In the News...

Compiled by James Capo

Trashing the Truth: New Bible Translation Promotes Sin
Translation is tricky business. Sometimes it's hard to exactly translate a point from one language to another. Sometimes meanings of words change over time, or the style of writing or speaking changes. When did you last say "Thank thee" at the dinner table? So yes, it can be helpful to "update" a Bible translation to make it easier to read and understand. But if you change the meaning, that's no longer translating. It's lying.

A new "translation" of the Bible, called "Good as New," is being praised by the head of the Church of England even though it flatly contradicts clear biblical teaching in some areas such as sexuality and morality. Freely written largely in modern slang (the apostle Peter, for example, is called "Rocky" in the translation!), the new Bible changes the apostle Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 7:2 from "[to avoid] sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband," to "My advice is for everyone to have a regular partner."

In this new translation, sex is a given, but marriage is optional, and so is the partner's gender! According to the "One" organization that produced the new Bible, it is dedicated to challenging "oppression, injustice, exclusion and discrimination" as well as accepting one another and "valuing their diversity and experience" (World Net Daily, June 24, 2004). But instead, they are changing the fundamental teachings of the Bible.

What does God think about changing His Word? In 2 Peter 3:16, God warns that "untaught and unstable" people would "twist" the Scriptures "to their own destruction." Modern translations of the Scriptures can be fine—as long as they are faithful to the original, inspired meaning of God's Word. Be careful which "translation" you use. To better understand God's Word, write for our free booklet Is the Bible True? and request our free Bible Study Course for a faithful explanation of the Scriptures.

Teen Bible Reading and Music Piracy
About 3 out of 10 American teens say they read the Bible at least once a week, while a slightly higher number—35 percent—say they never read the Bible. That leaves about another third of teens who read the Bible at least occasionally. So, Bible readers outnumber nonreaders by almost 2 to 1.

But do the (presumably) more biblically minded teens have more biblically based values? Another set of statistics seems troubling in this regard: Only 8 percent of American teens say music piracy (which the Bible and U.S. law both say is stealing) is morally wrong, and a full 80 percent of teens who say they have bought religious "praise" music in the last six months say they've also engaged in some sort of music piracy during that time.

In James 1:25 God encourages us to live faithfully according to His ways: "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does" (Statistics compiled by Ted Olsen and posted June 25, 2004, on Christianity Today online).

New Expedition Searches for Noah's Ark
New satellite images of the northeastern slope of Mt. Ararat, near the border of Russia, Iran and Turkey, have inspired an American businessman to invest $900,000 to send a joint U.S.-Turkish team there to see if a dark patch in the middle of a glacier might be the remains of Noah's ark. The pictures were taken during a record heat wave in the summer of 2003 that melted large amounts of snow and ice at the highest elevations of the perpetually snow-covered, 17,000-foot-high peak.

Scientists, adventurers and treasure hunters have been searching for centuries for remains of the ark. So far all the supposed arklike structures have turned out to be natural features or have been too remote to reach. There have been many false accounts of people finding the ark. But the American, Daniel McGivern, says he's 90 percent sure about the location of the ark (Christianity Today, June 25, 2004). We'll see. It would be an exciting find, but our faith isn't based on whether someone can locate a 4,500-year-old boat. Genesis 8:4 says that Noah's ark came to rest on "the mountains of Ararat."

A Return to Modesty?
Girls, ever had trouble finding attractive, but modest clothes? So has Ella Gunderson of Redmond, Washington. So she decided to do something about it.

"Dear Nordstrom," she wrote, "I am an eleven-year-old girl who has tried shopping at your store for clothes (in particular jeans), but all of them ride way under my hips, and the next size up is too big and falls down.

"I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear," she continued. "Your clerks suggest that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are supposed to walk around half naked. I think that you should change that" (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38605).

Well, Nordstrom department store admitted it should do a better job catering to girls who want a more modest look. Hopefully more retailers will also realize the need to provide a selection for the increasing number of girls and women who are frustrated by the usual choice of "half shirt and hip hugger clothing that big companies have been pushing on women and girls." The Bible encourages modesty in 1 Timothy 2:9.