JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Thu Jan 08, 2026 8:18 am
The Cotton Patch Epistles do much less of the changes of historical settings, except for making the Jew/Gentile distinction become White/Black, which fits the culture of the American South. Jordan had some good insights into how to make the Word speak relevantly to the people around him.
Except replacing Jew and Gentile with White and Black is a completely bogus change. For example, "white people" have never been God's chosen people, that God called to be set apart from black people and not to intermarry with them.
"Completely bogus" seems an exaggeration. The cultural attitude of superiority of the Jew to the Gentile closely parallels the attitude of the Southern White Culture toward the blacks. The call to understand our kinship and equality remains the same. I don't think anyone reads the Cotton Patch version not realizing that there has been a translation in culture. Like "The Message", the Cotton Patch Version gives insight into the meaning and application of the scripture, but shouldn't be used as a sole resource.
Disclosure: I was a member of Jubilee Partners for over a decade. Jubilee was a daughter community of Koinonia Partners, founded by Clarence Jordan, the author of The Cotton Patch Version. I visited Koinonia a number of times, and Koinonia folks visited us. Clarence was working on his cotton patch version of John when he died, so we just have three gospels, Acts, and the Epistles. Clarence didn't think the cotton patch approach would be useful for the apocalyptic message of Revelation.
JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Thu Jan 08, 2026 8:18 am
The Cotton Patch Epistles do much less of the changes of historical settings, except for making the Jew/Gentile distinction become White/Black, which fits the culture of the American South. Jordan had some good insights into how to make the Word speak relevantly to the people around him.
Except replacing Jew and Gentile with White and Black is a completely bogus change. For example, "white people" have never been God's chosen people, that God called to be set apart from black people and not to intermarry with them.
But they have sometimes acted like they are.
I would think it best not to alter the scriptures to match that, then.
JimFoxvog wrote: ↑Thu Jan 08, 2026 8:18 am
The Cotton Patch Epistles do much less of the changes of historical settings, except for making the Jew/Gentile distinction become White/Black, which fits the culture of the American South. Jordan had some good insights into how to make the Word speak relevantly to the people around him.
Except replacing Jew and Gentile with White and Black is a completely bogus change. For example, "white people" have never been God's chosen people, that God called to be set apart from black people and not to intermarry with them.
"Completely bogus" seems an exaggeration. The cultural attitude of superiority of the Jew to the Gentile closely parallels the attitude of the Southern White Culture toward the blacks. The call to understand our kinship and equality remains the same. I don't think anyone reads the Cotton Patch version not realizing that there has been a translation in culture. Like "The Message", the Cotton Patch Version gives insight into the meaning and application of the scripture, but shouldn't be used as a sole resource.
Disclosure: I was a member of Jubilee Partners for over a decade. Jubilee was a daughter community of Koinonia Partners, founded by Clarence Jordan, the author of The Cotton Patch Version. I visited Koinonia a number of times, and Koinonia folks visited us. Clarence was working on his cotton patch version of John when he died, so we just have three gospels, Acts, and the Epistles. Clarence didn't think the cotton patch approach would be useful for the apocalyptic message of Revelation.
It would seem to distort the message of the New Testament to say that “for if black people have shared in white people’s spiritual blessings, they owe it to white people to share with them their material blessings.” Or “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the white person, then to the black person.”
Particularly since black people were amongst the very first converts, and nearly all white groups of people didn’t convert for hundreds of years later.
I understand that the supply of the first run of the TTB (Traditional Text Bible) was exhausted, and a second run will be made available the end of January. I was told the first run was something like 10,000, and I would imagine the second to be similar.
Donny D wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 10:17 am
I understand that the supply of the first run of the TTB (Traditional Text Bible) was exhausted, and a second run will be made available the end of January. I was told the first run was something like 10,000, and I would imagine the second to be similar.
Donny D wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 2:38 pm
Just Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The rest of the NT is still being worked on.
I was working on Scripture for a people group that had no access to any parts of the Bible at all, so that was an almost completely different case. But anyways, we did Luke and Acts first, to form a framework for the remainder of the New Testament. (Then we realized how much they needed at least parts of the Old Testament to make sense of the NT, and didn't finish all of the NT.)
