Eutychus and His Kin: November 21, 1960

FIST-POUNDING

Please correct an error that slipped into my recent letter about “The Big Debate.” I never engage in “fist-fighting debate” in my neighbor’s recreation room! My original manuscript reads “fist-pounding debate.” I shudder to think of the possible consequences of this apparent advocacy of political fisticuffs in the heat of a tense election. There could be other consequences, too. You can imagine my apprehension at the publication of this bellicose image of a fist-swinging Eutychus just as my anonymity has worn thin.

Indeed, after watching Mr. K. on television, I am ready to rethink fistpounding. Obviously a desk-top may be a substitute for an opponent’s head. Even preachers might reflect on this favorite gesture. When the glass of water dances in reverberation to pulpit-pummeling, what is really being given the beating? One’s own sins? Perhaps the Apostle Paul used a pounding gesture in describing how he kept his body in subordination to the service of Christ. His self-control was no shadowboxing. The figure he uses is that he gave himself a black eye when necessary (1 Cor. 9:27).

Pulpit vigor in the Pauline tradition is commendable. Some pulpit pounding, however, may have more in common with Moses’ angry blow when he struck the rock on the second occasion. Pastoral petulance with perverse parishioners may become more evident in gestures than in words.

It is not only the deaf-mute who talks with his hands. Watch the language of hands: writhing, fidgeting hands; limp, listless hands; hands grasping money, or expertly manipulating machines. Our gestures help to communicate the Gospel or betray it. The hands of a missionary doctor or a Christian mother may witness in every movement.

In the living room of one suburban parsonage hangs a large reproduction of Dürer’s “Praying Hands.” The Christian cannot avoid the clenched fist gesture, but he needs, as America at Thanksgiving needs, praying hands. The lifting up of holy hands in prayer for all men, and particularly for all in authority, is the Christian response to the pounding fist of communism.

EUTYCHUS

KJV VERSUS RSV

It afforded me great pleasure to read your issue of September 26. Particularly I was pleased with the level of criticism which you directed toward the RSV.… Let me suggest to you another critical article of excellent taste. Shortly after the appearance of the RSV, The New Yorker magazine ran a critical review of the RSV, … written from a literary standpoint.…

DOUGLAS JACKSON

Perkins School of Theology

Southern Methodist University

Dallas, Tex.

• Said The New Yorker review: “Whether it [RSV] will be any more successful in replacing K.J.V. than the 1885 version was remains to be seen. If it is, what is now simply a blunder … will become a catastrophe. Bland, flavorless mediocrity will have replaced the pungency of genius” (Nov. 14, 1953, issue, p. 208).

—ED.

Moffatt’s so-called “Presbyterian Bible,” being “a private interpretation,” is not in the same class as the RSV.…

The Preface of the RSV says of it, “It is intended for use in public and private worship.” From what I have experienced and seen in my own churches, it seems to me that those who are not so using the RSV are those whose hearts have reasons their head knows not of.

KYLE SHOWN

Presbyterian Churches—Wabash County Mt. Carmel, Ill.

This “liberal’s” allegiance to the “liberal” cause seems to be of the same nostalgic variety as many “conservatives’ ” allegiance to theirs, viz., that they learned it young and are devoted to the sacred memory of their teachers.…

Let Mr. Gilmour and myself and other literati read the fluent, “earthy,” rhythmic prose of KJV for its sound effect, if they wish. My daughter will read her little RSV and learn how to live in Christ for herself and her playmates, and their children, when Mr. Gilmour and myself are long dead, will satisfy their curiosity over the past by dragging down an ancient black volume off a back shelf in a corridor of the church, next to the box of old, burnt altar candles and centennial programs and read the flyleaf incredulously, “To His most sovereign majesty, King James the First,” and wonder why an American Bible should ever have been dedicated to an English king. And they will ask their mothers and fathers what those funny words mean on the cover of the big, old pulpit Bible, “Revised Standard Version.” And you know what? I don’t think any parent will be able to tell them. And they will have to go to the preacher and he will drown them in a whirl of words, as he always does, and they will wish they had let the matter drop and never mention it again.

CHESTER J. HEWITT

The Loraine Larger Parish

Evangelical United Brethren

Prophetstown, Ill.

At last an article which makes half-sense about the RSV. Now if some conservative will write an article commending the RSV for what it is, complete sense shall appear. It is one of our present day ecclesiastical contradictions which has the liberals who are not excited about the words of scripture supporting a translation whose main strength is its more accurate rendering on the whole of the meaning of the Greek and Hebrew. On the other hand the conservatives support the version whose principle value as compared to the RSV is its beauty of English.

Gilmour makes complete sense in his contention that the worship and liturgical part of the service should be based on the beauty of the King James, while as a conservative, I prefer the RSV for expository preaching. Using the RSV, I do not have to make as many changes in the translation to get something which I can use for preaching. Dr. Leitch in this same issue as his first point of expository preaching sets forth the need for a statement of “what does scripture say?” and this the RSV does. For every clarification or change of translation which must be made using the RSV, there have to be five or six in using the King James (if one is conscientiously doing his exegetical preparation).

WILLIAM H. ANDERSON, JR.

Fourth United Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

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