Yo Joe! Remix #228. NIV vs. KJV vs. ESV (Bible wars told via GI Joe)

I need to ask you a personal question.

Which would be cooler, if I dressed up as Storm Shadow or Snake Eyes for the debut of the GI Joe movie?

Seriously, be honest with me. On the one hand, Snake Eyes was always silent and wore black and even sometimes traveled with a timber wolf that was named “Timber.” (Kind of phoned that name in didn’t ya GI Joe writers?) And Snake Eyes is the good guy with a mysterious past. On the other hand, Storm Shadow is just so Storm Shadow. He’s a mercenary bound by the ninja code and on a mission to find the long lost murderer of his sensei. So it’s a bit of a dilemma and I’m having a hard time making a decision.

But what was an easy decision was whether or not to remix this post in which I compared versions of the Bible to GI Joe characters. When I originally wrote it back in May, I didn’t even know there was a movie coming out. When I saw the commercial for it during the Super Bowl I jumped off my couch and immediately climbed up the 12 foot high open wall in our great room into the second story of our house like a ninja out of sheer excitement. (My wife tells that story differently, but she’s not very good at recognizing ninja moves. I’m just saying.)

So today I thought we would remix the GI Joe post, adding some new versions of the Bible from reader suggestions. And away we go:

Remix #228. NIV vs. KJV vs. ESV (Bible wars told via GI Joe)

I’ve never been to seminary, so if they use a different cartoon from the 1980s to teach the differences between versions of the Bible, my bad. But when I sat down to write a post about how we like to represent and argue for our own brand of the Bible, I kept hearing the little Jon inside whispering, “yo Joe, yo Joe.”

So here it is, my explanation of the different versions of the Bible as told through the lens of GI Joe.

1. NIV = Flint
On the show, Flint wears a beret, but it somehow manages to look cool. He’s the third in command and comes off as very approachable and accessible. He’s not trying to be the number one, he’s just walking through life as he sees it. Honestly, openly, it’s going to be alright. I feel the same way about the NIV or New International Version. The chief complaint I hear is that it’s not the most accurate version of the text. I think the NIV, much like Flint, is OK with that. I think at night when it’s playing Mario Kart with the other versions of the Bible it says, “Hey, I get it, I’m not as accurate as the ESV, but you know what? A lot of people read me. A lot of lives are changed by me, and that’s what it’s really about. Changing lives.”

2. Hebrew Bible = Roadblock
A reader named Chris suggested that the Hebrew Bible best fit with the character Roadblock because “there’s no getting through it.” I don’t know if that’s true because I’ve never read the Hebrew Bible but I do know that it’s heavy and so was Roadblock. Long before they made Chicago Bears player William “the Fridge” Perry a character, Roadblock was the big hitter for the Joes. According to his official file card, that’s right I’m quoting from an official file card for a fictional Heavy Machine Gunner, this is what Roadblock carried around all day. “A .50 cal. Browning weighing 84 pounds with fifty pounds for the ammo – that’s about 134 pounds of steel generating 2930 f.p.s. in muzzle velocity at a cyclic rate of 550 r.p.m.” I don’t know what the second half of that sentence means, but I weigh 140 pounds so essentially Roadblock was carrying me around. (If I were a gun I would generate 2930 f.p.s in sarcasm velocity.) That’s big time. And the Hebrew Bible is the same way. You might not be able to whip it out at work and use it to witness to a friend with it, but for those heavy moments when you’re ready to go deep into the word, it’s going to suit you just fine.

3. King James Version = Storm Shadow
When I was younger, I really wanted to be Storm Shadow. And by “younger” I mean last week. Seriously, he was just so cool. Storm Shadow was a ninja clad all in white that constantly battled the forces of good and evil within him. Yes, he worked for the bad guys Cobra, but deep inside he was pure. And my favorite thing was that he was unapologetically old school. He studied with these ninja masters in Japan and made his decisions based on a foundation of knowledge from thousands of years ago. That’s how I feel about the KJV of the Bible. It’s old school. Sure that makes it a little clunky, but so what? If you want to be a Christian ninja, I think you have to go the way of the KJV.

4. TNIV = Lady Jaye
If you were a boy and played with GI Joe you kind of had to have a crush on Lady Jaye. You didn’t have many other options. The Baroness was bad and in some sort of weird relationship with Destro, and by weird I mean he had a shiny metal head. Lady Jaye was your best option and fight it though you may, you still developed a bit of a crush on her. That’s how I feel about the TNIV. My church, North Point Community Church, has kind of adopted this version of the Bible as their standard, and every time they quote the TNIV I think, “Hey, that TNIV is not so bad. Maybe I could get one and keep is somewhere in my house where my NIV version would never find out about it. Is that Bible cheating?” That’s probably weird, but the TNIV also deals with gender issues, and so did Lady Jaye, as in the issue of “How come me and Scarlett are the only ladies firing lasers at bad guys when we fight? Where my ladies at?”

5. Message = Wild Bill
Wild Bill was the crazy helicopter pilot on the show. He wore a vest and a huge mustache and was always saying crazy things that perfectly summed up the situation. Wild Bill could summarize, in an easy to understand language, situations that all the other Joes needed to hear about. His wasn’t the only opinion that mattered, you still had to balance out his ideas with those of Flint and Duke, but he did have something valuable to say. Same with the Message. It’s a good read. It makes things easy to understand. Is it the only Bible I’d read? No. But it’s still a good one to have fighting alongside you.

6. Amplified = Sgt. Slaughter
According to Bible Gateway, the Amplified Bible “attempts to take both word meaning and context into account in order to accurately translate the original text from one language into another.” According to me, the Amplified version is like Sgt. Slaughter. This GI Joe character is best suited to the Amplified Bible because he crossed over into professional wrestling as well. Much like taking the word meaning and the context into account, Sgt. Slaughter had a role in the cartoon and also body slammed people for the WWF (before it became the WWE).

7. New Revised Standard Version = Scarlett
To tell you the truth, I went back and forth on this one. On the one hand, I got wildly differing descriptions of what the NRSV is all about. Some readers suggested it was the official translation for Roman Catholics while other readers suggested “that guy that said it’s the official translation for Roman Catholics is wrong.” Ultimately, having little experience with either Scarlett or the NRSV (my cartoon heart beats for Lady Jaye) I went with what a reader named Beloved Spear said: “Oh, c’mon, my liberal brethren. Don’t just kvetch about the NRSV not being there. Get with the program. New Revised Standard Version = Scarlett. Yeah, she’s a chick. But she’s a counter-intel chick, smart as a tack with a roundhouse kick like you wouldn’t believe. She likes her translations accurate *and* gender neutral. You got a problem with that, soldier?”

8. NASB = Duke
On the show, Duke was the equivalent of apple pie and the American flag and down home values. While Flint was a little rougher around the edges, Duke bled red, white and blue. I feel the same thing about the New American Standard Bible. It puts a big emphasis on contemporary English and verbs and translating things into a smoother format. And it has the word “American” in the title, which is obviously a very American thing to do. Like Duke.

9. ESV = Snake Eyes
Decked out all in black, Snake Eyes was the GI Joe version of Storm Shadow. He came from the same dojo, and you better believer there is no pain in that dojo, but he chose a life of helping the good guys. He had a cool red striped tattoo on his arm and never said a word, only adding to his mystique. He was old school too, but seemed more approachable than Storm Shadow. Same with the English Standard Version. I’ve heard it’s the most accurate translation, just what I’ve heard, but it still feels easier to read than the KJV.

10. New Versions = Random Characters
Right now, if you sell a lot of books, they’ll give you your very own version of the Bible. I don’t have a problem with that, but they all kind of run together for me, like the random bad guys on Cobra or random good guys on Joe. These are the secondary characters that are dressed all in blue or all in green and just fire lasers in the background. They don’t have any lines, but are still an important part of the battle. I feel the same way about niche Bibles. I doubt for instance that the John Maxell edition of the Bible will ever overtake the NIV version, but it’s still a nice resource.

Wow, that was longer than I expected. But at least now you know, and … I can’t do it. I already made the joke, “knowing is half the battle” on another post.

Did I miss any Bible versions or characters?