Age to Come Bibles

Any detailed history of Watch Tower antecedents must contain references to the Age to Come movement. This was a very general movement covering different viewpoints that grew in the 19^th century. When CTR and his family met in Quincy Hall, Allegheny, this was originlly a combined group of both Second Adventists and Age to Come believers, and advertised in their respective papers. In the 1870s this tended to fall apart, as separation and denominationalism came into being. The article that follows was published in the specialist magazine Bible Review Journal Volume 2 number 2 (Fall 2015). A previously posted article on this blog on Herman Heinfetter was published in an earlier journal of this group,The International Society of Bible Collectors.

Keen collectors of Bible translations will often group different versions into “families”, both by style and any underlying theology. Stylistically they can range from extremely wooden literal versions to free – sometimes wildly free – paraphrases. Under theology you can find what might be called Catholic Bibles, Jewish Bibles, Baptist/immersionist Bibles, Unitarian Bibles – to name but a few. Most Bible students are happy to have a representative selection of all types for comparison purposes, even if they personally hold views that are not always supported as they would wish by all the versions on offer.

This article is going to discuss what I have perhaps arbitrarily called Age to Come Bibles. This general grouping came to prominence in the 19^th century, and is sometimes confused with the Adventist movement with whom some fellowshipped for a time. Ultimately, other than a mutual interest in the return of Christ – there were sufficient differences in belief to cause separation as the 19^th century wore on. This led to clearly defined Adventist groups, and clearly defined Age to Come groups – the latter including such names as Church of God, One Faith, Living Hope, Abrahamic Faith, and Christadelphian.

As a rough and general description, Age to Come believers, are non-Trinitarian, and generally Socinian in outlook (i.e. they do not believe that Jesus’ literally existed before his human birth). They often disbelieve in the concept of a personal devil. They believe that immortality is conditional and future, dependant on resurrection. So immortal-soul and hell-fire theologies are rejected. And they believe that man’s destiny is on the earth – (what some would call heaven on earth) - and generally that prophecies about Israel will literally be fulfilled with natural Israel.

Bibles produced from such a background may have subtle difference when compared with, for instance, the King James Version. Understandably, the theology of translators will reflect their beliefs – especially when there are translation problems that might arguably be rendered in more than one way. As such, some readers may be interested in examining them further.

To find what I have called Age to Come Bibles there are probably two texts to check. The key one is Luke 23:43. In the King James or Authorized Version it reads:

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

This has been carried on in the majority of translations since then. But the question is raised, did Jesus actually mean he and the criminal would be in paradise such as heaven that same day, or was he speaking on that day about some future time and place? Groups that believe in the inherent immortality of the human soul would say that while Jesus body was in the grave, his spirit/soul went straight to heaven. Groups that believe in conditional immortality and soul-sleep (such as Age to Come believers) would argue that this paradise promise related to the future, not that actual day. The understanding of the passage will determine where the translator puts the comma, since there are no commas in koine Greek.

The second text to check is probably the automatic one most readers would go to – John 1:1. Since these groups are normally non-Trinitarian, the King James Version’s rendering of the last clause as “and the Word was God” can be problematic, unless the definition of “Word” still allows for a non-Trinitarian approach.

There are three Bibles we are going to consider:

Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott (NT only)

Duncan Heaster’s New European Version (complete Bible)

Anthony Buzzard’s The One God, the Father, One Man Messiah Translation (NT only)

The history of Wilson and his Diaglott is well documented, so little needs repeating here. Benjamin Wilson and John Thomas (from whom came the Christadelphians) were in fellowship in the mid-19^th century, but there came a parting of the ways. Subsequently, Wilson produced his Diaglott. In 1902 the copyright came into the possession of Charles T Russell, president of the Watch Tower Society. By the time the copyright lapsed, the Watchtower Society’s policy was to make no charge for literature, so there was no point in anyone else producing it until their stock was exhausted. Since then a Church of God group with help from Christadelphians has produced an edition, and being out of copyright there are several ways it can now be obtained.

The New European Version is a modern revision of the KJV and ASV rather than a new translation from original languages. It is produced from within the Christadelphian movement, and has an extensive commentary by Duncan Heaster. The NT first came out in 2009 and the complete Bible in 2011. It is published jointly by Carelinks Publishing and the Christadelphian Advancement Trust.

Anthony Buzzard’s The One God, the Father, One Man Messiah Translation is an original translation based on the United Bible Society’s Standard Greek Text (edited by Bruce Metzger). It was published in 2014 by Restoration Fellowship. It is a NT produced from within the Church of God movement. Buzzard taught for decades at their Bible College. Part of the Church of God’s history can be traced back to the ministry of Benjamin Wilson, who as noted above had been a co-worker with John Thomas, before doctrinal differences split them up.

So how do these three Bibles approach our two key texts?

First - Luke 23:43.

Each of them places the comma to support their belief that Jesus’ reference to “paradise” was in the future.

Benjamin Wilson:  And said to him the Jesus: Indeed I say to thee to-day, with me thou shalt be in the Paradise.

Duncan Heaster: And he said to him: Truly, I can say to you today right now, that you will indeed be with me in paradise.

Anthony Buzzard: Jesus replied, “I promise you today, you will indeed be with me in that future paradise.”

There is more divergence in the way they handle John 1:1.

Wilson’s main text is similar to the KJV, reading: “the Logos was with GOD, and the Logos was God” – although a distinction is made between GOD and God by the use of capitals. However, Wilson’s interlinear rendering “and a god was the Word” provoked controversy. 

It has to be said that the translation “a god” goes back a long way, at least to Edward Harwood’s Liberal Translation of 1768 ("and was himself a divine person").  It was popularised by the Unitarians who got hold of Archbishop Newcome’s New Testament and “improved” it. Newcome’s Improved Version of 1808 reads “and the word was a god” in the main text. This was picked up by the Abner Kneeland translation (1822), and then Wilson in his interlinear. Others like Herman Heinfetter (1851) in the UK did likewise.

However, whilst Wilson’s John 1:1 interlinear raised criticism from mainstream Christendom, it did not sit all that well with some Age to Come believers. If the Word is “a god” – and by that is suggested a literal person – whose existence can be linked right back to “in the beginning” – that presents a conflict with a Socinian belief that the literal person of the Christ only came into existence with his human birth – having previously being an idea or plan in the mind of God.

So our other two Age to Come Bibles handle John 1:1 quite differently, because to them, the Word refers to Reason, or a Thought or Idea in the mind of God.

First, Heaster’s reads:

In the beginning was the word (logos), and the word was towards God, and the word was Divine.

The translation “Divine” is quite a common rendering – found in Moffatt, Smith-Goodspeed, Schonfeld and others. It basically takes the word “theos” without the article and makes it an adjective, a descriptive word.

But then from verse 2 onwards in John’s gospel in the NEV, this word (uncapitalised) is not “he” but “it”. But from verse 10 onwards including verse 14 where “the word became flesh” the pronoun changes to “he” for the rest of the chapter. Heaster makes it quite clear in his commentary that he views the word as the inner thought, or plan or message of God.

Anthony Buzzard’s translation is even more obvious in the way it understands John 1:1. It reads:

In the beginning there was God’s grand design, and that declaration was with God, related to Him as His project, and it was fully expressive of God himself.

Buzzard’s commentary identifies the word as the thinking or concern or promise of God. And like Heaster he uses the neuter pronoun “it” until verse 10 when the word becomes “he”.

There are other Bibles that could probably fit into this family, but I have restricted myself to the Diaglott and its two obvious daughters, both in presentation and in the history of their publishers. But in passing we could mention the New World Translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which has some similarities. For example, the comma in Luke is placed to show the paradise promise as future, and “a god” is in the main text for John 1:1.  However, unlike Wilson, the modern witnesses believe in the pre-existence of Jesus, a personal Devil, and reject that natural Israel still has a part to play in God’s plan.

Then there is the plethora of translations produced by strands of the Sacred Name movement. 

(Historically most Sacred Name groups can be traced back to 20^th century schisms in the 19^th century Church of God Seventh Day). Starting with Angelo B Traina’s Sacred Name Bible (1950 NT, whole Bible 1963), they include L D Snow’s and R Favitta’s Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible (1970) and Jacob Meyer’s Sacred Scriptures Bethel Edition (1981) and Yisrayl Hawkins’ The Book of Yahweh (1988). These have been joined by some internet-only versions in more recent years. These Sacred Name Bibles have doctrinal similarities with Wilson et al. as reflected in our two key texts, Luke 23:43 and John 1:1, but add their own distinctive take on Divine Names and titles. Some would argue that “translation” is a misnomer for more recent examples, “adaptation” being more accurate. The ability to get hold of an existing but out of copyright Bible translation in electronic form and simply substitute their “corrections” means that any Sacred Name group (however small) can still retain its individuality by producing its own Bible. But these are outside the scope of this article.