mattwerk #fundie

mattwerk #fundie cseblogs.com

In South Africa we otherwise have the Charismatics (message is strong but rock music is used, take whatever Bible (per)version you want, dubious healing practices), the extra-Charismatics (just plain bad), the Anglicans (Catholics in disguise, they even have Mass!), the Baptists (not even comparable with (Southern) Baptists in the USA), Lutherans (dubious doctrine), Dutch Reformed (although very high-and-mighty and most go to show off to their neighbours, but are ecumenial and compromise), “African” (Christian, until they start with evil ancestral beliefs) and then of course all the cults and sects with their “churches”. Not one will even investigate the evil, pagan Catholic practises such as Easter, Christmas, Lent, let alone do something about it (money spinners). Not one will use the KJV. So, basically you have a choice between an ecumenial HELL, or you do it yourself among fellow Christians who are strong enough to have seen the same. Sadly, not that many around. Our nearest God-fearing, KJV-wielding church is probably in America.

33 comments

old comment by Mattwerk

Hi all

I don't know how this got on the web, maybe I was naive - I sent this, a part of a post, to CSEblogs.com, asking a question or two. Anyway, to answer those scoffers:

1) Brian X - I only came to South Africa in 2001. Get your facts straight before you judge, and in any case only God can judge. I'm from the UK and grew up anti-apartheid. Although, now I know the facts of the day and how life is today - the racist background was horrible but the system was similar to what USA, Canada, Australia still apply today. But ask this - can one replace evil with evil? Democracy is terrible in South Africa, I have seen a downward spiral in the 6 years I've been here. Even many darker people are longing for the days of segregation, for they were treated better. Crime, corruption, worse racism and more are all rife since 1994. Life isn't better under the ANC at all, in fact for many it's worse. Still, that is not to condone the bad racial policies of the past. Everyone is equal in God's eye. To my knowledge, the Bible doesn't even mention colour... but if you want to talk politics, get your facts in order. There is so much that the world doesn't know about Southern African countries, which bring shame on the new regimes, the old regimes and the Western World.

2) My comment, and all my comments, are intended not to sound like a "Southern Baptist" if you know what I mean (ie "I'm right and all of you are wrong" - prove me wrong through Scripture and I'll admit guilt!); I truly seek to learn and to gain in life. But one of the bases of Christianity is to stand firm in the faith, regardless of what the masses say. When in the Bible were the majority ever correct?

3) I love everybody and it is not for me to pass judgment, but nor is it for any of you. As far as my standing ground on certain issues, I will keep on doing so. I have delved deeply into what is good and bad according to the Bible, not just taken any Internet whacko's word for it, and looked in the Bible for myself. If churches do wrong in the Lord's eyes, and I know of this through Biblical proof, then why should I compromise the Word? Hence my search for a decent church, which we sadly lack here in South Africa.

4) Why only the King James Bible? Do the research. For those who read the newer Bibles, a good place to start is to compare Isaiah 14:12 and Revelation 22:16. One speaks of Jesus, one of Satan (or Lucifer, in this particular KJV passage). Work out which one. You'll see that all Bibles but the KJV call Jesus and Satan by the same name. Or Luke 2:33, where all but the KJV refer to Joseph as Jesus's father (thus denying the deity of Christ and the virgin birth of Mary), but you'd never know till you read the KJV. If you read an NIV, go to Acts 8:37 and find out why one would be baptised. Er, it's missing... and so there are HUNDREDS of examples one can give. The NIV for example removes over 64,000 words and twists things to suit the world of today. http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/king_james-proofs.htm is a link that gives good examples. So far a mate of mine has stopped 3 people from reading new Bibles with it and they now read the KJV, with bliss and rejuvenated faith. Amen!

5) Christmas and Easter. Christmas is not Biblical and all the background is anti-Christian (long story short, it's pagan rituals which the early Catholics gave Christian names to - even the nativity play is Francis of Assisi's own story, not Biblical - do the research). Easter is mentioned once in the Bible - again, only the KJV (Acts 12:4 - Herod, the main Biblical persecutor of Disciples, went to celebrate Easter - why would such an anti-Christian celebrate what we know today as Easter?). There is a clear distinction between Easter and Passover (new Bibles call it Passover in Acts 12:4), which in time has been removed by the Catholics, and paganised further (and you thought the bunny and eggs were a modern gimmick...). I don't care if the festivals still have the "right meaning" or not - they have always been pagan and I will not partake in them. I can go on for ages with proof but find out for yourselves, do not just take one man's word for it.

6) As for ecumenism - that means uniting churches, inevitably by means of compromise. The Bible warns us not to yoke with heathens in that manner, and prophecises the one-church apostasy. I would be loath to question why, for example, Baptists and Methodists would work together - but with anti-Christian false-religions such as the Catholics, who worship Mary? Anyway, you probably can guess my stance on ecumenism... again, I love the people but hate the false religion.

Anyway, it's all up to you; on your souls be it, and on my soul be it. I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and I want to grow further in the faith, removing the bad things I have done in my life thus far (though one is not saved through works, remember). Again I don't know how this got from CSEBlogs to the Net, but it did. I didn't intend it to get to this forum, but it did. I hope that those who read all the comments do accept Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour, and that by your own research you grow further - if not, it's up to you.

Cheers
Matt

old comment by SophieEleven

Mattwerk: whether you like it or not, the KJV is a POOR TRANSLATION. I say this as a person (and a Christian) who has made a point of studying the Scripture in its original languages.

King James' translators did a pretty bad job. They didn't know the meaning of many of the words and passages, and thus "winged it", or went with whatever THEY believed was the meaning. Other passages were translated wrong simply because of the "traditions of men". (And though the newer versions are better, IMHO there are still flaws in many of them- particularly regarding homosexuality, "Hell", and Paul.)

Anyone who has honestly studied the truth about the KJ translation cannot help but come to the conclusion that it is not accurate. By clinging to the KJV regardless of its falseness, you are following the traditions of men and not God.

With a few exceptions, changes that have been made to newer translations are there because THAT'S WHAT THE ORIGINALS REALLY SAY. I spent the last thirteen years of my life learning this, and I sincerely encourage you to investigate it for yourself. You will probably be very, very surprised at how you've been mislead.

In short- if you don't like what new, more proper translations of the Bible say, complain to the original writers. Those Christians who reject the KJV are in the (Scriptural) right here.

I don't mean to sound inflammatory, but facts are facts. The King James version is full of falsehoods.

old comment by Mattwerk

Ambrielle - forgive me for that grammar error, indeed the virgin birth BY Mary.

Anyway, read the new (per)versions if you will; and miss out on so much. Just a question - how do you know, reading the new Bibles, that God gave His only son that He conceived? The KJV is specific: John 3:16 and 3:18 - His only BEGOTTEN Son. ALL others state "His only Son". Er, are we not all children of God? Or was Jesus the only child of God, ever? Only the KJV actually distinguishes between us, the children of God, and Jesus, His only Son which He conceived, through the Holy Spirit and using Mary for a virgin birth?

Anyway, for those who read the NIV (as it's the most popular in the world right now) - check this quiz: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/NIV/niv_bible_quiz.htm . See just one of the points I'm trying to make about the KJV.

There are just so many points to discuss - the background of the Bibles, the translators, the political agendas involved, the translators who realised they were wrong (NASB was it not), the twisted contexts, the critical omissions...

Sorry - berate me at will, but I will still say to the world that the KJV is the only Bible to be read. Whether or not one does is not my decision.

Cheers
Matt

old comment by Mattwerk

SophieEleven - firstly, I don't say that those who don't read the KJV are not Christians. I was saved and then used an NIV for a year. But I've gone into this and really, other (per)versions don't even compare.

Anyway, I also know the background of the KJV, king and all. I am also still trying to work out why "mia sabbaton" is translated "first day of the week" and why "congrecation" is called a church. But I will learn one day. Otherwise, I cannot find anything against the KJV.

Look at the background. All those people appointed to do specific translations, using the texts available at the time (95% of available scripture supports KJV, the remaining 5% is Laodecian/Egyptian, which is what the new Bibles are based on). The translators dealt with it as if it were the very word of God, doing their utmost to get it right and placing words in italics, when they had to add a word to make grammatical sense in English. The process ensured that each Scripture was checked many, many times.

In contrast, the first new translations came from two guys in the 1800s (Westcott and Hort), with pretty anti-Christian backgrounds. A person who didn't believe in Hell and worshipped Mary - hardly the type to do a Bible for all Christians! Also, the new translations are based on the Laodecian/Egyptian texts. The Laodecians were a sect in the day, and how many things in the Bible do you know of that came from Egypt?

Then look at many new Bibles. Translators do not show the same regard for the Word - it's merely a book to them. Some change things for political/social reasons - look at the stance on sodomites (the Word is pretty clear on that issue, but the severity is removed), and what about the issue of being "gender inclusive"? What is this nonsense? The Word is True for almost 2000 years, yet all of a sudden "God made a mistake" and so now everything is made neutral? Verily such things are done to please the wicked world of the day. So how then can one say that they like the KJV because of the things it says in there, when in fact the KJV condemns more sins?

(just to touch on sodomites; check the explanation of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the KJV and compare with the NIV. Different. The word "sodomite" - now "male shrine prostitute". Romans 1:22-32 - description of the act removed. 1 Corinthians 6:9 - "effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind" becomes "homosexual offenders". So although Leviticus 18:22 is still pretty much the same, all other reference to homosexuals have been removed or made much less of an issue. A sodomite is a homosexual. A "homosexual offender" is bad because he offends, but not because he is homosexual. And don't be a "male shrine prostitute", but it's okay to be queer. See what I mean? And if you didn't guess it - the chairperson was a lesbian and one of the men on the committee a gay. Oh, and the owners of Zondervan, who own the NIV rights, publish the Satanic Bible and The Joys of Gay Sex. Go figure)

To err is human. But given both backgrounds; the KJV translators who feared Rev 22:18-19 with their lives, or the modern translators who will change the Word of God to make it more socially acceptable - whose translation would you trust more?

Then the idea of "newer, more accurate texts". Kent Hovind made a good point about this. If you have a book, or a scroll, that you read every day - it will eventually tear, wear out, what have you - so you get a new copy, or make one. If you have one that is rubbish, it will not get used often and will last longer. Say for example you had a Jehovah's Bible (NWT - with the same deletions as the NIV by the way), you would hardly ever use that - so it would last longer. Doesn't make it any more accurate though! Seems quite a reasonable explanation to me!

Anyway, so I am still looking into the issue of "first day of the week" and "church" in the KJV but otherwise I find no errors myself. Please do give me the errors that you found, lest I read erroneous passages and act wrongly.

cheers
Matt

old comment by Brian X

Mattwerk:

First off, I'm not the only one of the opinion that the real reason people hang on to the KJV so tightly is because it *sounds* more Biblical somehow, and that any other justifications are shoehorning the data to fit a predetermined conclusion. (Joseph Smith wasn't ignorant of the appeal there -- there's a reason he wrote the Book of Mormon in pseudo-Elizabethan English. Being a retired con-man, he knew all about the value of symbolism in PR.)

As for less-than-religiously-committed translators, that's exactly the people who *should* be doing it -- Richmond Lattimore, for example, who came at the New Testament from the perspective not of a clergyman (IIRC he was an agnostic) but a well-respected translator of classical languages. There's more of an incentive to consult outside sources to properly understand the context of a difficult word (context being one of those things you fundies have a tremendous problem with).

You mention Hovind. Well, Hovind is not to be consulted as a final authority on anything (especially not biology or questions of tax law, but I digress). And what translators look for is not newer texts, but older texts that can be confirmed to be closer to the source. Newer texts, due to the inevitable data loss in the copying, actually lose accuracy over copying generations (why do you think Torah scribes doing scrolls for synagogues are so meticulous about their copying?) -- we didn't have the benefit of widespread digital data storage and transmission until probably the 70s at the earliest (Project Gutenberg was 1971), so earlier scrolls such as the Dead Sea Scrolls are the true treasures of Biblical archaeology.

So you can talk about "corruption" and "perversion" all you like, but at least the bulk of modern translations come directly from the Hebrew and Greek rather than being a sloppy patch job over an older translation, using the Hebrew and Greek mostly in an advisory role. If you really want to be truly fundamentalist about it, throw out the KJV and any other translations at all and read it in the original languages. If you've got a decent-sized bookstore anywhere around, books on both languages should be readily available, and a local synagogue should be able to get you a Tanakh to get started...

mattwerk #fundie cseblogs.com

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