoveries about biblical texts have been made in recent years; the information offered here about how the Bible has been translated to suit theological tastes and publishers' expectations of profits is shocking indeed. Recommended for academic and public libraries with large religion collections and for theological libraries.AJames A. Overbeck, Atlanta-Fulton P.L., GA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From

Four centuries after Luther proclaimed Scripture alone as the standard for church doctrine and governance, American Protestants found themselves deeply at odds over questions Luther left unanswered: Which translation of Scripture merits acceptance? Revisiting the debates over the Revised Version and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Thuesen narrates a fascinating chapter in church history, as American Protestants belatedly confronted the difficulties of basing ecclesiastical authority on a sacred text when the very wording of that text had come into question. Scrupulous scholarship provides a much-needed historical context for the fiery polemics of clerics who turned the new translations of the Bible into a battlefield for liberal and conservative factions, so dashing the translators' hope that their work would unify Christendom. With subtle insight, Thuesen examines American Protestants' demands that the holy text be examined against the empirical record of events, explaining in the process why the divisive implications of this historical consciousness remained submerged so long. And he shrewdly dissects the expedients Protestants have had to adopt to resolve the crisis in interpretive authority occasioned by the multiplication of competing vernacular translations. Not all readers will heed Thuesen's concluding appeal for a more aesthetic reading of Scripture, leaving questions of truth to be settled by nontextual means. But no one who wants to understand the place of the Bible in American culture can ignore this book. Bryce Christensen

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