A moment in ecumenical history

June 1953: RSV is on the best seller lists

Fifty-five years ago this spring, the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was on the nation's lists of best selling books.

The New York Times listed it as number 5 on the nonfiction list – just below Major Campaign Speeches by Adlai E. Stevenson, and just above Arnold Toynbee's The World and the West. Topping the list was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, but the RSV was doing better than A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall, and Angel Unaware by Dale Evans Rogers.

The impetus to revise the Bible began in 1929 when the International Council of Religious Education authorized its Bible Committee to study the need for updating the American Standard Version. The Committee was instructed to "review the Bible in the light of modern scholarship, and at the same time retain the simple classical style of the King James Version."

Chaired by Dr. Luther A. Weigle, dean emeritus of Yale Divinity School, work on the revision got under way in 1932. The New Testament was completed in 1945 and published in 1946, with sales of more than 2 million copies. The revision of the Old Testament was completed in October 1951.

Presses started rolling on the complete Bible in three cities on March 19, 1952. In New York, National Council of Churches General Secretary Samuel McCrea Cavert offered a prayer as Associate General Secretary Roy G. Ross – one of the prime movers of the project – pressed the button that started the presses.

The Revised Standard Version was immediately received with widespread scholarly approval, popular support in the form of sales, and substantial criticism from many quarters.

Norman Vincent Peale said the RSV would be a great help "for everyone seeking peace of mind, victory over fear, and a solution of personal and social problems." Harry Emerson Fosdick declared every Christian should own one. "It combines dignity and elevation of style with scrupulous accuracy," he said.

At the same time, Dr. C.P. Lincoln, in a critique still available on the Internet, said in January 1953 that the RSV was the product of liberal scholars with heretical views that included denying the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus. Other critics resorted to the calumny of the times and simply dismissed the RSV as "Communist."

Those critics may have been surprised to learn that at least one erstwhile Communist hated it. Dwight Macdonald, an quixotic American journalist, believed the revision stripped away the majestic language of the King James version in favor of an easy-to-read American accent. It was, he said, like "taking apart Westminster Abbey to make Disneyland." Macdonald later became an anti-communist, but his fellow party members had already abandoned him. Leon Trotsky complained, "Every man has a right to be stupid on occasion but Comrade Macdonald abuses it."

Ultimately, the RSV – and later the New Revised Standard Version – became the bible of choice among millions of Christians and the standard in most mainline pew racks and seminaries.

Donald C. Bolles, editor of National Council Outlook, the NCC's monthly magazine, brushed aside criticism that the RSV was in any sense new fangled. "In a sense, this edition of the Bible is the oldest yet," Bolles said in 1951. "The scholars used manuscripts of more ancient origin than those available in the 16th century."

In making the Good book better, Bolles concluded, "the scholars have added an incomparable treasure to the work of the churches."