"Lost" Gospels?

Every so often someone finds (or finds that someone else has found) that there are other documents known as 'gospels.' Immediately they conclude that this somehow proves that Jesus was not the way the New Testament says He was. So what shouls Christians think of these things?

Christians should not worry about these discoveries at all, because they affect absolutely nothing. Contrary to all the hype, they have no affect at all on our understanding of who Jesus is. At best they help scholars to understand the heretical sects that produced them.

So why is there so much fuss about them? First of all, people talk about them because they can be used by unbelievers to undermine confidence in the Bible. A classic case in point is The Da Vinci Code’s claim that there were “more than 80” gospels considered for inclusion in the New Testament. This is utter nonsense. At no point was there ever a meeting that decided which books belong in the New Testament. But to say that the early Christians held various radically different views of Jesus means that we can pick and choose which Jesus we want to believe in ourselves. It is a way of avoiding Jesus’ claims.

Second, people love a good conspiracy theory. This is why The Da Vinci Code sold as well as it did. The conspiracy theory TV series The X Files ran for years. We live in a day and age when people tend to distrust authority, and so the claim that the truth about Jesus was covered up is a sure seller.

Thirdly, most people today, even Christians, are woefully ignorant about the Bible. A poll showed that the best-known Bible verse among modern American is “God helps those who help themselves” – which is not in the Bible at all. Thus people can make the wildest and silliest claims about these documents, and people still believe them.

One of the problems is with the language used of them. What we understand by a Gospel is a narrative like that in our Canonical gospels. The so-called “Lost gospels” contain nothing of the sort. Instead they are usually collections of sayings attributed to Jesus. My advice to anyone who is worried about the lost gospels is that they should read one or two of them. I have read all of the most popular ones myself. You will soon see that they are a radically different sort of literature from the canonical gospels. Another name they are known by is the “Gnostic gospels”. This refers to the fact that they are the product of a varied movement known as Gnosticism that flourished from the 2nd century and into the 4th century. The name comes from a Greek word meaning “to know”. To the Gnostics salvation was a matter of having esoteric knowledge – and that is what these Gnostic texts teach. Secondly, the “Lost Gospels” are all very late documents. None dates from before about AD 150, while our Gospels, particularly Matthew, Mark and Luke, can all be dated with confidence to before AD 70. Matthew and John were written by people who knew Jesus. There is an old tradition that Mark’s Gospel is based on the preaching of the Apostle Peter, and Luke explicitly states that he interviewed eye-witnesses. In contrast the Gnostic gospels were not written until more than a century after Jesus’ death, and have no connection at all with the eye-witnesses. No Christian group ever accepted any of them, for their teaching utterly contradicts the canonical Gospels. The Jesus of the Gnostic gospels came to give deep teaching, the true Jesus came to die for our sins. The Gnostic Jesus would never have been crucified.

April Fool's Day Special

In honour of April Fool's Day, I feature a link to one of the sillier atheist claims about Jesus.

The first problem with this article is the tone - it is obviously addressed to fellow atheists, not to Christians. Becaue of this, it stretches things, and engages in nit-picking fault-finding. Every single claim here is secondhand, and has been refuted dozens of times. Undoubtedly the silliest bit is the claim about angels. Biblically, angels are presented as spiritual beings that are in consequence able to adopt a variety of physical shapes, often indistinguishable from humans (such as the angels in Sodom). No-where are they presented as winged humanoids. So, while we may have proven that the X-Man called Angel is unable to fly (which I hope we all realised is just fantasy, this proves nothing but ignorance on the part of the atheist writer.

The scepticism displayed about the Gospels is in radical contrast to the attitude displayed by historian Martin Goodman in his 2007 book Rome and Jerusalem. There Goodman treats the New Testament as a reliable source on a par with Josephus.

A word to the wise: Mockery is not the same as argument. You can assert all you like that you find the New Testament unconvincing, that does not make it unreliable!

As for the oft-repeated claim about paralells between Jesus and other ancient religious figures, one must actually demonstrate them, not just say they exist. Those of us who heard Dan Barker's debate with James White will recall how laughable some of them were when actually stated (most notably the "getting into a boat and sitting down" paralell).

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Total and Complete Insanity

Just before Chritmas is not the time I want to write this, but I ought to. I have recently become aware of claims that there are "Counterfeit King James" Bibles in circulation. What is the problem:

"Here are some of the changes I located: Asswaged has been changed to assuaged. Basons has been changed to basins. Chesnut has been changed to chestnut. Cloke has been changed to cloak. Enquire has been changed to inquire. Further has been changed to farther. Jubile has been changed to jubilee. Intreat has been changed to entreat. Morter has been changed to mortar. Ought has been changed to aught, and rereward has been changed to rearward. "

In other words, some spellings have been updated. Now, what is most utterly crazy about it is that the vast majority of the differences between the 1611 King James and the 1769 Blayney revision of the text are just like these examples, they are spelling changes, updating Elizabethan spellings with 18th century ones. Thus in 1611 Noah built an Arke, while in the 18th century revision he built an ark. Pass was often spelled Passe, and Days was spelled Dayes. Son was spelled Sonne, and Year was Yeere. Believe was spelled Beleeve, and Truth Trueth. In terms of names, Jerusalem in the 1611 AV is Hierusalem, and Pharisee is Pharise. Now, unless I am very much mistaken, the same thought process that produced the hysterical article about "Counterfeit King James Bibles" because 18th century spelling had been updates to 21st century spelling, would also logically apply to the spelling changes in the 18th century. In other words, if spelling is so vital that it cannot be updated. I quote again:

"You see I believe God wrote the Bible through sinful men. I believe God copied the Bible through sinful men. I believe God translated the Bible through sinful men, and I believe God edited (purified) the Bible through sinful men. So therefore I believe God gave us the exact words in the exact order He wanted us to have them in. If that’s the case then He spelled the words exactly the way He wanted to spell them, and gave them to us in a pure language, and that language is the standard text of the King James Bible. "

Again, if spelling is so important that God inspired the spelling, then any changes to the spelling of the King James Bible are wrong, and always have been. Yet the fact of the matter is that the AV that our author holds to be the standard departs in literally thousands of places from the 1611 original (there are multiple spelling changes on literally every page). He is therefore on the horns of a dilemma. Either the 18th century revision was wrong, or the original translators were.

Because he does not allow that this insistence on correct spelling is a relatively modern phenomenon in the English language. My own surname is spelled in at least a dozen different ways in the parish records of my forefathers, and John Wycliffe spelled his own name in many different ways! What is more, the spelling of a word does not affect its meaning. Whether Peter's confession was "Thou art Christ the sonne of the living God" (1611), or "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (20th century Oxford King James), the meaning is the same. Surely this is taking King James Only silliness to new heights of ridiculousness!

Oh, and I note that the modern King James has the definite article before "Christ", making it New Age accoding to Gail Riplinger, as opposed to the 1611, which has just "Christ".

Note: I checked, the 20th century Oxford King James I am using for comparison does not have an updated text. Well, unless it's compared with the 1611, of course!

The Craft of Dishonest Quotation - 1

Over the next week or so, God willing, I will be addressing some issues with Gail Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions. Yes, I’m back on the Riplinger subject. Why? Because I bought a copy of New Age Bible Versions and read it, and I’m determined to make you all suffer as I did... or something like that, anyway. Actually I put a lot of effort into examining the book, and I don't want to waste it.

Gail Riplinger first came to prominence due to her book New Age Bible Versions.[1] This book is intended to show that modern Bible versions are connected to the New Age movement, and are part of a New Age conspiracy to usher in Antichrist’s one-world religion. It does nothing of the sort, of course – it cannot, for the premise is untrue. There are bad Bible versions, and good ones, and of course there are people involved in the translation of the Bible whose theology is unorthodox. But Gail Riplinger goes far beyond this, into fully-fledged conspiracy theories. Most of the tables supposed to prove her claims are nothing more than examples of the genetic fallacy, making men offenders for a word – literally. Thus the fact that modern versions use the word ‘One’ to speak of God is alleged to prove their connection to the New Age movement. This is of course nonsense. For one thing, the King James Bible uses the phrase ‘The Holy One’ to speak of God more than a dozen times! Having examined the passages she quotes in support of this, I find that most of the time the use of the word ‘one’ is merely dictated by the conventions of modern English grammar – so that underlying her comment is the real complaint, that the modern Bibles are written in modern English! On P. 77 she tells us that there is no Greek or Hebrew word for ‘one’ in many of these passages – there is not, but this is because it is quite correct in Greek and Hebrew to simply use the noun ‘the good’ or ‘the holy’ to describe God. This is, however, bad English; thus, to make it good English, the translators added the word ‘one’. It should be added that the NIV, the NASB and the New King James Bibles never use ‘The One’ alone as a title for God.

So why do the modern versions seem in places to sound similar to some New Age writers? The true explanation is simply that New Age authors are writing in English about religion, and thus they will use a great deal of the same vocabulary as modern Bible translators, just as they also use a great deal of the same vocabulary as the King James Bible! Although Mrs. Riplinger twits modern versions for using the word ‘teaching’ where the AV reads ‘Doctrine’, it is notorious that Madame Blavatsky’s multi-volume work of occult teaching is called The Secret Doctrine. Satan can use Christian vocabulary as easily as he can invent new terms. The New Age movement has developed its own jargon, of course, but like most false religious movements in the West, it has also appropriated wholesale the vocabulary of Christianity, filling that vocabulary with its own meanings. So once again, it is not the title ‘The Christ’ that is evil (contra Riplinger on Pp.318-321 and in many other places), but the meaning that the New Age movement has filled the title with. For this reason it is not enough to prove that a writer uses a specific term that the New Age uses, it must also be proven that the writer uses it in the same way as the New Age movement’s writers.

God willing, next time I shall begin to show that Riplinger has not done that, she has merely assumed it, the logical fallacy of begging the question. Where she has attempted to do so in the case of Brooke Foss Westcott, she has only demonstrated a remarkable level of dishonesty. I know, I said 'dishnoesty'. Hold your fire, there's eighteen pages of this in Word, and that was just page one!

Some ground rules: Don't expect me to do all the work. Wait, this is the introduction. Don't expect me to run around after commenters, I'm a busy man. As in full-time Gospel ministry busy. I now have to finish off preparing for a Young People's talk that was sprung on me last night.

Footnote:
[1] G.A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions (Ararat, VA, AV Publications, 1993), hereafter NABV

Playing with Numbers Can Prove Anything...

... And therefore nothing. This article, which I do not commend for anything it contains and present merely as an example, shows that weird occultic numerology proves nothing.

Plus, some say that Westcott and Hort were occultists, and thus changed the Bible, the bloke quoted here says that as they were occultists they never would have changed the Bible. Some say Bible codes prove the AV, the bloke here says they prove Westcott and Hort were right.

In fact, of course, it's all rather silly, and all wrong. 'Bible codes' are occultic and utterly subjective. As witness:

"The amazing design of numeric features or facts discovered in the structure of the Greek text used by Wescott and Hort definitely settles the question concerning the correct reading of the last verse in the Bible. The numerical facts prove that they are right in ending the New Testament with the word saints ."

Riplinger says numerics proves the King James is inspired, Panin says it proves the Westcott and Hort text. The truth? They're both wrong. Christians do not need silly Bible codes to prove that the Bible's inspired, because those codes do nothing of the kind. They're totally subjective, and can be manufactured to 'prove' whatever you want them to.

This also proves that Westcott and Hort Text-Onlyism may actually exist!!! Help!!!

See criticism of Panin here if you're in danger of being converted to W&H Onlyism. [NOTE: The site linked to also promotes serious weirdness, including the insane conspiracy theory that the Knights Templar were actually Merovingian Jews (I know, the Merovingians weren't Jews), and they initiated the crusades (again, I know, the Knights Templar came into being AFTER the First crusade) as a vast piece of Zionist black propaganda, to commit genocide and then blame it all on the Christians. All of which merely has to be stated to show how absurd it is. I hope.]

Her Hazardous Materials

This is it, the review of G.A. Riplinger's Hazardous Materials (Ararat VA, AV Publications) Pp. 1200

We have all of us been annoyed at times by the young preacher who says in a sermon 'the Greek really means...', especially those of us who know that the Greek means nothing of the sort in context. A good rule is that if no English Bible has that translation, there's a reason for it, so keep that 'nugget of wisdom' to yourself. Gail Riplinger, however, goes further. This reliance on the Greek, she thinks, is the result of an Occult plot, and she has published a book to share this with the world.


This is a great brick of a book that purports to expose the dark secrets lurking in Greek and Hebrew study, a study that the authoress believes is equivalent to showing pornography to Bible college students. It is full of innuendo, logical fallacies, and wide-eyed conspiratorial ravings. The only use a sane person might have for it is to read excerpts to a dinner party to gales of laughter. In sharing the contents of this book with good conservative Christian friends, I have universally been greeted with loud laughter and incredulity that anyone could believe this stuff. She lambasts all Greek and Hebrew learning as springing from Catholic and Occultic sources, and asks why anyione would want to learn Greek when we have a Holy Bible. She manages the amazing feat of brining in the Titanic, the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, the Rothschilds, Jack the Ripper, and Alice in Wonderland (after I had told a friend that it included the first five he asked "does it bring in Alice in Wonderland too?" The affirmative answer prompted loud laughter). In all the long and honoured history of nonsense, I doubt there has ever been a book this bad.


She spends literally hundreds of pages detailing facts about the lexicons most commonly used today. Quotations from lexicographers and Greek scholars are given in which they state that most modern lexicons are inadequate. Yet from this Riplinger does not conclude, with the lexicographers themselves, that new, better lexicons are needed, but that Lexicons obscure the tecahings of the Bible, and we ought to do away with them as polluted by the study of Classical Greek and secular Greek. Since God is not the author of confusion, she says, He must be the authour of the one inspired English Bible today - the King James Bible. Time and again Gail Riplinger commits the logical fallacy of Non sequitur. The conclusion just does not follow from the argument. The conclusion is that we need more Greek study, not less.


For those interested, Riplinger does not even attempt to direct her readers to any Greek and Hebrew lexicons, past or present, that do not contain the problems she identifies. These problems are: use of classical Greek literature and post-Classical Greek documents to understand Biblical Greek, and the use of cognate languages to shed light on the Hebrew. In fact all Greek study since the Rformation has used non-Biblical literature in the teaching of Greek and the interpretation of Biblical languages, and William Bedwell, an AV translator, actually argued that you had to know Arabic to understand Hebrew texts, a position concerning the cohnate languages far more extreme than any held by modern scholars! She cannot tell us where God has preserved the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, even quoting favourably a writer who arges that God has not done so at all. Where does that differ from this slightly doctored quotation: "[The King James Bible] is truer than the [common] Greek text itself. It is not only better than all other [English] translations, but than the Greek text itself, in those places, where they disagree"? Yet this is taken from the preface to the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible! The original reads: "It [the Latin Vulgate] is truer than the vulgar Greek text itself. It is not only better than all other Latin translations, but than the Greek text itself, in those places, where they disagree."

And she does not simply point out the inadequacies in the lexicons and modern Bible versions. As she did in New Age Bible Versions, she argues that the moral and spiritual failings of the men involved with a work affects the character of the work itself. Moreover, the moral character of those associated with those associated with a work is also important. And thus we are hurled into rambling rabbit-trails of speculation that are finally to very little point. There is really no necessary connection between Cecil Rhodes using the Liddell-Scott Greek lexicon and his imperialist ambitions. The ad hominem fallacy looms large in this book. Rather than arguing against the materials themselves, she spends most of her time attacking the men involved. One suspects this to be because she simply lacks the ability in the original languages to argue any other way.

In fact we have to admit that a Bible translator's moral character must, at least to some extent, be less important than his or her scholarly credentials. Why is this? Simply because otherwise the King James Version itself would have to be rejected. Several men on the King James committee were actively involved in the persecution of Puritans, for example Bishop Overall of Norwich and Thomas Ravis. Hadrian a Savaria, another King James translator, was forced to flee Holland after engaging in political intrigue, and Richard Thompson was a drunken Arminian. These are only four men, and others could have been referred to. Taking Riplinger's separatistic Baptist position, we would further have to condemn the AV for being traslated entirely by paedobaptist Anglican clergymen, seven of whom became Bishops, three of whom actively attacked non-episcopalian government, and most of whom were Calvinists. The engineer is hoist with her own petard. But God who could speak by Balaam and by Caiaphas can also make use of wicked scribes and translators to merely convey His Word.
The point is urged through the use of very dirty arguments, for example B.F. Westcott is made the target of some of the vilest innuendo I have ever read in any book, Christian or otherwise, and all without a sliver of evidence. C.D. Ginsburg is made the subject of an offhand accusation of murder, again without evidence, and Riplinger repeats the worn-out suggestion that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was Jack the Ripper, an accusation that is not taken seriously by the online source that she cites. Even when a man has true moral failings, she has to over-egg the pudding and pull in arguments that have no relation to the real world, as evidenced in her bringing in the Knights Templar in relation to C.J. Vaughan, passing from truth (Vaughan allegedly had homosexual relationships with sixth-formers when headmaster at Harrow School) to the realms of pure fantasy. There is very little discrimination here, and everywhere the marks of an obsession with the infiltration of the occult, for she sees the occult everywhere, esepcially where it is not.
Riplinger's research is an odd mix of the accurate and the inaccurate, using modern sources and outdated sources. She is also unable to discriminate between reliable and unreliable sources, and as a result presents 'facts' to her readers that are nothing of the sort, as I have already shown in the posts preliminary to this review.

The book is meant to defend the King James Bible. In fact what it defends is the Fundamentalist deviation that proclaims the AV to have been inspired of God, and that in a bizzarre scheme which I have christened IVOr, the theory of Inspired Vernacular Originals, given by God in Acts 2. Since none of the New Testament had been written at that date, to give vernacular New Testaments then would have been a source of endless confusion ("Look, Peter, here's two letters you're going to write! And who's this Paul fellow?"). This interpretation of the Gift of Tongues is unknown until the modern age, as is the idea that the AV is God's final word in English. The teaching that the originals of the New Testament books might not all have been in Greek (for example she suggests that Romans was originally in Latin) is not a development that any historic Bible-believing Christian would welcome, and the suggestion that the English and Latin can trump the Greek at times is truly disturbing.



This is one of the worst books I have ever read. If you need something to cheer up a party, buy one and read out selected passages to entertain your friends. If you actually want to obtain factual information, don't bother. There is fact in this book, but so mixed with myth and misrepresentation that you will be disappointed.



Gail Riplinger's English style is affected, and her use of rhyming couplets in prose has already been commented on. This is hardly surprising in one who lambasts the reading of imaginitive literature, and views Shakespeare as Satan's pawn to distract people from the King James Bible. I kid you not. Finally the book has no index, an extremely irritating feature in a work this size.

In conclusion, to those who wish to defend the exclusive use of the King James Bible (please note the word exclusive), I would say: get yourselves a better champion. The woman is quite unreliable as a source of factual information. I have discovered that she has a devoted following who will jump down your throat if you dare to say anything against her, but will in no wise object to her making the foulest of accusations against others. This ought not to be so, my friends. Despite her own claims, Gail Riplinger is not an inspired prophet of God, she is a fallible human being, and a very dirty writer. I do not believe in burning books, but if I did, I should burn this one first.

[Note: It has recently come to my attention that Riplinger is probably wrong to say that Liddell-Scott is the first Greek-English lexicon. Postings here indicate the prior existence of at least four Greek-English lexicons before Liddell-Scott. One poster indicates that Pickering, one of these old lexicons, can be traced back to Stephanus' lexicon, which would have been used by the AV translators. Also of interest is the fact that the AV translators actually used lexicons that referenced the classical Greek literature and in Hebrew other Semitic languages - features Riplinger attacks modern lexicons for. Thus once again we are faced with the problem that Riplinger's methods end up falling on the AV!]

Riplinger Weirdness.

There are some passges in Riplinger that, while they cannot be cited as errors, are just really weird. Some defy comment.


On P. 51 she says of Greek professors: "The professor may just as well have shown the students pornography..." I was apalled at the comparison, but this is by the same woman who uses filthy innuendo that I do not consider suitable for publication (see P. 829 and P. 841 if you must). This is part of an introduction that makes little sense. Riplinger's use of rhyming couplets in prose is also very distracting. Examples of those will follow.


On P. 56 she tells us in a note: "Hermeneutics... is named after the pagan Greek god Hermes..." What is this supposed to do? Make us all stop interpreting the Bible? There would be an end to sermons if we did that. Perhaps we should just sit and listen to someone read Gail Riplinger instead?


On P. 91 she equates the works of Homer with the magic books burned in Acts 19. Throughout the book she condemns study of ancient Greek literature as degrading and wicked. In a private communication a representative of Riplinger said much the same about Shakespeare.


On P. 113 she states "It is absolute blasphemy for an undergraduate Bible school student to make a translation of a chapter from the Bible."


On P. 115 we read the following gem: "Anyone who suggests that a translation cannot be inspired knows little of the wide and wild theological heresies which have been generated using the Greek words which are common to all Greek texts." What about the wild heresies that have been generated by (ab)using the AV?


On P. 133 we find that she thinks that New Testament Greek is a special 'holy' dialect of Greek.


On P. 148 she writes: "Have men become sorcerers by being asked to give an 'interpretation' of God's words?"

On P. 194 she heads a section about German influences in McClintlock and Strong "Nazi", despite the fact that the work was published between 1867 and 1881, long before the Nazi party existed. Like some schoolboys, she seems to think 'German' and 'Nazi' are synonymns.


She insists that Heb 4.18 refers to the pre-incarnate Jesus (P. 201), not to Joshua.


On P. 208 she lambasts the drinking habits of Henry Liddell and his fellow students for their drinking alcohol. Yet she goes on that "The ten members [of a club Liddell was a member of] 'consumed, in four nights, less than four bottles of wine.'" I make that about a glass a night, per person. Hardly an example of drunken debauchery!


On P. 213 we are gravely warned of the occult dangers of the game of football. In a glaring example of "fanciful etymology" we are told that the word 'ball' comes from "the pagan god Baal," when in fact it is derived from the Greek ballo, to throw. Baal means 'lord' or 'master' or 'husband'.


On P. 217 she quotes Dean Henry Liddell, "'I kneeled this day before the Bishop,' and hoped God would 'so exalt my being while I am left here.' He echoes Lucifer, who said, 'I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.'" Is this fair? Liddel hoped God would exalt him, Lucifer wanted to exalt himself. There is all the difference between heaven and hell between these two statements!


One of her sillier rhying couplets in prose is found on P. 227, "a referee with no eyes, where religious squabbles end in ties." She may think this enlivens her style, it does not.


We are asked (P. 243) to believe that Liddell's Greek Lexicon was responsible for the corruption of Cecil Rhodes, as opposed to Rhodes' own evil heart.


On P. 307 we read: "Alcoholic beverages are called 'spirits' for a reason. They numb the mind, leaing it an 'empty' host for evil 'spirits' who seek bodies to work out their evil desires."


A statement at the bottom of P. 37 seems to condemn all universities, despite the fact that every one of the AV translators ad a university education.


On P. 393 she writes in criticism of Trench's rendering of James 3.5: "Christians need no warning against pyromania, but being a 'busybody in other men's matters is a problem (1 Peter 4.15; James 3.8). In James 3 in the KJB 'memb-ber' corresponds with 'mat-ter.' The cross-references and corresponding sounds in the KJB [she doesn't hold the centre -column to be inspired as well, does she?] are God's means of 'comparing spiritual things with spiritual.'" Apparently missing the figure of speech James is using.


Riplinger cannot keep her story straight as regards the Greek manuscripts. One page (e.g. 437)she will cite the "5300" Greek manuscripts we have, and a few hundred pages later she will rubbish all of those Manuscripts as the product of apostate Greek Orthodox monks (P. 741).

"We know God is not the author of confusion. Therefore He must be the author of today's one perfectly translated English Holy Bible, the King James Bible" (P. 454). This is an example of the logical fallacy non sequitur.

"We love pizza and puppies, not Jesus Christ, according to Vine" (p. 464). I have no idea where she got the pizza and puppies from either, though I'd hazard the local petshop and pizza parlour.

"John did not write the book of John, God did" (P. 520). In fact both statements are true, denial of one or the other is a species of rationalism.

On P. 593 she links Scrivener with occultism on the basis of his capitalizing the word 'Truth', then admits that there is in fact no connection, "He is not an occultist, but he is talking like one."

Riplinger's AV Publications supplies Greek and Hebrew texts "with the caveat that [they] not be used for study or translation" (P. 631).

"All Englishmen will be judged by the same English Bible" (P. 711). What about Americans, Australians and Scotsmen? Will all Welshmen, including those who do not speak Welsh, be judged by the Welsh Bible?

She quotes approvingly Jack Moorman when he writes: "It would seem far more honouring towards God's promises of preservation to believe that the Greek and not the English had strayed from the original" (P. 734).

On P. 745 Riplinger abuses 1 Corinthians 1.23, chopping up the quotation to read "the Greeks foolishness". Her reason for doing this is beyond me, but it shows a cavalier disregard for the actual meaning of the Bible.

On P. 792 she writes: "Ancient Greek was for ancient Greeks."

On P. 811 she lambasts Zodhiates for having 1 John 2.23 missing from his text. This is because he is using a Byzantine text, and the Byzantine tradition commonly omits this verse.

The vilest sins result from "focus on the Greek language and Greek mythology" (P. 841)

On P. 962 we read "Hebrew word study has become virtually impossible, outside of the King James Bible." How you can study Hebrew in an English translation is beyond me. After six months in a bilingual country, I am very aware that different languages have different idioms. For example, what in English is called a 'Tourist information centre' is literally a 'welcome centre' in Welsh.

"James Price, the NJKV Old Testament editor, is sinking in the sea of his personal opinion, in the battle using a rattle instead of a paddle" (P. 977). Some may accuse me of mocking Riplinger (partly guilty), but they give her a free pass to use this sort of childish mockery.

One of the charges against C.D. Ginsburg is "Ginsburg was a member of 'The National Liberal Club'" (P. 1007). Riplinger thinks this means 'theological liberal', when in fact it means a member of the Liberal Party, which was the party of the majority of British Nonconformists at the time. C.H. Spurgeon was a Liberal supporter as well.

The charges of occultism against C.D. Ginsburg are backed up with quotations from his book on the Kabbalah. However, without examining the book it is impossible to tell if Ginsburg is promoting the teaching of the Kabbalah or simply reporting it. In New Age Bible Versions Riplinger adopted this procedure with quotations, and so she may well be doing the same here. The fact that a man reports a position does not mean he holds to it. Ginsburg was a professing Christian, and a professing Christian could not possibly have held to the theology of the Kabbalah (see P. 1042-5). It is telling that not one of the quotes from Ginsburg are in the first person, plural or singular.

She strongly suggests that Ginsburg was a murderer, despite the fact that this is based on pure speculation on her part (P. 1057). This is the second man whom Riplinger accuses of murder in this book. If you disagree with her, she may suggest that you are a murderer or a practitioner of wickedness too filthy for me to mention here.

"The two chains of Greek and Hebrew study tugged on the Reformers, who still clung to a few of their other Catholic doctrines..." (P. 1077)

"Why can't the English Holy Bible be translated into any language, as needed?" (P. 1105) In answer I point to the fact the the idioms of languages differ, and when a writing is pulled from one language to another, and then from the second language to a third, things get changed. Consult the Book of Common Prayer version of the Psalms if you don't belive me. The psalms in the BCP were translated into English from the Latin Vulgate, which had in turn been translated from the Greek, which had been translated from Hebrew. Psalm 2 in the BCP reads:

"WHY do the heathen so furiously rage together : and why do the people imagine a
vain thing?2. The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel
together : against the Lord, and against his Anointed.3. Let us break their
bonds asunder : and cast away their cords from us.4. He that dwelleth in heaven
shall laugh them to scorn : the Lord shall have them in derision.5. Then shall
he speak unto them in his wrath : and vex them in his sore displeasure.6. Yet
have I set my King : upon my holy hill of Sion.7. I will preach the law, whereof
the Lord hath said unto me : Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.8.
Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance: and the
utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.9. Thou shalt bruise them with a
rod of iron : and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.10. Be wise now
therefore, O ye kings : be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.11. Serve
the Lord in fear : and rejoice unto him with reverence.12. Kiss the Son, lest he
be angry, and so ye perish from the right way : if his wrath be kindled, (yea,
but a little,) blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

Compare this with your Bible! This is not a result of evil Catholics putting words in, but of translating from one language to another via two more languages. It would be like translating 'Tourist Information centre' into Spanish via Welsh. The Welsh is Canolfan Croeso, put this into Spanish and you get Eje Agradable. But 'Agradable' translates into English as 'agreeable', and Eje is 'hub'. So we put our twice-translated word back into English, and we get 'agreeable hub'. Silly example, but it shows that as a phrase is moved from one language to another shades of meaning can be lost, and if it is then further translated into a third languagem then a fourth (in our example back into the original language), shades of meaning may have been introduced that are not in the original. Extra words may be added, or words needed in the original language but not the first receptor language removed. This is why it is always safer to translate directly from the original language of a document to the receptor language, and why all modern translations into languages which have never had Bibles are made directly from the original language. Where a Bible translation already exists it is only sensible to revise that version if it needs to be revised. Which is why the AV is basically a revision of the Bishops' Bible, by the way.


And again, this is only a sample!

Riplinger does this in 'Hazardous Materials' as well

This recorded exchange is Riplinger, on the radio, doing what she does all the time in Hazardous Materials. Enjoy. Video is from Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and remains his property.

The passage that disturbed the poor folk in Victoria Coach Station

"I could write an entire book on the letter X. An aerial view of the Egyptian pyraminds is an x inside of a square. The word pyramid comes from pryo (fire) and mid (in the middle). Within the pyramid two sticks (crossed feverishly in an X shape) create a spark and hence a fire upon which a human sacrifice was made." - Hazardous Materials P. 996

Now I ask you, what in the world does this passage actually mean? It is notorious that the Egyptian pyramids were not temples for human sacrifice, but gigantic cenotaphs for the Pharaohs. She is either following some nonsensical New Age text here, outdated pseudo-scholarship, insane conspiratorial gibberings, or just confusing the Egyptian and Central American pyramids, stuctures that look similar but are for quite different purposes. She has also been misled by the etymological fallacy, a fallacy she elsewhere shows some understanding of, as she lambasts the lexicons that are her target for their use of doubtful derivations. Put simply, the Etymological Fallacy is that the meaning of a word is taken from its etymology, its derivation, not its usage. In fact the meaning of a word is taken from its usage in context. Thus, even if this etmology of 'Pyramid' is valid, it does not define the meaning of the word 'pyramid' let alone describe the pyramids of Egypt.

In fact there is no agreement on the etymology of 'Pyramid', some saying that it is a latinization of a Greek rendering of the Egyptian 'Pimar', a Pyramid (which leaves us back where we started), and no source I have located gives her etymology. On P. 531 she criticizes Vincent of Vincent's Word Studies, saying "The derivation is not absolute, merely presumed," yet here she is definite in a most doubtful derivation! On P. 396 she cites another authors declaration that there is some "fanciful etymology" in Trench. And in Ripinger too!Physician, heal thyself!

The first sentence, "I could write a whole book on the letter X," provoked the immediate reaction 'No! Anything but that!'

The removal of passages like this side-splitting gem of nonsense would make Hazardous Materials far shorter, but far less entertaining!

More to come, God willing.

Trench's 'Luciferian' Symbolism Exposed!

On Pp.367-375 of Hazardous Materials Gail Riplinger spends the best part of eight pages discussing the sinister occult implications of the symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail surrounding a lamp found on the title page of Trench's On the Authorized version of the New Testament as published in America in 1858. Apart from a full-page facsimile of the said sinister title page (she refers to it elsewhere, but as the book has 1200 pages and no index, I can't find it right now), the pages are taken up with speculation as to what led Trench to "Place a serpent on the title page of the book" (P.368). The section is titled "Trench Puts a Serpent on His Title Page!" "Trench's Serpent" is referred to on P. 381, where he is called "the Serpent's Scribe." Sinister, huh?

Sadly she has apperently not even considered the true reason, the reason that first came to my mind as I gazed upon the facsimile title page (not the one illustrated, though the layout is the same). It's the publisher's logo!!!

Yes, the publisher's logo. The publisher was Redfield of New York, whose books from the period all bear the same emblem on the title page, as you can see from my facsimile! A simple google search, well within Ms. Riplinger's ability, confirmed this fact in less time than it takes to go to the John. Check the digital texts found here for confirmation.

Yes, Trench did not select the symbol at all, any more than Shakespeare or any of the other authors published by the Redfield firm. So Riplinger spends pages of speculation and kills more trees in vain. Apparently in all her researches the true solution did not suggest itself, despite the fact that the image is in the usual place for publishers' logos. We might question the religious convictions of Mr. Redfield, but Trench at least is cleared from the accusation of placing an occult symbol on his title page.

Publishers' logos are often interesting things. SCM Press has a burning torch for its logo. Bryntirion Press in Wales has a cross rising from an open Bible. But Redfield was a general publisher, as the volume shown illustrates. Other general publishers with odd logos include Cassell and Co. (Diana the huntress, not to be confused with Diana of the Ephesians), Hutchinson's horned bull's head and the column of Little, Brown. Authors do not choose their publisher's logo.

And this is why I bring up this example. Were it alone it would be bad enough, but it is an example of her determination to put everything she finds in as bad a light as possible, even when there is a perfectly rational and non-sinister explation that does not involve the occult. Like the lead character in Conspiracy Theory, she welds everything she meets with together into a complex web of intrigue and occultism. Like the Templar section (Pp. 843-51), it is a completely irrelevant excusion into fantastic realms (she opens the Templar section with the words, "The movie, the Da Vinci Code, reveals the occult nature and background of Vaughan's Temple," [P.843] by the way). It is this tactic of smearing people with baseless accusations that should never have been made in the first place that earns Riplinger the condemnation that she is a "very dirty writer" to quote John Wesley's condemnation of one of his critics.

[I have now finished reading the book, which caused me, while reading a passage about pyramids on P.996, to burst into gales of laughter in Victoria Coach Station in London. I am sending AV publications details of the publisher's logo business to save embarrassment in any second edition, which I hope will not happen]

The Museum of Me

Reading the July number of Current Archaeology Magazine, I came across a piece on 'The Museum of Me'. The editor noted:

"One of the many reasons why the study of the past is essential to society's wellbeing is that it teaches humility and an awareness of one's own insignificance. That being a far too difficult and moralistic message for this egotistical age, the organisers of this years' Museums and Galleries Month have decided to ditch fuddy-duddy archaeological musums and encourage us all to set up our own virtual museum - the Museum of Me!
According to the publicity 'the Museum of Me will provide a snapshot of Britain today'; that being the case, why even bother with the outmoded concept of a 'museum' at all?"

How many modern Evangelicals would visit a museum of the Church? Very few, I suspect. One of my favourite places in England is Wesley's Chapel on the City Road. Not only is this historic building kept beautifully clean, but its basement houses a Museum of Methodism, and next door John Wesley's House is preserved as a museum. Across the road is Bunhill Fields burial ground, where John Bunyan, John Owen, John Gill, Thomas Goodwin, Joseph Hart and many other great Christians of the past lie 'in sure and certain hope of the resurrection'. Close by is the site of Whitefield's Tabernacle, where the great evangelist preached to thousands.

The Church is not a museum, it is a living thing. But too often today the evangelical Church has amnesia. I am not pleading for chapels to be preserved in such a way as to keep us from making buildings more user-friendly, for example taking some pews out and installing a ramp for those in wheelchairs. But too often what we do today is not that, it is that we try to re-invent the idea of Church. Theology, hymnody, ecclesiology, all of these are areas where the Evangelical Church has a rich heritage. But we are apparently determined to ignore it all for that ephemeral thing that is the present.

What would that 'Museum of Christianity' be like? Well, it OUGHT to be housed in an impressive Grecian building, in landscaped grounds. Galleries would range from the early Church, with precious manuscripts, through the period of the Church Fathers, with mosaics and liturgical objects, through the Middle Ages, the Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed, the post-Reformation period, the Puritans, the Eighteenhth century, and so on to the present. Bibles in every language, from every age, from illuminated folios to pocket editions; psalters and hymn-books, a library to awe the most devoted bibliophile; pulpits, personal objects of great leaders.

But what would the modern evangelical think of it? Well, the Emergent would take some parts and destroy the rest, a bit from here and a bit from there, no real respect for tradition. A non-denominational Evangelical would deplore the early galleries as too Roman Catholic by far, he would get rid of the Lutheran wing, seriously truncate the Reformed wing, and find no place for the Puritan wing at all. The Victorian Galleries would be there, but reduced in size, and the displays would betray an ignorance of the context of the objects. Then we would find Billy Graham came next, and then Rick Warren.

The Museum of Me. A terrible thought, and a window into the self-centered mind of modern-day man. Better to have a museum that expands my knowledge. Let the Museum of Me be demolished, so that I can see better the Museum of God.

Is This the Most 'Welcoming' Church in Britain?

A church's sign often tells you a lot about the church that meets in that building, whether it is conservative, trendy, liberal or just very strange. Liberal church signs are often extremely interesting. After all, if you don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, then what are you going to say? Well, one congregation in the very liberal United Reformed Church denomination wants you to know that they'll welcome you no matter what:

Yes, you read that sign correctly. This is not the product of the 'Church Sign Generator', it is a genuine photograph taken in the streets of a British city. Cardiff, to be exact. The congregation is the City United Reformed Church.

Of course you may find things less than welcoming if you come inside as a Bible-believing confessional Christian, but there you go, we all draw the line somewhere.

'Strict and Particular' Proved right

In a previous post I linked to a WorldNet Daily story about an alleged 'Homosexual bible Version' called the Princess Diana Version. While WND took the story completely seriously, I warned:

Take the whole thing with a pinch of salt until you see one of these things in print, because it looks like a publicity ploy to me.

I let the whole thing rest for a while, before checking back on the story this morning. Lo and behold, the whole site has changed its appearance, and the 'except of Genesis' given on the site is now completely different. Instead of being about two female homosexuals, 'Aida' and Eve', it now contains a version of the evolution story. I therefore conclude that there is no 'Princess Diana Bible' project, just a website that is actually intended as a joke (not a terribly funny one, but a joke nevertheless). I note that one of the comments quoted in the sidebar says 'Congratulations on a hilarious parody site'. The top banner of the site now reads "A gay Christian is like a black Ku Klux Klansman". Hardly an endorsement of so-called 'Gay Christians'

So who is behind the site? I don't know, but there are two options, firstly, an atheist homosexual, or second, a Christian with a rather tasteless sense of humour. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Do I think that it is perfectly fine to mess with the text of the Bible like this? No. At the same time, we Christians ought to be careful that we do not take what is obviously just a rather tasteless joke seriously. There is no 'Princess Diana Bible', just the 'excerpts' published at the site. It will not appear in print, and Christians getting worked up about it is simply playing into the hands of the publicists, and making themselves look silly.

The clues were there from the beginning: The WorldNet Daily headline read: "New 'Bible': Heterosexuality is sin". No-one actually believes that, and so we conclude that the author does not, and the content of the site as it has evolved demonstrates this. Christians should therefore ignore it and at all costs avoid becoming hysterical on the matter.