New Danish Bible version omits Israel

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Deuteronomy 4:2

As reported by the Danish site 24NYT, April 19, 2020:

A new official translation of the Bible into Danish arouses wonder among religious people. The Danish “Bible Society”, which is responsible for the translation, has cleansed the New Testament – which in the new edition is called “The New Agreement” of the word “Israel”.

According to Jan Frost, who has read the new edition, it applies both when the land of Israel and when the people of Israel are mentioned. Israel is otherwise mentioned in this way in the New Testament more than 60 times.

Mr. Frost states in a video posted on YouTube that the word ‘Israel’ is only used once in the “Bible 2020”, which is the name of the new edition. In all other passages, the word ‘Israel’ is either replaced with ‘Jews’, ‘the land of the Jews‘ or not replaced with an alternative term at all

The translators of the new edition, according to Jan Frost, offer the explanation, that the land of Israel in biblical times was not identical to present Israel.

But the same logic is not applied by the translators when the land of Egypt is mentioned. This land is also called ‘Egypt’ in the new edition of the Bible.

On social media, several users are furious at the radical change of such a central element of the New Testament, and a widespread criticism suggests a suspicion that Israel has been removed for political reasons.

As reported by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz of Breaking Israel News, April 20, 2020 (links in original):

...Posts on social media suggested that the change may have been politically motivated as an anti-Israel statement. In a recent interview about the Bible 2020, Elaine Duncan, Global Council Chairperson of the Bible Society, noted that the new edition has already been downloaded to more than 90 countries, which she considered to be a great success at moving towards what she described as a “global church.”

Rabbi Tuly Weisz, the founder of Israel365, an organization that promotes the significance of the Land of Israel to the nations, disagreed strongly with the approach of the Danish Bible society.

“This translation of the New Testament is an important reminder that replacement theology is not a problem of the past,” Rabbi Weisz told Breaking Israel News. “Some segments of Christianity still have a replacement theology problem. The notion that Israel can be scrubbed from the Bible is as ridiculous as removing ‘God’ from the Bible.”

Christian replacement theology, also called supersessionism, holds that the Christian Church has succeeded the Israelites as the definitive people of God. Supersessionism requires reading the term Israel, referring to either the people or the land, as an allegory for the Christian Church.

It should be noted that the Danish Bible Society is run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church, a strong proponent of supersessionism. In 2018, Robert O. Smith, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and a stalwart in the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, addressed a conference at St. Olaf Institute for Freedom and Community. Smith was seated before a Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) banner and made these declarations: “The ancient Israelites are not linked in any substantive or material way to the contemporary, modern state of Israel. . . . The biblical narrative of Israel has almost nothing to do with contemporary Israel other than the intentional manipulation of sacred texts to justify a political project.”

At the same conference, Palestinian Lutheran pastor, administrator, and theologian Mitri Raheb stated, that “it wasn’t the Lord God who promised Israel the land; it was the Lord Balfour.” Raheb also claimed that “Jesus was a Middle Eastern Palestinian Jew.”

Rabbi Weisz believes that Israel is one of the basic tenets of the Bible and towards this end, published The Israel Bible, a Hebrew version of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings with a linear English translation. As its name implies, The Israel Bible focuses on the land in which the Biblical events took place, the people of Israel, and the relationship between them, and the modern state that is the manifestation of God’s eternal covenant.

“Each of the 929 chapters of The Israel Bible features a different aspect of the land of Israel, the people of Israel, and the God of Israel,” Rabbi Weisz said. “The term Israel encompasses all three and they are inseparable. If you remove Israel from the Bible, you have removed God from the Bible.”

It should be noted that the term “Israel” is used a total of 73 times in the New Testament, the term “Israel” is used a total of 73 times in the New Testament. The term is first used in the Torah as a name given to Jacob after battling the angel of Esau, meaning “You have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:29). Israel became synonymous with his descendants, the Children of Israel, and the land God promised to them. The word ‘ Israel’ appears over 2,200 times in the Torah, Writings, and Prophets. It is also interesting to note that ‘Jerusalem’ and its alternative Hebrew name ‘Zion’ appear 850 times in the Old Testament.