Re:Modern Translations

[al Hartman]

Hi all,

I just had to revive this thread when I read the following:

A ten-year old, under the tutelage of her grandmother, was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible.
Then one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"

al

[vernecarty]

I bought a new calf-skin Bible today and it is a thing of beauty!
Believe it or not it is the NKJV!
Some folk think it qualifies as a "modern" translation and there are a few changes that catch the alert eye, but so long as you know...
I am going to try and read the entire thing in a month.
I like to read all my Bibles through from cover to cover at least once.
Have you ever noticed as you are reading the Word of God how many things you accepted as fact are actually myth?
Tom Maddux a few months back mentioned that teaching believers to tithe was false teaching.
I was always a bit uncomfortable with that but until he called it for what it was, I never could put my finger on it. Of course Tom was right on the money Biblically.
As I was reading the account of the Flood, I remembered images presented to me as a child of Noah preaching the gospel to folk and imploring them to get into the ark with him so they would not perish.
Anybody else taught the story of the flood that way?
Well, when you actually read what happened, you certainly come away with a different sense of what really went down don't you? 
Verne

p.s one huge prinicple that I see is that the key to saving society is teaching men to save their own households...no wonder so many black kids are in so much hot water...we men are really screwing things up royally...

[vernecarty]

Carson is frequently referenced by many believers as a source of authority during the course of discussions about theology. It is quite revealing how little so many Christians know about some folk wearing the the garb of Christianity, espcially those in academic circles, and whom they cite as support for their position on Biblical issues. Here is an interesting article put out by the  Fundamental Babtist Information Service about Carson.


BEWARE OF D.A. CARSON


Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Copyright 2001.
 

D.A. Carson is a professor of New Testament at the New Evangelical Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is the author of several influential books. One of these is “The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism,” which is often promoted by fundamentalists who defend textual criticism and the modern versions. (By Carson’s standard, the only “realism” is to abandon the defense of the King James Bible and to accept the findings of unbelieving textual criticism.)

D.A. Carson is not a man that fundamentalists should be following. He walks in the most radical of New Evangelical circles, being associated with organizations such as Christianity Today and the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), both of which are deeply compromised theologically. Christianity Today has been one of the chief voices for New Evangelicalism for 50 years. It has promoted everything from Billy Graham to Fuller Theological Seminary to Robert Schuller to Karl Barth.

As for the Evangelical Theological Society (Carson spoke at the ETS conference in 1999) its members voted in November 2003 NOT to expel two members (Clark Pinnock and John Sanders) who espouse the heresy of open theology. Open theism denies the foreknowledge and omniscience of God, claiming that He does not know the future perfectly. Open theist Gregory Boyd says, “God can’t foreknow the good or bad decisions of the people He creates until He creates these people and they in turn create their decisions.” In The Battle for the Bible, Harold Lindsell gave examples of members of the Evangelical Theological Society who deny the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. One was Richard Bube, a professor at Stanford University. In his book The Encounter Between Christianity and Society, Bube claimed that Christians are not required to believe that there was a real “man by the name of Adam who experienced the events of Genesis in a natural historical sense.” Bube also claimed (falsely) that “there is no information in the Bible that is ... opposed to theories of organic evolution” (The Battle for the Bible, pp. 128-129).

No man who is associated with the Christianity Today or the Evangelical Theological Society takes Biblical separation seriously.




Verne

[Joe Sperling]

As many are aware there are areas in the King James Version of the Bible which are in italics. These are areas where the translation is questionable--the areas may have been added by over-zealous scribes or others. 1 John 5:7 is one such verse. There is one area of Mark, near the end of chapter 5, that has recently come into dispute, as a document was recently found which added several verses to the original manuscript that are not found in the translation of the King James Version we have at the present time. Below are verses 11 through 17 of chapter 5, and then the section which is not found in our modern translation:

11A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." 13He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

 14Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

Inserted in the recently found manuscript after verse 17 was the following (these verses are not numbered as the original languages did not have any numerical separation):

Then Emeril, Julia's child, son of Jacob, said loudly "Who is this man, and from whence did he come?" (Now Emeril was of them who prepare the feasts). And Emeril raised his knife, and he took of the meat of the swine which had run into the lake, and then he declared "This is the finest swine I have ever tasted--it is completely cooked, with the sweetest savor imaginable. I shall call it deviled ham."  Now Emeril took of the deviled ham and prepared a feast. He stuffed the deviled ham with figs. These were  figs which did come from a tree which had been recently cursed, on which fruit was declared to never grow again, but which caused the figs that did grow on that tree to immediately dry, retaining an amazing sweetness. And thus it was so.
 
Emeril, Julia's child, took of these sweet, dried figs, and added a multitude of spices, a mixture of his own invention, which he did sprinkle on every meal he he did prepare. He did use bread and fish left over from a hillside feast attended by about 5000 people a week before also. He then served a wine from Cana of Galilee, which  had been miraculously made from water. And it came to pass that the multitude shouted with joy, as the ham and the figs and the wine had filled them, and given them great happiness. And they went home proclaming the miracle which they had seen, and the meal that they had eaten. And many determined to follow the man who had done these things, and to write down the instructions for preparing the meal that Emeril, Julia's child had served them. (James Whitcomb, Joseph Smith Jr., translators. From the original Greek.)

Again, this part of the manuscript is questionable and most likely will not be added to the versions that we have today. But it does give a rather historical perspective of the eating habits of the people who lived at that time, and the fact that they even used "recipes" in their food preparation. Another apocryphal document makes reference to another event involving eggs which had been "deviled" also, but it is believed this is a work of pure fiction.