Bogus Bibles: A Complete Tangent to the Strange Fire issues but it was getting to me

It kept bothering me as I listened to the Strange Fire Conference so I'd like to register my objections:

BIBLE VERSIONS
I have a separate blog on the Bible manuscript controversies, The Great Bible Hoax of 1881,  and am probably hypersensitive to quotations from any of the modern Bibles, having come to regard them as based on the bogus Greek manuscripts that were introduced into all our new Bibles with the Revision of 1881.  At the Conference every time a lengthy quotation was read from -- presumably --  the New American Standard, I cringed.  The English is just plain awful in that translation, which is a different problem from the fact that it's also one of the modern versions that is based on the Critical Text, which includes the corrupt Westcott and Hort Greek text.  The NAS is considered to be a good "literal" translation, but in fact it is a klutzy rendering that is deaf to English, attempting to render the Greek in ways that are simply alien to the English language.   For one thing, it keeps on saying "keeps on doing" this that or the other, which is NOT the way ongoing action is normally conveyed in English.  John Burgon pointed out this strange mistreatment of English  -- yes it's a legacy from the 1881 Revision -- in his book, The Revision Revised, a massive critique of the 1881 Revision put out by the Westcott-and-Hort-dominated committee.

THE STRANGE FIRE CONFERENCE IS BASED ON ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, IT IS BASED ON SOLA SCRIPTURA, AND THOSE WHO BELIEVE THIS ALWAYS AFFIRM THAT OUR BIBLE IS INERRANT.  BUT ALL THESE VARIOUS BIBLE VERSIONS, AND ESPECIALLY THE CORRUPTED GREEK TEXTS CONSIDERED TO BE THE "OLDEST AND BEST" ALTHOUGH THEY ARE FULL OF CORRECTIONS AND ERRORS, TESTIFY TO ERROR, NOT INERRANCY.  THE "SCHOLARLY" ASSESSMENT DOES LEAD SOME CANDID THINKERS TO THE FALSE BUT NOT UNREASONABLE CONCLUSION THAT THE BIBLE IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY.   THE CHURCH NEVERTHELESS CONTINUES TO AFFIRM BIBLE INERRANCY, WHICH WE SHOULD DO IN ANY CASE, BUT BECAUSE OF THESE FALSE MANUSCRIPTS THE DEVIL HAS BEEN BUSY USING ALL THOSE BOGUS BIBLES QUITE PLAUSIBLY TO TEACH SOMETHING ELSE. 

AEON
Burgon also pointed out the equally bizarre mistranslation of the Greek word "aeon" as "age" as opposed to the King James rendering, "world."   "Age" is now in most of the new Bibles and is staunchly defended as the "correct" meaning of the Greek term, at the Conference by Justin Peters if I recall correctly, although Westcott and Hort's insistence on it merely demonstrated their ignorance of nuances of translation from Greek to English (OR possibly a more sinister motive?  They DESPISED the Textus Receptus and the King James).  Of course it also bothers me that it wouldn't just be obvious that the King James translators were the highest caliber scholars who knew Greek far better than W and H did, but maybe you have to read Dean Burgon to have a sense of the difference. 

YAHWEH
And I also cringe at the name "Yahweh" as the Name of God in the place of "Jehovah."  As for the scholarly excuses for the change - the reasons are NOT as clear as is often claimed -- even at best they are not worth the confusion and disruption of the historical usage in the minds of millions of English speaking Bible readers, not to mention the disruption of the literary and cultural heritage of centuries.  Not only does it sound to me like the name of a tribal god, a lesser god, but it shows only too tellingly the lengths to which some "scholars" are willing to go to undermine the King James Bible in one way or another.  There was NOTHING wrong with "Jehovah" just as there was nothing wrong with MANY of the English words in that Bible that the Westcott and Hort Committee chose to change, some 36 thousand UNNECESSARY changes in the English alone, that went on to spawn more and more change-for-change's sake in subsequent translations (although much of that is due to the fact that a certain number of differences from other versions is necessary for a translation to qualify for copyright). 

It's something of a puzzle why people do not simply HEAR the problem when all these different translations are compared, not to mention why we don't hear the confusion that is created by simply HAVING so many translations used by so many Christians, the cacophony, the confusion of tongues, even the simple inability to locate a verse because you've remembered its wording from a different translation.  The effect is to GARBLE THE BIBLE.  But I didn't hear it either once upon a time, I've had to learn all this stuff over the years. 

Chris Pinto is now the best source of information about what all this is REALLY about, at least the Greek manuscripts (he doesn't object to the English translations as I do).  Hint:  Vatican, Jesuits;  the Roman Catholic behemoth's plots to destroy the English Bible and ultimately whatever is left of the Protestant Reformation.  Westcott and Hort were at least Anglo Catholics, and so were/are many of the scholars who have been promoters of their Greek text.  I know, conspiracy conspiracy.  Well, you need to hear Chris Pinto and I've done some work myself toward demonstrating all this at my blogs including the Catholicism blog, nowhere near as much as needs to be done.  Pinto is the best source of all this information.

Of course this doesn't apply only to the Strange Fire Conference, it is just as true of most of today's Christian teachers, of Reformed teachers and Charismatics as well.  I do a lot of cringing these days as I listen to sermons by today's preachers.  It's just that I know MacArthur is a strong NAS guy and it started to get to me so I had to mention it.  I'd call it a "pet peeve" but obviously I take it a lot more seriously than that.

================

Later:  Listening to the Charismatic radio show host, Dr. Michael Brown, I encountered another common affront to the Church brought to us courtesy of the Westcott and Hort 1881 debacle, the belief that the last twelve verses of Mark are not authentic.  The vast majority of supposed Bible-inerrancy believers now accept this devil-wrought slap in the face of the Church.  Well, that's what we get for accepting the work of scholars who are unbelievers, who let their disbelief in the supernatural dictate their dating of the Bible among other things.  Not to mention scholars who are Jesuits.  How gullible today's Church is!  Is it too late to wake up?    

God's name in English ought to be "Jehovah" not "Yahweh"

The use of the name "Yahweh" in the place of "Jehovah" in sermons has been jumping out at me for some time now and finally I want to say a few things about why I think it's a very bad practice. I think this discussion belongs here rather than the Bible Hoax blog because it's a more general issue than a translational issue. The King James has "Jehovah" in only four places in the Old Testament. Westcott and Hort used neither "Jehovah" nor "Yahweh" but substituted "LORD" for "Jehovah" in their miserable revision, never content to leave the King James unmolested wherever they could make a change on the flimsiest justification, but at least the use of "Yahweh" can't be directly blamed on them -- indirectly, yes, I think so.

Here's Wikipedia on the Name Jehovah, a paragraph showing one place in the text where some of the modern versions have used "Yahweh" while "LORD" was the choice in others (where apparently Westcott and Hort's example was followed), whereas only the King James continues to use "Jehovah:"

At Exodus 6:3-6, where the King James Version has Jehovah

...the Revised Standard Version (1952),[34] the New American Standard Bible (1971), the New International Version (1978), the New King James Version (1982), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), the New Century Version (1991), and the Contemporary English Version (1995) give "LORD" or "Lord" as their rendering of the Tetragrammaton

...while the New Jerusalem Bible (1985), the Amplified Bible (1987), the New Living Translation (1996, revised 2007), the English Standard Version (2001), and the Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) use the form Yahweh.

Even the name of God has to be a matter of democratic choice in our churches these days thanks to the current attitude of "scholarship" that leaves it up for grabs.

Many pastors and preachers rather pointedly use "Yahweh" as if it had some kind of established validation, however, apparently more concerned about meeting some notion of accuracy they've learned from somewhere than about contributing to confusion among Christians created by the use of new terms.

Is it more accurate? I don't know what weight to attribute to the Wikipedia article but it sounds like there's far from scholarly consensus on the subject, and why do we have to be accosted with changes that are a matter of scholarly dispute anyway? Shouldn't there be a conservative mindset that respects the poor Christian in the pew, protects us from matters that are beyond our judgment and from innovations that have to be unsettling at some level of our consciousness? This is one of Westcott and Hort's great crimes against the Christian church and their example no doubt inspired the use of "Yahweh" in later translations: Once it becomes acceptable to make casual changes in the text everybody feels free to get in on the act.

I've come to regard the change to "Yahweh" as an attack on the minds of believers, many of whom have spent a lifetime accustomed to the term "Jehovah." "Jehovah" is in the English-speaking mind, the English culture, in English literature, old sermons and old Christian books, and a few old hymns as well. But moving the ancient landmarks that would preserve the old territory intact is of minor importance to minds infatuated with "scholarship" and sounding erudite. Apart from the confusion -- and I even think it's cruelty of a sort -- of foisting novel terms on English-speaking Christians, the name "Yahweh" is mostly a scholarly conceit. There is nothing wrong with "Jehovah" and there is apparently good scholarly support for it too.

The name "Yahweh" sounds puny in comparison to "Jehovah" as well. Maybe that's a subjective judgment born of familiarity with "Jehovah" --I don't know-- but it sounds like a tribal deity rather than the God who made all things.

"Yahweh" is also much loved by the followers of the Hebrew Names heresy, which ought to be one good reason to resist it.