The Danish Bible society has come under fire for deleting dozens of references to Israel from its translation of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
The omissions occurred in a project called “Bible 2020” which was published under the society’s supervision earlier this year. The deletions were spotted by Jan Frost, a Bible enthusiast and pro-Israel supporter from Denmark, who counted 59 omissions out of 60 references to Israel in the Greek origin for New Testament texts.
For example, Psalm 121:4 reads: “he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” However, in the society’s translation, the word Israel is replaced with “us.”
According to the Times of Israel, the Danish Bible Society defended its edits, saying it was keen to avoid confusing the Land of Israel with the modern-day State of Israel.
“The Psalms book is the most read part of the Old Testament among Christians,” Frost wrote on Facebook. “Although many of the hymns are about the people of Israel, the translators of the Bible 2020 thought that they could disregard that in some of the hymns.”
“That’s why they have skilfully adapted the text and removed the name Israel. Can you call it translating the text? Judge for yourself. With old theological expression, it is called ‘replacement theology.’ You replace Israel with the church.”