Wednesday, September 02, 2009

The TNIV and Dr. Packer's misunderstanding about Tyndale

I interviewed Dr. Packer a few years ago. The interview is lost at the moment. But I vividly remember one poignant moment. Curious about the word propitiation and its importance to Dr. Packer, I asked him why he valued it so much. He answered,
    It was Tyndale's word, was it not?
Um, no, Dr. Packer, Tyndale's word would be "atonement." I couldn't bring myself to say this out loud, but just nodded quietly and went on with my questions about why he had signed the statement of concern against the TNIV. He didn't have one concrete example of inaccuracy on their part. He even said that the translators of the TNIV were very fine scholars and his colleagues. (After all, they even chose Tyndale's word - atonement.)

The translators of the TNIV are language scholars, as I discovered when I researched every choice they made and found that commentaries and the history of interpretation has proven that their choices were accurate and well supported by evidence.

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