Biblical Missiology has a petition they call, Lost In Translation: Keep "Father" & "Son" in the Bible.
Suddenly we find this issue hitting real close to home as we have a son in Wycliffe
college classes.
I am extremely finicky about the Bible -- so this has gotten our attention.
Besides this, misstating God's word is extremely dangerous.
Biblical Missiology makes many
very good points:
"Western missions agencies Wycliffe, Frontiers and SIL are producing Bibles
that remove Father, Son and Son of God because these terms are offensive to Muslims.
Some examples documented in our Fact Check:
• Wycliffe/SIL produced
Stories of the Prophets, an Arabic Bible that uses “Lord” instead of “Father” and “Messiah”
instead of “Son.”
• Frontiers worked with an SIL consultant to produce
True Meaning of the Gospel of Christ, an Arabic translation which removes "Father" in reference to God,
and removes or redefines "Son," e.g. the Great Commission in Mt 28:19 reads, "Cleanse them by water in the
name of God, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit."
• Frontiers produced a Turkish
translation of Matthew, distributed by SIL, that uses “guardian” for “Father” and “representative”
or “proxy” for “Son.”
• SIL consulted on the Bengali Injil Sharif, which
translated "Son" as "Messiah" and “Son of God” as “God’s Uniquely Intimate Beloved
Chosen One.”
By replacing or removing "Father" or "Son" from the text
of Scripture, these translations fail to portray God as who he is: the familial, eternal, loving God the Father, Son and Spirit.
The deity of Jesus is obscured, and thus the self-sacrifice of God on our behalf.
In June 2011, the Presbyterian Church in America explicitly declared such translations as “unfaithful to God’s revealed Word” because they
“compromise the doctrines of the Trinity, Scripture, and the person and work of Jesus.”
Perhaps
most importantly, national Christians say these translations are harming their work, even producing a short video expressing their concerns.
Yet Western proponents condone removing Father
or Son because they say Muslims can only see sexual connotations to these terms.
Numerous
missionaries and national believers, however, strongly assert this is not the case. Further, church leaders in places like
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey, and Malaysia have called for an end to these translations, but to no avail.
Adding fuel to
the fire, these agencies have raised millions of dollars for these projects, yet donors are unaware their gifts are being used for translations that remove Father, Son and Son of God
from the text."
