Episode Details

Some things are best done quickly.

Being reconciled with someone, for example (Matt 5:23-25); or putting some distance between yourself and idolatry (1 Cor 10:14); or listening (Jas 1:19).

But on the whole, hastiness isn’t a very healthy thing in the Bible. The feet of the wicked always seem to be hastening off after their latest wicked plan (Prov 6:18). In fact, hastening off after anything that you desire isn’t a good idea and usually results in getting lost (Prov 19:2). And of course, the man who is hasty in his words? “There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Prov 29:20).

In the coronavirus bubble that many of us have been occupying in recent months, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has rediscovered the value of slowing down.

My daily Bible reading and prayer, for example, is the best it’s been for a while. Rather than hastening out the door to catch the morning train, I take the 12 slow steps up to my home office, ignore the computer that is silently begging me to turn it on immediately, and sink into the old armchair of my mother’s that sits in the corner. I pick up two yellowing books that I unearthed while sorting out my library—an aging copy of Search the Scriptures, and an even older copy of the Revised Version of the Bible—and spend a blessed half hour in quiet reading and prayer. I’m not late. I’m not hassled. And when I finally answer the computer’s pleas and turn it on, I’m ready to be its master rather than its servant.

I’d forgotten that I owned either of these old books, and how wonderful they both are. Search the Scriptures (first published in 1949) points me each day to the shortish passage I’m supposed to read next (which is half the battle), and poses two or three insightful questions for me to ponder. And in the (unlikely) event that I use it every single day without fail, I will get through the whole Bible in three years.

As for the Revised Version, I’d also forgotten what a joy it is to read the Scriptures slowly. The RV forces you to do that. First published in the 1880s as a comprehensive update to the King James Version, the RV sits very much at the literal or ‘formal equivalence’ end of the translation spectrum. It tries to preserve the word order and idioms of the original language, while also retaining as many of the classic formulations of the KJV as possible. The result is a whole foods Bible rather than a processed one—it takes more time and effort to digest, but the health benefits are real.

For example, quite often the RV retains the more concrete idiom or imagery of the original, and thereby brings a more vivid image to mind. To give a small example, Luke 4:36 in the popular NIV translation reads:

All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”

The RV puts it like this:

And amazement came upon all, and they spake together, one with another, saying, What is this word? for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

The differences are subtle, but they add up. The RV’s language paints the picture of amazement ‘coming upon’ all of them, almost as an external force or experience that descends on them at the same time. They then speak together, ‘one with another’, evoking the image of each person turning to someone next to them and trying to understand what is going on.

‘What is this word?’, they ask. Following the Greek, the RV leaves ‘word’ as singular, emphasizing the simple authority of Jesus’ command that the ‘unclean’ spirit come out. And by using the word ‘unclean’ (rather than ‘impure’) to describe the demonic spirit, the RV sets off a resonance in my head regarding the potent Old Testament category of ‘uncleanness’.

There is no ques