Joseph Herrin's View on the Bible Versions Controversy

Since a friend sent me a few emails linking to the writings of Joseph Herrin, I've spent quite a bit of time reading through his website and his blog. His writings are wonderful; his studies are in great depth. He puts me to shame in my paltry efforts to investigate some of the same concerns he covers.

He does differ from me on the question of the Bible versions, however, and I like his writings so much in general I'm going to have to give his views on this topic some careful consideration.

He answers a letter a Christian brother had written him:

I would agree with you that there are some serious problems with many of the translations today, but I haven't found the KJV to be a better translation, but in most cases to be a much more flawed translation.

I have to comment at the outset here that there is already a problem in lumping the KJV together with all the proliferating Bible versions as a "translation." When you compare the KJV with all the others the first thing you have to note is that it is based on a different collection of Greek texts than the new versions are. This isn't properly speaking a matter of translation, but a matter of textual sources, and the two shouldn't be confused. You can't say whether the KJV is a better or worse "translation" if its textual sources are different to begin with. You can only compare the quality of the translations where the texts are identical. If the Greek has different words of course the English will read differently as well. I'm sure he's aware of all this as he goes, but the point is that the reader has to be made aware of it.

He goes on to list the many translations he consults and compares in his research to argue for his care in this regard, and I am sure that he's as thorough a researcher as he hopes to be.

I have written that all of the popular English translations are full of translation errors, but until the time that I can find a suitable computer based substitute for them, or I can develop one myself, I will continue to use them, but in many instances I will susbtitute a word that gives a better rendering.

Now, this does bother me, that he feels free to substitute a word he believes gives a better rendering, but many preachers do this these days, as well as many amateur students of these things. What is to protect any of them from producing just more "translation errors?" Can they really claim expertise comparable to the translators of the various commercial Bibles? I personally wouldn't doubt that some could but I wouldn't want the job of determining which, and from what I know of the high qualifications of the King James team I wouldn't want to declare any of their decisions wrong without taking great care. (As it happens, Herrin does investigate a couple of passages with such great care in a recent blog entry and astonished me with his excellent reasons for disagreeing with the KJV translators on a couple of points. But I've come to believe that Herrin is unusually gifted for this task, truly anointed for plumbing the depths of the scriptures.)

He goes on to quote from a letter he received, but I will have to leave that for another post.

To BE CONTINUED.

The MySpace Hoax Trial

I have to admit that I do not understand this legal case against the woman who is being tried for having misused computer access to torment a teenage girl who subsequently killed herself.

I do not understand why it's about computer use at all. Either she's guilty of contributing to the girl's suicide or not. Either contributing to the girl's suicide is punishable by law or it's not. What does the computer have to do with it?

Look at it this way: What if she'd written letters and sent them through the US Postal Service, with the same basic intention of impersonating a boy to attract the girl's affection and then cruelly insulting her so that the girl killed herself? Would that be punishable by law? Or if laws against a misuse of the Postal Service would be involved in that case, what if the notes were conveyed some other way, dropped at an agreed-upon drop-off location perhaps?

One day in October 2006, Meier said, when she called home to see how Megan was doing, her daughter was crying because "Josh" and two other girls were saying mean things about her online, Meier said.

When Meier arrived home, Megan showed her a message from "Josh." It said the world would be a better place without her in it, Meier testified.

What if the same sorts of things were actually said by a real Josh and two other girls, say at school, where unfortunately such cruelties are commonplace? But then what if they admitted to having treated the girl that way because this woman had asked them to?

What if a young man had in person done the same sort of thing to the girl, pretended to be interested in her and then cruelly insulted her and the girl killed herself? What if he had done it at the behest of this woman who herself is accused of doing it through the internet? Who would be guilty of what? What would the law have to say about it?

I'm trying to isolate the factor of guilt in the exchange of messages that seems to be obscured by the emphasis on the medium used in the transactions.

The point is, what are the laws concerning impersonation, impersonation with intent to cause mental distress, conspiring with others to the same end and so on? Aren't these the real issues? The use of the internet is just a red herring.

No?

Truly messianic pretensions

I'm not keeping up apparently. There really are people who are calling Obama the Messiah. I didn't know it was this overt. All the way back to 2006 apparently.

I did notice on his interview on 60 Minutes recently that he answered one question in a rather odd way. The question had something to do with how he was dealing with all the pressures of this new phase of things, all the intelligence briefings and so on, asking him if he has thoughts such as "how did I get myself into this?" and his answer, after a moment's searching for the right words, was that he believes himself to be right where he's supposed to be. The Messiah doesn't wonder how he got himself into things, he KNOWS where he is and what he's doing.

Like there's a plan, a schedule, and he knows it in advance.

Another blogger's thoughts on Obama and on the woman's headcovering.

Found this discussion today of the question of Obama as Antichrist. He has come up with some interesting observations that are new to me. I'm just posting this as a bare link for the purpose mentioned, although I have yet to study this blog carefully and may have more to say later.

Later: The author of the blog mentioned above, Joseph Herrin, also has a website where he discusses many points of theology. I was pleased to discover that he spends quite a bit of time on the question of women's headcovering, making some points about God's government I hadn't fully appreciated until now. This is the basic argument, and this is where he gets into the meaning of God's government as opposed to God's grace in more detail.

Something I had run across in my study of the headcovering was the statement that we are to understand that Christ's head is covered before the Father, and the man's head is covered before Christ, just as the woman's head is to be covered before the man. Since the man and Christ do not literally cover their heads -- and in fact Paul says just as emphatically that the man should not cover his head as that the woman should cover hers -- I didn't understand what this meant, but Joseph Herrin has made it quite clear: the woman does it as representative of both the man before Christ and Christ before the Father.

When a sister covers her head, she is standing before God on the basis of Christ’s position before God and man’s position before Christ. God wants the woman to cover her head in order to manifest His government on earth. This privilege falls only to woman. She does not cover her head merely for her own self; she does it representatively. For her own self, she does it because she is a woman; representatively, it is because she represents man before Christ and Christ before God. So when woman covers her head before God, it is just the same as if Christ covered His head before God. Likewise, when woman covers her head before man, it is just the same as if man covered his head before Christ. Man or woman should have no head because Christ is head. If one’s head is not covered, there will be two heads. Between God and Christ one head must be covered; so too must it be between man and woman, and so between Christ and every man. If one head is not covered, the result will be that there are two heads. If God is head, then Christ is not; if Christ is head, then man is not; and if man is head, then woman is not.

I also appreciate the clarity he gives here to the meaning of the symbolism of the head covering, and it makes perfect sense out of all the confusion about it: the head is covered as if to say, I do not have a head. There can only be one head, so the subordinate has to yield, signifying it by covering the head.

One thing he doesn't answer clearly, it seems to me, is whether the woman is to cover her head outside of church as well as in prayer and prophesying, though it seems to be implied that it would be fitting in all circumstances, just as it was understood to be for the last couple millennia until the 20th century.

Later: He does answer it here. Since scripture isn't specific about it he doesn't have a conclusion of his own, but leaves it to the women. His own wife and daughter have chosen to cover their heads at all times. I've been covering mine only when I know I'm going to be praying, but that's problematic because I often stop to pray when I don't expect to be doing it. So I think like his wife and daughter I should wear a covering all the time too.

It couldn't be more clearly stated what it's all about

"Messages of congratulations for US President-elect Barack Obama are written on a giant card in front of the Washington Monument in Washington..."

Last post on Obama for a while I hope

I have to say that the "finger flipping" incident is for me the final proof that Obama is not what he wants to appear to be. There are two such incidents really, one that's quite clear while he's talking about Hillary earlier in the year, and then another after he won the election and is supposedly congratulating McCain on a well-fought campaign.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop where such things are acceptable so it hits me harder than it should, but it does hit me hard. It seems to me to be the total proof of the man's hypocrisy and to my mind even ruthlessness. It may be, however, that most politicians are of the same cut and I'm just naive. There are videos at You Tube of Bush making the same gesture, but in his case it's in some kind of private context and it's up front and jokey, while in the case of Obama he's doing it surreptitiously in front of a crowd. It's calculated and mean.

It's clear by the audience response that they caught it. There was nothing else to prompt their yells at that moment.

It's even clearer in this video as you see the woman behind him react immediately to his gesture and then the woman next to her leans over and they are both laughing. The video slows down and puts words to the women's conversation.

Then Obama does a similar gesture, a little more surreptitiously and harder to prove, when congratulating McCain on his hard fought run, a perfect act of hypocrisy. Clearly he will say anything at all for the sake of effect without meaning it. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Just seems to me to go with his true thuggish background and to completely belie the idealistic image he's been creating before the crowds.

I would think it would shock his crowds, but apparently it didn't. I guess half of America is ready for a thug of a President who lies to hide his thuggery from those it might shock.

I'm posting this because it did shock me and along with his appointment of Rahm Emanuel casts Obama in his true light, a tarnished messiah. I sort of thought he'd keep up the act more consistently for a year or so, but now it seems that he's gathered confidence from his win and more of the real Obama will surface sooner than I'd guessed. His speech yesterday where he introduced Emanuel is another harbinger of that, as he made a joke about Emanuel's own habit of finger flipping.

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But the thing that matters most to me is how a Christian is to respond to all this and I haven't spent enough time thinking that through, let alone praying about it -- although I do pray about it. I think the man is dangerous on the level of Hitler myself. I think very hard times are ahead for this country. What a Christian needs is spiritual strengths that few of us have, and the longer I go on talking about the election the more I'm aware that I lack them. So I hope I can pull back from this topic for a while and seek the Lord for His guidance in these times.

Chicken Little here

Well, I'm reconciled but I can't drop it. I think we have a very dangerous man as our President Elect. He just appointed a man to be White House Chief of Staff who sounds like the equivalent of Goering or Goebbels. The last time the world had a pretender to the throne of Emperor of the World there was the US to take him down. But now the US itself has succumbed to the same spirit and there is nobody to bring him down.

And I don't think it's right to say nothing about that. Though of course there are ways and then there are ways. Being nice and polite and respectful is necessary, and we'd want to show civility, dignity, humanity, restraint and kindness, all the qualities of Christ, but even of the kind of nation we want this to be, in order to make a pointed contrast with the dishonesty and violent tactics of the other side. There must be some people who are not completely under his spell who need to be waked up and simply keeping respectifully silent isn't going to wake anybody up. It's not about us, it's about people who don't know the Lord.

So here I am, Chicken Little again. Sorry, it's where I'm at. I wish I weren't. Some links, and a message board message forwarded from a Jewish friend:

This is part 1 of Scott Johnson's series on Obama. He covers a lot of the familiar territory but there are probably some new items in here you aren't familiar with. I found parts 3 and 4 so far to have some new material (at this writing I'm only part way through part 4 and haven't heard part 5).

I don't think we need the psychoanalytic diagnostic categories, but the personality profile described in the following rings true:

By Ali Sina
2008/09/22

...At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. ...However, despite my initial interest in him, I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.

It is surreal to see the level of hysteria in his admirers. This phenomenon is unprecedented in American politics. Women scream and swoon during his speeches. They yell and shout to Obama, “I love you.” ...The Illinois senator has no history of service to the country. He has done nothing outstanding except giving promises of change and hyping his audience with hope. It’s only his words, not his achievements that is causing this much uproar.

...Listening to Obama ... it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch Khomeini, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell.

I was amused to hear a listener calling Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan Show, (Feb 11) and saying: "Listening to Obama ... it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell."

Equating anyone to Hitler by highlighting the similarities between the two is a logical fallacy. This fallacy, known as reductio ad Hitlerum is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy. I believe it is wrong to trivialize the holocaust and the horrors of Nazism by comparing our opponents to Hitler.

However, Hitler, prior to coming to power had not killed anyone. He was insane, but few could see that. Far from it, he was seen as a gifted man and hailed as the savior of Germany. He was admired throughout the world. He appealed to the masses of people – the working class and particularly to women, and did not just inspire them, he “elevated” them. Thousands rallied to listen to his passionate speeches. They shed tears when he spoke. Women fainted during his speeches. To Germans, he was not a politician, but a demigod, a messiah. They envisioned him as truly a magical figure of majestic wisdom and glory. They worshiped him. They surrendered their wills to him. He restored their national pride. He projected himself as their savior. He ran on the platform of change and hope. Change he delivered all right, but hopes he shattered.

Another discussion of the character and mindset of Obama:

As Obama admitted in a 2001 radio interview, he regards the Constitution as deeply flawed because it does not allow redistribution of wealth – the centerpiece of his agenda for America. That won’t stop him; he also refuses to prove that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States, and government officials have shown no inclination to enforce that constitutional requirement.

This summer he declared that “America’s greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that ‘whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me,’” citing our nation’s sins of “poverty,” “racism and sexism.”

According to Obama and his mentors Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, the root cause of America’s evil is economic inequality. “Social justice” requires the remedy of redistribution of wealth, the transfer of taxpayers’ earnings to whomever their regime will determine has need.

As Karl Marx said, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Or as the stealth candidate told Joe the Plumber: “It’s good to spread the wealth around.”

After inadvertently tipping his hand, Obama denies he is a socialist but affirms redistribution of others’ assets is a virtue. Meanwhile his minions on government computers have scrutinized Joe’s records for the purpose of discrediting him.
Joe the Plumber is every American citizen who dares to challenge the Leader. In Obama’s utopia, hard questions are disallowed.

To conceal his Muslim background and cloak his agenda, Obama fabricated the ruse that he is a Christian. In this ruse, one of Obama’s favorite biblical allusions is that “I am my brother’s keeper.” Meanwhile, the millionaire messiah’s own half-brother George has been living in a shantytown hut in Kenya, subsisting on a dollar a month. To his brother in need Obama has given nothing, but in recent years he donated over $20,000 to Wright’s hate-inciting Black Power cult.

Dreams From My Father is the 1995 memoir that analysis indicates the communist terrorist Ayers wrote for Obama to launch his protégé’s political career. In that memoir, Obama’s Kenyan aunt Zeituni was prominently featured as a beloved family member. Last week, The Times of London – not the domestic Obama-worshipping propaganda media – broke the news that for five years this aunt has been living in a slum in Boston, just miles from where he gained prestige at Harvard Law School for his charm and racial identity. Like many of his supporters, she hopes that Obama’s presidency will change her life for the better.

Obama’s heartless disregard for his own family members proves that he is an authoritarian, whose real concern is not others’ well-being but his pathological quest for power to control the lives of us all.

The stealth candidate was trained in Marxism at his mother’s knee. She became enamoured of communism in high school where she was taught The Communist Manifesto, and while concealing that Obama boasts: “The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics.” The father who abandoned him was a Marxist, ousted from Kenya’s government when that nation’s socialist president cracked down on communist agitators (Dreams, pp. 214-215). His mother taught Obama that his father “led his life according to principles that demanded a different kind of toughness, principles that promised a higher form of power. I would follow his example, my mother decided. I had no choice. It was in the genes” (p. 50, italics supplied).

To that end, young Barry was mentored by a Stalinist agent of the Communist Party USA, from his adolescence to the time he left for college. To that end, Obama was mentored by Wright whose “theology” provided a religious cloak for his agenda. To that end, in 1995 the communist terrorists Ayers and Dohrn launched Obama’s political career at their home. In 1996 Obama won endorsement from a Marxist group called the New Party, whose newsletter identified him as one of their members.
Under the guise of concern for the poor, Marxists invoke the name of Jesus as a champion of their cause. But Jesus never condemned economic inequality as a moral failure; both Jesus and the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, recognized this disparity as a fact of life in the world that God created.

This isn't the kind of appointment a man who seeks the unity of the nation would make. [Sorry, that story about Rahm Emanuel is no longer there. I'll have to see if I can find another one.] Here's a better link about Rahm Emanuel, a blog entry that highlights incidents in his career:

[from The Telegraph Nov 08] President-elect Obama had a shortlist of one when it came to choosing his White House Chief of Staff; Rahm Emanuel, a politician so ferocious that even his own mother calls him by his nickname of "Rahmbo".

If the Democratic Congressman accepts the job as Mr Obama's enforcer, Mr Emanuel, universally characterised as a foul-mouthed attack dog who can end the career of anyone who stands in his way, will serve as a perfect counterpoint to the sugar-coated Mr Obama.

Summing him up:

Washinton insider. Failed to stop corruption at Freddie Mac. Used one sex scandal for political gain, tried to cover up another. Plays abrasive, strong man, big money politics.

As David Keene puts it: "You might hire Rahm to blow up the bridge. I don't know if you’d hire him to build it."

Rahm Emanuel represents Washington at it's worst. This is not post-partisan. This is not change. This is not hope.

And here’s what my Jewish friend sent, quoting somebody at a message board somewhere:

I'm just a regular guy, and I have now heard for the THIRD time from people who grew up in Europe, that the situation today reminds them of the 1930's.

Two weeks I heard from two people that the financial crisis reminds them of the runup to WW2.

My grandma, who grew up in Berlin, said this week that the crowds adoring Obama's speeches in which he says nothing.....remind her of Hitler's charismatic speeches when he said nothing of substance but the crowds just gobbled him up.

To Bankman who says this is not Nazi Germany. Speak to anyone who lived in Germany in the 30's, they had a very enlightened democratic society. No one dreamed that anyone would ever kill a jew again. Jews had equal rights. And yet due to the financial crisis, the Germans elected Hitler (who already wrote Mein Kampf) because he promised them that he would help the little guy and he would bring Germany back to it's glory. And the peolpe ate it all up. After he was elected, suddenly the jews began losing their rights.....it took a couple of years, but it happened.

Will Obama be another Hitler? Hopefully not.

Can he? Absolutely!

Civilian national guard?! Spooky.

Yes We Can.... we can WHAT? Does anybody know WHAT we can do? I have no clue what he means, and neither do the millions who chant it along with him, and the billions accross the world who smile to themselves when they hear those chants.

When I hear 85 year olds (three of them) saying that this eerily reminds them of the 30's, it makes me nervous.

And it makes others nervous too. Check out the passport offices. Jew and gentile alike are "suddenly" remembering to apply for passports....

Wake up! (tshuva anyone

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I think I know what "Yes we can!" means: For blacks it means blacks can rise to the top; for Muslims it means to some that they can bring down the Great Satan and convert the world to Allah; for many who have been brainwashed into thinking America -- or the rich, or the hated conservative religious Right -- is a great oppressor, it means they can triumph over the oppressor. It means they can get rid of the "haters" which means everybody who won't go along with the One World We Are The Children Happy Unity program.

Ultimately it means "We can triumph over God and run this planet on our own" which is really nothing less than the reinstatement of the hubris of Babel.

Yes, people need to wake up. The question is how do we accomplish helping people wake up -- or wake ourselves up if necessary? Especially if our own faith is weak? Well, for starters it's time for the most serious prayer we've ever done. We need light from the Lord and we need His strength. Prayer with fasting if possible.