Accused, Blasphemed, Denied: Mark 14:53–72

If I said to you that God can relate to you when you feel abandoned, falsely accused, misunderstood, attacked, and denied, would you tell me that God is God and it is impossible for him to relate to these feelings precisely because he has all power, all knowledge, and all authority?

Is there any way you can imagine God being able to experience the loneliness, the hurt, the vulnerability, and the disappointment of being treated in these ways? How can we relate to God, omnipotent and unassailable, perfect and invincible? Is it possible for God to know what we feel when we are lonely, vulnerable, wrongly-accused, and betrayed? Yes, God is all knowing and all powerful, but can he know what we feel? Can God relate to us?

Jesus can relate to us. Jesus can relate to us in our loneliness, our abandonment, our sense that we are condemned for believing and speaking the truth, and our experience of being betrayed by those who ought to be loyal to us.

Mark 14:53–72 is full of impossibilities. We should not become so familiar with it that we cease to feel its shock value: How could it be possible that Israel would reject its Messiah? How could it be possible that the High Priest of Israel, who himself symbolizes the true mediator between God and man, would accuse the one he represents of blasphemy? How could justice be perverted to the point of Jesus being condemned to death? How could Peter, the boldest of the disciples, deny Jesus? How could these things possibly happen?

The Jewish leadership means to kill Jesus. They mean to kill the best man who has ever lived, the only man ever to live without sin, the incarnation of the everlasting God, the healer of the sick, feeder of the hungry, giver of life, epitome of love, teller of truth, hope of the world, King of kings, Lord of all. Their response to him is to want him dead.

Mark has done such a good job of telling the story that we understand why they want to kill him. They do not believe that he is the Messiah. He has not met their expectations. They love themselves.

When the High Priest asks Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus turns the tables in his reply: as Jesus answers, he shows that he is the one in charge. The reality is not what it seems. He is not the one on trial. Though the High Priest and those accusing Jesus think they have him on trial, in reality they are on trial. In reality their choices and actions will determine their destiny when they come before the world’s righteous Judge.

Jesus makes three offensive statements.

1)    I Am

2)    Psalm 110:1

3)    Daniel 7:13

Here he asserts that he is Lord, that he is the descendant of David, that he is the Son of Man who will receive everlasting dominion.

After Jesus is falsely accused and blasphemed, Peter denies him.

Have you been in a position where you wanted to do the right thing, and you simply broke? You hoped to have backbone, you hoped to have courage screwed to the sticking place, you meant to be the hero, and you quailed, played the part of the coward, and found yourself denying what was most precious to you?

The evil is so large, so black, so powerful that only Jesus can stand before it. It crushed him and killed him, but he did not quail. Because he did not flinch in the face of evil, the last defense against evil held. Jesus broke its back. Jesus overcame evil.

If you do not side with Jesus, when he comes on the clouds of heaven, he will condemn you in an awesome display of almighty justice. Your condemnation will be right, and God will be as faithful to you then as he is being faithful to you now.

If you say to me: how can he receive me. I’m such a failure. Look at what Peter does here. Peter knows that he has betrayed the one who is trustworthy. Peter knows that he has denied the one worthy of his allegiance. Peter knows that Jesus stood alone and that he abandoned him. And Peter feels the crushing weight of his sin, and weeps.

Let me invite you to consider how good God has been to you, how magnificent God’s creation is, how privileged you are to be a human being made in the image of God.

And in light of the gifts God has given to you, let me invite you to consider how ungrateful you have been, how presumptuous, how proud, how perverse, how complaining, how defiled and profane.

Weep over it. It’s ugly.

But oh, sweet the sound of the Savior’s love!
Low we were, in woe and shame, without hope,
And then he came, from on high, from above,
And took our sin and shame in fullest scope

On Sunday, July 24, it was my privilege to preach Mark 14:53–72, “Accused, Blasphemed, Denied” at Kenwood Baptist Church.

Award Winning Novel Rejected by 26 Publishers

Yesterday I finished reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle aloud to my eldest (great book!). Then I looked it up on Wikipedia because it seemed to be the first in a series (sure enough it is), and I was struck by this:

However, when she completed the book in early 1960, it was rejected by at least 26 publishers, because it was, in L’Engle’s words, “too different”, and “because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children’s or an adults’ book, anyhow?”[2][11]

Reminds me of what my mother used to say: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” When finally published in 1962, the book won the John Newberry Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

The next paragraph of the Wikipedia article gets at the providential truth in publishing (as in life) that the Lord raises up and puts down:

After trying “forty-odd” publishers (L’Engle later said “twenty-six rejections”), L’Engle’s agent returned the manuscript to her. Then at Christmas, L’Engle threw a tea party for her mother. One of the guests happened to know John C. Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and insisted that L’Engle should meet with him. Although the publisher did not at the time publish a line of children’s books, Farrar met L’Engle, liked the novel and ultimately published it.[16]

Related: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected by 121 publishing houses.

The Grand Canyon with Canyon Ministries and Answers in Genesis

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to visit the Grand Canyon.

In the mercy and kindness of God, I got to go on a trip for Christian Leaders with my good friends Andy Naselli and Jason Derouchie, and I have definitive proof that my new friendship with Mike Wittmer has changed his life.

A few logistics and some stray comments before I attempt to combine words to get across the four big things I want to say about the trip: The expedition was made financially possible by Answers in Genesis, Canyon Ministries, and The Master’s Seminary. I don’t know who the donors were (each of us received a $3,300 scholarship), but I hereby register my gratitude for their generosity.

Let me also say that if you’re looking for a way to contribute financially to a Bible teacher or Christian leader having a great time on the river with Christian brothers discussing the age of the earth, the flood, and the Canyon, this is a great cause.

Or, if you’re looking for an exciting and educational vacation, why not plan a trip through the Canyon? You won’t find a better guide than Tom Vail of Canyon Ministries. The man knows where to find a shaded campsite, how to run a rapid, how to explain the Canyon’s geology, how to relate to all kinds of people, and even how to cook a birthday cake down there on the river. I’ve heard he catches rattle-snakes if they enter camp (seriously–thankfully no need to this time), and the power of the gospel is heard in his testimony and seen in his actions. Go to the Canyon Ministries website to book your trip.

We entered the river at Lees Ferry, and we helicoptered out 190 miles later, just past Lava Falls. I had never ridden in a helicopter. I had never been white water rafting. I had never been to the Grand Canyon. I had never slept under the open heavens–no tents necessary with no bugs and clear skies. I never imagined I would eat so well on a rafting trip.

I had no idea the Colorado River was so cold–47 degrees–and wouldn’t have expected bathing and doing laundry in it to be so easy (ok, it took a couple days to get used to the shiver-inducing cold of the water). Nor could I have imagined that the Little Colorado River would look like the clear blue waters of the Caribbean, or that flash flooding upriver could make the water of the Colorado look like Chocolate Milk. Willy Wonka would be proud.

I had no idea that the connections between the geological evidence about the formation of the Canyon and the Genesis flood were so strong.

I’m hoping to go back with my wife and kids (once they get old enough) and as many other family members as possible.

My four big take-aways from the trip have to do with the immensity and beauty of the Canyon, the relationships strengthened and formed, the power of the flood, and the joy of homecoming.

Immensity and Beauty

If you want to feel small, high thee up on that ledge above Deer Creek Falls that leads to Upper Deer Creek. Jason Derouchie has nerves of steel. He was standing right next to that ledge! I was with Mike Wittmer trying to get as close to the cliff sloping up behind it as possible. Eventually we agreed it was better not even to look at those guys who were so close to it. Especially when Nate started mocking us by acting like he was going to lunge off the ledge. Crazy. I was claiming Psalm 121:3, “He will not let your foot be moved.”

But from that ledge you can see a long, long way, and it’s Canyon as far as eyes will go. Enormity. Immensity. And it goes a lot farther than weak human eyes take in.

I wish my words were as beautiful as the Canyon’s splendors. It’s a place worthy of poets. Pictures can’t do it justice, but my sweet wife checked out several picture books on the Canyon from the local public library so she and the kids could have a glimpse of its glory.

At the end of the trip we received Tom Vail’s book, Grand Canyon: A Different View. When she saw it, my lovely wife said, “This is what I was hoping for from the books we got from the library; these pictures are far superior.” Its message is, too.

The size of the place is awesome.

At one point you’re a mile deep from river to rim. As you pass through the Upper Granite Gorge and the Middle Granite Gorge (we choppered out before the Lower Granite Gorge), you’re in canyons within the Canyon, and the walls of granite rise so steep and high that the outer rim cannot be seen.

It is big. And it is beautiful. Variety, radiance, harmony, wholeness: glory seen there.

Relationships

Thirty-two men on two boats rafting down the Colorado River. Away from wives, kids, and work responsibilities. No cell phone signals, no laptops, no blogs, twitter feeds, or facebook pages. Walls of rock rise on either side of the river. Eat. Raft. Eat. Raft. Hike. Raft. Eat. Sleep on a cot on a piece of sand in a bend of the River. When you wake up you’re with the same guys ready to sit on the boat again for hours. Plenty of time to talk. Long conversations punctuated by blasts through drenching rapids.

That’s a recipe for relationships, especially when the men are Christ-following and eager to serve.

What a blessing to walk through life with Christian brothers. There is indeed a unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There were four men from the UK, an Australian, and Americans from California and Virginia, Minnesota and Georgia, and a bunch of places in between. It was a blessing to strengthen old friendships and start new ones.

What a gift is friendship, yea, brotherhood–sweetened by the knowledge of the true and living God, faith in his Son Jesus Christ, and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Mercy.

Flood

That massive and beautiful Canyon was cut by water. A lot of water moving fast. A catastrophic amount of water. It’s stunning, really, to look at the Canyon and imagine how much water moved through there. Sea water, no less, as evidenced by many, many fossils of salt-water critters.

Anyone who has read the opening pages of my recent book knows that I love guided tours. Even better than some device with a recording is a live tour guide who is a good teacher and likes to answer questions. Andrew Snelling was our live and in person geologist through the Canyon. You can check out his writing in short or long form. In addition to Andrew guiding us through the rocks, Bill Barrick was there to guide us through relevant passages of Scripture. What a blessing to be taught by these men.

We had many discussions of the age of the earth as well, and Terry Mortenson took the lead in these. I’m a convinced young-earther who thinks that flood was global. As World magazine’s books of the year demonstrate, this is a hot topic. Some have recently advocated the idea that what threatens fidelity is not the idea of an old earth but of theistic evolution. With that I’m sympathetic, and I also think the Preface to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is relevant to this dispute, as it shows men humbly contending earnestly for the truth. For this we should strive as we engage old-earthers (among whom, apparently, we find Augustine, Thomas Chalmers, C. H. Spurgeon, B. B. Warfield, James M. Boice, and Wayne Grudem).

Consider the attractive power of the earnest humility expressed in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. In the Preface the framers begin by asserting the significance of the issue:

We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

Then a few lines down there is this challenging graciousness wrapped in an invitation to continue the conversation:

We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we propose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.
We invite response to this Statement from any who see reason to amend its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help that enables us to strengthen this testimony to God’s Word we shall be grateful.

Amen. May the Lord give us grace to engage in these disputes with a similar spirit.

The waters of the Colorado are powerful, as can be seen in this clip (note how the guy seated front left has his hat knocked off his head when the water rushes over him, and enjoy Derouchie’s fist pumping enthusiasm when he has passed through the waters):

All this water, however, does not appear to be now widening the river’s banks or deepening its channel, which seems to indicate that the Canyon was cut by a catastrophic, unprecedented, and unrepeated flow of water. My mind can barely begin to imagine the fury of the raging waters of Noah’s flood. Praise God that Jesus was baptized in the flood-waters of God’s wrath so that those who trust in him are delivered, as Noah was in the ark.

Homecoming

My gratitude to those who made the trip possible runs deep. I’m thankful for those who made it financially possible, but the deepest waters of thanksgiving flow toward my family. My sweet wife rejoiced in the opportunity to hold down the fort with our four kids, and my heroic dad came to help while I was away. The deep channels of their sacrificial love caused soaring heights of joy when I finally got home. I am the most blessed husband and father in the world.

To have that woman throw her arms around my neck.

There are pleasures that can only be felt in this permanent, exclusive, monogamous, comprehensive, interpersonal, organic union of one man and one woman called marriage.

Praise God.

My sons prepared for my arrival with a note taped to the door of our home, “Dad’s Home, Yippee!” And they made a lap-book of the Grand Canyon. Is it possible to describe what I felt when those three boys, 7, 5, and 3 years old, clambered out of the van and sprinted down the sidewalk at the airport to fling themselves into my arms? I hope they have sons like themselves, and I hope the Lord gives them each a wife like their mother. And then there was the joy of that wobbly five month old baby girl, with her bright-eyed smile and delightful pre-word baby cooing.

The Canyon was enormous and beautiful. The friendships renewed and formed full of joy and promise. The thought of the flood-waters of judgment that cut those rocks, leaving beauty in the wake of destruction (ahem, God’s glory in salvation through judgment) evokes praise for the Maker of the mountains. Coming home to my sweet wife and our four little ones is like stepping into a dream come true.

And all of it is mercy.

Cue organ to blast out the Gloria Patri:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.

Can You Identify with Judas?

Have you ever betrayed a friend?

Can you identify with the bargain that Judas made? Have you ever decided that something else was better than Jesus? I’m not referring to inadvertent mistakes but to moments when one knows what God requires, knows what God has commanded, and chooses something else instead.

What is it in your life that you prefer to Jesus?

That’s what came down to for Judas. He decided that the money he would gain by turning Jesus over was better than all it will cost him to stay with Jesus. The authorities would appreciate him. Public opinion would shift in his favor. He would be viewed as a hero. If he stayed with Jesus, all the people who mattered in Jerusalem would continue to feel disdain for him. If he turned Jesus over to them, they would lionize him. Judas Iscariot would be known and appreciated by the Jerusalem elite. He would be famous. He would be (anachronism coming) the darling of the media. He would be a man of interest. They would surely conclude that he was a man with the fortitude to see the error of his way, recognize how dangerous Jesus was to Israel, and do the right thing without regard for his emotional and personal connection to Jesus.

Can you understand and identify with the temptation that faced Judas?

Rather than stay with the wonder worker who started with great promise but then did all the wrong things and spent all his time with these bumbling Galileans, Judas changed sides.

Do you identify with Judas?

At least we can understand the rationale for what he did. We can sympathize with him and understand him.

One of the most insidious things that literature, tv shows, and movies do is enable us to sympathize with people who do evil things. They get us emotionally wrapped up with a character. They show us why a character chose a certain course of action. They can even make that course of action seem inevitable, given who the character is and how his life has gone.

Some writers and artists manipulate their audience into calling good evil and evil good.

The fact that we can understand Judas and identify with him should not make us feel any less revulsion at the evil he has done.

We need to understand Judas, to see how he could have done what he did and why he did what he did, not to diminish our sense of right and wrong, not to call good evil and evil good, but because we must recognize recognize how we, too, could do evil like what Judas did.

It is evil because Jesus is in the right and God is with Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus and he betrayed God.

We could fall in the same way. How do we respond to the ways that we can identify with Judas?

We pray for God to make us love righteousness and hate wickedness. We pray that God will keep us faithful to him and his Messiah, to our wives and children. We pray that God will give us moral clarity. We pray that God would cause us to feel even more horrified than we already are by the abominable profanity of the insidious and subversive and treacherous nature of evil.

On Sunday, July 3, it was my privilege to preach the passage in Mark that depicts Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, Mark 14:26–52, “Jesus Stands Alone,” at Kenwood Baptist Church. The audio is here.

Study Guides for “God’s Indwelling Presence”

As I noted yesterday, my book God’s Indwelling Presence is summarized in about 1,000 words over at The Gospel Coalition. For a summary in about 5,000 words, see this article.

Amazon Marketplace has copies of the book for $5.

Have you thought about working through this book with others at your church? Some students pursuing doctoral work at SBTS used this book in study groups at their churches, and Jonathan Winningham has allowed me to link to his two part study guide, which can be found here and here (and here).

Related: Study guides for God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology are also available.

The Failure of the Disciples and the Brothers Karamazov

On the night in which he was betrayed, Judas sold Jesus for money. When they arrived to arrest Jesus, Peter tried to help in a way contrary to Jesus’ teaching (taking up the sword, when Jesus has been teaching he would go to Jerusalem to die). When he was arrested, all the disciples fled. These failures are similar to the failures of the three brothers Karamazov.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (free on kindle) centers on the sons of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. His oldest son, Dmitri, is passionate and reckless. He lives a debauched life like his father, but unlike his father he genuinely regrets the hurt he causes others. The middle son, Ivan, is a cold, rational skeptic. He is ultimately so troubled by the suffering of children that he cannot believe in God. The youngest son, Alyosha, is almost completely pure. He has genuine doubts and faces real temptation, but he loves people and has a mature faith in God. We know Alyosha is good because he knows himself to be a sinner.

For all of Alyosha’s goodness, he can do nothing about his father’s wickedness. The father is so wicked that it is no surprise when he is murdered. The only question is who did it. Alyosha does not know who committed the murder. He seems powerless to help his brother Dmitri overcome his urges and indulgence, and he cannot win Ivan to faith.

Alyosha stands like a point of light on the dark backdrop of his wicked father and the impulsive Dmitri and the unbelieving Ivan. Alyosha, however, faces situations where he knows he has failed, situations where he cannot make things better.

Dmitri’s troubles arise from the fact that he loves the world.

The temptation that faced Judas was of the sort that offered him acceptance in place of rejection, wealth instead of poverty, influence in place of obscurity.

Ivan’s troubles relate to a panic that drives him insane.

The failure of the disciples when they flee Jesus seems to come down to panic, self-preservation, and disregard for what—who—matters more than their lives. They are like sheep fleeing when the shepherd has been struck, just as Jesus said they would be in Mark 14:27.

Alyosha’s troubles mainly arise from his not always knowing the best course of action in a particular situation.

Peter’s failure with the sword arose from a lack of understanding and an inability to see the right thing to do, so he acted instinctively and wrongly.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus alone stands against overwhelming evil. Jesus is our only hope against it. Mark 14:26–52 is in the Bible to teach us our absolute need for Jesus. Jesus alone knows God’s will. Jesus alone resists temptation to stand courageous. Jesus alone can save.

The Brothers Karamazov ends in slight moral ambiguity. I won’t tell you who is convicted of the murder of the father, Fyodor Pavlovich, but the wrong man is condemned. That man then flees Russia to America to escape the miscarriage of justice. So technically he is a fugitive, but he didn’t commit the crime (and he does repent of his many sins).

There will be no injustice and no moral ambiguity at the end of the story in which Jesus is the main character.

On Sunday, July 3, it was my privilege to preach Mark 14:26–52, “Jesus Stands Alone,” at Kenwood Baptist Church.

Isaiah 30:1, A Verse That Needs a Literal Translation

Isaiah 30:1 reads,

“Woe, rebellious sons, utterance of Yahweh, who make a plan, but not from me, who pour out a libation [i.e., make an alliance], but not of my Spirit, so as to add sin to sin.”

In response to the threats they face, rather than trusting Yahweh and relying on the guidance of his Spirit, Israel resorts to her own schemes, striking deals with other nations that involve pouring out libations to the gods those nations worship.

If the words “who pour out a libation” are done with the dynamic equivalent “make an alliance,” it is much harder for the reader who only has English to understand the problem. But if the words “who pour out a libation” are included, readers are tipped off to the fact that the alliance was made possible by Israel’s willingness to engage in idolatry.

Revelation 19:1–10, The Harlot and the Bride

It was my privilege to preach about the downfall of the harlot Babylon and the readiness of the bride for which Christ died, the bride invited to the wedding feast like no other, on June 19, 2011 at Randolph Street Baptist Church in Charleston, WV:

Revelation 19:1–10, The Harlot and the Bride

This sermon has also been added to the page where my other sermons on Revelation are gathered.

I would invite you to consider the glories of the wedding feast of the Lamb, a love story better than that between Natasha and Prince Andrei in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. You can hear it in the mp3 linked above or read it in my forthcoming Preaching the Word volume on Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches.

Is Satan the Hero of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”?

Some have alleged that Satan is the real hero of John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. For instance, William Blake held that Milton was “‘of the devil’s party,’ though ‘without knowing it’” and Percy Bysshe Shelley thought that Satan was “‘a moral being,’ one ‘far superior to [Milton’s] God as one who perseveres in some purpose . . . in spite of adversity’” (The Great Books, 256).

Satan is no more the hero of Paradise Lost than Judas is the hero of the Gospel according to Mark.

Why would people think Satan is Milton’s hero? A big reason seems to be the way that Milton so faithfully presents Satan’s point of view. In presenting Satan’s perspective, Milton doesn’t impose his authorial voice on the drama to pronounce condemnation on Satan. Instead, he allows the evil of Satan’s actions and purposes to be shown. Milton isn’t telling us Satan is evil; he is showing us. Milton expects his audience to recognize the evil of what Satan says and does.

Commenting on Satan’s speech in Book 9, lines 119–30, Anthony O’Hear (The Great Books, 266) writes:

This speech, as Milton surely intends, puts into perspective the admiration of Satan of some of Milton’s critics, who see only Satan’s splendid defiance in the earlier books, but pass over the extent of his sheer malice in the later ones.

Bock on 1 Timothy 2:12 in the NIV 2011

Commenting on places where he agrees and disagrees with the CBMW statement, Darrell Bock writes:

1 Timothy 2:12

This is a key example where the CBMW is correct. It may well be that this is the text that matters most to the CBMW. It is 1 Timothy 2:12. The NIV has “assume authority” “have authority” or “exercise authority” in its rendering of this verse. I think the statement’s complaint here is right and fair. There is no alternative in the margin, either. That is yet another unfortunate feature of the rendering. I suspect this rendering bothered the statement writers more than any other in their list.

So how to handle it? This is an example where I would continue to appeal for a revision on the principle that any translation has places where one can improve it. Of all the examples I will treat, this is the one that merits more reconsideration by the NIV committee than any other text.

Denny Burk is to be commended for his courageous work on this text, and his discussion of the changes from NIV 1984 through the TNIV to the NIV 2011 is especially worthy of attention. See his post, “The NIV on 1 Timothy 2:12,” for a nice chart tracking the progressive translation of the verse in the NIV.

Akkadian Prayers and Hymns Volume – Free Download (Some Translation Notes Thrown In, Too)

Charles Halton has the details on a free download of a book to which he contributed, Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: A Reader.

While I’m linking to Awilum.com, I thought I would bring over a couple interesting statements he’s had up on translation in recent days.

Here’s one from Simon Parpola:

No translation, no matter how good it is, can make these texts familiar or immediately understandable to a modern non-technical reader. One is bound to admit the existence of a cultural barrier which can be – even partially – removed only through a more thorough acquaintance of texts themselves or related documents from the same period…

A literal translation – which would only add linguistic anomalies to the difficulties of the reader – is therefore excluded. On the other hand, an easily readable free translation would not be a much better alternative. A free translation is bound to be to a large extent an interpretation (and as such a subjective one), and modernization which is necessary for readability might mislead an innocent reader, if too widely applied. My translation hopes to be a sort of compromise between these two extremities: sufficiently accurate and illustrative, but not too literal to make the texts unreadable and not too much of an interpretation to make them non-Assyrian.

–Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars, xviii.

Because the Bible will be read and re-read, studied, exposited, and because of the abundance of commentaries in print and online, I think that the literal translation Parpola thinks is excluded  for the documents he translates is possible for the biblical texts. Further, the history of the influence of the KJV on the English language proves in my opinion that what begin as “linguistic anomalies” resulting from literal translations quickly become widely understood, widely used ways of speaking. That is, the Bible shapes the language and the culture.

And here’s one Halton puts up on Thucydides:

First, the “good” translations of his History (those that are fluent and easy to read) give a very bad idea of the linguistic character of the original Greek. The “better” they are, the less likely they are to reflect the flavor of what Thucydides wrote—rather likeFinnegans Wake rewritten in the clear idiom of Jane Austen. Second, many of our favorite “quotations” from Thucydides, those slogans that are taken to reveal his distinctive approach to history, bear a tenuous relationship to his original text. As a general rule, the catchier the slogans sound, the more likely they are to be largely the product of the translator rather than of Thucydides himself. He simply did not write many of the bons mots attributed to him.1

Can we afford to have things like this said of the Biblical Authors?

Okay might as well give you this too: here’s Halton’s reaction to the NIV 2011.