Friday, June 27, 2025

It is the 27th of June 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I alluded to this yesterday, of course, you don’t have to listen to every show for any show to make sense- I alluded to what has been the case all week on this show by nothing but happenstance and circumstance- but once it caught my eye, I couldn’t unsee it. All week, we have taken a look at a Christian leader- male, English, Scottish, and American, all working in that era of transition between the age of the Reformation and the Modern world. This past week, we met characters like Henry Venn, Eliphalet Nott, and Philip Doddridge- not giant names, but in their day, provided service to and through the church in terms of leadership and publications. And I said that we would finish the week with one more of the same- a key member of the world that was transatlantic Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries.

His name might be more echo today than a solid historical figure, but James Moffatt belongs in that chain of figures asking and answering questions about our faith in the modern world. Moffatt died on this, the 27th of June in 1944, in New York City- a professor with an impressive resume, but we want to focus specifically on a landmark translation of the Bible that bears his name.

We mention that he went to the University of St. Andrews because those who know, know… he was ordained in the Free Church of Scotland and taught at Oxford and at the Free Church College in Glasgow before taking a job teaching history at Union Seminary in New York, where he died.

You may have seen the name “Moffatt” (and not Moffett- that is Robert the missionary and father in law to David Livingston) on the multi volume Bible Commentary with his name on it- but the work that made his name synonymous with bibles and the “Battle for the Bible”- was his own bible, the Moffatt Bible. His New Testament in 1913 and his Old Testament in 1525. What’s so wild about a theologian and scholar with an interest in translation making their own version? I know of 3 in the past half-decade or so! But it wasn’t the case at the time. The British, with trepidation, proposed their Revised Version of 1885 (revising the King James from over 200 years prior), and the Americans had their parallel in 1901, but they were met with a good bit of apathy. But perhaps there was something in that year of 1913- the last year of the heightened optimism of modernity… and so Moffatt’s Bible made waves. There had been a handful of others like it in the past, but none that resonated like his in terms of a desire to balance accuracy and readability. I should note it inspired Goodspeed’s “An American Translation”- he was called “the American Moffatt”.

But anything involving the Bible and getting into the 1920s and 30s is going to be wrapped up in the so-called “Battle for the Bible” that pitted the newly minted Fundamentalists and Modernists. Authority is almost always at the heart of the most significant battles in church history- and for Protestants, going after the Bible is going to the root.  

Moffatt was in the camp of the theological modernists with his views on the historicity of some texts- he questioned some traditional authorship and dating of certain books. In terms of peculiarities, he initially wanted the order of books in the New Testament in what he believed to be chronological order- so instead of starting with the Gospels, he started with Thessalonians and other letters with the synoptic gospels at the end, followed by John and Revelation. His freedom to break from convention would get him some negative attention, but would also set the stage for others to try novel and sometimes helpful fresh attempts at getting the meaning of a text across.

Moffatt’s Bible- popular in its day- suffered from too much “relevance” for its own day and has remained something of a 20th-century artifact. But, it was the Moffatt Bible from Scottish scholar James Moffatt that would set the stage for the century of niche and singular translations. Born in 1870, he was 73 years old.

The Last word for today comes from Galatians 5:

13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 27th of June 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows that the Moffatt Bible walked so the Emoji bible could run… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who confirmed that the Bible Emoji project is a thing… curious about Philippians 3:8, I consider all of it to be…? Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.