"[T]he angel of the bottomless pit...hath his name Apollyon, [destruction]." Rev. 9:11White's newsletter is called Pros Apoligian. There is a fine line between a 'defence' of one's beliefs and destroying the hearer's ear. (Mark 14:47) White crosses the line with the 666 mobius logo he now uses to terminate letters and his choice of reference works to correct the KJV and New Age Bible Versions. His Greek lexicon library comes from the enemy camp. He must be totally unaware that the lexicon he uses, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon, was written by a UNITARIAN. Thayer spent his entire life trying to prove that the Trinity does not exist and that Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are not God.
So, where does Mr. White go to prove that my defence of the KJV's "Godhead" (Rom. 1:20, Col. 2:9, Acts 17:29) is wrong? You guessed it: Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon!! The publisher's preface even gives a warning cautioning readers to be alert regarding alterations and verses dealing with the deity of Christ. There are four very strong verses on the Trinity in the KJV. Thayer manages to dissolve all of them. White follows this blind leader of the blind and says,
"Thayer's lexicon says 'deity...theotes, theiotes: theot'. deity differs from 'theiot'. divinity, as essence differs from quality or attribute. This bit of information is vital" (Pros Apoligian, Vol. 2, Issue 2)To defend the new version's dismissal of "the Godhead," White parrots Thayer saying, "theiotes means divinity or divine nature just as the NASB renders it. [T]heotes...means deity."
Sorry, Mr. Thayer and Mr. White, the root theos means G-O-D, no matter how deftly a non-Trinitarian like Thayer tries to divest the powerful term 'Godhead' of its Trinitarian meaning. Most lexicons used to correct the KJV were written by unsaved liberal scholars. (White also cites Trench's Synonyms to correct the KJV; Trench was a turn-of-the-century liberal.)
His pretense of "correctly translating the term for age" misses the fact that new versions often translate aiona and aionos as 'world'. Are new versions 'incorrect' in those places? The fact is, the word can refer to both time (age) and space (world) depending on the context. The KJV gives no entre to New Age cosmology and wisely ignored some of the Greek neo-Platonic lexical writings which see time as cyclical.
When a word has two or more potential meanings, the new versions always use this as an opportunity to 1.) elevate man and 2.) demote Jesus or God. White will pretend to his readers that the lexical evidence supports only his word choice, always the liberal one--Abridged bookstore lexicons and one word Greek definitions given in Strong's Concordance DO NOT represent the varieties of potential word meanings given in real research lexicons (i.e. the ten volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament). Both the pagan and Judeo Christian semantic tradition are presented in such unabridged works. Recent bookstore brand lexicons present only the recent liberal trend to choose their definitions from the PAGAN tradition.
In the legal world, when liberals could not change the laws, they altered Black's Law Dictionary instead, giving broader and more liberal definitions for words. A parallel move has taken place in the 'dictionaries' used by 'Christians'. Those ministers, students or professors who say, "The word should have been translated...," (based on a brief citation in a lexicon) are echoing the serpent's 'hath God said?'. They are trusting the interpretation of one or two men, who probably are not born again Christians and about whom they know NOTHING. The scriptures are of no "private interpretation" (II Peter 1:20). The entire body of Christ replaced the O.T. priesthood and took over its job to guard the scripture. The Bible (KJV) has been approved after being subjected to the scrutiny of believers for hundreds of years. Cults always move the authority away from the Bible itself. Neither the definitions in interlinears (NASB, NIV, Berry's, Green's, Kohlenberger's, et al.) or the definitions in concordances (Strong's, Young's, et al.) or definitions in lexicons by Bauer, Bullinger, Earle, Gingrich, Kubo, Liddell-Scott, Louw-Nida, Mounce, Perschbacker, Thayer, Vincent, Wigram, Wuest, Brown, Driver and Briggs, Gesenius, Davidson or Holladay can or should be transplanted to replace the correct equivalencies God has instilled into the Bible.
The historic doctrine of 'providential preservation' is being replaced by the notion of 'provisional restoration'. They are moving the locus of inspiration away from the Bible you hold in your hand to some 'lost originals'. God did not promise inaccurate translations and lost originals. An inerrant, but inaccessible, word of God is of no value. Why wouldn't the world laugh at those who profess infallible truth from a fallible book. Authority is based on infallibility which is based on inspiration. The ultimate question and the first question (Gen. 3) is who is the authority--God and his word or man and his ideas.
White bases his assertions about the correctness of Bible readings on the critical apparatus in his UBS 4th edition, Nestle's 27th edition, and Hodges' Majority Text. When the International Greek New Testament Project investigated most apparatuses, Colwell, their Director, determined that they "fail to cite witnesses accurately or completely." Anyone who has spent time actually collating manuscripts knows this. Secure for yourself through ILL (Inter-library loan) a Facsimile of the Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels (MSW) from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Henry A. Sanders, 1912). Check Luke 5:6, 16:31, Matthew 16:2-3, 26:26, and John 6:2, for example. The witness given for Manuscript W is wrong in the Nestle Aland text. In addition, they cite only 7% of the cursive manuscripts, .02% of the lectionaries, 33% of the versions and 24% of the church fathers. If all evidence supporting the KJV readings was listed, it would not fit on the page! Von Bruggen has also proven that Aland does not collate Byzantine type manuscripts, he collates Egyptian MS.
Furthermore, The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text, which White often cites to support his errors (i.e. Rev. 1:11), makes an error in John 21:7 and Romans 16:1, carelessly omitting words which are found in the majority of manuscripts, the KJV and even new versions.
Readers (& White) naturally assume that the term 'Majority Text' and the German sigla "M" represent a numerical majority of a full collation of the five thousand-plus Greek New Testament documents. Nothing could be further from the truth. This so-called 'Majority Text' White cites is based on von Soden's collation of 414 of the 5,000+ documents. Even these 414 were not fully collated. White must not have carefully read the preface which admits, "We were forced to rely on von Soden's work...his presentation of the data leaves much to be desired....The present edition does not cite the testimony of the ancient versions or church fathers."
The editors of this 'Majority Text' took von Soden's work, and by comparing group variations within the manuscripts listed for each group, derived the apparent wording of the Greek witnesses for each verse. The group that von Soden called Kx is followed in most cases.
Frederik Wisse, in his The Profile Method for the Classification and Evaluation of Manuscript Evidence as Applied to the Continuous Greek Text of the Gospel of Luke: Studies and Documents (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982) pp. 16-17, found a LARGE number of errors in von Soden's work. His conclusion was that "von Soden's inaccuracies cannot be tolerated for any purpose. His apparatus is useless for a reconstruction of the text of the MSS he used." Even the editors admit, "all decisions about M p t [even split] readings are provisional and tentative." (Hodges 1985, xxii) Kevin James in his brilliant book, The Corruption of the Word: The Failure of Modern New Testament Scholarship notes, "We do know that at times von Soden examined only 13 of the more than 300 manuscripts that make up his Kx group to determine the wording" (p. 248). (It is important to note that Hodges has not misrepresented his work, but unlearned students like White have. In Luke 1 von Soden cites 120 MSS; Wisse profiles nearly 1400. When the KJV Departs from the Majority Text by J.A. Moorman summarizes such findings. Wisse explains that, "Of the 99 checked MSS, 76 were missing one or more times when they should have been cited, or were listed when they should not have been. This breaks down to 59 MSS which were missing in von Soden's apparatus from one to four times, and 39 which were added incorrectly from one to six times" (pp. 16,17).
In conclusion, I will say the 'Majority Text' White cites is based on a collation of less than 10% of the extant documents. These 10% were not fully collated and were very frequently miscited. H.C. Hoskier said of von Soden's work, "I regret to have to condemn it strongly... the apparatus is positively honeycombed with errors." (JTS, 15-1914, p. 307)
The book of Revelation in Hodges-Farstad's so-called "Majority Text" relied, for the most part, on H.C. Hoskier's collation of the book of Revelation. In spite of the fact that the eighty or so Andreas MSS are older and stylistically superior, Hodges-Farstad relied on an equal number of MS in the 046 line. To excuse this prejudicial move, they list only one-third of the Andreas line. This distortion allows the omission of vital texts such as Revelation 1:11, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last."
Again, White's reliance upon secondary, not primary, sources, leads him into error. I recommend he secure the work of Alford, Tischendorf, Souter, Merk, Vogels, Legg, Moorman, James, Charles, International Greek New Testament Project, Migne, as a start. Then secure the manuscripts listed in James' Corruption of the Word. From there, he can begin securing facsimiles through ILL from the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center, 1325 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711 U.S.A.
"One woe is past; and behold, there come two woes more hereafter." Rev. 9:11-12My heart goes out to this young man's family, and to the families of the other critics, as well, some of whom are Christians. They are bringing upon themselves and their precious families, much unnecessary woe. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." God will no doubt 'correct' those who 'correct' the Bible and falsely accuse those who defend his word.
KJV antagonists love to quote White's remarks about my brief comments about the letter "S". I stated:
"Their Greek differs from the overwhelming majority of manuscripts by one letter, 's'. The former has the genitive eudokios while the latter has the nominative eudokia. Watch out for the letter "s"--sin, Satan, Sodom, Saul (had to be changed to Paul). The added 's' here [emphasis added] is the hiss of the serpent."The new versions destroy the meaning of Luke 2:14 because of an added 's' in their minority Greek text. My comments about the 's' were intended as satire and fit Webster's definition:
"trenchant wit, irony or sarcasm, used for the purpose of exposing or discrediting vice or folly"That was the intent. HOWEVER, White is wrong to assume that the comment is devoid of truth. The realities regarding the letter 's' are known to any student of linguistics. A brief history follows, if only to prove that: 1.) even simple statements in New Age Bible Versions were not made without years of study behind them. 2.) Mr. White's background in most of the subjects under discussion is shallow, at best.
Is the letter 's' (and some words using it) connected with 'the hiss of the serpent'? (Remember, I merely said, "Watch out for 's'...here it is the hiss of the serpent." White jumps over the word 'here' and pretends I'm saying that all "s" words are bad. White comments, "Such arguments would lead us to abandon such terms as salvation." He and hostile radio hosts take my satirical jab and pretend I actually think all "s" words are bad. They must have a very weak case to employ so vacuous a ploy. My "watch out," though intended satirically, has a linguistic basis. Written language began as ideography; each picture conveyed an idea. From this logography developed in which signs were abstracted from pictures to represent a word. (Chinese is the only current alphabet that still uses such a system.) Stephen's classic Runic Monuments of Scandanavia and England (Copenhagen, 1868, Vol. 1) is only one of scores of books which show that the letter 's' developed from a logography of a serpent. When the syllabic system replaced the logographic, the sign that stood for one word could not only be used for that word, but also phonetically similar words. (Rebus writing, for example, replaces an abstract picture of a serpent for the 's' sound.)
Every dictionary and reference book (look up 's' in Webster's) calls 's' "the hissing sound." The sound phonetically associated with the serpent shaped pictograph was the sound made by the serpent--hiss. (pronounce 's' as "hiss") Even Webster's "Guide to Pronunciation" identifies 's' "as in hiss," on p. vii. 'S' is the hissing sound in French, German, and most other European languages.
The Semite (Shem) and Phoenician 'S' first appeared as a reclining serpent. All alphabets from this fertile crescent area do likewise. (A Hebrew word for 'serpent' tanneen even means "to stretch out." Another Hebrew word for serpent tsiph-ohnee means 'a hissing serpent'. It is from the root 'to hiss'.) The Hebrew, Samaritan, Arabic and Syriac 'S' is called "Sin". This fact and sample letters which all appear as serpents can be seen in Webster's (1828) The American Dictionary of the English Language. The Syrian 'skin or sin' can be seen to uncoil as it changes positions in a word from final, medial, and initial. Even the Ethiopic sa, su, sy, look like a snake pictogram. (Even today, the handsign for the deaf for 'a snake' mimics the Arabic final 'sin' letter.)
The Greeks and Romans stood the "S" erectly, as we see it now. This erect serpent (standing next to a tree a la Gen. 3) pervaded the art of this period. Even the technical term in phonics for the 'hissing sound' is sybilation, coming from the occult Sybils who spoke then as New Age channelers do today. In the Greek alphabet, the second letter for the lower-case s, sigma, is used only as the terminal letter of a word. This peculiar form of 'S', identical to a serpent pictogram, is used for the Greek number 6. It is called stigma, and means 'a mark' from the root 'to prick'. (Does this not point to Rev. 13 and 14 and its mark of 666.) Stigma (prick) and charagma (sharpen to a point), both translated 'mark' in the KJV, point to the new hypodermically inserted identification microchip, inserted "in" the hand or forehead (not "on" as new versions say!). Incidentally, Xi, which represents 60, is identified as "the symbol of the serpent" in Greek, by one of this century's greatest scholars, E.W. Bullinger. His classic book Number in Scripture shares my "Watch out" view of the "S". [see pp. 49, 150, 156, 282, 283, et al.]
"But 666 was the secret symbol of the ancient pagan mysteries connected with the worship of the Devil...The great secret symbol consisted of three letters SSS, because the letter S in the Greek alphabet was the symbol for the figure 6."The letter 'S' had such negative roots and associations that it has been suggested the letter "f" was used in its place. Bibles proceeding from the KJV 1611 often used "f" for "s". Matthew Carrey was the first to change "f" to 's'. Even in chemistry, the letter 's' is the symbol for sulfur. (Bible students know sulfur is "brimstone," the final home of those who take the mark (Rev. 19:20) and of the serpent (Rev. 20:10). Bullinger comments,
"It is today the secret connecting link between those ancient mysteries and their modern revival in Spiritism, Theosophy, etc. The efforts of the great enemy are now directed towards uniting all into one great whole...The letter is becoming familiar to us now..."Was my aside, "Watch out", ludicrous? I have gone to lengths to prove that even the sarcasm in New Age Bible Versions is wiser than White.
Part 6 of The James White Controversy
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