Doulos -- Wrongly translated by ALL the English Versions but one?

This isn't going to be a well-researched post, just off the top of my head, so I may have to eat some of it later, you never know.

Heard part of an interview with John MacArthur on Christian radio recently, about a new book of his titled Slave -- first time I'd heard of it -- in which he apparently goes into great detail about this particular Greek word doulos that is translated "servant" in all our English Bibles (but one I'll get to), but which he insists should have been translated "slave." He seems to believe that a great deal of modern theological error that has Jesus being at OUR beck and call rather than we being at His, might never have developed if this word had been properly translated "slave." It's an interesting point.

Of course there is a technical side to this that I am not in a position to judge. I looked up the word in Burgon's Revision Revised to see if he had anything to say about it, and found him mentioning it in a paragraph about many Greek words the 1881 Revisionists had glossed with marginal notes, in the case of doulos notes that point out that it means "bondservant" although apparently in the text they had rendered it "servant" in keeping with the King James. Burgon's comment in effect was that there was no need to bother the reader with such an obvious piece of information, which implies that he thought the implication of "bondservant" quite apparent in the term "servant" already.

And perhaps it was more apparent in the English-speaking mind then than to us today, that's a historical and linguistic question, but now it doesn't carry that connotation so clearly. A servant now is someone who is hired, paid money for his work to spend as he sees fit, and independent of the employer when off duty; but a slave, and I think also a bondservant, is bought, not hired, and always at the command of the owner.

Perhaps Burgon had this in mind as attaching to the word "servant" but I don't know. In any case, John MacArthur makes some very good points in favor of the word "slave" since we are told in scripture we were "bought at a price" and are OWNED by our Lord Jesus, not merely hired by Him, and certainly we don't tell Him what to do but we are always to be like good slaves (or servants) who "wait upon" our Lord to understand His command and execute it promptly.

MacArthur is certainly right that Christians don't often live as if this were the case, but instead pray for Him to do OUR bidding more often than not rather than waiting upon HIS will. And there is this horrible contemporary theology that has sprung up that describes the Christian life as trusting Jesus to take care of what WE want and what WE think we need, to make our lives happy, improve our marriages and our finances and so on, that even objects to the idea that we are to submit to Jesus as Lord, and makes Him into our servant. I do think that this ought to be clear enough from scripture apart from however the term doulos is to be translated, but it's always good to hear this way of thinking put down and John MacArthur is always good at doing this sort of thing.

SO. Perhaps doulos would be clearer if translated "slave," if only because "servant" may have lost in our time important connotations of absolute submission to the Lord that it used to have, and perhaps that is one to put on the list for the revision of the King James I keep wanting to happen but suspect won't.

MacArthur says there is only one English Bible version that translates doulos as "slave" and that is the Holman Bible. He calls it a "wonderful" translation but it would have to have a lot more going for it than merely getting one word righter than other translations for me to consider it.