Thursday, May 24, 2012

Encounter with the assertion that all the texts we have are God's word

Is there something wrong with the attitude that ALL the Bibles we have are from God? This is the mainstream idea, and it's presented as a matter of faith in God's preservation of His word. Yes, they'll say there are some "translations" that are to be avoided because they are designed to give a liberal spin on certain concepts and thereby deviate from the true word of God, but we have thousands of Bible texts and can trust that they are God's preserved revelation to us.

What is not recognized in all this is that the Greek texts themselves are not all trustworthy. This ought to be pretty well known by now, but apparently it's overcome by the propaganda that treats the Alexandrian texts as just other valid texts among the collection of texts. The small percentage of differences among the many texts of the Bible is always noted, as if in proof that they're basically all the word of God, but this overlooks that the KIND of differences in some cases has an effect beyond their proportion.

Here's a common scenario: A whole passage familiar from the King James is left out of a Greek text regarded as among the oldest. Its supposed age of course raises doubt about the other manuscripts that contain the passage, that were the basis for the King James. These texts are in the great majority but they are more recent. It is assumed that the older text is more authentic because closer to the autographs or original writings. It is then logically explained that the passage must have been added by a scribe somewhere along the line and copied into the majority manuscripts although it didn't really belong to the originals or autographs. It continues to be included in some of today's Bibles nevertheless simply because it's familiar and traditional although not authentic. So anyone who is aware of this supposed history of the passage has now been infected with doubt about its authenticity, and whether it is admitted or not, with doubt about the authenticity of the word of God itself.

Simply taking the stance that all of the texts are God's word sounds on the surface like an admirable attitude of faith. We simply trust that God has provided us what we need in His word. But this has the effect of obscuring the fact that knowledge about some kinds of differences among the texts leads to undermining that very trust that they are God's word. It amounts to a denial of a real problem and has the effect of facilitating what is being denied, as others do study the differences and learn from them to distrust God's word.*

And anyone who tries to show that the supposedly earlier texts are not authentic but were corrupted in the early years -- as John Burgon does -- is dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist." Well, what if there WAS a conspiracy and its aim was to accomplish exactly what has happened, undermining trust in the word of God? The evidence does in fact point in that direction.

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*Bart Ehrman was a victim of this kind of scholarship, and he's been very vocal in spreading his own destroyed trust in the word of God to the church at large. If there is a conspiracy here -- Jesuits? -- they must be very pleased with their work.

Monday, May 21, 2012

The King James Bible a production of Rome???

Brief note on Chris Pinto radio show today (5/21/12):

He discusses a recent claim in a Catholic publication that Rome supposedly had a hand in the making of the King James Bible. What a laugh, a sardonic laugh I'm afraid. They said it was the product of Catholic priests! Ha!

Yes, many of the Protestant Reformers had been Catholic priests -- who LEFT the Roman Church when they discovered its false teachings which included its denial of the Bible's primary authority.

For centuries the King James Bible was regarded as the pinnacle of the achievements of the Protestant Reformation and the enemy of Rome. Now all of a sudden they want to claim it as their own work.