christianjournal.org

Author: Pastor F. William Darrow
IS INERRANCY ENOUGH?
A defense of the KJV

After serving some 42 years as a pastor I have learned that things are constantly changing in the realm of the church. Trends and fads, yes, even in churches, come and go. Some are good some are bad. Change is a way of life but not always good. Allow me to give you an example.

I have attended many ordination councils over the years. Even in those, the evidence of trends and issues become prevalent. Areas that were questioned heavily 25 years ago do not even draw a question today. I remember years ago that a candidate would be grilled heavily over “verbal plenary inspiration”. The candidate had to know and be able to explain that “inspiration” is God breathing into man the very words He wanted him to write. “Verbal” meaning that the Holy Spirit guided the writers of the Bible in the very words that they used. “Plenary” means fully or completely as to the fact that every word was inspired by God from beginning to end.

I am not sure when it started, but it seems to me that in the late sixties or seventies a new word, or at least a more frequently used word, came on the scene. That word is “inerrancy”. In many doctrinal statements of more recent days the word “inerrancy” appears but not the phrase “verbal plenary inspiration”. I began to question in my mind why the term “inerrancy” had replaced “verbal plenary inspiration” even though it is a fine word but it does not say enough. Since new versions of the Bible keep coming on the scene and some have become preferred over the old, tried and proven KJV, I have sought to read for answers. It has been a learning experience. One of which has helped me to understand why the term “verbal plenary inspiration” is no longer being used.

I also was at a conference where a speaker made the statement, as he held up his Bible, “inerrancy, no, infallibility yes”. He did not believe that the present Bibles we have are inerrant, just infallible. What he meant by that is since we do not have the original manuscripts, which are inerrant, our translations are not inerrant but we have enough evidence from different old texts so at least we can say they are infallible, or trustworthy. I do not agree with this at all.

There are three basic techniques in Bible translation work. Quoting the National Religious Broadcasters, January 1996 issue, an article by Harry Conay: “With regard to popular Bible translation, we frequently use terms like formal equivalency (’this is how we write what they wrote), dynamic equivalency (’this is how we would say what they meant’), and paraphrasing (’this is how I think their intent can be more clearly stated’). (Printed in the Foundation magazine, January-February 1996 issue).

The three techniques are:

1. Formal Equivalency

2. Dynamic Equivalency

3. Paraphrasing

Let me start from the bottom up. Paraphrasing is simply taking what the text says and rewriting it to what you think it says.

The big problem with paraphrasing is that it simply becomes the opinion of the translator as to what a passage means. Once you enter this area of practice it is no longer the Words of God but some individual’s opinion of what it says. A paraphrase is not a Bible translation but a commentary. A paraphrase should not be called a translation or even the Bible.

Myron Houghton, a professor at Faith Baptist Bible College, Ankeny, IA, made an explanation that helps understand the difference between a paraphrase and literal translations.

“A literal translation is based upon the idea that the purpose of a translation is to let the reader know what the Bible says rather than what the Bible means. Yet many modern readers use meaning-for-meaning versions and paraphrases because they think the meaning of the Bible has been made clear. In reality, it is the meaning of the translators that has been made clear.” (Faith Pulpit July/August by Myron J. Houghton)

Dynamic Equivalency is not following a word-for-word translation but changing, adding, or subtracting from the original to make it flow as the translator sees fit. It is a step up from paraphrasing. Dr. D.A.Waite defines it in his book on Defending the King James Version page 89, as ” ‘Dynamic’ implies ‘change’ or ‘movement.’ These versions take a sort of idiomatic rendering from Hebrew or Greek into English. It is idiomatic in the sense that they didn’t take a word-for-word method (even when it made good sense), trying to make the words in the Hebrew or Greek equal to the words in the English. Instead they added to what was there, changed what was there and/or subtracted from what was there.” Robert J. Barnet in his book The Word of God on Trial, page 24, uses another name for it; calling it “concept inspiration”. He said, “The author of a paraphrase is not trying to communicate word-level truth. He is giving us his own interpretation of what he thinks the Bible means. He is giving us concept-level

communication.” Dr. D.A.Waite has a study available of examples where the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION uses this method some 4,000 times, the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION 6,653 times and the NEW KING JAMES VERSION over 2,000 times. (Page 105, Defending The King James Version).

The AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION of 1901 followed strict formal equivalency. However our issue with the 1901 ASV has to do with the text from which it was translated. The NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION translators followed dynamic equivalency so were much more loose in their translating. They utilized dynamic equivalency to the degree that their work is almost a running paraphrase and not a translation. Dynamic Equivalency, therefore, allows for a great deal of subjectivity on the part of the translators to interpret the biblical text. (Touch Not the Unclean Thing by David Sorenson – page 239)

The third method is Formal Equivalency, or sometimes called, Verbal Equivalency. This method of translation takes the Greek and Hebrew words and renders them as closely as possible into English. This is the method used by the King James translators and is certainly a superior method.

“In favor of using modern English, it should be noted that the Bible was written in the language of the day. The New Testament, for example, was written in koine, or common Greek. And we do not normally use thee, thou, and ye in our speech today. On the other hand, thee and thou distinguished you in the singular from ye which is you in the plural. Sometimes the correct interpretation of a passage is helped by knowing the difference between the plural or singular use of you.” (Faith Pulpit – July/August 2006 by Myron J. Houghton)

The King James Bible is the only English translation today that follows this strict accurate literalness.

More here:

http://logosresourcepages.org/Believers/inerrancy.htm

Author: a Christian

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey’s findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.219 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern man evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.

Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of modern man back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.

3.6-million-year-old human footprints in Laetoli, in Tanzania.

The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:

Make no mistake about it,… They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn’t be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.220

After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North Carolina made the following comments:

The arch is raised – the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do – and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe … The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.221

AL 666-1: A 2.3-MILLION-YEAR-OLD HUMAN JAW Fossil AL 666-1 was found in Hadar in Ethiopia, together with A. afarensis fossils. This 2.3-million-year-old jaw bone had features identical to those of Homo sapiens. AL 666-1 resembled neither the A. afarensis jawbones that were found with it, nor a 1.75-million-year-old Homo habilis jaw. The jaws of these two species, with their narrow and rectangular shapes, resembled those of present-day apes. Although there is no doubt that AL 666-1 belonged to a “Homo” (human) species, evolutionary paleontologists do not accept this fact. They refrain from making any comment on this, because the jaw is calculated to be 2.3 million years old-in other words, much older than the age they allow for the Homo, or human, race. The AL 666-1, 2.3-million-year-old Homo sapiens (human) jaw. Side view of AL 666-1 AL 222-1 fossil, an A. afarensis jaw from the same period as AL 666-1. AL 222-1- a side view. The side views of the two jaws make the difference between the two fossils clearer. The AL 222-1 jaw protrudes forwards. This is an ape-like feature. But the AL 666-1 jaw on the top is a completely human one.

Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a modern human (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints, wrote:

A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them… In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.222

Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilized footprints of a 10-year-old modern human and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly modern people like us.

SKELETAL VARIATION AMONG ODERN HUMAN RACES Evolutionary paleontologists portray different Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and archaic Homo sapiens human fossils as indicating different species or subspecies on the evolutionary path. They base this on the differences between these fossil skulls. However, these differences actually consist of variations among different human races that have existed, some of which have become extinct or have been assimilated. These differences have grown less pronounced as human races have intermixed over time. Despite this, quite striking differences can still be observed between human races living today. The skulls in these pages, all belonging to modern human beings (Homo sapiens sapiens), are all examples of these differences. To show similar structural differences between races that lived in the past as evidence for evolution is quite simply bias. Native Peruvian from the fifteenth century. Middle-aged Bengali. Male from the Solomon Islands (Melanesia) who died in 1893. German male aged 25-30. Male Congolese aged 35-40. Male Inuit aged 35-40.

This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the center of discussions for years. Evolutionary paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a modern man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following “explanation” started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 million years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:

In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo… In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy’s kind, Australopithecus afarensis.223

To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus. The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not have lived so long ago.

These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.

Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science, but a dogma kept alive despite science.

http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man_11.html

219 A. J. Kelso, Physical Anthropology, 1.b., 1970, ss. 221; M.D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, volume 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, s. 272
220 Donald C. Johanson & M. A. Edey, Lucy, The Beginnings of Humankind, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1981, p. 250. (emphasis added)
221 “The Leakey Footprints: An Uncertain Path,” Science News, vol. 115, 1979, p. 196.
222 Ian Anderson, “Who made the Laetoli footprints?” New Scientist, vol. 98, 12 May 1983, p. 373. (emphasis added)
223 Russell H. Tuttle, “The Pitted Pattern of Laetoli Feet,” Natural History, vol. 99, March 1990, p. 64. (emphasis added)

Signs of the end times: women preachers

This is a hotly debate topic that needs more then ever to be settled. Let me start with saying that I being a male ,love our counter parts in this life and where would the world be with out women?

I hold no hostility toward women and believe that The Word teaches that we are co equal in Christ.

Can a woman hold a leadership position in the church biblical?

We all have our own opinions on this and I have heard some very good arguments about this,but what does the Bible teach? Because after all if your not letting The Inerrant Word of God lead you thru life, your only a ship wreak in the making.(I hope you do believe that His Word is ALL Truth ….)

The Apostle Paul moved by The Holy Spirit wrote of how to conduct ourselves in the Church in many epistles one of them being his letter to Timothy. The problems that were cropping up in the infant church were being address…

In chapter 2 of 1 Timothy we find one such problem:

1Tim 2:12-14 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression

I believe this to be in the context of “how to conduct public worship(church)” and the next chapter is still talking about the qualifying of bishops, deacons, ect..

The word authority (authenteo)is a most different, but telling word.”one acting by his own authority or power.- to use or exercise authority over as an autocrat, to domineer.”The antonym is to be a subordinate. (Spiros Zodhiates TH.D. Wordstudy. Dr. Vine Expository Dictionary )

In Greek: authenteo contracted from authentes ,murder, absolute master, which is from autos, himself, and entea which is arms, armor. A self-appointed killer with ones own hand. Hence one acting by his own authority or power.

Someone who takes his own life is standing in the place that is Gods. He is the giver and taker of life not ourselves, and if by man, then strict guidelines are given for man to follow.

Someone, man or woman, that stands up to teach, preach, or became a deacon that has not Gods leading is one who stands by their OWN AUTHORITY. This is the meaning of the word authority. God calls those whom He chooses,not whom man likes.( Remember David being selected over all his brothers that were more pleasing to the eye?)

Paul says I will not suffer (allow)a woman to teach nor to usurp authenteo over the man.(by the way the word usurp is the same as the word authority given above) This is about plain as it But we are co equal,but have differant places (jobs ) and works for Christ.

Why is this?

Paul thru the Holy Spirit address that in the next verses:

1Tim 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

V.14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Adam walk into sin seeing and knowing what the fruits would be, but Eve was just flat out deceived.Women are not still being punished for Eves sin as its all under the Blood now.

But it shows that the woman can be deceived easier than the man. This in no way makes her less than the man, but being different is given a place of honor too. Just as honorable as the mans, but different, as there are differences in the man and woman.

– We are not the same we are differant as stated in the creation story of Gen

–The reason they cannot (the women) is stated as they “were deceived” and “Adam was formed 1st” (this is Gods doing not mans)

For a better explanation of this Kingdom of God vs. Women Preachersby aymon de albatrus.He does a much better job of laying out before you to see,if you are reallu seeking truth.

What about Deborah and the other prophetess of the Bible, did not they teach and preach too?
No you must not read into the account of Deborah more than what is there.It was Barak ,not Debroah that is listed in the “hall of Faith” in the book of Hebrews .Seems to me that if she had done as some modernists think and claim she did ,she would have made the list too.This is not a slam at Deborah whom is mention and honor by God in His book for being a light in dark times.

What does church history tell us of women preachers?
Hereticks?Troubles?
Most of the cults have had a woman leader and founder.

John1:1

In the beginning was the Word,and the Word was with God,and the Word was God.

In the beginning is not the start of things but rather “the vanishing point”.The vanishing point is where mans comprehend falls off.If you are veiwing a desert landscape,showing a road that goes out from you,disappearing into a point in the far distance,this is not the end of the road but merely the limit of your visions ability,so it is with this pharse “In the beginning”.

God is eternal so therfore has no begining nor end.

(Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Looking in Re 1:5 you will see that this is talking about Jesus Christ._

John10:30 I and my Father are one

Jesus also claimed what nobody else nor any  imposter has ever dared to claim that he was on equal ground with Almighty God.
John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Ps 90:2     Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

Col 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

1tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Author: Curtis Rook

On January 3, 2006, I performed the following searches on Google.com and received the respective results:
Christian Testimonies – 2,360,000
Muslim Testimonies – 483,000
Buddhist Testimonies – 104,000
Hindu Testimonies – 113,000
JewishTestimonies – 614,000
Atheist Testimonies – 90,800

There were more Christian Testimonies than the other religions combined and many of the testimonies in the religious categories other than Christian were actually testimonies of people who had converted from those religions to Christianity. Many of the results for the Christian Testimonies search were collections of testimonies. There are tens of millions of Christian testimonies on the Internet, but, at best, tens of thousands of testimonies from other religions. Why this disparity? What is it about Christianity that inspires such an outpouring of testimonies?

In the Bible, in the book of John, chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Being born again is an experience, an event. It is a supernatural occurrence in one’s life that transforms them from nonbeliever to believer.

In the book of Acts, chapter 2, verse 38, Peter tells the crowd, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” One aspect of Christianity that is incomprehensible to a nonbeliever is the fact that when a person comes to believe in Jesus Christ and accepts Him as their Lord and Savior, that person is filled with the Spirit of God. A personal relationship is established between the new believer and God.

The experience of discovering the reality of God and His love expressed through Jesus Christ is dynamic. It is an explosion of soul and spirit that completely changes the way the new believer perceives himself and the world around him. This change, this new reality within, is so powerful that the new believer wants very much to share with others what has happened. This life changing experience awaits everyone. Matthew 7:8 – “For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Seek after God with all your heart, mind, and soul; then let the world know what remarkable things He has done in you.

Copyright Curtis Rook, 2006-Present. All rights reserved. Curtis Rook owns and operates a Christian web site specializing in the publication of Christian Testimonies. Visit, read, and contribute at: witnessJesus.org.