Book Review: The Poverty & Justice Bible

The Poverty & Justice Bible (PJB) is the English-language edition of the Protestant Christian canon that I want to love, but cannot. The major problem is the translation.

An attempt to literally highlight (in orange) the over 2000 verses of Scripture that address issues of poverty and justice, revealing God’s heart on these matters, this edition of the Bible is a good idea in my opinion. It’s sort of like how in my teens I read the Bible countless times but never grasped the very obvious part about baptism by immersion being part of the process of becoming a disciple of Christ. Once I was shown the verses, in context, it was as plain as day. Much the same can be said about the poverty and justice passages of Scripture. God has a very clear agenda in favor of the underdog and the oppressed, but more often than not we miss it. The PJB could provide a wonderful corrective to this enormous blindspot in modern Christianity, but I’m afraid the version selected is a near-complete blocker.

The version is the Contemporary English Version (CEV), published by the American Bible Society. As I’ve written elsewhere, I have no particular problem with paraphrase versions (which the CEV is technically not), but the rendering of the CEV in many places is just so awful that often while reading I find myself shaking my head in disgust.  Here are some examples:

“Then you will lead the two goats into my presence at the front of the sacred tent, where I will show you which goat will be sacrificed to me and which one will be sent into the desert to the demon Azazel.” – Leviticus 16:7-8 CEV

Who is this “demon Azazel”? If you read the footnote in the CEV you’ll find: “It was believed that a demon named Azazel lived in the desert.” Well, actually, no. It’s believed by some nowadays that some back then believed that a demon named Azazel lived in the desert. The word could have meant “for absolute removal.” Most modern translation wouldn’t dare interpolate the meaning “demon” into this text, given that there’s no clear consensus on the topic. The English Standard Version‘s (ESV) rendering is fairly standard:

“Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the LORD at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel.”

Moving on to Deuteronomy 4:19 we find this gem provided by the translators of the CEV:

“And when you see the sun or moon or stars, don’t be tempted to bow down and worship them. The LORD put them there for all the other nations to worship.”

If you believe the CEV, God is in the business of encouraging the Gentile nations to worship the works of His hands. Again, the ESV gets it right:

“And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.”

Turning to the New Testament, we find the familiar story in Acts 12:15 of the apostle Peter’s miraculous liberation from jail. He arrives at a house where other disciples are staying, knocks on the door and calls out to Rhoda, the woman who went to open the door. She ran back to the others without opening the door and declares that Peter is outside. The others laugh, saying “It must be his angel.” So far, so good. Just check the footnotes in the CEV, though, and we find, “Probably meaning ‘his guardian angel.’” Umm…no. Now, this isn’t an error of translation, but it is bad footnoting.

A final and particularly irksome example of the shoddiness of the CEV can be found in Acts 22:16, where Ananias tells the repentant Saul what he must do to get right with God:

“What are you waiting for? Get up! Be baptized, and wash away your sins by praying to the Lord.”

There are two very blatant problems with this rendering of the text.

First, it gives the very false impression that the washing away of sins takes place through prayer. That isn’t at all what the text says, and any decent translation can give us the correct meaning. Again, the ESV:

“And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”

Second, notice the part about “calling on his name.” This is entirely lost in the CEV, but any other accurate translation provides this vital phrase here and elsewhere. In fact, this is a very important theme in Scripture. “Calling on the name of the Lord” refers to invoking his name for salvation, and it involves not merely a “sinners prayer” but a sincere turning to God. This can be seen in Joel 2:32, which says:

“And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.” (ESV)

Beautiful, isn’t it? This thread about “calling on the name” runs throughout the canonical Scriptures, appearing many times. It does not turn up at all in the CEV, however, which gives us the verse from Joel in a very muted form:

“Then the Lord will save everyone who faithfully worships him. He has promised there will be survivors on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and among them will be his chosen ones.”

This is not a complaint against simplifying final text of a translation to be more widely accessible. My complaint is against the way that the translators of the Contemporary English Version went about it. In places they provided a dubious opinion either in the text itself or in footnotes, and in other places they removed verbiage that is key to understanding great themes of Scripture. The examples I’ve provided here are merely the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

As I set at the beginning of this post, I wanted very much to love this edition of the Bible. The verses highlighted tend to be very good (with some exceptions, such as the story of Achan in Joshua 7) and on-topic with the ideals of helping the poor and promoting justice. Further, the section of devotional readings on topics like “children,” “land” and “toilet, ” inserted in the middle of the Bible provide a wealth of topics for personal reflection and group discussion (and action).

It’s a shame that such a good idea for a justice-oriented Bible edition was combined with the flaky text of the Contemporary English Version. I can only guess that the fact that the American Bible Society owns the rights to this version made licensing easy and cheap in comparison to virtually anything else.

In summary, The Poverty & Justice Bible is a good idea that fails entirely because of the version of the Bible selected to use in the project. Perhaps it would be good for those interested in the themes of poverty and justice grab a highlighter and a better translation and make their own homemade poverty and justice Bible.

Come to think of it, I believe I will.

See Also:

Book Review: The Hole in Our Gospel