I have been spending some time in my study recently preparing messages for some Gospel meetings that I hope to conduct very shortly, in God's will. One of the messages that I am working on is entitled 'Where did it all go wrong?' and as the title would suggest I will be taking a look at the fall of Adam into sin.
As I have studied for this message I have, once again, been struck by the Graciousness of God. As I'm sure you well know God gave Adam only one law to obey when he placed him in the garden of Eden. 'But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' This was a very clear and simple command. Adam could eat apples from the apple tree, he could eat plums from the plum tree, he could the eat pears from the pear tree, but he must not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Of course, you know the story, the serpent beguiled Eve and she took the forbidden fruit and then Adam, who was not deceived like Eve, knowingly disobeyed God's one simple rule. At this point the whole human family and indeed the whole earth was plunged into sin, death and destruction.
At this point God would have been well within His rights to bring swift and terrible judgement upon Adam. Adam knew the consequences of his disobedience, DEATH. That's what God had said would be the consequence. In one sense that consequence did begin because Adams' hitherto perfect body would have begun to break down and die. But death in God's eyes is much more than mere physical death, there is a spiritual dimension, there is a broken relationship with God which ultimately means eternal separation for the sinner in the Lake of Fire, which is the second death.
This is where I was struck by the Graciousness of God. Even though God could have brought immediate sentence He didn't. He came looking for His estranged creature calling to him 'Where art thou?' God never asks a question to get information, He know everything perfectly, what He wanted was a confession, an admission of guilt.
God next asks 'Hast thou eaten of the tree?' How Gracious of God to come seeking a confession from His fallen creature.
But that's not the end of God's Gracious dealing with Adam for once He gets the confession of sin He provides a promise of a child that would one day be born to deal with the deceitful devil and make a way back to Himself for sinners. To paint a picture of what this promised child would do God killed an Innocent animal and skined it to provide a covering for Adam and Eve's nakedness. What a picture of the work of the Lord Jesus God's Son, He was Innocent and yet He died on the cross to provide a covering for our sin.
How gracious is God? How merciful is God? How longsuffering is God? He could have carried out immediate justice on Adam but he didn't, He could have carried out immediate justice on me but he didn't, He could have carried out immediate justice on you but He hasn't. What a Gracious God!
'The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,' Exodus 34 v 6
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
A Strange Symbol
Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .12
A Strange Symbol
As a result of the ‘supposed’ conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine a vast amount of Pagan Culture infiltrated the Church. Up to that point Christianity was generally persecuted and despised in Roman Culture. However, when the Emperor claimed to embrace this ‘New Religion’ Christianity suddenly became the ‘coolest’ new thing. If the Emperor was a Christian then everyone wanted to be a Christian. Sadly this growth in Church membership was not of the Holy Ghost and these pagan people brought their pagan beliefs and practices into the Church.
Examples of this can be found in Christian Festivals like Christmas and Easter. Easter is only a few weeks away and many will exchange Easter Eggs. I remember as a child in School being told that Easter Eggs were a symbol of the stone that was rolled away from the tomb in which Jesus was temporarily buried. This of course in nonsense, the egg symbol is right out of Babylonian Pagan religion and represents the Birth of the Pagan Deity Tammuz. Even the word Easter is right of Paganism for it is a reference to the pagan Deity Ishtar.
Another Pagan Deity who made an entrance into Christendom was Semiramis the mother of the aforementioned Tammuz. Semiramis and Tammuz are represented in the symbol of a mother and child and there are historical records from throughout the world of this mother and child religion being carried on for thousands of years. When this was Christianised Semiramis became Mary the Mother of Jesus and Tammuz became the infant Jesus. The ancient followers of Tammuz paid homage to their god by wearing a 'letter T' on a chain around their necks. This too was Christianised and became the Cross symbol which so many Christians wear today. If you want to find out more about this ‘Pagan Invasion’ I would recommend Hislop’s book ‘Two Babylons’. As I am aware of this Pagan influence I personally choose not to represent my Christianity in symbolism but I am not going to fall out with someone who does. Rather than focusing on symbols we ought to focus on God’s Word. That is God’s way of communicating to His people, through words not symbols.
There is one symbol in particular that I want to mention that has a common history with those mentioned above. This symbol predates the birth of Christ and was and remains a pagan religious symbol. In fact it would seem to be a symbol that the New Age Movement has adopted for itself and appears to be using as a Message Symbol. This symbol too was brought into Christendom along with all the other pagan garbage and is now said to represent the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You may be familiar with it as it is found on the spine or cover of many copies of the New King James Version of the Bible.
A Strange Symbol
As a result of the ‘supposed’ conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine a vast amount of Pagan Culture infiltrated the Church. Up to that point Christianity was generally persecuted and despised in Roman Culture. However, when the Emperor claimed to embrace this ‘New Religion’ Christianity suddenly became the ‘coolest’ new thing. If the Emperor was a Christian then everyone wanted to be a Christian. Sadly this growth in Church membership was not of the Holy Ghost and these pagan people brought their pagan beliefs and practices into the Church.
Examples of this can be found in Christian Festivals like Christmas and Easter. Easter is only a few weeks away and many will exchange Easter Eggs. I remember as a child in School being told that Easter Eggs were a symbol of the stone that was rolled away from the tomb in which Jesus was temporarily buried. This of course in nonsense, the egg symbol is right out of Babylonian Pagan religion and represents the Birth of the Pagan Deity Tammuz. Even the word Easter is right of Paganism for it is a reference to the pagan Deity Ishtar.
Another Pagan Deity who made an entrance into Christendom was Semiramis the mother of the aforementioned Tammuz. Semiramis and Tammuz are represented in the symbol of a mother and child and there are historical records from throughout the world of this mother and child religion being carried on for thousands of years. When this was Christianised Semiramis became Mary the Mother of Jesus and Tammuz became the infant Jesus. The ancient followers of Tammuz paid homage to their god by wearing a 'letter T' on a chain around their necks. This too was Christianised and became the Cross symbol which so many Christians wear today. If you want to find out more about this ‘Pagan Invasion’ I would recommend Hislop’s book ‘Two Babylons’. As I am aware of this Pagan influence I personally choose not to represent my Christianity in symbolism but I am not going to fall out with someone who does. Rather than focusing on symbols we ought to focus on God’s Word. That is God’s way of communicating to His people, through words not symbols.
There is one symbol in particular that I want to mention that has a common history with those mentioned above. This symbol predates the birth of Christ and was and remains a pagan religious symbol. In fact it would seem to be a symbol that the New Age Movement has adopted for itself and appears to be using as a Message Symbol. This symbol too was brought into Christendom along with all the other pagan garbage and is now said to represent the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You may be familiar with it as it is found on the spine or cover of many copies of the New King James Version of the Bible.
Inside the front cover to the NKJV the publishers say that the Logo is ‘The triquetra (from a Latin word meaning “three-cornered”) is an ancient symbol for the Trinity. It comprises three interwoven arcs, distinct yet equal and inseparable, symbolising that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three distinct yet equal persons and indivisibly One God.’ As I have mentioned already God communicates to us by Words, He does not communicate to us through symbolism or images, or pictures, or icons, or art of any kind. The Apostle Paul when preaching to pagans in Athens taught them this truth saying. ‘Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device’ Acts 17 v 29. Therefore we ought not, as God’s people, use symbols like crosses, fish or even the triquetra to represent our God.
On the other hand Pagan religion and the occult is loaded with images and symbolism. We could mention pentagrams, goats heads, serpents, lightning bolts and even the triquetra as images associated with Paganism and the Occult. The Bible of the modern New Age Movement is Marilyn Ferguson’s ‘The Aquarian Conspiracy’ and the front coverof that book displays the triquetra.
On the other hand Pagan religion and the occult is loaded with images and symbolism. We could mention pentagrams, goats heads, serpents, lightning bolts and even the triquetra as images associated with Paganism and the Occult. The Bible of the modern New Age Movement is Marilyn Ferguson’s ‘The Aquarian Conspiracy’ and the front coverof that book displays the triquetra.
Other uses of this symbol in the occult are to be found on our television screens. A US Television series about three sisters who are witches called ‘Charmed’ uses the triquetra. The following image is of the sisters’ spell-book; notice the triquetra on the front cover.
It seems everywhere I look in the modern world this symbol is to be found. I feel this is significant because occultists use imagery to communicate and as it were to ‘mark their stuff’. The Northern Ireland Political Party the SDLP use this symbol as their party logo.
In the UK we all received forms through our letter boxes in the past few weeks from the government who are carrying out a Census of the whole population. To my mind the symbol at the bottom of the envelope is a derivation of the triquetra.
Another derivation of the triquetra is the symbol used by the South African white supremacy party the AWB.
Christian author Constance Cumbey certainly associated the triquetra with the Occult New Age Movement. On the front cover of his excellent book ‘The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow’ a number of Occult symbols are illustrated, among them the triquetra.
So what am I saying? I’m I saying the NKJV of the Bible is an Occult Bible? Certainly not! However, as I have contended in my recent blogs Satan is interested in Bible translation. I think Satan will try and influence whenever and wherever he can. Could it be that the inclusion of the triquetra on the spine of the NKJV is Satan’s way of letting his minions know that he has had some influence here? To be frank I don’t know. I cannot judge and I do not have perfect knowledge as to why this pagan symbol is on the spine or cover of the NKJV. I cannot judge the intentions of motives of the publisher. All I Know is it worries me greatly.
With regard to this series of blogs, I feel after a dozen blogs the time has come to draw to a close. I have enjoyed preparing the blogs and I trust you have found them thought provoking and interesting even if you have not always agreed with my point of view. Praise God for our hard won freedoms of liberty and free speech. There are so many topics and issues, which are important and relevant to the 21st Century Church that I will now focus my attention on other matters. That is not to say that I will never return to this topic, I very well may, but for the moment I have other things on my mind that I desire to share with the readers of this blog.
With regard to this series of blogs, I feel after a dozen blogs the time has come to draw to a close. I have enjoyed preparing the blogs and I trust you have found them thought provoking and interesting even if you have not always agreed with my point of view. Praise God for our hard won freedoms of liberty and free speech. There are so many topics and issues, which are important and relevant to the 21st Century Church that I will now focus my attention on other matters. That is not to say that I will never return to this topic, I very well may, but for the moment I have other things on my mind that I desire to share with the readers of this blog.
May God bless those readers who are His and save those who know Him not!
Friday, 18 March 2011
Yea, hath God said
Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .11
Yea, hath God said
In the third chapter of Genesis we have recorded for us how our first father Adam sinned against God’s clear command. As a result of this act of disobedience the whole human family has been born in sin. To bring about this ‘fall’ Satan slithered up to Adam’s wife Eve in the form of a serpent and sowed some seeds of doubt in her mind about God’s Word. ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ was the question Satan asked of Eve.'
God had been quite clear in His command, ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ But Satan caused Eve to question the validity of God’s command. As the conversation with Eve developed Satan moved on from using ‘Doubt’ to employing the tactic of ‘Denial’. In verse 4 he said to Eve ‘Ye shall not surely die:’ Sadly Eve was sucked in, tucked into the forbidden fruit and was soon followed by her husband Adam. The devils tactics of ‘Doubt’ then ‘Denial’ finally lead to ‘Disobedience’.
6000 years later is Satan still interested in God’s Word? You can be sure he is! He is still trying to cast ‘Doubt’ and he is still trying to ‘Deny’ it to anyone who will listen to his lying tongue. He casts ‘Doubt’ and ‘Denial’ from the mouths of Militant Atheists, he casts ‘Doubt’ and ‘Denial’ from the mouths of Liberal Theologians, therefore it should not surprise us to learn that he casts ‘Doubt and ‘Denial’ through the pens of the textual critics behind modern versions of the Bible.
The last eleven verses of Mark’s Gospel are a case in point. These verses are a tremendous account of that great resurrection morning when Mary Magdalene came to the Garden tomb looking for the body of our Lord Jesus not to mention other witnesses of the Resurrection. However, a footnote in the NIV states ‘The most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16 v9-20’. Ditto NCV, ESV, NASB, The Message. DOUBT, should those verses really be in the Bible? Yea, hath God said? I can almost here the hiss of the serpent in this footnote.
The resurrection is not the only important doctrine to have this kind of treatment. In 1 John 5 v 7 the doctrine of the Trinity is attacked. The AV says ‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.’ The NIV, NCV, NASB & ESV all remove the second part of this verse with a footnote to justify the omission, the NKJV includes the complete verse but question the later half saying ‘NU-Text and M-Text omit the words from in heaven (verse 7) through on earth (verse 8). Only four or five very late manuscripts contain these words in Greek.’
How is the average Christian who has not received theological training or is not familiar with the original languages to react to the many similar footnotes found throughout the new Bibles? Can they rely on a verse that is called into question, how do they know? They will have to seek advice form the ‘experts’. Oh no, we have just created Protestant Popery. You poor lay people cannot understand the Bible without consulting the textual experts; they will help you understand the Bible. I’m sure the Berean Christians would have had a hard time searching the scriptures if they had been full of footnotes calling into question the reliability of God’s Word.
A final example is Acts 8 v 37 where Philip is witnessing to the Ethiopian Eunuch who asks, is there anything hindering me from being baptisted, ‘And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ What a great statement the Eunuch makes here, confessing with his mouth his new found faith in Christ. Sad to say this verse has been omitted from the NIV & the ESV while the NCV & NASB put it in brackets with a footnote calling it’s inclusion into question. The NKJV for it’s part has a footnote stating ‘NU-Text and M-Text omit this verse. It is found in Western texts, including the Latin tradition.’
The thing that gets me about the NJKV is this, it claims to be the 5th revision of the AV, it claims to rely on the received text. If that is the case and it’s creators are really operating in the spirit of the AV and only trying to modernise AV’s English then why do they feel the need to give credence to texts outside of the received text tradition? To me this seems dishonest.
I’m sticking with the AV and I’ll not have some Protestant Pope telling me what should be in the Bible. As I said in the blog entitled ‘Dodgy Documents’ I am convinced God has had His preserving hand upon His Word and the AV is reliable translation of His Preserved Word.
Yea, hath God said
In the third chapter of Genesis we have recorded for us how our first father Adam sinned against God’s clear command. As a result of this act of disobedience the whole human family has been born in sin. To bring about this ‘fall’ Satan slithered up to Adam’s wife Eve in the form of a serpent and sowed some seeds of doubt in her mind about God’s Word. ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ was the question Satan asked of Eve.'
God had been quite clear in His command, ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ But Satan caused Eve to question the validity of God’s command. As the conversation with Eve developed Satan moved on from using ‘Doubt’ to employing the tactic of ‘Denial’. In verse 4 he said to Eve ‘Ye shall not surely die:’ Sadly Eve was sucked in, tucked into the forbidden fruit and was soon followed by her husband Adam. The devils tactics of ‘Doubt’ then ‘Denial’ finally lead to ‘Disobedience’.
6000 years later is Satan still interested in God’s Word? You can be sure he is! He is still trying to cast ‘Doubt’ and he is still trying to ‘Deny’ it to anyone who will listen to his lying tongue. He casts ‘Doubt’ and ‘Denial’ from the mouths of Militant Atheists, he casts ‘Doubt’ and ‘Denial’ from the mouths of Liberal Theologians, therefore it should not surprise us to learn that he casts ‘Doubt and ‘Denial’ through the pens of the textual critics behind modern versions of the Bible.
The last eleven verses of Mark’s Gospel are a case in point. These verses are a tremendous account of that great resurrection morning when Mary Magdalene came to the Garden tomb looking for the body of our Lord Jesus not to mention other witnesses of the Resurrection. However, a footnote in the NIV states ‘The most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16 v9-20’. Ditto NCV, ESV, NASB, The Message. DOUBT, should those verses really be in the Bible? Yea, hath God said? I can almost here the hiss of the serpent in this footnote.
The resurrection is not the only important doctrine to have this kind of treatment. In 1 John 5 v 7 the doctrine of the Trinity is attacked. The AV says ‘For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.’ The NIV, NCV, NASB & ESV all remove the second part of this verse with a footnote to justify the omission, the NKJV includes the complete verse but question the later half saying ‘NU-Text and M-Text omit the words from in heaven (verse 7) through on earth (verse 8). Only four or five very late manuscripts contain these words in Greek.’
How is the average Christian who has not received theological training or is not familiar with the original languages to react to the many similar footnotes found throughout the new Bibles? Can they rely on a verse that is called into question, how do they know? They will have to seek advice form the ‘experts’. Oh no, we have just created Protestant Popery. You poor lay people cannot understand the Bible without consulting the textual experts; they will help you understand the Bible. I’m sure the Berean Christians would have had a hard time searching the scriptures if they had been full of footnotes calling into question the reliability of God’s Word.
A final example is Acts 8 v 37 where Philip is witnessing to the Ethiopian Eunuch who asks, is there anything hindering me from being baptisted, ‘And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ What a great statement the Eunuch makes here, confessing with his mouth his new found faith in Christ. Sad to say this verse has been omitted from the NIV & the ESV while the NCV & NASB put it in brackets with a footnote calling it’s inclusion into question. The NKJV for it’s part has a footnote stating ‘NU-Text and M-Text omit this verse. It is found in Western texts, including the Latin tradition.’
The thing that gets me about the NJKV is this, it claims to be the 5th revision of the AV, it claims to rely on the received text. If that is the case and it’s creators are really operating in the spirit of the AV and only trying to modernise AV’s English then why do they feel the need to give credence to texts outside of the received text tradition? To me this seems dishonest.
I’m sticking with the AV and I’ll not have some Protestant Pope telling me what should be in the Bible. As I said in the blog entitled ‘Dodgy Documents’ I am convinced God has had His preserving hand upon His Word and the AV is reliable translation of His Preserved Word.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Dinosaurs
Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .10
Dinosaurs
While driving to work yesterday morning I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live. That morning they broadcast a piece on the American politician Sarah Palin. They were discussing the potential of Mrs Palin running to be the Republican nominee for the White House. During the article they discussed how Mrs Palin was rather unconventional in her approach and 5 live presenter Nicky Campbell remarked, as if to back up their contention about her, that she actually believes Dinosaurs and people existed on the earth at the same time. I must be pretty unconventional myself for I would share Mrs Palin’s view on Dinosaurs.
Militant evolutionists have long tried to use the existence of Dinosaurs on this earth to discredit the Bible and shake Christians confidence in God’s Word. Many have been shaken in their faith because of this and for years many of God’s people have actually taught that Dinosaurs were nothing more than a hoax. This is all well and good until we look at the evidence, evidence in the form of bones. Dinosaurs were real! Very real!
The evolutionists claim that Dinosaurs existed millions of year ago and are long extinct. Extinct long before man came along, long before mans fall into sin. Therefore they conclude if death is the result of sin then they died before sin. How so? They ask.
However, the truth is that Dinosaurs existed along with humanity on this earth. The Bible tells us exactly when Dinosaurs were created it was on the 6th day of creation as Genesis records. ‘And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:’ Gen 1 v25
The evolutionist scoffs at this idea and claims that Dinosaurs were dead and gone before man existed. However, think about this. If people and Dinosaurs existed together what would you expect to find? Well you would expect some historical reference to them. Where have all the Dragon legends come from? What about St George and the Dragon? The description of a Dragon very much fits the picture of a Dinosaur. But these are just myths from the mists of time you say. Well, maybe the stories have been embellished over the years but there must be some original reality to them. People must have fought with great lizard like creatures. Surely this is not merely a prodcut of over active imaginations.
What about the Indian cave drawing (Petroglyph) found in Montana USA of creatures that look like Dinosaurs. These people must have seen these creatures. Death Valley in Montana is a hot spot for Dinosaur remains. Similar drawings were found in Thunder Bay Canada. These cave drawing also include many present day animals along side the large mystical creatures. I believe the Native American Indians saw Dinosaurs and drew them.
But what has all this got to do with the Bible you say? Well I think we find evidence of Dinosaurs in the Bible. In the book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, Job describes a large creature that the AV version calls ‘Behemoth’. It sound very like a Sauropod.
‘15Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.’ Job 40 v15-19
In these verses Job describes a very large animal, the phrase at the start of verse 19 ‘chief of the ways of God’ really is saying that this is the largest animal around. This animal has a tail like a cedar, so it must have had a long thick tail; his bones are like bars of iron. There is no doubt it is a massive creature. I believe it is what we today would call a Dinosaur. Remember the English word Dinosaur was only invented in 1841 by British Scientist Richard Owen. The word is based on the Greek and means ‘terrible lizard’.
There is a Hebrew word that means the same thing, תַּנִּין = tanniyn.
In the Authorised Version of the Bible this word ‘tanniyn’ is translated Dragon, for example: -
‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.’ Psalm 91v13
‘In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.’ Isaiah 27 v1
Clearly the AV translators associated the Hebrew word ‘tanniyn’ with the word dragon, which described a terrible lizard. These men were born long before Richard Owen coined the word Dinosaur or before the current Creation v Evolution debate. For their day and generation they used the best word available to them at the time to describe these now extinct creatures.
You would have thought that Bible translators of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries who want to correct the outdated, as they suppose, AV would have used the word Dinosaur or something similar to translate the word ‘tanniyn’ in their new versions.
Well guess what they have failed. In Psalm 91 the NIV renders ‘tanniyn’ as serpent, ditto NLT, ESV, NASB and the NJKV renders it as Snakes, ditto NCV. In Isaiah 27 in the NIV they render ‘tanniyn as ‘the monster’ (Ditto NCV), to use a word like monster is playing into the sceptics hand because after all only children believe in sea monsters, why not call it the ‘Plesiosaur’ which was a sea Dinosaur. It is rendered ‘the reptile’ in NKJV, okay, technically correct but surely an opportunity missed.
When we come to look at the description of ‘Behemoth’ in Job 40 a footnote in the NIV states ‘Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant’. I have never been on Safari but I have been to the Zoo and I have never come across an elephant or a hippopotamus with a tail like a cedar. Why not put in their footnote 'Possibly a Brachiosaurus'.
The new translations have come about in an age when the debate about our Genesis has been raging between militant evolutionists and God’s people and despite that fact the translators of the new bibles have missed the opportunity to strengthen God’s people by translating these passages in a better way. Is it because they are so liberal in their theology that they do not even accept the Genesis account of creation? Have they accepted one of these bizarre mixtures of creation and evolution to explain millions of years? I don’t know but I’m left wondering.
I think I’ll stick with the AV.
Dinosaurs
While driving to work yesterday morning I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live. That morning they broadcast a piece on the American politician Sarah Palin. They were discussing the potential of Mrs Palin running to be the Republican nominee for the White House. During the article they discussed how Mrs Palin was rather unconventional in her approach and 5 live presenter Nicky Campbell remarked, as if to back up their contention about her, that she actually believes Dinosaurs and people existed on the earth at the same time. I must be pretty unconventional myself for I would share Mrs Palin’s view on Dinosaurs.
Militant evolutionists have long tried to use the existence of Dinosaurs on this earth to discredit the Bible and shake Christians confidence in God’s Word. Many have been shaken in their faith because of this and for years many of God’s people have actually taught that Dinosaurs were nothing more than a hoax. This is all well and good until we look at the evidence, evidence in the form of bones. Dinosaurs were real! Very real!
The evolutionists claim that Dinosaurs existed millions of year ago and are long extinct. Extinct long before man came along, long before mans fall into sin. Therefore they conclude if death is the result of sin then they died before sin. How so? They ask.
However, the truth is that Dinosaurs existed along with humanity on this earth. The Bible tells us exactly when Dinosaurs were created it was on the 6th day of creation as Genesis records. ‘And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:’ Gen 1 v25
The evolutionist scoffs at this idea and claims that Dinosaurs were dead and gone before man existed. However, think about this. If people and Dinosaurs existed together what would you expect to find? Well you would expect some historical reference to them. Where have all the Dragon legends come from? What about St George and the Dragon? The description of a Dragon very much fits the picture of a Dinosaur. But these are just myths from the mists of time you say. Well, maybe the stories have been embellished over the years but there must be some original reality to them. People must have fought with great lizard like creatures. Surely this is not merely a prodcut of over active imaginations.
What about the Indian cave drawing (Petroglyph) found in Montana USA of creatures that look like Dinosaurs. These people must have seen these creatures. Death Valley in Montana is a hot spot for Dinosaur remains. Similar drawings were found in Thunder Bay Canada. These cave drawing also include many present day animals along side the large mystical creatures. I believe the Native American Indians saw Dinosaurs and drew them.
But what has all this got to do with the Bible you say? Well I think we find evidence of Dinosaurs in the Bible. In the book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, Job describes a large creature that the AV version calls ‘Behemoth’. It sound very like a Sauropod.
‘15Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.’ Job 40 v15-19
In these verses Job describes a very large animal, the phrase at the start of verse 19 ‘chief of the ways of God’ really is saying that this is the largest animal around. This animal has a tail like a cedar, so it must have had a long thick tail; his bones are like bars of iron. There is no doubt it is a massive creature. I believe it is what we today would call a Dinosaur. Remember the English word Dinosaur was only invented in 1841 by British Scientist Richard Owen. The word is based on the Greek and means ‘terrible lizard’.
There is a Hebrew word that means the same thing, תַּנִּין = tanniyn.
In the Authorised Version of the Bible this word ‘tanniyn’ is translated Dragon, for example: -
‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.’ Psalm 91v13
‘In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.’ Isaiah 27 v1
Clearly the AV translators associated the Hebrew word ‘tanniyn’ with the word dragon, which described a terrible lizard. These men were born long before Richard Owen coined the word Dinosaur or before the current Creation v Evolution debate. For their day and generation they used the best word available to them at the time to describe these now extinct creatures.
You would have thought that Bible translators of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries who want to correct the outdated, as they suppose, AV would have used the word Dinosaur or something similar to translate the word ‘tanniyn’ in their new versions.
Well guess what they have failed. In Psalm 91 the NIV renders ‘tanniyn’ as serpent, ditto NLT, ESV, NASB and the NJKV renders it as Snakes, ditto NCV. In Isaiah 27 in the NIV they render ‘tanniyn as ‘the monster’ (Ditto NCV), to use a word like monster is playing into the sceptics hand because after all only children believe in sea monsters, why not call it the ‘Plesiosaur’ which was a sea Dinosaur. It is rendered ‘the reptile’ in NKJV, okay, technically correct but surely an opportunity missed.
When we come to look at the description of ‘Behemoth’ in Job 40 a footnote in the NIV states ‘Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant’. I have never been on Safari but I have been to the Zoo and I have never come across an elephant or a hippopotamus with a tail like a cedar. Why not put in their footnote 'Possibly a Brachiosaurus'.
The new translations have come about in an age when the debate about our Genesis has been raging between militant evolutionists and God’s people and despite that fact the translators of the new bibles have missed the opportunity to strengthen God’s people by translating these passages in a better way. Is it because they are so liberal in their theology that they do not even accept the Genesis account of creation? Have they accepted one of these bizarre mixtures of creation and evolution to explain millions of years? I don’t know but I’m left wondering.
I think I’ll stick with the AV.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Dodgy Documents
Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .9
Dodgy Documents
I suppose the position you take on the issue of Bible versions is in a large part determined by your view of the manuscripts used to support different versions. Either you have a preference for what is what is referred to as the ‘received text’ which is largely behind the AV or the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ of the revision which is behind the vast majority of new versions.
The supporters of the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ often use language to give their preferred text an edge in people’s minds and perhaps you have heard or read these sentiments. They will refer to a verse where there is a dispute between the two texts and they will say ‘the more reliable texts support the new rendering’. The ‘more reliable’ or the ‘better’ argument comes from the fact (and it is a fact) that the manuscripts used to support the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ are older than those, which make up the ‘received text’. They have taken the fact that beacuse something is older then it must be better because it is closer to the original autograph in a chronological sense. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Is something better because it is older? I’m not sure that is a good conclusion.
I remember hearing a great illustration of people jumping to conclusions that may be wrong when at a Creation Science event hosted by Ken Hamm. Mr Hamm was talking about a fossil that had been found of an animal that had very sharp teeth, he commented on how scientist had said regarding this fossil that due to it having sharp teeth the animal had obviously been a meat eater. Mr Hamm disagreed and suggested the only thing that was obvious was the fact that the animal had very sharp teeth. He pointed out that Panda Bears and Fruit Bats both have extremely sharp teeth and yet their diet is a vegetarian one. Just because an animal has sharp teeth does not mean they eat meat and just because a Bible manuscript is really old it does not automatically mean that it is better than one that is younger. Could it be that the texts behind the modern version lasted longer was because they were rejected due to obvious corruptions and therefore did not perish due to over use!
Dr FHA Scrivener (1813-1891) himself a textual critic and who embarked upon a comparison of the ‘received text’ against the ‘Codex Sinaticus’ (a source document of Westcott & Hort) concluded that “the text (Codex Sinaticus) is covered with alterations of an obviously correctional character – brought in by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page by at least ten different revisers.”
Another 19th Century Biblical Scholar John William Burgon (1813-1888) commenting upon the treatment of the last 12 verses of Mark’s Gospel in the Vatican Codex (B) (another source document of Westcott & Hort) said the following. “To say that in the Vatican Codex (B), which is unquestionably the oldest we posses, St Mark’s Gospel ends abruptly at the 8th verse of the16th chapter, and that the customary subscription (Kata Mapkon) follows, is true; but it is far from the whole truth. It requires to be stated in addition that the scribe, whose plan is found to begin every fresh book of the Bible at the top of the next ensuing column to that which contained the concluding words of the previous book, has at the close of St Mark’s Gospel deviated from his else invariable practice. He has left in this place one column entirely vacant. It is the only vacant column in the whole manuscript – a blank space abundantly sufficient to contain the twelve verses which he nevertheless withheld. Why did he leave that column vacant? What can have induced the scribe on this solitary occasion to depart from his established rule? The phenomenon is in the highest degree significant, and admits only one interpretation. The older manuscript from which Codex b was copied must infallibly contained the twelve verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out – and he obeyed; but he prudently left a blank space in memoriam rei. Never was a blank more intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple expedient, strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute itself even while it seems to be bearing testimony against the concluding verses of St Mark’s Gospel, by withholding them; for it forbids the inference which, under ordinary circumstances, must have been drawn from that omission. It does more. By leaving room for the verses it omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end of fifteen centuries and a half, a more ancient witness that itself.”
Scholars too on the other side of the Atlantic stood against the new ‘Westcott & Hort Text.’ One of these, Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) a noted Southern Presbyterian commenting on the variations between the ‘received text’ and the ‘Westcott & Hort text’ said. “The significant fact to which we wish especially to call attention is this: that all the variations proposed on the faith of these manuscripts which have any doctrinal importance, should attack the one doctrine of the Trinity; nay, we may say even more specifically, the one doctrine of Christ’s Deity…Their admirers claim for them an origin in the fourth or fifth century. The Sabellian and Arian controversies raged in the third and fourth. Is there no coincidence here? Things do not happen again and again regularly without a cause…And when we remember the date of the great Trinitarian contest, and compare it with the supposed date of these exemplars of the sacred text, the ground of suspicion becomes violent…These variations are too numerable, and too significant in their effect upon the one doctrine, to be ascribed to chance. Someone has played the knave with the text…We think that (the reader) will conclude with us that the weight of probability is greatly in favour of this theory that the anti-Trinitarians, finding certain codices in which these doctrinal readings had already lost through the licentious criticism or Origen and his school, industrously diffuse them. While they also did what they dared to add to the omissions of similar readings.”
Westcott and Hort endeavoured to sell a view that the ‘received text’ and thus the AV were unreliable. Disgusted by their dishonest behaviour Charles Wordsworth Bishop of St Andrews (who worked on the revision committee with Westcott & Hort) refused to sign his name to a testimonial of thanks to the Chairman because of as he puts it, “the number of minute and unnecessary changes made in direct violation of the instruction under which the work was undertaken.”
As helpful as the views of these 19th Century scholars are these is one more compelling reason that I cannot accept the validity of the ‘Westcott & Hort Text.’That reason is the preserving hand of God. In Psalm 12 we read the following.
‘The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.’Psalm 12 v 6-7
The Lord has promised to preserve His word from generation to generation. However, if we are to believe the proponents of the ‘new bibles’the true word of God was hidden from God’s people for centuries in the Popes Library and in a Convent at Mt Sinai. Are we really to accept, the argument that for almost 300 years God’s people were running around with a corrupt and unreliable Bible? Are we to believe that the Bible that was so mightily used in the hands of Whitfield and Wesley was unreliable? Are we to swallow the notion that the Bible of the great awakenings in America and the British Isles of the 1850’s is not trustworthy? I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. To conclude I quote John Burgon again on this very theme of preservation.
“There exists no reason for supporting that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thus gave to mankind the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took no further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate. That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation – that copyists were protected against the risk of error, or evil men from altering shamefully, copies of the Deposit- no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. But it is quite a different thing to claim that all down the ages the sacred writings must needs have been God’s peculiar care; that the church under Him has watched over them with intelligence and skill; has recognised which copies exhibit a fabricated, which an honestly transcribed text; has generally sanctioned the one, and generally disallowed the other. I am utterly disinclined to believe, so grossly improbable, does it seem, that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove trustworthy; and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired. I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God’s promise has so entirely failed, that at the end of 1800 years much of the text of the Gospel has in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a waste-paper basket in the convent of St Catherine; and that the entire text had to be remodelled after the pattern set by a couple of copies which remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival to that neglect; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them.”
I agree with John Burgon’s sentiments and that’s another reason why I am sticking with the AV.
Dodgy Documents
I suppose the position you take on the issue of Bible versions is in a large part determined by your view of the manuscripts used to support different versions. Either you have a preference for what is what is referred to as the ‘received text’ which is largely behind the AV or the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ of the revision which is behind the vast majority of new versions.
The supporters of the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ often use language to give their preferred text an edge in people’s minds and perhaps you have heard or read these sentiments. They will refer to a verse where there is a dispute between the two texts and they will say ‘the more reliable texts support the new rendering’. The ‘more reliable’ or the ‘better’ argument comes from the fact (and it is a fact) that the manuscripts used to support the ‘Westcott and Hort text’ are older than those, which make up the ‘received text’. They have taken the fact that beacuse something is older then it must be better because it is closer to the original autograph in a chronological sense. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Is something better because it is older? I’m not sure that is a good conclusion.
I remember hearing a great illustration of people jumping to conclusions that may be wrong when at a Creation Science event hosted by Ken Hamm. Mr Hamm was talking about a fossil that had been found of an animal that had very sharp teeth, he commented on how scientist had said regarding this fossil that due to it having sharp teeth the animal had obviously been a meat eater. Mr Hamm disagreed and suggested the only thing that was obvious was the fact that the animal had very sharp teeth. He pointed out that Panda Bears and Fruit Bats both have extremely sharp teeth and yet their diet is a vegetarian one. Just because an animal has sharp teeth does not mean they eat meat and just because a Bible manuscript is really old it does not automatically mean that it is better than one that is younger. Could it be that the texts behind the modern version lasted longer was because they were rejected due to obvious corruptions and therefore did not perish due to over use!
Dr FHA Scrivener (1813-1891) himself a textual critic and who embarked upon a comparison of the ‘received text’ against the ‘Codex Sinaticus’ (a source document of Westcott & Hort) concluded that “the text (Codex Sinaticus) is covered with alterations of an obviously correctional character – brought in by at least ten different revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page by at least ten different revisers.”
Another 19th Century Biblical Scholar John William Burgon (1813-1888) commenting upon the treatment of the last 12 verses of Mark’s Gospel in the Vatican Codex (B) (another source document of Westcott & Hort) said the following. “To say that in the Vatican Codex (B), which is unquestionably the oldest we posses, St Mark’s Gospel ends abruptly at the 8th verse of the16th chapter, and that the customary subscription (Kata Mapkon) follows, is true; but it is far from the whole truth. It requires to be stated in addition that the scribe, whose plan is found to begin every fresh book of the Bible at the top of the next ensuing column to that which contained the concluding words of the previous book, has at the close of St Mark’s Gospel deviated from his else invariable practice. He has left in this place one column entirely vacant. It is the only vacant column in the whole manuscript – a blank space abundantly sufficient to contain the twelve verses which he nevertheless withheld. Why did he leave that column vacant? What can have induced the scribe on this solitary occasion to depart from his established rule? The phenomenon is in the highest degree significant, and admits only one interpretation. The older manuscript from which Codex b was copied must infallibly contained the twelve verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out – and he obeyed; but he prudently left a blank space in memoriam rei. Never was a blank more intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple expedient, strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute itself even while it seems to be bearing testimony against the concluding verses of St Mark’s Gospel, by withholding them; for it forbids the inference which, under ordinary circumstances, must have been drawn from that omission. It does more. By leaving room for the verses it omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end of fifteen centuries and a half, a more ancient witness that itself.”
Scholars too on the other side of the Atlantic stood against the new ‘Westcott & Hort Text.’ One of these, Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) a noted Southern Presbyterian commenting on the variations between the ‘received text’ and the ‘Westcott & Hort text’ said. “The significant fact to which we wish especially to call attention is this: that all the variations proposed on the faith of these manuscripts which have any doctrinal importance, should attack the one doctrine of the Trinity; nay, we may say even more specifically, the one doctrine of Christ’s Deity…Their admirers claim for them an origin in the fourth or fifth century. The Sabellian and Arian controversies raged in the third and fourth. Is there no coincidence here? Things do not happen again and again regularly without a cause…And when we remember the date of the great Trinitarian contest, and compare it with the supposed date of these exemplars of the sacred text, the ground of suspicion becomes violent…These variations are too numerable, and too significant in their effect upon the one doctrine, to be ascribed to chance. Someone has played the knave with the text…We think that (the reader) will conclude with us that the weight of probability is greatly in favour of this theory that the anti-Trinitarians, finding certain codices in which these doctrinal readings had already lost through the licentious criticism or Origen and his school, industrously diffuse them. While they also did what they dared to add to the omissions of similar readings.”
Westcott and Hort endeavoured to sell a view that the ‘received text’ and thus the AV were unreliable. Disgusted by their dishonest behaviour Charles Wordsworth Bishop of St Andrews (who worked on the revision committee with Westcott & Hort) refused to sign his name to a testimonial of thanks to the Chairman because of as he puts it, “the number of minute and unnecessary changes made in direct violation of the instruction under which the work was undertaken.”
As helpful as the views of these 19th Century scholars are these is one more compelling reason that I cannot accept the validity of the ‘Westcott & Hort Text.’That reason is the preserving hand of God. In Psalm 12 we read the following.
‘The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.’Psalm 12 v 6-7
The Lord has promised to preserve His word from generation to generation. However, if we are to believe the proponents of the ‘new bibles’the true word of God was hidden from God’s people for centuries in the Popes Library and in a Convent at Mt Sinai. Are we really to accept, the argument that for almost 300 years God’s people were running around with a corrupt and unreliable Bible? Are we to believe that the Bible that was so mightily used in the hands of Whitfield and Wesley was unreliable? Are we to swallow the notion that the Bible of the great awakenings in America and the British Isles of the 1850’s is not trustworthy? I’m sorry but I don’t buy it. To conclude I quote John Burgon again on this very theme of preservation.
“There exists no reason for supporting that the Divine Agent, who in the first instance thus gave to mankind the Scriptures of Truth, straightway abdicated His office; took no further care of His work; abandoned those precious writings to their fate. That a perpetual miracle was wrought for their preservation – that copyists were protected against the risk of error, or evil men from altering shamefully, copies of the Deposit- no one, it is presumed, is so weak as to suppose. But it is quite a different thing to claim that all down the ages the sacred writings must needs have been God’s peculiar care; that the church under Him has watched over them with intelligence and skill; has recognised which copies exhibit a fabricated, which an honestly transcribed text; has generally sanctioned the one, and generally disallowed the other. I am utterly disinclined to believe, so grossly improbable, does it seem, that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose, will prove trustworthy; and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired. I am utterly unable to believe, in short, that God’s promise has so entirely failed, that at the end of 1800 years much of the text of the Gospel has in point of fact to be picked by a German critic out of a waste-paper basket in the convent of St Catherine; and that the entire text had to be remodelled after the pattern set by a couple of copies which remained in neglect during fifteen centuries, and had probably owed their survival to that neglect; whilst hundreds of others had been thumbed to pieces, and had bequeathed their witness to copies made from them.”
I agree with John Burgon’s sentiments and that’s another reason why I am sticking with the AV.
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