Review of the One New Man Bible

The One New Man Bible is by Rev. William J Morford, published 2011. It covers the whole Bible. My Published Translation covers only the New Testament. This review will cover selected passages from the Torah and Prophets as well as the Evangelists.

No. 1: Gen. 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Traditional though it may be this translation is incorrect. It should be “In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, ....” The Hebrew verb should be vowel pointed as infinitive construct as it follows a construct word, and as parallel passages show, i.e. Gen. 2:4 and 5:1.

No. 2: Gen 1:2, “And the earth was totally empty, [devoid of all life, both animal and plant] and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered, brooded, over the face of the waters. ” This also is incorrect as it implies that an empty earth existed. Better, “when the earth had been naught and nothing....” There was no earth at the beginning, there was only water. The words “hovered” and “brooded” translate the same Hebrew word. The repetition is unnecessary. Neither quite captures the sense. Literally, “fluttering,” and the intended idea is something like “vibrating” on the surace of the waters, rapid movement of the surface back and forth. The translation does not make it clear that something is happening to the water, as the Piel participle implies, literally, “making to be a fluttering upon the waters,” and not simply the Spirit flying like a mother bird.

No. 3: “And God said, “Light, Be!” Morford clearly does not know how to deal with waw consecutive, but no other translator does either. “And” is the typical way to translate waw conjunctive. “Then” is the way to translate waw consecutive. Better, “Then God said....”

No. 4: “And God said, “Waters under the heavens, Be gathered together to one place! Dry land, Appear!” No this translation will not fly at all. A jussive is a third person imperative, thus “Let them,” or more literally, “May they be gathered” (Niphal, passive). This sort of mistake appears to be continued in other texts.

No. 5: “He made the stars also.” Traditional, but bad. “...and the stars” is proper. The phrase belongs with the sentence before. See Young’s Literal Translation.

No. 6: “So God created mankind in His own image; He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. ” Better, “Then the Almighty creates mankind in his image. In the image of the Almighty he has created it. Male and female he has created them.” Morford misses the change up in the Hebrew tenses here from imperfect to perfect. The change is thelogically significant because it implies that mankind was still in the image of God after the fall, the perfect being gnomic (a timeless truism). Morford’s footnote on “image” is not helpful: “The first image is the physical resemblance to God, the second the love, the feelings and emotions of God.” This speculation is a result of missing the significance of the tense change. The definition of sameness of his image in man is inadquate. We have to include will and decision making power also, and in fact man is in every respect like God except that he is not God. He is limited in the same qualities that God has.

No. 7: “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.” What is wanting here are the declarative Piels: “Then the Almighty declared to be finished....then he declared to be made holy...” This idiom causes untold confusion in the versions beginning with the LXX and SP. He finished his work on the sixth day before sunset. The text is only saying he declared it finished on the seventh just as he declared the seventh day holy on the seventh day after it had begun.

No. 8: Gen. 2:4a “These are the chronicles of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.” Finally, I get to say something good. Chronicles is a good translation of Toledoth. I myself prefer to use the word “histories.” “Generations” is misleadingly limited. Morford, however, has mistakenly placed the clause at the beginning of the section. In fact, the statement closes the first account of creation. And like Gen. 1:1, “In the day of” (with infinitive construct) begins the next.

No. 9: Gen. 4:25, “Then men began to call upon the name of the LORD.” No good, but “Then it had been made profane to call on the name of Yahweh.”

No. 10: Gen. 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD*, and He counted it to him for acts of loving kindness.[3]” Note 3: “Acts of loving kindness mean going beyond the requirement of God to be just, to do right.” Better, “And he had confirmed his faithfulness in Yahweh. Then he counted it to his as righteousness.” The note is terrible. It suggests to me the idea of Supererogatory merits and the creation of the doctrine of Avot Zechut (merits of the fathers) for the sake of applying the merit to the demerits of Jews who need extra merit for the forgiveness of sins. Charity seems to be behind the definition of note 3, and this is one of those pious acts by which Jews earned zechut (merit).

No. 11: Deut. 6:4: ““Listen! Obey, O Israel! The LORD* is our God! The LORD* is One![3]” And note 3: “ (v.4) A good alternative reading is: “The LORD*, only the LORD* is our God!” Better, “Hear Israel, Yahweh is our Almighty, Yahweh only.” The text has nothing to do with the internal nature of the Almighty, and everything to do with setting him apart from other elohim. The alternative reading agrees with my translation. It should have been the main text. The word “echad” is being used adverbially.

No. 12: Isa. 7:14, “Behold, the young woman[4] will conceive and bear a son and she will call His name Emanuel.[5]” Absolutely no good! But: “Behold, the virgin is pregnant and birthing a son. And you will have called his name: Immanuel.” See my blog post on the Virgin Birth! Note 4: “The Hebrew word ‘almah’ means maiden, marriageable young woman, and in modern Hebrew, virgin. An unmarried woman in Bible times had to be a virgin or she would be stoned. (Deut. 22:20, 21)” Why not translate it maiden then? The note is better than the translation. Actually Almah is the clinical word for “virgin,” derived from a Hebrew root meaning “hidden, concealed” (no man has known her). The Hebrew word for maiden is bethulah, more commonly used, and more polite.

The New Testament

I shall here confine myself to non-chronological problems.

No. 1: Acts 13:48, “And the heathens, hearing this, were rejoicing and praising the message about the Lord and as many as were believing were being set into eternal life:” A valiant attempt to fix the predestination problem here, but not by legimate means. Better GNM, “And hearing this, the nations were rejoicing and were glorifying the Word of Yăhwҽh. Then, as many as had disposed themselves to seek everlasting life confirmed their faithfulness.” The middle voice verb is reflexive. The translation “heathens” is improperly prejudicial. “Nations” is correct.

No. 2: Col. 2:16, “Therefore no one must be continually judging you by food and by drink or in part of a feast or new moon or Sabbaths:[4] 17. which are a shadow of the things that are coming, but the body making the shadow is of the Messiah.[5]” Better, GNM, “Therefore let no one judge you in eating and in drinking, either when partaking of a feast, or new moon, or Ȿabbaȶhs, 17 which are a reflection of the things to come. And the Anŏinted is the [reflecting] body.” Morford makes or adopts several mistakes in Col. 2:16. Food should be “eating.” Drink should be “drinking.” “Or in” should be “either when,” which clearly makes the eating and drinking the objects of judging and the holy days only the occassions upon which the judging might take place. More notes on this in GNM.

No. 3: Rom. 1:17, “For the righteousness of God is revealed in this, [coming] out of faith for [greater] faith, just as it has been written, “And the righteous will live by faith.” (Hab. 2:4)” But GNM: “because the justice of the Almĭghty in it is revealed from faithfulness to faithfulness, even as it is written, “But the righteous one by his faithfulness will live.” Hab 2;4. Morford has clearly missed God’s faithfulness here as well as the proper meaning “faithfulness.” But do not be surprised. All the the versions here are wrong. Even N.T. Wright tries to render “faith” at the end of the verse.

No. 4: Rom. 3:21: “But now without Torah (Teaching) the righteousness of God has been revealed in being witnessed by the Torah (Teaching) and the Prophets.” Like every other translation, Morford’s rendition of Romans and Galatians is a complete disaster. On this verse, GNM: “But now apart from [judicial] custom, the justice of the Almĭghty is made visible, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”

No. 5: Rom. 3:24, “being made righteous freely by His grace,” But GNM: “being administered justice benevolently, by his lovingkindness through the ransom which is in the Anŏinted Yҽ̆shua.” Morford’s insertion of the Catholic definition of “justified” into the text here crashes and burns on vs. 28: “For we consider a man to be made righteous by faith without works of Torah (Teaching);” but GNM: “because we are accounting a man to be administered justice by [the Anŏinted’s] faithfulness apart from the customary works.”

No. 6: Rom. 10:4, “because the purpose of Torah (Teaching) is Messiah in order to provide righteousness for everyone who believes.” This, of course, contradicts what Morford put in Rom. 3:28. GNM: “Because the Anŏinted is the end of the norm for justice to everyone confirming their faithfulness.”

No. 7: Gal. 2:21, “I did not cancel the grace of God: for if I am in righteousness through legalism, then Messiah died in vain.” Better, GNM: “I am not setting aside the loving kindness of the Almĭghty, because if justice is through the norm then the Anŏinted died needlessly.” Justice through the norm actually agrees with Paul’s Greek. Legalism is only half of the right idea. Seeking an acquittal is the other half. Morford has guessed the right meaning from context as did David Stern, but did not technically figure out how to get the idea from the Greek.

No. 8: 2 Cor. 5:21, “He made the One Who did not know sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we ourselves would know the righteousness of God by means of Him.” Terrible. Corrected in GNM: “He made him who knew no sin to be a sin [offering] on our behalf, so that we might ourselves become the righteousness of the Almĭghty by him.” The word “sin” is used in Hebrew and LXX Greek to mean a sin offering. Messiah was not made “sin,” but a sin offering. “Know the righteousness of God” is a weak translation. The text is more direct, and the verb is middle voice (reflexive).

No. 9: Gal. 2:16, “but, since we know that man is not justified because of works of tradition, but only through faith in Y’shua Messiah, we too have believed in Messiah Y’shua, so that we would be made righteous by faith in Messiah and not by works of legalism, because no one will be made righteous by works of legalism.” A valiant effort. Much better, GNM: “But we have known a man will not be administered justice from the customary works, but through the faithfulness of the Anŏinted Yҽ̆shua. Even we to the Anŏinted Yҽ̆shua have confirmed faithfulness, so that justice may be administered from the faithfulness of the Anŏinted, and not from the customary works, because from the customary works no flesh will be administered justice.” Morford did right to use the word “tradition,” but he fails with the word “justified” because it carries through to the next clause, and then he equivocates it with the Catholic definition “made righteous”. The atonement is not a declaration of innoncence or us being made righteous, but follows a guilty plea upon our repentance. Justified properly means “administered justice” (in a punitive sense as in classical Greek). Morford’s use of the objective genitive, “in Messiah” is incorrect, as also the translation “believe.”

Major Problems

Morford has opted for the Roman Catholic definition of justify, “made righteous.” This is an improvement over Protestant forensic righteousness because at least it is real and not fictitious. David Stern had opted for “declared righteous,” which is a worse disaster. But both are incorrect. Justify in classical and Koine Greek (cf. Dio Cassius, Josephus) means “to administer justice” (of a punitive nature) when its object is a person. In Hebrew, the verb tsadaq in the Hiphil means to “get justice for” someone in a favorable sense. This is how Absalom used it in 2 Sam. 15:4, and how it is used in Isa. 53:11 (cf. HALOT). Messiah as our advocate has gotten justice for us by offering his own life to pay our penalty. This has nothing to do with declaring the sinner righteous or making the sinner righteous. Morford could probably learn a thing or two about this from N.T. Wright. He hasn’t heard of me yet, and Wright is only 1/3 of the way there. The Reformation is at 0.

Morford translates pistis as “faith,” which is a major mistake. Faithfulness is the sense. Further he fails to recognize the subjective genitive implicit in the contexts. Faith in Christ should be “the faithfulness of Messiah.” It’s not our faith that administers the justice to us.

On the verb form of pistis (pisteuw), Morford also fails. The verb when used with a personal object means to pledge one’s loyalty to another, hence “to affirm (or confirm) one’s faithfulness.”

On the word Law, Morford fails to reckon well enough with the literal meaning, a custom a norm for something, yet he does in one place at least recognize it partly, in Gal. 2:16.

In summary, Morford’s Hebrew translation fails to fix any of the major traditional problems, and his Greek translation of the NT fails to get to the bottom of two thousand years of corrupt translations on pretty much all the major points.

There are hundreds of other nuanced mis-translations which from this brief survey of his work I am confident that he simply repeats from the tradition without making corrections in detail.