Will Norway have a "Bibel 2011 Only" movement?

This article, while not having anything particularly new to say in the endless Bible translation debates, still was quite interesting to me. I’m an unusual case, though, having left a church in 2002 that was otherwise mostly solid, but slowly changed to KJVO over the years I attended, so I can’t resist reading as much as I can on the translation issues (from just about any side of the issue, except the extreme Riplinger or Ruckman camps). Plus, I’m of Norwegian descent from my father’s side, so while I have no current connection to that country, I still am interested in news from there.

It’s a bit of a disadvantage (but also of interest to me) not knowing Norwegian and trying to understand the translation differences discussed in the article. “Perish” sounds fine to me, since that’s what I’m used to in English, but not knowing all the intricacies of that word in Norwegian, I can’t tell if that word would be a better choice than the current “get lost.” I do know that after years of using the KJV, my church using the ESV still sounds “off” to me, if no longer jarring, and some of the newer language choices still seem unnecessary, even if not theologically a problem.

I do agree that pretty much any new translation effort, no matter how accurate or well-intended, is going to take a lot of criticism for changes, and can really only be judged fairly some years later after the controversy has subsided, if not disappeared.

…..if it’s about the Norwegian equivalent of “country and western Christianity”, where someone lives with their “Sambu” (same home in Swedish, I’m guessing there’s a Norwegian equivalent) all year and then gets their baby “baptized”, and notices that the wording changes.

Not good enough in Norwegian to figure out if there’s another issue, but generally that’s a real objection with those whose lives don’t totally intersect with the church on a regular basis.

(C& W Christianity is when a country star living with his girlfriend and singing of rowdiness in the honky-tonks for a living thanks Jesus for his success, e.g. Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, etc..)

[Bert Perry]

…..if it’s about the Norwegian equivalent of “country and western Christianity”, where someone lives with their “Sambu” (same home in Swedish, I’m guessing there’s a Norwegian equivalent) all year and then gets their baby “baptized”, and notices that the wording changes.

I suspect you are right about changes in “ceremonial” language. I’d bet there are a fair number of people my age who may know no more KJV than the passage Linus quotes in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” who would, nonetheless, notice the change if someone read that passage in the ESV instead. (To this day, I can’t read along out loud with people reading passages like Luke 2 or Psalm 23 out of the ESV or NIV since I memorized those in the KJV.) Looking at the comments in the article, it’s clear that some people just don’t want things like their funeral ceremonies changed to language that makes things sound worse for the departed (thus impacting the consciences of those still living) than it currently does.

However, for any who truly do believe who may be concerned about the changes, maybe they just don’t want the new Bible to sound like a Norwegian version of the TNIV (or worse versions).