The NIV Study Bible:
Evangelicalism
Annotates an English Bible
[Written in
2011.]
NOTE: If you are not interested
in the Background, skip to Contents of the Study Bible.
Outline of the Review
The NIV Translation
A Bible of Their Own
The Published Translation
The NIV Study Bible:
Editions and Editors
The Editions
The Backgrounds of the Editors
Kenneth
L. Barker
Donald
W. Burdick
John H. Stek
Walter W. Wessel
Ronald Youngblood
Contents of the Study Bible
Distinctive Evangelical Themes
Examples of Interpretation
The Pentateuch
Creation
God’s Warfare
The Psalms
The Gospels
Evaluative Comments
The NIV Translation
A Bible of Their Own.
In 1952 the Revised Standard
Version of the Christian Bible was published under the auspices of the National
Council of Churches, the ecumenical body of mainline Protestant denominations
in the USA
However, there were many groups of
conservative Protestants (Evangelicals) who would not accept the RSV for their
personal or congregational scripture reading.
They clung to the tried and true, if somewhat old fashioned, KJV. Some RSV opponents went so far as to call it
“the work of Satan and his agents” (Martin Marty, Modern American Religion, Vol. 3, pp. 368-69.) At the same time, many Evangelical scholars
and missionaries (who worked constantly with translations into colloquial
languages) knew they really needed an up-to-date English version. If not the RSV, then they needed one of their
own.
Without reference to the RSV, the
“Preface” to the New International
Version explains the origin of the translation as follows:
The New International Version is a
completely new translation of the Holy Bible [thus not a revision of the KJV] made by over a hundred scholars working
directly from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. It had its beginning in 1965 when, after
several years of exploratory study by committees from the Christian Reformed
Church and the National Association of Evangelicals, a group of scholars met at
Palos Heights , Illinois Chicago
Responsibility for the new version
was delegated by the Palos Heights
The Preface goes on to explain
that the translation is International
because the project included scholars from Great
Britain Canada Australia New
Zealand United
States
It may be important to notice that
the scholars who initiated the project made certain the translation remained in
the control of an independent entity – at least as independent as the financial
support of the New York Bible Society could make it. The NIV was not owned by an ecumenical power,
as the National Council of Churches owned the RSV. Evangelicalism was too diverse (and, an
observer might say, “contentious”) to trust the destiny of a major Bible
translation to the vicissitudes of warfare among denominations and true
believers.
The chief candidate at the time
for such an ownership of a new Bible translation was the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which thought of itself
as the main alternative to the National Council. This coalition of conservative Protestant
denominations and churches was created in 1942 and has had varied success in uniting
and giving a common voice to Evangelicalism.
In its long in-house history (available in 2011; now see www.nae.net/naes-beginning/), the NAE
describes two periods of successes, 1943-1960, and the Reagan era. Its role throughout, according to historian Roger
Olson, has been “aiding the emergence of Evangelicalism out of its
fundamentalist past while maintaining a strong commitment to the authority of
Scripture and to historic Christian orthodoxy.”
(Roger E. Olson, The SCM Press A-Z
of Evangelical Theology [= Westminster
Clearly the NAE had been
interested in a new Bible translation.
Another NAE initiative in the 1950s
with long-range consequences was the formation of a committee in 1957 to
explore the possibility of a new translation of the Bible. The National Council had five years earlier
released the Revised Standard Version, but the new translation did not prove
popular among many evangelicals. The NAE
committee began meeting with a similar committee commissioned by the Christian
Reformed Church in 1961. By 1965, the
two committees formed an independent Committee on Bible Translation... In 1978, the first copies of the New
International Version of the Bible came off the presses. The presses would not stop. Ten years after initial publication more than
50 million copies had been distributed throughout the English-speaking
world.
[On-line history available in 2011, last paragraph of
“Growth and Accomplishments in the 1950s.”]
The Christian Reformed Church was a
Dutch-immigrant denomination formed in the 19th century that didn’t
use English in its services until the 20th century. Thus, it was hardly over-burdened by a KJV
heritage. However, assimilating to
American culture carried with it use of English, and after a hundred years
English versions of the scriptures would have been a major concern to this very
conservative Calvinistic tradition. In
the 1960s, their major college and seminary were growing rapidly (Calvin
College Grand
Rapids , MI
The push within
the Christian Reformed Church for a new but conservative translation of the
Bible has been told by John Stek, who became the long-term participant of the
CRC and Calvin Seminary in the creation of the NIV. (John Stek, “The New International
Version: How It Came to Be,” cited more
fully below.) The movement had begun as
early as 1956, but it leaped forward around 1961, just at the time that Stek
was appointed to Calvin Seminary and to the committee discussing translation
with the NAE.
Another
not-so-incidental link of the CRC with the NIV beginnings was a new CRC college
established in 1959, Trinity Christian College – in Palos Heights, Illinois, meeting
place for the birth of the NIV.
Credo.
To meet the expectations of their constituencies, the translators made
clear their belief in Scripture:
[T]he translators
were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible
as God’s Word in written form. They
believe that it contains the divine answer to the deepest needs of humanity,
that it sheds unique light on our path in a dark world, and that it sets forth
the way to our eternal well-being.
(“Preface to the NIV,” sixth paragraph.)
Compared to other
statements of faith by translators and annotators, this is pretty
moderate. It does not include the
“inerrancy” of the scriptures, which later became a shibboleth for
fundamentalists and other dedicated literalists. (The Introduction to the 1967 revised
Scofield Bible vowed belief in all the fundamentals: inerrancy, trinity, virgin birth, atonement,
bodily resurrection, Christ’s imminent premillennial return, and eternal
blessing for the saved and damnation for the lost. New
Scofield Reference Bible, Oxford
The Published Translation.
The translation
work was done between 1967 and 1978. The
process called for a committee of three to translate each Biblical book, for an
intermediate committee to review and revise that translation, and finally for
the Committee on Bible Translation to make final revisions—final except for
more review and revision by English stylists.
(All this is described in Stek’s article.)
A critical stage
in production was reached when it was decided that there had to be a single
coordinator of the process. Edwin H.
Palmer was appointed full-time Executive Secretary in April 1968 and from then
on, everything passed through his office and his hands. When, ten years later, the whole translation
was finished, Palmer was immediately appointed General Editor of the projected
NIV Study Bible. (See further on Palmer
below.)
The New Testament
was published in 1973 but mildly revised when the whole Bible came out in 1978,
and the whole thing mildly revised again for a 1983 printing. The Committee on Bible Translation (CBT)
announced a gender-inclusive version in 1997, but rapid opposition among the
churches and denominations caused the publishers to withhold it (in the US
To finish up on
the translation, as these words are being written the owner of the copyright on
the NIV (Biblica, Inc., formerly the International Bible Society) is releasing a
revision of the translation, NIV 2011. According to the on-line announcement, the
revision of 1984 (THE NIV until now) will be discontinued and Bible study helps,
like concordances, gradually adapted to the new revision. Presumably, a new generation is entering into
the heritage of the NIV.
Two volumes of essays by the NIV translators,
published in later years, give backgrounds, research studies, and defenses of
the “Contemporary translation.”
[The Palmer
volume] The NIV: The Making of a Contemporary Translation,
ed. Kenneth L. Barker, International Bible Society, 1991, originally published
in 1986 by Zondervan Publishing House. This
was created as a memorial volume to Edwin H. Palmer, executive secretary
throughout the translation project, and first general editor of the NIV Study
Bible. This volume includes Palmer’s
(posthumous) spirited article comparing the NIV to the KJV, greatly to the
advantage of the NIV. It also includes
articles by three Study Bible editors:
Kenneth Barker on the name Yahweh; John Stek on the modern study of Old
Testament poetry; and Ronald Youngblood on OT quotations in the NT.
[The Youngblood
volume] The Challenge of Bible Translation, ed. Glen G. Scorgie, Mark L.
Strauss, and Steven M. Voth, Zondervan, 2003.
Published as “Essays in Honor of Ronald F. Youngblood,” near his
retirement and seventieth birthday, this volume also contains articles by Study
Bible editors: Kenneth Barker on current
translation philosophies and the NIV; Mark Strauss [new editor for the 2008
edition of the Study Bible] on the gender-language debate; Walter Wessel on a
recently published history of the KJV; and John Stek on the Christian Reformed
Church’s role in the making of the NIV translation.
[The first edition
of the NIV Study Bible I studied.]
The NIV
Study Bible: Editions and Editors
The editors of the
NIV Study Bible have no reservations about the quality of the new translation. “The New International Version of the Bible
(NIV) is unsurpassed in accuracy, clarity and literary grace” (“Introduction,”
p. xiv, 2008 edition). Hardly a surprise,
since the editors and contributors of the Study Bible had shared in the
production of the translation.
The Editions. There have been four editions of the NIV
Study Bible:
1985
Edition. The first edition, work done
between 1978 and 1985. Relatively
speaking, there has been little change from the first edition. The mold was shaped then; only tinkering
followed.
1995
Edition. 10th Anniversary Edition,
very minor changes, but added the three symbols for special interest
notes: a stem of leaves, marking notes for
“personal application”; a spade marking notes of archeological or research
interest; and a silhouette of a human head signifying a character sketch.
2002
Edition. “Fully Revised edition.” The General Editor says he added many notes
and updated some of the introductions (giving “greater attention to rhetorical,
structural and other literary features”).
2008
Edition. The editors added some new
notes and charts. Not heavily
revised.
In
doing this review I am using only the 1995 and the 2008 editions. Quotations are from the 2008 edition, unless
otherwise noted.
The key figure in
the transition from Translation to Study Bible was Edwin H. Palmer, who, as Executive Secretary of the Committee on
Bible Translation, had played a critical role in coordinating the translation
work on the NIV. On completion of the
translation, he was immediately appointed General Editor of the Study Bible
to-be, but had only a little over a year before he died in 1980. Before his death, “he had laid most of the
plans for the NIV Study Bible, had recruited the majority of the contributors,
and had done some editorial work on the first manuscripts submitted.” (“Tribute
to Edwin H. Palmer,” NIV Study Bible, following the title page in all editions.)
Palmer was born in
1922 and grew up in Quincy , Massachusetts Michigan Grand Rapids Grand
Rapids
The Backgrounds of the (Other) Editors.
Forty-six men
appeared in the Contributors list of the first two editions. (There were no women contributors, though
appreciations were extended to several women on the Zondervan production staff.) The five editors, however, are said to have
done the major work.
The individuals
named below contributed [original material]...
However, since the General Editor and the Associate Editors extensively
edited the notes on most books, they alone are responsible for their form and
content. [Heading of Contributors page,
all editions.]
After Palmer’s
death, the General Editor who saw the work through, not only the original work
from 1978 through 1985, but ever since, is Kenneth L. Barker. He was assisted by four Associate Editors,
Donald W. Burdick, John H. Stek, Walter W. Wessel, and Ronald F.
Youngblood. Burdick (New Testament) died
in 1996, right after the tenth anniversary revision came out. Wessel (also New Testament) died as the 2002
revision was winding up (Tributes page of 2008 edition). A new Associate Editor had been appointed for
the 2008 edition with responsibility for New Testament work, Mark L.
Strauss.
The professional careers of these editors
give us a little panorama of the Evangelical Biblical world from the 1960s to
the 1980s.
Kenneth L. Barker (General Editor).
When Palmer died, Kenneth
Barker replaced him as General Editor.
That meant he was the key person in pushing the contributors to complete
their work and in scheduling and overseeing the numerous meetings to review and
revise the work, assisted, of course, by four heavily involved Associate
Editors. He had been young enough when
enlisted to last throughout the seven years of composition (1978-1985) and the
subsequent twenty-five years of periodic revisions.
Barker grew up in Iowa Orange
City Northwestern
College
Barker was
appointed to the faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary in 1968 and continued
there until 1981. He was invited to join
the Committee on Bible Translation of the NIV in 1974, as the Old Testament translation
was getting well underway. He is listed
as primary contributor for only Zechariah in 1995, but also for Micah in
2008. He is listed as the secondary
reviser for Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Nahum in both editions.
Barker was not
only an Old Testament scholar, he also clearly had skills as an administrator
and organizer of group projects. He
later served as secretary as well as executive director of the International
Bible Society’s NIV Translation
Center
Donald W. Burdick (Associate Editor,
New Testament).
Burdick was born
in 1917 and grew up in western New York Wheaton
College Chicago Kostner
Avenue Baptist Church
Around 1950, the
Conservative Baptist Association separated from the Northern Baptist
Convention, apparently over scripture issues among others. The Conservative group went west and founded
the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver
In his scholarly
work Burdick did commentaries on the letter of James and on the letters of
John. In the NIV Study Bible, he had
primary responsibility for all the catholic letters, Peter, James, John, Jude,
and he was the second reviser on Hebrews.
He suffered ill health in his later years and died in 1996.
John H. Stek (Associate Editor, Old
Testament).
Stek, like Kenneth
Barker, was born and grew up in Iowa Okinawa and
occupation of Korea Calvin College Grand Rapids , MI Westminster
Exciting times had
been brewing in Grand Rapids University
of Chicago
John Stek was said
to be a soft-spoken, somewhat introverted scholar, and apparently did not
publish much. A search of on-line books
produces many copies of the NIV Study Bibles, but only one other collaborative
work, Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the
World’s Formation, by Howard J. Van Till, John H. Stek, and Robert Snow,
Eerdmans, 1990. Stek was appointed to
the Committee on Bible Translation at the very beginning, 1965 (probably while
he was on leave at the University of Chicago
In the Study
Bible, Stek did the primary contributions on Psalms and Song of Songs (with no
second revisers listed). He did the
secondary revisions of nine other OT
books, including such large items as Judges, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. He clearly left his hand-prints widely in the
Old Testament introductions and notes. Stek
died in 2009, just after the 2008 edition of the Study Bible had come out.
Walter W. Wessel (Associate Editor, New
Testament).
Information on
Walter Wessel is hard to come by.
Publishers mention only that he received his Ph.D. from Edinburgh St.
Paul , MN
Bethel Seminary
was originally created in Chicago St. Paul ,
Minnesota San Diego Auburn
Massachusetts
Wessel must have
been on the faculty from the 1960s to the 1990s. Up until 1978, he would have had as an Old
Testament colleague on the St. Paul campus Ronald Youngblood, a fellow
translator of the NIV, though the periods of their work did not necessarily
overlap, NT finished in 1973, OT in 1978.
Youngblood was no longer at Bethel St. Paul
In the NIV Study
Bible completed in 1985, Walter Wessel had primary responsibility for the
Gospels of Matthew and Mark and the heavy-weight Pauline letter to the Romans,
as well as the Pastorals, I and II Timothy.
As mentioned earlier, Wessel died as the 2002 edition was coming
out.
Ronald F. Youngblood (Associate Editor,
Old Testament).
Youngblood is
probably the most widely known of the NIV Study Bible contributors and
editors. He was born in Chicago in 1931,
took a B.A. from Valparaiso University in 1952, a B.D. from Fuller Theological
Seminary in Pasadena, California, in 1955 (when that path-breaking Evangelical
school was only a decade old), and a Ph.D. from the Dropsie
College
Youngblood taught
Old Testament at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul Wheaton
Graduate School Trinity Evangelical
Divinity School Deerfield , IL San
Diego
Among substantial
publications were The Genesis
Debate: Persistent Questions about
Creation and the Flood, 1986; the books of Samuel in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (based on the
NIV translation), 1992; and co-editor of Nelson’s
New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1995.
In recent years, Ronald Youngblood has worked hard to provide common-reader
and gender-neutral editions of the NIV translation. He was executive editor of the New
International Reader’s Version (1995 and 1998), and he played a significant
role in the TNIV of 2005.
In the original
work on the Study Bible, Youngblood took primary responsibility for the
introductions and notes of Genesis, Exodus, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, and served
as second reviser of Leviticus, Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, and Daniel. In the 2008 edition, Youngblood is listed as
secondary instead of primary contributor for Ezra, Nehemiah (primary
contributor being Edwin Yamauchi) and Job (primary contributor Elmer B. Smick). John Stek also did some revisions in 2008 of
Youngblood’s original work on Lamentations.
Contents of
the Study Bible
These scholars put
together an impressive volume of aids to Bible study. While the NIV translation is the heart of it,
the “Quick Start Guide” (just like a new computer) on page vi highlights the
following:
- Book introductions to the 66 books.
- Center-column Cross References, for “deeper study of themes or concepts.”
- Study Notes, over 20,000 of them, for “background and context to the Scripture.” *
- In-text Maps, Charts, Diagrams, and Illustrations to “explain important information and ideas from Scripture.”
- The Topical Index with over 700 entries to allow readers to create their own study paths.
- Color maps at the back, 14 of them.
- The NIV Concordance, 35,000 references, “the largest ever bound with an English Bible.”
* The space given to Notes in the NIV
Study Bible is generous. My estimate is
that the average page is at least one-third notes, two-thirds translation.
Distinctive
Evangelical Themes.
The hallmark of
Evangelicals as distinct from “mainline” Protestants and some other Christians
is their insistence that the Bible must
be read literally, that all its statements must be taken as true in some
sense. The most frequently cited
Biblical foundation for this view is II Timothy 3:16
(the other great 3:16 text). “All Scripture [capitalized in NIV] is
God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness...” Even though the scriptures
referred to here were the Old Testament, Evangelicals take it to apply to the
sixty-six Biblical books of the Protestant Bible. The Study Bible note on the phrase
“God-breathed” is, “Paul affirms God’s active involvement in the writing of
Scripture, an involvement so powerful and pervasive that what is written is the
infallible and authoritative word of God (see 2Pe 1:20-21 and notes).”
Also, the Bible
has a unique status. It is not ordinary
ancient literature, it is revelation of God and God’s plan for human
salvation. This is true of the Bible as
a canon, as a closed collection of inspired writings. (For one academically careful presentation of
the Evangelical meanings of Biblical “inspiration,” “inerrancy,” and
“authority,” see chapters 10-12 of Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed, BakerAcademic, 1998.) The corollary of this canonical view is that
the Bible must be interpreted in its own
terms; one thing in the Bible is explained by other things in the
Bible. The study tools in the NIV Study
Bible are especially aimed at Bible study in which topics are followed within
the full range of the Bible itself. “This
interrelationship of the Scriptures [e.g., explaining Jesus by quoting Isaiah
53, Acts 8:30]—so essential to understanding the complete Biblical message—is a
major theme of the notes in the NIV Study Bible” (p. xiv).
Bible study in the Evangelical tradition
is not primarily a matter of gaining information, of academic mastery of
subject matters. Bible study is a key
part of the Christians’ devotional life.
One’s personal seeking the Lord involves tracing meanings of Biblical
terms and concepts. This is not
education; this is part of submitting oneself to the guidance of the Holy
Spirit. The tools that facilitate such
devotion are the Center-column references, the Topical Index, and the
Concordance. The Notes may also give cross-references
that lead to a personal comprehension and feeling for weighty Biblical concepts
and symbols.
Examples of
Interpretation.
Given this
Evangelical background, it must be said that the editors have proceeded very
modestly. They explain the translation;
they do not address all kinds of questions that curious readers might
raise. There are introductions and
notes, but large sweeping articles are conspicuous by their absence.
The Pentateuch.
Not only is there
no general article on the Old Testament as such, there is no article on the
Pentateuch. One will quickly learn (from
the Introduction to Genesis) that Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch, though using
older traditions to record primeval and patriarchal times. Also, it may be conceded that “a certain
amount of later editorial updating” has gone on (as in Genesis 14:14; 36:31;
47:11), but the bulk of the Pentateuch was written by Moses by the end of 1406
B.C. in the territory east of the Jordan River (pages 2-3).
This approach
gives scant attention to so-called “critical” issues in the Bible. Some succinct statements are made of what “many
scholars” [1995; changed to “many interpreters” in 2008] believe, but reasons
and specific refutations are not included.
For example,
During the last
three centuries many interpreters have claimed to find in the Pentateuch four
underlying sources. The presumed
documents, allegedly dating from the tenth to the fifth centuries B.C., are
called J...E...D...P... Each of these
documents is claimed to have its own characteristics and its own theology,
which often contradicts that of the other documents. The Pentateuch is thus depicted as a
patchwork of stories, poems and laws.
However, this view is not supported by conclusive evidence, and
intensive archeological and literary research has tended to undercut many of
the arguments used to challenge Mosaic authorship. (Page 3.)
The purpose is to
let people know that there are other opinions out there about the literature,
but not to consider them seriously.
Creation.
Ronald
Youngblood’s notes on Genesis 1 recognize that the background is the
Mesopotamian world of creation and conflict myths. Over against that world, the Genesis author
taught a radically new doctrine of creation.
The one and only
true God did not have to overcome a mighty cosmic champion of chaos but simply
by a series of his royal creation decrees called into being the ordered world,
the visible kingdom... The author
narrates those acts [of creation] from the perspective of one in God’s royal
council chamber, where he issues his creative decrees. For a similar narrative perspective see Job
1:6-12; 2:1-6.” [A different narrative
perspective is seen in Genesis 2-3.] (P.
7)
Creationism issues
are left open: “Some say that the
creation days were 24-hour days, others that they were indefinite periods” (on
Gen 1:5). The creation narrative of
Genesis 1 is qualitatively distinct from the narrative of Genesis 2-3. “Human history” only begins in Gen 2-3, where
the curses begin to affect human life.
The curse on the serpent in Genesis 3:15 opens the drama of all
salvation history: “The antagonism
between people and snakes is used to symbolize the outcome of the titanic
struggle between God and the evil one [no caps here], a struggle played out in
the hearts and history of humankind” (p. 14).
The topic of Creation
can illustrate the Topical Index as
a study tool. (The 1995 edition has only
an Index of Subjects with long strings of Biblical references and page
numbers. The Index of Topics in 2008 provides
a much longer and more detailed analytical structure of topics – a major
improvement.)
The topic has six
subheadings:
A) Related theme
Beginnings, Gen 1:1
B) The work of
creation
--Accounts of creation [Gen 1:1-2:3;
2:4-24; Job 38:4-38; Ps 104:1-26]
--Done out of nothing [Heb 11:3]
--Done in six days [Gen 1:3-31; Ex 20:11 ; Ex 31:17]
C) Creation as the
work of God
--God as the creator [Gen 1:1; Isa
44:24; Acts 4:24 ]
--Accomplished through Christ [Jn
1:3,10; Col 1:16 ; Heb 1:2]
--The Holy Spirit involved in
creation [Job 33:4; Ps 104:30]
D) Creation reveals
God
--His glory [Ps 19:1]
--His power [Isa 40:26, 28]
--His divine nature [Rom 1:20 ]
--His wisdom [Ps 104:24]
--His love [Ps 33:5-6]
E) Creation after
Adam and Eve sinned
--Was cursed by God [Gen 3:14 , 17-19]
--Was subjected to frustration [Rom 8:20 ]
--Praises God [Ps 145:10; 148:1-5;
Isa 55:12]
--Eagerly awaits redemption [Rom 8:19 ]
--Will someday be liberated [Rom 8:21 ]
--Will someday be recreated [Isa
65:17; 2 Pet 3:10-13; Rev 21:1]
F) Humans commanded
to rule creation [Gen 1:26 , 28; Ps
8:6-8; Ps 115:16]
God’s Warfare.
While it is true
that there are no imposing general articles in the NIV Study Bible, there are
seven small “Essays” that are not just introductions to books. Five of these are brief introductions to parts
of the Bible (Wisdom literature, the Twelve Prophets, the Synoptic Gospels, the
Pastoral letters, and the General letters [why not also the Pentateuch and
Historical books?]). Another essay is on
the Period between the Testaments – long enough to mention major topics, not
long enough to really explain anything; it also does not extend to the actual
time of Jesus but stops with Herod the Great.
One Essay is of a
different character: “The Conquest and
the Ethical Question of War,” placed between Deuteronomy and Joshua, that is,
just before the story of the Conquest.
This is one of the major issues dividing Progressive Protestants from
Evangelical Protestants who adhere to a literal reading of the Bible. The Conquest story states unambiguously that
God commanded the Israelites to massacre and exterminate the former inhabitants
of Jericho Jericho Jericho 6:21 ).
Understand, the
problem is not simply that the conquests of Jericho and Ai never happened (neither
mound was fortified after about 1560 BCE) or that Israelites were simply
following the customs of holy warfare in their age; the problem is not what the
Israelites did but that GOD COMMANDS THIS SLAUGHTER. If what the Bible says is always true, then
this has to do with the character of God—real God, the One whom we know and
pray to. That is the fundamental
religious problem Progressive Christians have with a literal belief in the
Biblical text.
What can be said
in the Bible’s defense?
Many readers of
Joshua...are deeply troubled by the role that warfare plays in this account of
God’s dealings with his people. Not a
few relieve their ethical scruples by ascribing the author’s perspective to a
pre-Christian (and sub-Christian) stage of moral development that the
Christian...must repudiate and transcend.
(Page 387.)
The paragraphs that
follow restate is several ways that this warfare to conquer Canaan
was a necessary part of God’s plan of redemption. It was necessary first in order to fulfill
the promise to Abraham and the other ancestors.
But even more, it was necessary in order to carry to its conclusion the
whole drama of eschatological salvation.
Joshua is the story
of the kingdom of God
[About the
land:] God gave his people under Joshua
no commission or license to conquer the world with the sword but a particular,
limited mission. The conquered land
itself would not become Israel
The God of the
second Joshua (Jesus) is the God of the first Joshua also. Although now for a time he reaches out to the
whole world with the gospel (and commissions his people urgently to carry his offer
of peace to all nations), the sword of his judgment waits in the wings—and his
second Joshua will wield it (Rev 19:11 -16;
see notes there). (Page 388.)
One has to suppose
that many of the Evangelical sisters and brothers are heavy-hearted about such
conclusions.
The Psalms.
The Book of Psalms
is a gem in the NIV Study Bible. John
Stek was apparently the only contributor to the Psalms through all editions,
and one may suppose that he played a major part in the original translation. (He published “When the Spirit was Poetic” in
the Palmer memorial volume, see above.) Space
for Notes in the Psalms is increased to about half of every page on average.
The Introduction
to the Psalms is well-written, gives a sound historical treatment of the earlier
collections of psalms, of the literary types of the psalms, and a cogent
description of the “theology” of the psalms.
The 2008 edition (not in the 1995 edition) contains a 4-page chart of
“Significant Arrangement of the Psalter” showing how groups of psalms are
related in chiastic (“envelope”) structures and other patterns. The chart is not always convincing that these
patterns were deliberate, but suggestive and stimulating for further
reading. Stek’s discussion of the
“messianic” psalms 2, 22, 72, and 110 are faithful to Israelite historical and
liturgical contexts as well as to how these psalms came to be read in later
centuries.
To see an example
of the Center-column references we
can follow the word “shepherd” in Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd.” The word shepherd has a superscript w
on it. (These superscript letters stay
the same across editions.) In the center
column, w gives three references:
S Gen 48:15; S Ps 28:9; and S Jn 10:11.
Each reference
preceded by “S[ee]” contains a chain of references related to “shepherd.” Thus, the ancestor Jacob says in Genesis
48:15, “May the God before whom my fathers / Abraham and Isaac walked, / the
God who has been my shepherd / all my life to this day...” and the word
shepherd here gives a further set of references: Gen 49:24; II Sam 5:2; Ps 23:1; 80:1; Isa
40:11; Jer 23:4. Studying these passages
will reveal what they have in common within the larger concept of
“shepherd.”
The second
reference at Psalm 23:1 is to Psalm 28:9, addressed to God: “Save your people and bless your inheritance;
/ be their shepherd and carry them forever.”
The word shepherd here is keyed to another list: I Chr 11:2; then S[ee] Ps 23:1; 78:52, 71;
80:1; Isa 40:11; Jer 31:10; Ezek 34:12-16, 23, 31; Mic 7:14. Study of these passages will present another
take on the shepherd theme.
And the third
reference at Psalm 23:1 is to John 10:11.
“I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
The first occurrence of shepherd here gives the following chain: verse 14 [of this same chapter]; Ps 23:1; Isa
40:11; Ezek 34:11-16, 23; Mt 2:6; Lk 12:32; Heb 13:20; I Pet 2:25; 5:4; Rev
7:17. This chain has some overlap with the
other Old Testament passages on “shepherd,” but it obviously leads strongly
into the New Testament, and each passage here listed for the New Testament will
lead to yet more passages on “shepherd.”
This is the way
the chain references can enrich the Bible student’s fund of meanings and
associations for a particular term or idea in Scripture.
The Gospels.
The little essay,
“The Synoptic Gospels” (pages 1963-64) is very unsatisfactory. Listed here are nine supposed proposals to
solve “the Synoptic Problem” – how Matthew, Mark, and Luke can be so alike and
at the same time so different. (In 1995
only seven proposals were listed.
“Complete independence” of the Gospels from each other is added in
2002/2008, with some hints that it is the best.) One-sentence summaries of complex hypotheses,
as given here, only confuse and distract, not to mention grossly distort by
false simplicity. This is especially
true of hypotheses long-since abandoned (for example, the fragment
theory). It would have been so much
better if the writers had spent the same space explaining in their own terms
how to understand the similarities and differences among the first three
Gospels. They in fact give the reader no
help at all.
In addition, it
appears that a diagram has either dropped out or been mislabeled. Hypothesis 5 ends, “(see diagram below [Two-Source
Theory]),” but there is no diagram labeled “Two-Source Theory.” There is one labeled “Dating the Synoptic
Gospels,” but there is nothing in it to show what “two-source” would mean. (The diagrams are the same in 1995 and 2008.) It is clear no one’s heart was in this effort
to explain how the first three Gospels got that-a-way.
An important
Evangelical tool of Biblical study is presented at the end of the Gospel
According to John, “A Harmony of the
Gospels,” pages 2244-49. This
consists of a very long, small-print outline of the life of Jesus, with
thirteen major headings, thirty-three subheadings, and 270 items spread over
six pages. A “harmony” is very important
to Evangelicals because it shows how apparent contradictions among the Gospels
can be reconciled, preserving the truthfulness of all that is written in
Scripture. (It should be said that there
is a three-page regular time-line layout of “The Life of Jesus” on pages
2028-30, in the middle of Matthew 25. It
includes the events of all four Gospels, but focuses on the flow of time rather
than a list of events.)
For example, in
John’s Gospel Jesus clears the money-changers out of the temple at the
beginning of his ministry, while in Matthew, Mark, and Luke he clears them out
either the day of the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday (Matthew and Luke), or the
day after the triumphal entry (Mark). (John
does not have a second temple-clearing at the time of the triumphal entry.) The Harmony shows a “First clearing of the
temple at the Passover” at the beginning of Jesus’ activity, then it has a “Second
clearing of the temple” following the triumphal entry and the cursing of the
fig tree (Mark’s sequence in 11:1-18).
Two stories at very different times; therefore two different
events.
The Note on
Matthew 21:12-17 (p. 2017, contributed by Ralph Earle and/or Associate Editor
Walter Wessel) gives a more complicated account.
In the Synoptics
the clearing of the temple occurs during the last week of Jesus’ ministry; in
John it takes place during the first few months (Jn 2:12 -16). Two
explanations are possible: (1) There
were two clearings, one at the beginning and the other at the end of Jesus’
public ministry. (2) There was only one
clearing, which took place during Passion Week but which John placed at the
beginning of his account for theological reasons... However, different details are present in the
two accounts... [which argues for two events].
From Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts we might assume that the [second] clearing
of the temple took place on Sunday, following the so-called Triumphal Entry
(21:1-11). But Mark (11:15 -19) clearly indicates that it was on
Monday. Matthew often compressed
narratives.
So, Mark trumps
Matthew and Luke because he is more exact about the day involved, and the
details of John’s narrative require the conclusion that two clearings of the
temple took place, a couple of years apart (John’s chronology).
By working with
the Harmony one can adjust all the many events of Jesus’ life on a very
complex, not to say highly improbable, time-line. (Historical-critical scholars usually refer
to a tabular comparison of the Gospel texts as a “Synopsis” rather than a
“Harmony.” The latter term announces in
advance what the scholar is going to try to do.
A “synopsis” is simply an array “seen-together” [the literal meaning of
synoptic] for critical study. The
critical scholar is interested in historical probability rather than in
explaining away inconsistencies in God’s Word.)
This is a good
place to mention the spectacular Maps
and Charts provided throughout the NIV Study Bible. Its in-text maps were one of the most
striking and attractive features of this book when I first encountered it in
1996. Fifty-one maps are listed in the
Contents at the front (p. ix). They’re not
all equally impressive, but most of them are real winners as in-text aids
go.
One of the best is
the two-page map of Passion Week on pages 2086-87, at the beginning of Mark’s
Passion narrative. All of the maps are
pseudo-three-dimensional drawings, showing terrain drop-offs, slopes, and walls
with shading. They give a better feel
for terrain than any usual flat maps.
The map of Passion Week shows the city of Jerusalem in Pilate’s time
with little houses crammed together inside the walls, the expanse of the temple
in enough detail to see all the courts, and particularly the valley between the
city and the Mount of Olives with the road pictured on which Jesus and the
disciples would have traveled from Bethany to the east gates of the city. Spread around the available spaces on the
pages is a series of numbered events each with a written description: #1 for the Arrival in Bethany
Almost as good as
the in-text maps are the charts. There
are forty-five of these listed on page x, and they vary greatly from such things
as a listing of “Ancient Texts Relating to the Old Testament” (a listing of 39
major gifts from the archeologists’ labors), to “Major Covenants of the Old
Testament,” to “Rulers of the Divided Kingdom of Israel and Judah” (using dates
from E.R. Thiele’s solutions to the numbers mysteries), to “the Life of
Christ,” “Parables of Jesus,” “Miracles of Jesus,” to “Qualifications for
Elders/Overseers and Deacons” in I Timothy.
These are quite uniformly helpful in visualizing complex matters spread
out over several pages in textual form.
Dedicated work has been done, especially by the ancillary staff
recruited by the editors or by Zondervan publishing house.
Evaluative
Comments.
My evaluations
have largely emerged already, but here are a few overview statements.
The NIV Study
Bible is an extension of the NIV translation.
More than anything else, it should be understood as the translators
telling you what they had in the back of their minds when they translated it
the way they did. What they had in mind
was combining modern textual studies with the main Biblical principles on which
“postfundamentalist Evangelicalism” (Roger Olson’s term) agree, namely, “the
authority and infallibility of the Bible as God’s Word in written form”
(“Preface to the NIV,” sixth paragraph).
The Contributors
and Editors who produced the Study Bible are definitely Evangelicals, but they
are a cautious group. They do not seek
battles with unbelieving (from their viewpoint) critics; they make minimal
claims on matters of history and literary composition. “In finding solutions to problems mentioned
in the book introductions, [the editors] went only as far as evidence (Biblical
and non-Biblical) could carry them” (page xiv).
As a corollary to
the last point, they do not do theology for the theologians—or tie themselves
to particular theological orientations within the broad Evangelical tent
camp. They make a point of not deciding
between amillennialism, premillennialism, or postmillennialism (Note on
Revelation 20:2).
The NIV Study
Bible is for Bible Study—as understood by Evangelicals. It is aimed at personal and group Bible study
as a part of the religious life, a life nurtured by searching the scriptures
under whatever impulse or need. The
process of Bible study is religious action, not primarily educational or
academic work. Never stated, that is
nevertheless an underlying premise of this well-crafted work.
While the NIV
Study Bible makes as good a case as it can for a literal reading of God in the
Bible, it cannot avoid some grossly unacceptable outcomes (very few of which
were raised in this review). The discussion
of God’s Warfare is a clear case. The
defense here is chauvinistic, militant, and primitive. Humankind under a more gracious God has
outgrown this inhumane crassness. This Biblical embarrassment is not often
mentioned by Christians, but the literalists teeter constantly on falling back
on a tribal god served by exclusionary holy warriors.
Everyone who loves
Bible study should rejoice in the Psalms in the NIV Study Bible, as well as in
the delightful in-text maps and charts.
The latter make a great collection for the study and teaching of the
Bible—this Bible that the Evangelicals have made.
Nothing has been said so far about Zondervan, the publishing house greatly enriched by the success of the NIV and the NIV Study Bible. The NIV is by far the best-selling Bible in the English-speaking world, and apparently the NIV Study Bible—now 25 years old—is the best-selling study bible. However great their rewards, they have consistently turned out a quality product and served their public very well.
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