A new Danish translation of the Bible, called “Bibelen 2020,” writes the word “Israel” out of the New Testament. In the Greek original, the word “Israel” occurs more than 60 times, but the new Danish translation includes the word Israel only once in the New Testament, in a passage that is quoting from the Old Testament.
New Testament:
Matt. 2:21: “and he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.” changed to: went “home.”
Matt. 15:31: “God of Israel” changed to: “God.” There are several other examples of this change.
Luke 4:25: “many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah” changed to: “many Jewish widows in the time of Prophet Elijah.” [Note: This is an anachronism: the word “Jewish” was not in use in Elijah’s time, and he was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel, not in Judah.]
John 1:49: “king of Israel” changed to: “king of all people.”
2 Cor. 3:7: “…the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face.” changed to: “Moses’ face radiated so strongly that the Jews could not bear to see it.” [Again, anachronistic.]
Old Testament:
About 9% of the mentions of “Israel” in the Old Testament have replaced or removed. The translators have pared 2,521 mentions down to 2,316 mentions. Below are several examples of the changes.
Ex. 24:10: “…they saw the God of Israel.” becomes: “they saw God.”
Ps. 121:4: “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” becomes: “He who takes care of us will not fall asleep, no he is not sleeping.”
Isa. 41:14: “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.” becomes: “Jacob”, “Israel” and “The Holy One of Israel” have been replaced/removed.
Isa. 43:1: “But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’” becomes: “O Israel” and “O Jacob” have been removed.
Jer. 25:27: “the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel” becomes: “the Lord of Heaven”
Jer. 33:7: “I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel…” becomes: “Judah and Israel” changed to “all my people”.
The translators’ motivation in trying to stamp out or reduce the mentions of Israel was their belief that modern Danish readers of the Bible would mistakenly believe that the term refers to the modern nation-state of Israel. The Secretary-General of the Danish Bible Society, Birgitte Stoklund, stated that the change was made because contemporary people think of geography, not a race of people, when they hear or read the word “Israel.”
“The average Dane does not understand that reference is made to a people, and not geography, when it says 'Israel' in the New Testament,” says Stoklund.
To put it mildly, this seems far-fetched. The average Dane is intelligent enough to understand that the New Testament was written almost two millennia before the modern state of Israel was founded. But assuming this is really an issue, the answer is to leave “Israel” in the Bible so that Danish readers can learn the term’s biblical meaning through its biblical context. Re-writing the Bible is the wrong approach to the problem of biblical illiteracy.
Some have interpreted the changes as an attack on the popular evangelical view that the 1948 establishment of the modern nation-state of Israel is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Adventists do not agree with this trend, but the answer is not to remove “Israel” from the Scriptures but to emphasize the New Testament doctrine of spiritual Israel. (See, e.g., 2:28; 9-11; Gal. 3:6-7, 27-28; 6:13-16; Phil. 3:3; Jn. 4:23-24). Once it is understood that the “Israel” of God in prophecy is the Christian Church, attempts to shoehorn the modern state of Israel into Bible prophecy fall by the wayside.
No More Sin
There is yet more mischief in the new Danish translation. The new translation has also removed the word, “sin,” which is now translated as a “mistake.” Remarkably, the translators defend this change on the basis of the lack of biblical literacy among modern Danes, stating that the new translation, “does not use the usual Danish words for sin, grace, mercy, covenant and many other typically biblical words, which an average Danish reader would not be familiar with the meaning of.” One begins to suspect that old fashioned liberalism is at work.
Again, the answer to biblical illiteracy in Denmark is to get Danes to read the real, actual Bible, and learn the meaning of biblical terms from their context, not to remove biblical terms, and hence biblical concepts, from the Bible.
There is a lesson here: When we think a passage of Scripture is difficult to understand, or that people are misinterpreting it, the problem is not with Scripture but with its (mis)interpreters. (2 Pet. 3:16). The answer is to allow Scripture to be its own interpreter, and for us to study it and expound on it more carefully and thoroughly. We are not at liberty to change the Scriptures for “ease of interpretation,” or any other reason. This applies to Adventists as much as to the Danish Bible Society. See, e.g., The Clear Word.