Featured The 1952 Revised Standard Bible

In the thread Origin of the TERM King James Only, the hatred of the 1952 Revised Standard Version of the Bible was brought up. I think, if anyone wants to, we might be able to discuss it more fully in a new thread. For good or ill, in 1952 the RSV captured the attention of the onlooking world.

According to Daniel Wallace in “Why So Many Versions?” “On the first day of publication—September 30, 1952—it sold one million copies.” Yet he continued, also stressing the dislike for it. “But not everyone took a liking to the RSV. It is in fact the most hated English translation of all time.” [bold emp. mine] Some who originally promoted it turned against it. For example, Jeff Straub and others have pointed out that Editor John R. Rice initially endorsed it, then withdrew his endorsement. Possibly one of the more critical factors was the decision to translate alma as “young woman” rather than “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14. In 1956, John R. Rice penned a letter to Billy Graham about Graham’s desire to be released from the Cooperating Board of The Sword of the Lord. He stated, “I know [The Sword of the Lord] does not speak for you when it exposes the modern unbelief and lack of scholarship in the Revised Standard Version which you recommend.” (Sword of the Lord, November 23, 1956, p. 2; as cited in “Billy Graham and the End of Evangelical Unity”). In “The New Bible: Why Christians Should Not Accept It,” American Council of Churches founder Carl McIntire called it a translation that “undermines the authority of the Scriptures.” In a speech in Denver, Colorado in December 1952, he called it “the work of ‘Satan and his agents,’…‘an unholy book’ produced by ‘liberalists and modernists’ who ‘do not believe in the deity of Christ.’” (The Sacramento Bee, December 10, 1952, p. 41)

General Association of Regular Baptists leader Robert T. Ketcham, referring to the Revised Standard Bible, said, “‘We don’t call it a version. We call it a perversion.’ It is ‘treacherous’ he said, because it eliminates the prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ and substitutes the words ‘young woman’ for ‘virgin’.” (“Says New Bible Is A Perversion Of The Truth,” The Algona Upper Des Moines, Tuesday, December 16, 1952, p. 1)

In December 1952, the Phoenix [Arizona] Evangelical Ministers Association “adopted a resolution at the meeting which renounced the new revised standard version of the Bible as being ‘modernistic and Unitarian in its handling of many vital portions of the Bible.’” (“Palmcroft Pastor Heads Unit; New Bible Version Renounced,” Arizona Republic, Saturday, December 13, 1952, p. 11)

In 1955, the Missouri Baptist State Association (BMAA) resolved, “...that we as messengers of the churches comprising the Missouri Baptist State Association express our disapproval of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible as a standard of worship, along with any other versions which tend to deny, or question the virgin birth of Christ, His blood atonement, or any other of the fundamentals for which Baptists have stood since the days of Christ. Be it also resolved that we express that it is our desire that the teachings and practices of our missionaries and the editor of the Missouri Missionary Baptist be in keeping with this resolution.” (Missouri Baptist State Association, Minutes of the 1955 Annual Session, Neelyville, MO, November 1-2, 1955, p. 14)

These are some examples of the conservative view of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible in the 1950s, not including the Bible burnings and boilings mentioned at Origin of the TERM King James Only.

 

For my part, I am satisfied that Matthew's view is correct and that the view of the correctors is not.

 

Another article on burning the Revised Standard Version, this one from The Nashville Banner, Thursday, December 11, 1952, p. 12. John W. Dysart, pastor of the Bible Presbyterian Church of Shelbyville, Tenn., initially plans to burn an RSV, but decides against it.

 

An article in the Orangeburg, South Carolina Times and Democrat recorded the reactions of several to the RSV:

J. D. Grey, outgoing president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and pastor of First BC, New Orleans, Louisiana:

Evangelist Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, condemned it, saying:

Regarding it as a literary production, American journalist and radio broadcaster Dorothy Thompson said,

General Secretary of the American Council of Churches, William Harlee Bordeaux, said:

Popular evangelist Billy Graham praised it, saying:

The article also mentions that Moody Bible Institute had attacked the revision.

The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, South Carolina, Friday, July 10, 1953, p. 6

 

In the December 5 issue of his paper, editor Oliver Emmerich queried preachers in the McComb area to give their opinion of “the new Bible.” He said it was not an effort to put them on the spot, but to get “an enlightened viewpoint from the local ministers who are close to our people.” (“High-lights in the Headlines,” McComb Enterprise-Journal, Friday, December 5, 1953, p. 1) I did not notice whether any local ministers replied.

Mrs. R. G. Burt (nee Fannie Crawford), who said she was “neither a preacher nor a preacher’s son,” responded. She was, however, “a Christian that believes the Word of God shall stand forever.” Mrs. Burt defended the Christians in Shelbyville, Tennessee who intended to burn a copy of the RSV, stating that they were “real Christians who believe the whole Bible and do not believe in committing the Jehudi Act [referring to Jeremiah 36:23, rlv] by cutting out things that prick their hearts.” She considered the new version “the interpretations and explanations of Modernists, Liberals, Evolutionists, Unitarians, and Infidels. This gang wants a new Bible because the King James Version embarrasses them and shows them up.”

Concerning “local pastors being put on the spot,” she thought it “their duty to tell all the people whom they were instrumental in getting them to purchase this unholy Bible that at last they were wrong in being so easily led themselves by this anti-Christ gang.” She complained that “Southern Baptist [who] used whole pages in their literature and different religious periodicals, recommending it in their state papers should also be ‘put on the spot’.” She thought a “real God-called preacher is always willing to acknowledge his error, or admit he had been misled or hoodwinked.”

She concludes in mentioning several things she finds wrong with the RSV. Concerning Isaiah 7:14, she states “If Mary was merely a young woman and not a virgin she was guilty of adultery, which is attributed to her by the Christ haters of the Centuries.” Not fooled herself, she nevertheless asserts, “If I had been fooled into buying this false blasphemous Bible I would do as the people of Shelbyville did.”

“May God have mercy upon those who have meddled and tampered with the Word of God.”

Mrs. R. G. Burt, Sr., “Readers’ Letters,” McComb Enterprise-Journal, Monday, December 15, 1952, p. 2 [Full disclosure: She was a preacher’s granddaughter. Fannie Estelle Crawford Burt and my wife are both descendants of preacher sons of Elder Jesse Howell Crawford, early leader in the Mississippi Baptist Association.]

 

Likely most Christians then, as well as most today.

 

Perhaps the Revised Standard Version of the Bible has more influence in the timeline of "KJV Only" than has been reckoned. After its release, there was a flurry of writing that favored the KJV over the RSV (not necessarily KJVO in itself), and much of the language and rhetoric of the so-called KJVO movement may be found in part or in whole in this RSV controversy.

 

It seems to me, perhaps for polemic purposes, there is often a much greater focus on J. J. Ray and Benjamin Wilkinson creating the KJVO movement, as opposed to it growing out of a backlash as the RSV.

 

Good find, thanks. This is one of the interesting things I think looking back at the opposition to the RSV brings out. A lot of the rhetoric -- perversion, unconverted translators, inaccuracies, etc. -- matches very much with what has been brought over into the KJV debate.