A Lutheran Bible?
Though the translators insist that the EHV is not just a “Lutheran Bible,” nor any sort of official translation of WELS or ELS, most Lutheran theological emphases are evident, as one would expect.
The translations of the relevant passages reflects a high view of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The distinction between Law and Gospel, the substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, and other teachings that characterize–but are not limited to–Lutherans are well-supported by this Bible. (See the ingenious way the EHV handles James 2:24, which seems to reverse Galatians 2:16 by saying that we are justified by works after all: “You see that a person is shown to be righteous by works and not by faith alone.” The EHV shifts from “justification” language to the related “righteousness” language.)
And yet, sometimes the “Lutheran” reading is surprisingly absent. What most translations render as “You must be born again” (John 3:7) can just as legitimately be rendered “You must be born from above.” Indeed, the Greek carries both meanings, as Nicodemus construes “anothen” as “again” and Jesus focuses on the other meaning. (See my discussion of this
here.) Lutherans, being, like Calvinists, divine
monergists believe that God creates faith through Word and Sacrament as a gift of the Holy Spirit. We are born “from above,” and this is the reading of the EHV.
And yet, in a closely-related passage in the same Gospel, the EHV accepts a non-monergist reading. The ESV rendering of John 1:12-13 is as follows:
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh
nor of the will of man, but of God.
That verse 13, saying that the children of God are
not born “of the will of man” is a pretty decisive refutation of “decision theology,” the notion common to many evangelicals –specifically, those of the Arminian persuasion–that we
choose, by an act of our
will, to be “born again.” But the EHV translates the phrase according to the Arminian interpretation: “or of a husband’s will.” As if the passage were referring only to physical sex and birth, and as if birth comes from the husband’s decision.
Also coming out not so strong as I would like are passages related to the doctrine of vocation, which, for Lutherans is an extremely important teaching, amounting to the theology of the Christian life. Here is a key passage for that teaching, an accurate rendition of 1 Corinthians 7:17 from the ESV: “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.” Compare that to the EHV version: “However, each person is to live in the situation the Lord assigned to him—the situation he was in when God called him to faith.”
The context of the passage discusses marriage, being a Jew or a Gentile, being a “bondservant” or a free citizen. . . .These are not “situations” but vocations. The EHV reduces “calling” to the call to faith, completely eliminating the additional sense of the word that God calls us to the “life” that He has assigned us, where He has “stationed” us to live out our faith in love and service to our neighbor.
So, setting aside my disappointment in some of these readings, we can see that the reading that best serves Lutheran theology is not always the one chosen for the EHV, that the translators were trying to render what they believed the original languages meant apart from their theological preconceptions
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) Rome uses it sinfully.
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