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A controversy is brewing over three reputable Christian organizations, which are based in North America, whose efforts have ousted the words “Father” and “Son” from new Bibles. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers are under fire for “producing Bibles that remove “Father,” “Son” and “Son of God” because these terms are offensive to Muslims.”
Concerned Christian missionaries, Bible translators, pastors, and national church leaders have come together with a public petition to stop these organizations. Biblical Missiology, a ministry of Boulder, Colorado-based Horizon International, is sponsoring the petition. The main issues of this controversy surround new Arabic and Turkish translations.
First, Wycliffe and SIL have produced Stories of the Prophets, an Arabic Bible that uses an Arabic equivalent of ”Lord” instead of “Father” and “Messiah” instead of “Son.” Second, Frontiers and SIL have produced Meaning of the Gospel of Christ , an Arabic translation which removes “Father” in reference to God and replaces it with “Allah,” and removes or redefines “Son.” Third, Frontiers and SIL have produced a new Turkish translation of the Gospel of Matthew that uses Turkish equivalents of “guardian” for “Father” and “representative” or “proxy” for “Son.” To Turkish church leader Rev. Fikret Böcek, “This translation is ‘an all-American idea’ with absolutely no respect for the ‘sacredness’ of Scripture, or even of the growing Turkish church.”
SIL has issued a public response stating “all personnel subscribe to a statement of faith which affirms the Trinity, Christ’s deity, and the inspiration of Scripture.” However, in the same statement, which is similar to Wycliffe’s, it claims “word-for-word translation of these titles would communicate an incorrect meaning.
Source: Yahoo News
“word-for-word translation of these titles would communicate an incorrect meaning.
ANY incorrect meaning derived out of a word-for-word translation is the result of
• Mankinds’ sinful nature
• Every single person’s individual experience with their earthly father
• Political/social/cultural indoctrination of the individual
ALL that we need do about this is LEAVE THE WORD AS IT WAS GIVEN TO US and let God deal with these imperfect understandings. He is able to get His Word through to the unsaved if we just BRING IT TO THEM AS HE GAVE IT TO US.
Also
• It is offensive to associate the title allah with Jehovah by name-swapping. THAT is far more likely to produce an incorrect understanding!!
• In any language and in any culture Father is Father, Son is Son, a fully functioning father is always a guardian BUT a guardian is NOT always a father. These words and meanings are not interchangeable .. IN ANY LANGUAGE!!!
The sad reality is that these decision makers have decided to soften the Word so as not to be offensive and maybe also out of fear of the Muslim reaction. They forget that the people reading their publicans are searching for God and Matthew 7:7 answers that fully.
This is prophetic as the word clearly says these things will happen in end days.
Rev 22:18-19
For I testify to every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add to these things, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book:And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
You have been warned.
First, I agree with most of what you said. Yes, Jesus was offensive, and the Word of God will always be offensive. However, I think the decision-makers were hoping to aviod the offensiveness of foreign or misunderstood terminology rather Jesus himself.
It seems that people are making judgments without understanding the mind of a Muslim or how the Bible was even translated into English.
“It is offensive to associate the title allah with Jehovah by name-swapping. THAT is far more likely to produce an incorrect understanding!!”
Did you know that the title “God” used in English Bibles has its roots in the Germanic word “Gad” (pronounced “Godht”) used by our pagan forefathers? However, we have a redeemed understanding of who “God” is. Further, historically Christian peoples in the Arab world used the word “Allah” to refer to God. It does not simply refer to the God of Islam. It is the word for God in Arabic just as “God” is the word for the uncreated Creator of the universe in English.
Perhaps it would also help to understand what Muslims think when they hear “Trinity” and read that God is a father who had a son. They think that the Trinity is three gods: the Father who had physical relations with Mary and had a son Jesus. yikes!
That is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed. Personally, I don’t think that scripture should/needs to be changed to address it. However, the people in the three organizations mentioned above are at least trying to be used by God to bring a correct understanding of Him to Muslims. Not to mention, many have suffered greatly or died for the purpose seeing Christ exalted among Muslims. A great amount of respect is due to the people in those organizations because they do more than talk about presenting the Word of God to people. I doubt that many of them have made decisions “out of fear of the Muslim reaction.” People who have been beaten and lost children to deliver the good news are surely less fearful than those who have never attempted.
Ultimately, I agree that we should keep Father and Son in the Arabic Bible. Perhaps a footnote explaining that God did not have sex with Mary would help. Most importantly, I am thankful for the people in these organizations because they have built relationships with Muslims in order to share Christ. That is the best way to correct a Muslim’s incorrect understand of God.
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