St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

Special Translations of the Bible for Muslims?

Contemporary Trends in Evangelical Missions

By Bill Nikides
Bill Nikides is Moderator of the English Presbytery of the International Presbyterian
Church and member of the Affinity Theological Team.

Table Talk is published three times a year by Affinity for pastors and Christian leaders.(for
further information see www.affinity.org.uk)

The issue:

Contemporary mission is firmly committed to contextualizing the gospel for other

cultures. One of the church’s most significant advances is the last century was a growing
commitment to seeing the Gospel divested of its western cultural garb as it grew among
non-western peoples. Missions, in particular, began to swing away from colonial patterns
of authority and dependence, embracing, rather, “incarnational” ministry that could
bridge gaps between ancient world, western missionary and non-western culture. If it is
true that there is a difference between Gospel and western expressions of it, how can the
two be separated and how can the transcendent core of the Gospel be embraced by people
or cultures formed by other belief systems? Does this represent the collision of different
worlds or is there such a thing as an “Indian Jesus” for example?
Muslims represent a significant challenge for contextualization in that specific
terms fundamental to a traditional Biblical understanding of the faith are also considered
heretical or blasphemous to Muslims. In an endeavor to remove barriers to successful
gospel presentation and assimilation within Muslim cultures, specialized Bible
translations have been developed to build bridges between the world of the Bible and the
world of Islam. These are written often with Muslim-specific vocabulary. Some, loosely
termed “Insider translations,” also use meaning-based translations that remove terms
offensive to Muslim readers such as “Son of God.” The replacement of “Son of God” in
Insider translations with alternative phrasing such as “Isa al-Masih,” however, is ill-
advised. Careful consideration of the Bible, Biblical and systematic theology all advise
against such a move. The proposed translation reflects an atomistic perspective that leans
on risky exegesis and unclearly stated but obviously present theological positions. It also
gives too little weight to the overwhelmingly critical role played by religion in culture. A
thorough-going contextualization itself suggests not using the proposed “Insider”
approach. Finally, I think that Insider use of Inductive Bible Study (an otherwise very
useful methodology), particularly Manuscript Bible Study, in conjunction with the new
translation compounds misunderstandings and leads to serious doctrinal error. The
outcome, I believe, creates enormous potential for the long-term development of, aberrant
Christianity or aberrant Islam, rather than Biblical faith. Ultimately, it presents an
unacceptably great risk to the unity of the Body of Christ and creates the serious potential
for developing, not biblical faith, but a new religion.

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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

The question concerning whether or not to adopt substitutions to the stated text is
usually presented as though it were simple algebra; use translation tools to find
reasonably accurate replacement words and insert them for “X.” To the contrary,
however, this is a simple translation problem. It presupposes far more than that and
effects far more than language. Moreover, the assertion that this is a simple exercise in
translation methodology is also somewhat misleading. Translators, like the rest of us,
work from sets of theological and philosophical presuppositions. The reduction of the
issue concerning “Son of Man” to one of “language,” prevents the reader from
investigating these presuppositions. These play an instrumental role in biblical
interpretation, as anyone who has read a biblical commentary or textbook already knows.
The proliferation of missiological initiatives, divested of their ideological origins, makes
it imperative that we find what exists beneath the surface.

The “spectacles” of culture:

Each of the world’s great religions constitutes a world and life view. Worldviews explain
and interpret life. They translate the phenomenal world for us and help us to understand
everything we contact in life. Worldviews are exhaustive and can contain, informed by
faith, “tradition, socioeconomic conditions, societal institutions, authorities, science and
schooling, mores, family and friends, memory, emotional experience, physio-organic
health, intellectual development, volitional temperament, sexuality, etc. Perhaps the most
coherent and comprehensive expression of worldview is religion (in the sense of a faith
system, not just a set of practices). Judaism, Christianity and Islam represent three of the
most developed worldviews. They address life, in some sense, from cradle to grave, and
beyond. For the believer, life makes more sense when viewed from within one of these
faith systems.

Our spectacles:

As evangelical Christians, we are committed to the view that not only is our faith
coherent, not only is it comprehensive, but fundamentally, it is also true. Moreover, it is
not true simply because it provides answers to the questions concerning life that we ask
(i.e. because it works). It is true because the answers are God’s answers. These answers,
in fact, flow from the mind of God through Spirit-filled men, creative men made in God’s
image, and have been captured by these men who are members of God’s assembly on
earth, the Church, in God’s Word, the Bible.

Addressing Culture:

At the same time, there is truth found outside the Bible. We can see something of that
truth even in the evidence of God’s Creation in nature. There is enough shared
perspective that people of different faith can communicate, develop relationships, and
learn. The fact that we believe in the singular, covenantal truthfulness of the Bible does
not prohibit the establishment of conceptual bridges to those outside of biblical faith. Our
Bible-based faith, in fact, requires we treat others with the same respect we pay Jesus. It
also means that the peoples and cultures of the world all reflect something of the Creator.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

This point, however, identifies one issue that divides those within the Christian
community. If by “culture,” we mean “worldview,” it is imperative that we note that the
most significant component of culture is the faith system, or religion. At one end of the
spectrum, believers, for example, can approach other faith systems as being so “off-base”
that even acknowledging obvious similarities concerning ethics, etc., are silenced because
the faith “System” can never lead to a full-orbed biblical understanding. On the other end
of the spectrum, religions such as Islam can be seen as at least relatives, if not brothers or
sisters. Some evangelical missiologists now support a view of common grace that readily
accommodates non-Christian religious expression. One contemporary missionary, in fact,
sees in Paul’s words, the acknowledgement on God’s part that He himself was helping
the Athenians create the idol itself.
These initiatives do not, in fact, reflect faithfulness to the prophetic nature of the
Bible and its inconvenient claims. The Kingdom of God heralded in the exclusively
authoritative Word through his chosen, covenant people is an incarnational presence that
springs from a single revelation. There is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”(1)
There is one true, visible people of God in historical continuity with the Lord, their savior
and Redeemer, united by one presence, the Holy Spirit, informed by one transcendent
authority, the Bible.(2) It is drawing our attention to the “maker of heaven and earth,”
the covenantal Lord that brought the Israelites out of Egypt, not some pathetic attempt on
the part of the Athenians to make a god to fill in the cracks, because their known deities
were inadequate. Paul would have, as a faithful son of Israel, been disgusted by what he
saw.

Insider movements and the Bible:

If redemptive truth is found exclusively in the Bible, what then do we do with those who
stand outside of this redemptive truth? Clearly, it is not a truth for us alone, but for all
people. What then, for example of Muslims? Muslims see themselves, not Christians, as
recipients of the ultimate truth, the Qur’an (rather than the Bible) given to its final
prophet Muhammad. Muslims see other books and stories as inherently inferior and of a
different essence from their own. Theirs is the penultimate expression of the one core
truth, that there is but one God. Theirs is the one compelling purpose for humanity, to
obey that God. Anything prior to or after these ideas as they are expressed in the
“Mother of all books” is at best a lesser truth, and failing that, perhaps a blasphemy. How
then can believers in the true and exclusive Lordship of Jesus Christ share that life-giving
truth with Muslims predisposed against it? To make matters worse, the Bible has a way
of stating things at times in the least attractive way to appeal to Muslims.
None of these Biblical expressions causes more confusion or offence, perhaps,
than the phrase, the “Son of God.” The interpretation and translation of the Biblical
phrase “Son of God” is an issue critical to Muslim evangelism. In the first place, Muslims
consider the idea onerous. Muslim apologists typically associate “Son of God” with

1
Nicene Creed.
2
See Michael S. Horton, “What is the Reformed Faith?” Reformed University Fellowship www.uw.ruf.org
and Donald McLeod, The Covenant www.freechurch.org for explanations of a Reformed and covenantal
theology and worldview.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

physical procreation, impossible for God. “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the Son of God;’ the
Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the Son of God.’ This is the utterance of their mouths,
conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they are
perverted!(3) Additionally, typical Christian explanations generally confirm Muslim
suspicion that Christians are really polytheists, not monotheists. “So believe in God and
His messengers, and say not, ‘Three.’ Refrain; better is it for you. God is only one God.
Glory be to Him-that He should have a son!”(4)
Contemporary missions has responded to the fact that Muslims and Christians
typically talk past each other by concentrating on contextualization to build bridges
between the faith systems. The contextualization approach that comes closest to
accommodating itself to Islam is known as “Insider Movements.” Insider movements
have variously been defined as, “popular movements to Christ that bypass both formal
and explicit expression of Christian religion,” or, “Movements to Jesus that remain to
varying degrees inside the social fabric of Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, or other people
groups.”(5) A key text used to support Insider methodology, regardless of which faith
system is involved is “Each one should remain in the condition in which he is called (1
Corinthians 7:20).” The phrase “movements to Jesus” or “popular movements to Christ”
are highly significant. Insider movements are not expressions of church planting. They
remain outside of Christianity and within their originating faith systems. Culture and its
most significant component religion are treated favorably as preparation for the gospel.
Religious texts and ceremonies, in that case, are not to be contested by Christian
outsiders. The Gospel is incarnated within the originating culture. Therefore, Insider
Muslims consider themselves as un-hyphenated Muslims, not expressions of highly
contextualized Christianity. The phrasing itself seems to imply an attempt at describing a
continuum from unbelief to Christ. Insider Movements represent a significant innovation
and, I believe, a serious departure from Biblical Christianity
Another term, C5, part of a scale of Muslim contextualization devised by John
Travis, addresses more thoroughly the distinctives of Insider Islam.(6) C5 describes a
community of Messianic Muslims who have accepted Jesus as Lord and savior. They
remain legally and socially within the Muslim community. They call themselves Muslims
without any reference to their relationship to Christ. Believers are free to remain active in
the mosque. They perform the salat like any other Muslim, thought the content of their
prayers may vary. They affirm the shahada (creed), underlining the prophethood of
Muhammed and may go on Hajj to Mecca. They may attend mosque regularly for
worship. In certain C5 communities, evangelical Christians can legally convert to Islam
and join the mosque community. They seem to gather justification for their ideas by
drawing parallels between what they do in a Muslim context and the early co-existence of

3
The Koran, A.J. Arberry, trans., (Oxford: OUP, ) Sura 9.30.
4
The Koran Sura 4.165.
5
Kevin Higgins 155. David Garrison, “Church Planting Movements versus Insider Movements”
International Journal of Frontier Missions 21:4 (Winter 2004) 151. Higgins was particularly useful in
outlining the scope of Insider ideology.
6
For detailed background and explanations see articles concerning Insider methods and C5 by: John
Travis, Brian Armstrong, Joshua Massey, Dean Gilliland, Jonathan Campbell, Darrell Whiteman. Contra
positions or serious reservations noted by Phil Parshall, Don Eenigenberg, David Garrison, Warren Larson,
Jim Leffel.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

churches and synagogues in the first century, focusing on the apparent lack of coercion
concerning Samaritan or Gentile conversions. Some go so far as to believe Paul banned
religious conversions. The hope, of course, is that Messianic Muslims will rethink and
redefine Islam according to the Bible.
Extraordinary initiatives have proliferated particularly within the Western
facilitators of the Insider community to modify or remove confusing or offensive
language that would impede evangelism. An alternative that has become increasingly
more popular, particularly in the wake of the proliferation of meaning-based translation
work, is to revisit the phrase itself. What does Son of God in fact mean? As far as some
contemporary scholars are concerned, Son of God as it is expressed in the New
Testament (NT), rarely if ever means Son as the eternally begotten second member of the
Trinity. Rather, Son of God should be seen for the perspective of the Old Testament and
Second Temple Judaism as the Messianic King (or perhaps a priest) come to earth to
redeem his people and establish his visible, ever-expanding kingdom.(7) If this is so,
why not then take the offending phrase out of Bible translations being given Muslims,
especially those being courted by what has been explained as “Insider Movements” of
Messianic Muslims, and replacing it with a less offensive alternative, such as “Jesus the
Messiah
This concern for removing “cultural” barriers has led over the last 10 years to the
creation of Insider Bible translations. These are characterized by a commitment to using
vocabulary and phrasing familiar as well as acceptable to Muslims. In their view, “Son
of God” essentially means “Messiah.” Given the offensive nature of the original phrase
and its potential to overly complicate the issue, why not use alternate phrasing that
conveys the essential meaning of “Son of God” without alienating the reader? Muslims
are perfectly ready to entertain discussion concerning the Messiah. Why let
misunderstood, obscure terms get in the way? As compelling as these arguments may be,
however, it would be an incalculably great error to remove Son of God from Bible
translations

Understanding the Son of God:

Son of God, the Bible tells us is not simply a king or even a servant. “Son” describes a
relationship of deeper significance. Unlike “king” or “servant,” “Son” connects Jesus
organically to God.(8) This is God’s only Son, addressing God as “My Father,” using the
language of the family not the throne room. This is the only child a parent could ever
have, not just the recipient of an honorific title given to an obedient servant. The level of
intimacy shared between the Father and the Son far exceeded the bounds of appropriate
Jewish piety. Ancient custom did recognize the use of “father” and “son” to describe
relationships between lords and vassals, but it never involved the degree of familial
speech used by God and Jesus. Saying this also highlights the significance of the words
“Father” and “Son” themselves. The words themselves describe a central reality

7
See especially J.D.G. Dunn, Anthony Harvey, Geza Vermes, Marcus Borg, and to a much lesser degree
N.T. Wright.
8
Colin E. Gunton, Yesterday and Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1983) 74.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

concerning God. Removing or replacing either of these removes the reality to which they
point. It would be more complete to say, however, that “Son of God” formed part of a
tapestry of biblical expression that pointed to and affirmed the ultimate deity of Jesus.
Divine sonship suffuses the New Testament. It binds up the Gospels, with a
divine Son revealed in the Cross in the first book, Mark, and gloriously worshipped in the
last, John. It is a divine Son that caps the entire Judaic cultus, as is revealed in Hebrews.
It is present before Jesus birth, in Luke 1, and it climaxes with the adoration of the Lamb
of God in the Revelation. It exists in the earliest Christian communities, as Acts briefly
alludes and Paul more clearly trumpets. The glue that binds the greater text together is not
the kingly messiah; it is the condescending, loving presence of God the Son, agent of
salvation and center of worship. A strictly monotheistic people learn to embrace Jesus in
worship, not slowly but with breathtaking speed following the crucifixion and
resurrection. This was not a grudging process of socialization to a new faith, but a
revolution cascading from the empty tomb as people became convinced that the Son of
God was no mere messiah, but one who embodied every aspect of his name.

Translating the Son of God: What Should the Bible Say?

My own review of the biblical text, historical, and contemporary scholarly literature
suggests a plethora of informed, diverse opinion. To be sure, the study yielded important
conclusions, but no better replacement for “Son of God” exists. The preponderance of the
evidence points to a significant difference between “Messiah” and “Son of God.” While
our study indicates the close connection of the two, it also reveals essential differences
that we must not ignore in an effort to simplify and contextualize. As Vern Poythress
points out, both expressions have “the same referent, Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,
but they do not have the same meaning.”(9) Fundamentally, “messiah” lacking the
analogy to family, misses any ontological, organic component. How can we ethically
translate out this essential understanding? If we are to build bridges to other belief
systems, so that we can communicate the truth, don’t we have an ethical obligation to
accurately communicate the content of that truth?
The primary tool for the creation of Insider translations is meaning-based
translation. Meaning-based translation was pioneered by Eugene Nida in order to bridge
gaps between the Bible and non-literate, non-western cultures.(10) To these people,
Biblical language appeared either opaque or misleading as it was written. A vehicle had
to be created with which to help people see what the biblical text means, not just what it
says. Nida and others innovatively did so by relating the text to the reader and his world,
bounded by the norms of his own culture.(11) These translations in a sense became
commentaries on the text that interpreted the Bible that would otherwise never be able to
understand it clearly. This proved and still proves instrumental in evangelizing so much

9
Vern S. Poythress, “Bbile Translation and Contextualization” E-Mail attachment.
10
Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “We Really Do Need Another Bible Translation” Christianity Today 45.13
22 October 2001: 28.
11
Robert L. Thomas, “Dynamic Equivalence: A Method of Translation or a System of Hermeneutics?”
159.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

of the world. We all have cultural blinders that inhibit our understanding of ideas and
events couched in the language of the “other.”
The race to simply replace “obscure” or “difficult” vocabulary with choices that
we feel accurately express the mind of God can have an additional unintended
consequence. The impulse to rush in and clear up things betrays, in my opinion, a
defective understanding both of the role of the church in interpretation and of the
perspicuity of scripture itself. It is not the task of the church to give scripture a clarity that
it does not have. Revelation is not a three step process involving the revelation of
confusing words, its reception by the faith community and then infusion of clarity in
interpretation. Scripture is already clear and sufficient as it is. This is not to say that
translators working among Muslim peoples should not seek to consider cultural
implications. It means, rather, that complex ideas such as “Son of God” are phrased as
they are for good reason. They reflect the mind and revelation of God. They are as clear
as He wants them to be and the words are explained God’s way and in God’s timing.

Applying our understanding of the Son of God

We should not translate out the “Son of God” from any specific biblical text for the
following reasons:

Son of God has a range of meanings, not limited to its use as a synonym for “Messiah.”
Replacing Son of God with Messiah will unnecessarily flatten the phrase and rob the
reader, I believe, of its most significant meaning. Everything possible will be placed on
the surface reading, but a phrase such as the Son of God is intended to reveal to the
careful, faithful reader, a great depth of meaning, not immediately visible to the casual
observer or novice. Of course, the phrase will offend aroused Muslim sensibilities. It
offended the High Priest, why shouldn’t it offend Muslims (Mk 14:63)? Substituting
Messiah for Son of God also runs the risk of stripping the text of its literary value. This is
above all not an esoteric point. The Bible is written with the specific words it uses and
uses them in a specific way for specific reasons, both then and now. Son of God, for
example, is used repeatedly to set up the reader’s expectations in order to demolish the
reader’s presuppositions. This is necessary in order to correct the believing and
unbelieving communities’ wrong ideas about Jesus.
The process is reflective of Luther’s “Hiddenness of God.” God, according to Luther,
hides himself from us, so that he can unearth our wrong ideas about him, and then reveal
himself, through the cross primarily, in order for us to gain a proper understanding of
both God and our relation to him.(12) Son of God is used repeatedly to do so within
individual texts and intertextually as canon. He hides in “fog and shadows” created for
our benefit.(13) God sets biblical literary traps for us that help us to understand him and
his plans for us. This involves both demonstrating the fallacy of our own views and then
the revelation of real truth by him to us. Luther’s hiddenness couples with his “Theology
of the Cross,” the belief that God conceals himself in his work of salvation, paradoxically
carrying out his will not through anticipated power, but through lowliness and

12
Steven D. Paulson, “Luther on the Hidden God,” Word and World Fall 1999: 363.
13
Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966) 22.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr 4 (March 2006)

weakness.(14) The combination of the two explains a mechanism whereby God uses his
Word to confront and overturn our own fallen ways of thinking. Taken in such a light,
Son of God becomes a principle means by which the Jewish expectation of a Messianic
King is at points, challenged, overturned, and expanded in such a way that Christ’s true
nature of God is revealed.
Similarly, “Messiah” strands the reader with an understanding of Jesus that is less
than that which the Bible proposes. The Bible wants us to understand that we are saved
by Jesus, the Son of God, who was with God in the beginning, and is God (John 1).
Messiah, a term already familiar to Muslims, and misunderstood by them, due to their
indoctrination in the worldview of Islam, would trap Muslims in their own
misunderstanding concerning the person and nature of Christ. Yes, Muslims could
experience the new birth and confess Christ as Lord, but until that community affirms
that Jesus is the crucified God, they will always embrace sub-biblical ideas, because they
will not be worshipping the God who is really there. God is after all, as the saints have
always professed, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Replacing the original language will unduly unbalance the translation in favor of
its immediate evangelistic utility as opposed to its importance in personal discipleship
and the long-term development of the believing community. Sustainable growth must
come through truly biblically literate bodies of believers, not communities of seekers.
Translation projects such as these illustrate the conflicting demands placed on
translations and highlight the imbalance placed in favor of evangelism rather than church
planting or long-term sustained growth. The core translation, therefore, must be for the
creation and development of the community of Christ, the Church, not simply as an
evangelistic primer.
Whenever cults have, in the history of the church, attempted to superimpose their
views, they have accompanied these efforts with Scripture of their own. Given the fact
that communities of Muslim Background Believers (MBB) already have a rapidly
expanding number of translations that fully use Muslim-friendly language, without
compromising key biblical phrasing, providing Insider Communities with alternate
translations that negate the use of “Son of God” can only have an enormously divisive
influence.(15) These groups, following such a trajectory, can only be seen at some point
by MBBs and Muslims alike as some sort of third religion or cult.
Likewise, the proliferation of more translations, particularly those which are seen
as compromising their message in order to make it more Muslim-friendly will be seen as
a sign of weakness both to MBB movements and Muslims. The Qur’an itself is not
modified for any reason. In a sense, it is not even explained. It is simply taught and
believed. People are immersed in its world through a rhythm of indoctrination. It strange,
non-linear structure becomes a strange kind of affirmation of its heavenly origin. We
keep trying to make it accessible. In one sense, that is of course right. On the other hand,
in our zeal to make it so, we seem to demonstrate a consummate “westerness” ourselves
that make its ultimate assimilation even more difficult. My own encounters with debates
concerning translation yield an interesting observation. When believers in Muslim-
dominated cultures debate the substitution of phrases such as the Son of God, it seems

14
Althaus 30.
15
Finlay and Sanneh 244.
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that Westerners always seem more enthusiastic than the indigenous believers to make the
switch. Why is that? We tell ourselves that it is because we have a greater level of Bible
knowledge. On the other hand, perhaps we like the idea because it is Western, just like
us.
Finally, we must admit, the Bible says, “Son of God.” This is, I know sounds like
an entirely naïve argument. Meaning-based translators have volumes of well-rehearsed
arguments that can challenge these words, but there is still, I believe, something in them a
certain gravitas. Dynamic equivalence was created to bridge gaps between the ideas of
God and the cultures of people. It has provided considerable service, particularly to
missionaries. At the same time, it has always run the risk of misunderstanding God.
There might be no problem if we all assumed that the Bible was an entirely human
document, but we know that it is “God-breathed” (2Tim 3:16). God knew what he was
saying when he said it, and he knew we would read it.

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