UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
In this session we are going to take a short look at the superiority of the Traditional Text. This is really an important point when we discuss this subject. So often those of us who hold that the Text has been preserved by God are vilified by the name of �King James Only Fanatics.�
As with most slurs, this is not an accurate description of my, and many others, position. We defend the King James Bible because this Authorised Version is, almost without exception, the only edition currently available in the English language which is founded upon the Traditional Text. Almost without exception, all of the others are based on the critical, eclectic, Text.
The translation committee of the Authorized Version had a deep commitment to the Words because they believed those words to be the preserved record of that which God had originally inspired. They believed in a preserved text and a God powerful enough to protect that which He had ordained as His Message to man.
The translation committee�s of the newer versions and translation, again almost without exception, are generally only committed to the �story� which God wished to make known. As to the words, themselves, they are quite easily ready to delete, add, reorder, whatever they may believe in their own minds, God had meant to say. They do not see a God really interested in preserving His Words throughout all generations of humanity.
Burton (Let�s Weigh the Evidence) asks, and then answers a very important question regarding the preservation of God�s Words to man. �QUESTION: Where was the Bible before 1611? ANSWER: In the available Antiochian manuscripts.�
Actually, the term �Antiochian Manuscripts� is a misnomer. True, the phrase refers to the text type which was in favor in Antioch. This is often called the Byzantine, the Antiochian, the Constantinopolian, the Received Text (Textus Receptus), and the Traditional Text. But, the fact is that this text type was the nearly universal text type of the churches. Examples of this text type have been unearthed in manuscript, translation and writings of churchmen in nearly all areas of the Christianized world.
Those texts, meanwhile, which make up the bulk of the critical, or eclectic, text are generally found only in the orbit of the Egyptian Scriptorium at Alexandria.
By what reasoning this local text of the critical text is preferred over the nearly universal text of the Traditional is beyond me. This simple fact alone is enough to bring discredit upon the many translations which flow from that critical text. It is only the desire of man to �find� new things which can be a testament to his own glory that has led him to disregard that which God has preserved for His Own Glory.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) notes that even during the �Dark Ages� God had placed His stamp of authority upon those preserved Words.
�Not only in the Greek Church but also throughout all Christendom the medieval period was one of spiritual decline and doctrinal corruption. But in spite of this growth of error and superstition the New Testament Text most widely read and copied in the medieval Greek Church was the orthodox, Traditional (Byzantine) Text.�
In the West, the Roman church had early fallen under the seduction of Constantine and his state church. Constantine had ordered fifty copies of the Scripture to be made and placed in the churches which had accepted his state ordered protection. These copies were culled from the libraries of Alexandra thus polluting the Scriptural tradition of those churches. This pollution was deepened by the Vulgate of Jerome which was used to supplant the use of any Greek text in that Church.
However, in enclaves throughout Europe, as well as elsewhere in the world, the true churches, accountable only to the Lord, continued to use and revere the Traditional Text. So tenacious was the faith in this text that it came to be known as the �Received Text.� It was, as the name implies, that text which was received by humanity from the preserving power of God, Himself.
Although some try to dismiss the labors of Erasmus, Hills also notes that �The first printed text of the Greek New Testament was not a blunder or a setback but a forward step in the providential preservation of the New Testament.�
Erasmus did not produce the Textus Receptus. That name was not given to editions of the Traditional Text until many years later. That, name applied to the Traditional Text, was not placed upon copies of the Traditional Text until after the Authorized, King James, Bible was translated and printed. Erasmus did not produce anything; he simply supplied a copy of what God had produced, and preserved, when He first inspired the various writers of His Word to humanity.
Many today are touting new versions, and new base texts, as easier to understand. An article in Battle Cry magazine (May/June 1990), �Are They Easier to Understand?,� takes issue with this argument.
�If modern English translations ... were easier to understand, then the Holy Spirit�s message to the Christian would flow freer and accomplish greater spiritual victories in the lives of God�s people on an individual basis. Yet it is sadly evident that this is not happening.�
Many deride this type of reasoning. They argue that it is anecdotal rather than scientific. Well, it is still true. I do not have to understand science completely to understand that if I put water in a bottle and then place it in a freezer, that water will freeze, expand, and break the bottle. I�ve seen it happen. I�ve heard others speak of it happening. That is anecdotal evidence.
That does not make the evidence untrue. This simply makes the evidence evidentiary. It happens! We�ve seen it happen! We know many others who have seen it happen. We know of no one who has not seen it happen. The evidence of the witnesses, although not from a controlled experiment in a scientific laboratory, is compelling.
Likewise, when we compare society, and the attitudes of society towards the things of God, we are able to witness a severe downward curve in piety and Christian influence within that society since the advent of these newer versions which are based on the best works of man rather than on the preserved Words of God.
The truth is that it is not a matter of society changing, although that has been an outgrowth of this steady decline in the acceptance of the things of God. It is this decline in a faith in the revealed, inspired, and preserved Words of God which have untethered society to the lifeline of that preserved Word which has led to this decline.
We have lost values and much of the former civility of our society as we have removed ourselves from the preserved Words which had so ennobled us as a people. In their place we have accepted, even on the religious scene, the power of man as the ultimate in our attempt to understand our humanity. From this has come the concept that we are the ultimate. We, as a general society, no longer revere God. Indeed, we are more comfortable, it seems, when there is no mention made of Him in our daily lives.
When we removed ourselves from the trust in the revealed Words of God, and accepted the eclectic texts of man to guide our religious and spiritual lives, we lost the power of the Words of God.
The Traditional Text still stands superior to the eclectic, critical text.
In our next session we will take a look at the Protestant Reformation and the Traditional Text.
14 September 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
There was another great societal change back in the 16th century. This was The Protestant Reformation. There are probably many reasons why this great social and religious upheaval took place. There were some serious abuses in the Roman Church which outraged persons of piety. The outlook of society was also being influenced by those who were beginning to question the answers of the established Roman Church in the realms of the physical inquiry of science and the arts.
I believe that one of the seminal influences of the Protestant Reformation was the fall of Constantinople to the Muslim forces in 1453. With the demise of the Byzantine Empire many of the Christians fled into Western Europe. With these refugees came their Greek Bibles. Remembering that the Roman Church had elevated the Latin of Jerome in his Vulgate Translation near the end of the 4th Century, these Greek Bibles, of the Eastern Church, were bound to attract serious attention from serious scholars.
This did happen.
Along with this new found attention to the preserved Greek Scriptures, came the resultant return to the faith in those Scriptures as the Holy Spirit began to move upon those who read those inspired Words. When the Frenchman, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the man many consider as instrumental in the conversion of John Calvin, compared these Greek manuscripts with those of some of the independent groups of Christians which had withstood the call to unite with Rome, he found a remarkable agreement in their Bible traditions.
The case of preservation was easily noticed among the churchmen of the Reformation.
As a side note, Olivetan�s French translation was a heavy influence upon the English translators of The Bishop�s Bible which, in turn, was the English basis for our own Authorized, or King James, Bible. The Authorised was based on the Traditional Text, to be sure, but it was considered as an update of the older,. Bishop�s Bible.
Some would argue why, since the preserved Words in their original languages were in the possession of the Greek Church, the Greek Church did not produce a �Protestant Reformation� of its own.
A large part of the reason would be the providence of God. The God Who understands history before it happens would have understood the Western predilection to move out into all the world with a colonizing zeal. While I believe that few of us would argue that the concept of political colonization would be a good thing, I believe that the providence of God worked to bring good out of evil.
God used this Western zeal to circumvent the globe with their political influence as a means to spread the Gospel Message into all the world - as He had first commanded the Christians to do when they were still a small sect in Jerusalem. And, as He asks that we, also, do in this day.
Hills (The King James Version Defended) offers a more mundane explanation of the failure of the Greek Church to produce the spiritual vitality of the Reformation on their own.
�In spite of the corruption of the medieval Greek Church ... [there] were pious folk [who] ... Had a saving faith in Christ. ... if there were such groups of believers in the medieval Greek Church, why did not this group finally produce the Protestant Reformation? .. This question can be answered, at least in part, linguistically. ...the leaders of the Greek Church, being Greeks, were saturated with Greek philosophy. Hence in presenting the Gospel to their fellow Greeks they tended to emphasize those doctrines which seemed to them most important philosophically and to neglect the doctrines of sin and grace... Hence, even if the Greek Church had not been overrun by the Turks at the end of the Middle Ages, it still could not have produced the Protestant Reformation, since it lacked the theological ingredients for such a mighty, spiritual explosion.�
We are often prone to overlook the importance of doctrinal teaching. This ought not be so! One of the purposes of the gift of the inspired and preserved Scripture is that we study (II Timothy 2:15) the things of God. The Scripture, despite protestations to the contrary by many, is a remarkably concise Book. God told us those things which He deemed it good for us to know. For the Christian to study this Book of God, seems to me both a logical and emotionally needful thing if we are to honestly call ourselves followers of the Lord.
We should want to know more of Him, and His ways for us, so that we can more fully be able to follow Him. We should also have a burning desire to understand Him Who has loved us and saved our souls. How can we claim to love that which we tend to ignore?
Hills also mentions this doctrinal aspect which lead to the Protestant Reformation.
�...two great teachers [Tertullian and Augustine] entered into the doctrinal system of the Roman Church a slender flame of evangelical truth which was never entirely quenched even by the worst errors of the medieval period... This [the Protestant Reformation] occurred after the Greek New Testament Text had finally been published in Western Europe.�
There are those in the �King James Only� camp (I am not one of them. I am a �Preserved Text Only� man! In the English I do believe that the King James Bible is the single best representation, faithful to the originals, of this text.) who claim that the stamp of God is upon the King James Bible. They say that the history of the use of this Bible is evident of the approval of God upon the King James Bible. I believe that this �stamp of approval� is upon the fidelity which the King James Translating Committee held to the originally inspired, and providentially preserved Words of God rather than upon any translation.
Hills, again, makes note of the history of this fidelity to the Traditional Text. He notes that �God further placed His stamp of approval upon the Traditional Text when He used it as the Text of the Reformation.�
Note that: This �stamp of approval� was upon Bible translations in several languages. The unifying thread of this approval was that it was extended to those translations which were true to the Traditional Text.
I�d like to take up this same theme in our next session as we continue to look at the Biblical Text of the Reformation.
21 September 2007
UNDERLYING TEXTS (Continued)
We have been looking at the influence of the Traditional Text on the framers of the Protestant Reformation. The key highlight of the Reformation was a desire to return to a faith based in the Words of God as the absolute standard.
This is, of course, very important. The Roman Church then, as now, elevates the traditions of the church to an equal level as they do the written Words of God. Actually, they tend to make this tradition, and the resultant official �church� teaching, more important than the Words of Scripture. This is done because that tradition and teaching are used as the means of interpreting the meaning of the Scriptural record. In other words, the Words of God must conform to the official church teaching rather than the church submitting herself to the written record of God.
Hills (Believing Bible Study) argues that the Holy Spirit leads the Christian into the truth of God as that Christian submits to the dictates of the Word.
�In their dealings with the New Testament text the Protestant Reformers were guided by the common faith of Christendom, by the general belief, that is, the currently received New Testament was the true New Testament text which had been preserved by God�s special providence. This common faith in the current New Testament Scripture was the result of the providential preservation of these Scriptures during the Middle Ages by means of the universal priesthood of believers. Hence it was not produced by the Protestant Reformation but preceded the Reformation and made it possible. If this common faith in the current New Testament had not existed the Reformation could never have succeeded.�
The meaning here, of course, is that it was a faith that God had preserved His Words, and that those Words were presently available, that fueled the Protestant Reformation. It is a faith in the preserved Words which allows humanity to understand that the real authority of the Christian faith lies within God�s inspired and preserved Words. Without this preservation that authority must come from another source if we are to have anything worthy of faith.
With a faith that God has preserved His Words, we can appeal to the authority of the Scripture. If, instead, one were to argue God has not preserved His Words, then we are left with no anchor with which to hold the ship of our souls faith in the time of emotional storm. If God said it, then it is a settled fact. If God might not have said it, we have no safe harbor. The best guesses of man, and even his �assured findings,� are not a safe harbor in the time of spiritual storm. Man has no experiential understanding of eternal values and facts because man is a creature of time and the physical. Man must find his understanding from another source. If that source is not the inspired and preserved Words of God, that source is either guess work or inspired by the evil one.
The Roman church asserted that she was the repository of truth. The Scripture was not ultimately important because it might be wrongly interpreted if church teaching and tradition were not accepted as a basis for understanding the Message of God.
This position of the Roman church would be hard to ignore were it not for the fact that God has preserved His Words to humanity. God has also given to the Christian the gift of the Holy Spirit to lead that Christian into the Truth of God�s revelation.
The division of the Roman church into the priesthood and the laity, argued that the church teaching, and ultimately the teaching of God, was not the province of the church attendee. That leading came from the church, via her teachings and traditions. These teachings and traditions were �inspired,� so to speak, by the leading of the Spirit upon the leadership of the official Church.
Scripture does not teach this division. The Holy Spirit is given to all Christians. It is the work of the Spirit upon the Christians who inhabit the several churches which gives the church her power and this power flows from the Spirit�s leading of those Christians through the Words of the preserved Scripture.
If the doctrine of the Preservation of Scripture is ignored, there is no rational for the Protestant churches as separate entities on the religious scene. Without the doctrine of the Preservation of Scripture the Protestant churches have lost the rational upon which they have based the very reason for their existence. Without this doctrine of Preservation the Protestant churches lack a basis of authority and must search for this elsewhere.
Thus, the Protestant Reformation did not invent the clarion call to return to a reliance upon the Scripture. This reliance upon the Scripture as a final, and God given, authority was the womb from which the Protestant churches were birthed.
Gipp (An Understandable History of the Bible) notes that �The most vital and immovable weapon in Luther�s arsenal came in the form of his German translation of the New Testament in 1522. This put the pure words of the [Received] Text back into the hands of �Bible starved� Christians.�
Luther was a Christian the likes of Jonah. He did not completely agree with all of the Scripture. He questioned, for instance, the canonicity of the Book of James. But, with faith in the leading of the Spirit being allowed to override his personal questions, he gave the German people a copy of the complete Scripture in their own native tongue.
The authority was the Scripture rather than the leading of the church �professionals.�
Erasmus is an often derided person in some church circles. He never completely, as did Luther and others, leave the Roman church. He was called a �humanist,� although that term had a different meaning in his day than it does in ours. �Humanist� meant much the same as one schooled in the liberal arts in our days. It was a term that denoted one who was accomplished in the arts of humanity.
But, even if we were to discredit the man, Erasmus, we must not overlook the fact that his efforts were not to write a �new� text, as was the desire of Hort and Westcott and their ilk even unto our day. Erasmus saw his task as to edit a copy of the text which God had preserved.
In this Erasmus was successful. His work was the primary basis for the German Bible of Luther. Later editors continued in the wake of Erasmus. Their works were guided by the Hand of God in such a way that some one hundred years after Erasmus this stream was correctly called the Textus Receptus - or the Text Received. This was seen as the providentially preserved Text which was originally inspired of God and then kept by His Hand among the churches, and the Christians of those churches, which bore His Name.
Again, Hills (The King James Version Defended) sees the imprint of the favor of God upon this �Received Text.� Hills says, �....through the usage of Bible - believing Protestants God placed the stamp of His approval on this first printed text, and it became the Textus Receptus (Received Text).�
Fuller (True or False) is speaking of the King James Bible. But, as we look at his words, may we consider that this Authorised Version is true to the preserved Scripture. The power and majesty of the King James Bible is not due to its beautiful language or the scholarship of its translating committee, although both are of the ultimate highest caliber humanly possible. The power of the King James Bible is a derived power; the power is derived from the faithfulness of this version to the Words of God, inspired and preserved by His Own power and Hand, to which the King James Bible exhibits true fidelity.
�...when we consider what the A. V. was to the world, the incomparable influence it was to exert in shaping the course of events, and in accomplishing those eternal purposes of God for which Christ died and rose again and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven - when we consider what this Version was to be, more than all others combined, �the Sword of the Spirit,� and that all this was fully known to God beforehand, we are fully warranted in the belief that it was not through chance, but by providential control of the circumstances, that the translators had access to just those Mss. which were available at that time, and to no others. This belief in no way conflicts with the fact that man�s part in the preparation of the A. V. is marked and plainly enough, by man�s infirmities.�
Lest anyone misunderstand at this point, I do not believe that the King James Bible is, itself, inspired. One could argue for a derivative type of inspiration, I would suppose, based on the faithfulness of this Authorized Version to the truly inspired Words of the preserved Traditional Text. But, the power of the King James Bible, as I stated above, lies in the faithfulness of this English Bible to the originally inspired and preserved Words of God in the Traditional Text.
As we conclude our look at the textual base of the Protestant Reformation it is necessary to take a short look at the Old Testament Scriptures as well.
Fuller (Which Bible) makes a telling remark in regards to the Scriptures of the Old Testament. ��In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.� If this first sentence is unauthentic, the whole Bible is untrue and for six thousand years men have been duped and deluded who have loved and cherished its teachings.�
We cannot divorce faith in the New Testament from a faith in the Old Testament. It is one story of One God and one salvation. In the Old Testament there are many physical illustrations of things that we need to learn in a spiritual sense in our New Testament readings.
The Old Testament is the basis for our belief in the New Testament. It�s prophecies are valid in our day as are it�s promises. We cannot properly understand the New without an understanding of the Old.
This, the understanding of our New Testament theology, is even mirrored in the preservation of the Old Testament. Hills (The King James Version Defended) notes that �...the Old Testament text was preserved by the Old Testament priesthood and the Scribes and scholars that grouped themselves around that priesthood (Deut. 31:24-26).�
In these New Testament times it is the priesthood of the believers who have been used of God to preserve His Word for all time. His Spirit has worked upon us as we are His �special� place of residence in this Church Age. In the Old Testament times the Ark of the Covenant was understood as the �special� place of God�s residence. We understand that God is not bound by physical limitation. He is All and In All.
Likewise, in these New Testament times, God has promised that His Spirit would reside in the lives of the believers. As such we are the repositories of His preserving power, all of us corporately as the Bride of Christ, of that Message which He has given to humanity.
We may also note that Jesus believed the Old Testament to be true and factual. Fuller (Which Bible) has noted that, �The Old Testament, precisely as we have it, was endorsed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When He appeared on the earth, 1500 years after Moses, the first of the prophets, and 400 years after Malachi, the last of them.�
If we are to call ourselves believers in Jesus Christ, we must also accept that the Old Testament has been preserved. And, if that Old Testament, which was a teaching picture of that which was to come, has been preserved, how much more must we believe in the preservation of the New Testament which is the culmination of God�s Divine Message to the World.
In our next session we will begin to address the fact that the Words are important.
28 September 2007
THE WORDS ARE IMPORTANT
As we begin this session of our study I want to begin to rely much more heavily upon the words of the experts from which I have studied rather than from my own words. The simple reason is that these men referenced are expert in their field. I approach the issue of the transmission of the Biblical text from the standpoint of a theologian. I may read the words of the experts; but I am not, myself, an expert on the text.
I do, however, have an informed opinion as a theologian as to the issue at hand. The Bible presents a picture of God as a Being Who is reasonable in His actions and thoughtful in His pronouncements. The Scriptural picture of God does not present us with a Being Who would whimsically produce that which He knew would be lost to future generations. His passion was to produce, in the form of a Book, that information which would be needed for humanity to understand the grandeur of His Own majesty, and for that humanity to be able to live lives consistent with the highest functions for which they had been originally created.
Added to the above, God was desirous, in His Written Words, that humanity would have a word picture of the means of returning to that state of fellowship with Himself for which God had originally created humanity.
With these thoughts in mind it is impossible to conceive that God would not be powerful enough to ensure that His plans for His Words would not be thwarted by time or circumstance. Therefore, we must conclude that His Words were not lost to His churches, or to the Christians who made up those churches, for many centuries. Such a thought is an affront to the concept of an all powerful and loving God.
To further believe that humanity possessed the moral fibre to �reconstruct� that which God had allowed to be lost, is a further affront to the majesty of God and a complete misrepresentation of the picture of humanity as given in His Words to us. Man, a sinful creature of time and physicality, could not have the ability, or the frame of reference to understand and reconstruct a �lost� Scripture through his own devices. Such a postulate flies in the face of the very purposes for which God first inspired His Scriptural message for humanity.
Fuller (Which Bible) voiced this very concept.
�Textual criticism cannot be divorced entirely from theology. No matter how great a Greek scholar a man may be, or no matter how great an authority on the textual evidence, his conclusions must always be open to suspicion if he does not accept the Bible as the very Word of God.�
I have made this study nearly into a defense of the King James Bible. This has never been my intent. I do not, for reasons I have noted at various places in this study, consider the King James Bible to be, Itself, inspired of God. If we reason that the original Words which God gave to the various writers of the original texts were inspired, then it is impossible for any translation to make the claim for inspiration upon itself. If the original Words, in the original languages, were inspired it must follow that they were perfect Words, perfectly carrying the Message which God intended. No translation would be able to perfectly convey these words in an exact manner or it would not be a translation. The best we could hope for would be a transliteration. Not only would this transliteration be imperfect in itself, it would be largely incomprehensible to the foreign language reader. The King James, or Authorised, Bible can not be inspired if the original Words, of the original languages, were inspired. Without the prior inspiration of those original Words, there would be no possible reason to accept inspiration of any translation including that of the King James Bible..
However, if these originally inspired Words are accurately conveyed into a translation, such as the English language King James Bible, those words translated would carry the authority of the original manuscripts as a guide to those unable to speak or read the original languages.
For this reason we argue that those translations which are based upon the Traditional Text, the text of history and of inspiration, are authoritative. In the English this is the King James Bible. The newer versions are founded in another basic text. Again, if one textual tradition is inspired, then another cannot be inspired. If the foundational texts of the King James Bible are the originally inspired Words of God, and if the modern versions are founded upon another textual base, then these newer versions do not have the authority of God to back their claims to be the Word of God.
This does not mean that the newer versions do not contain, in many places, the message of God for humanity. This does mean that the newer versions can not be rightly called the Word of God because they are not founded upon the truly preserved Words of God. They are founded upon the best of sinful mankind�s effort to reestablish that which he alleges that God has lost.
The theological underpinnings of the newer versions are based in a lack of faith in the power and love of God. As such they are to be considered as suspect from the beginning.
Burton (Let�s Weigh the Evidence) has quoted an article from the magazine �Christianity Today.� He failed to give the citation number, issue and date. I only use this because Burton has been a reliable source in other instances. I think it only proper that I add this cautionary note to this citation, however.
�Dr Gordon D. Fee, a professor at Wheaton College said in an article in the magazine Christianity Today... �The contemporary translations as a group have one thing in common: they tend to agree against the KJV... In omitting hundreds of words, phrases, and verses.� NOTICE ... Dr. Fee was promoting the new versions yet he realized that the new versions, as a whole, are different.�
Again, I am using this quotation with reserve. But, the things stated in this quotation are true in fact. The newer versions are united in one thing; they all allege that the King James Bible is in error because the base text from which it is translated is in error.
This statement is used over and over to demean the King James Bible. I have read many responses on a �Christian� blog where people will point out the �errors� of the King James Bible. These instances are only considered as error because the base text from which the King James Bible is translated is considered in error when compared to the eclectic texts used to buttress the modern English language editions.
The truth of the matter is that these modern English language editions are in error because they have used a faulty base from which to make their translations. Some, such as the New International Version, are not even strict translations from faulty bases; it is merely a paraphrase of these corrupt base texts.
If the base text is produced from a standpoint of a lack of faith in the power and love of God, how can any version translated from these texts be anything other than suspect? Fuller (Which Bible) has asked this same question.
�The pathetic question of Pilate, �What is truth?� is not more pathetic than the error of those who say that only by balancing one version against another, or by examining the various manuscript readings - those of apostates as well as those of the faithful - can we arrive at approximate truth.�
I would further ask, Why would anyone want an approximate truth? If that is all that God has to offer in His Book to humanity we are in a very grave situation as to the prospect of our eternal souls. The truth of the matter is that we either have the true Words of God or we do not. If we do not then, �...we are of all men most miserable.� (I Corinthians 15:19)
In such a situation we are left in darkness to pick our own path with no certainty that this is the path which is blessed of God. Our faith, however, is guided, praise be to God!, by the Holy Spirit through the means of God�s inspired and preserved Words to us in His Scripture!
Still, there are those who would dispute that God has preserved His Words. There are those who would argue that God�s pure Words have been lost and must be reconstructed by the best minds of humanity.
This is ridiculous. It would be extremely funny were it not so important. The reason that God gave His Words in the first place was because humanity needed a way to understand the incomprehensible. To now allege that those original Words of God were lost and that human minds can reconstruct that which God could not preserve is to allege that God�s original purpose in inspiration was not only futile, it was not even necessary!
Is it any wonder that these who would argue such a thing are seemingly incognizant of the Words of God about His preserving power? The small tract, Correcting the King James Bible, addresses this futility.
The �...CORRECTORS OF THE AUTHORIZED BIBLE DENY THAT GOD HAS PRESERVED HIS WORDS FOR ALL TIME� but the Word of God says: I Pet. 1:23, 25, Ps 12:6-7, 119:160; Matt. 24:35; 5:18; Is. 59:21.�
�But,� the purveyors of the newer versions will argue, �We need to have a Bible that the people will read.�
This is a false argument on two points. The first is rather obvious, the unsaved will not want to read any Bible that flows from God. They are immersed in sin and are diametrically opposed to the things of God. This is why salvation is called a �conversion� experience. People are being converted from the nationality of Satan, so to speak, and repatriated to be followers of God. What sin severed in the Garden, that relationship with God, is reestablished in the Blood of Christ.
Second, rather than a simple readable �bible,� what is needed is the true Words and Message of God for mankind. Anything else will not have the spiritual power to establish one in the faith.
Cloud (Dynamic Equivalency - A Frightful Influence on Fundamental Translation Work) argues that many of the translations are abominable in that they do try to bring the Word down to the lowest level. �...the Word of God actually is being brought down to the level of the people rather than the people being brought up to the level of the Holy Scripture.�
This is even a more frightful consideration, as Cloud points out, when this is being done in paraphrased editions.
In our next session we will continue this theme that the newer translations agree together that God has lost control of His Word to humanity.