James White Controversy- Part 3

The James White Controversy- 3rd. Part

From King James Version Ditches Blind Guides by Gail Riplinger

She is also author of New Age Bible Versions and Which Bible is God's Word?

WHITEWASHED TOMBS OR WHITEWASHED ROOMS?

White's doom is his penchant for making statements without adequate research or proof. He bleats, "Her degrees, her teaching, and her writing are all in one area...Her field of study is not at all related to the Bible, history or any type of linguistics or textual study."

He's wrong about the teaching.
He's wrong about the degrees.
He's wrong about the history.
He's wrong about the linguistics.
He's wrong about the writing.

He will have a difficult time convincing Harvard and Cornell or the University which awarded my M.F.A., or my ten or so history professors at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He will find it equally difficult to persuade the employer who hired me as a linguistic expert, teaching Greek speaking students English as a second language. (Or the Japanese, Russian, Italian, Spanish or Serbo-Croatian students which followed.) Students from six different majors will also testify to White's lack of research.

Jim likes to play word games. He lost with Vanna White, let's see how he does with Jeopardy!

"Who was trained in law, yet designed the building on the reverse side of the nickel, gave us our finest English translation of the Greek Aeschyles and Sophocles, wrote The Dictionary of Indian Dialects and invented the swivel chair, storm window and dumb waiter?"

My field of study and research for the past nine years has been exclusively textual criticism, linguistics, history, and the Bible--resulting in the publication of two books. One has been adopted as a textbook in numerous seminaries (New Age Bible Versions). This followed a mid-career switch after 18 years researching the built environment (industrial, architectural, and interior design).

Which Bible is God's Word, my latest book, details the qualifications God sets forth (pp. 5-7). None of the aforementioned background fits God's requirements, nor does White's B.A. or M.A., or the NIV translators' degrees.

ALPHA OMEGA

ALPHA AND OMEGA'S GONE

White may "come to you in sheep's clothing" in his city's phone directory, as Alpha Omega. But inwardly, underneath the covers of his NIV, the words "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last..." have been ravenously removed from Rev. 1:11. "Ye shall know them by their fruits." The accompanying chart shows just some of the other barren spots in his NIV in that one chapter alone, Revelation 1. The deity of Christ is uprooted seven times in one chapter. A second insert "How to Lead a J.W. to Christ" shows how the NIV's thorny hedges bar a seeker's path to salvation.

PROBLEM	NIV (anemic)	REV. 1	KJV
gender inclusive	the one	1:3	he
feel it	take to heart	1:3	keep those things [do it]
DEITY?	seven spirits	1:4	seven Spirits
continuity	first born	1:5	first begotten
royalty?	the ruler	1:5	the prince
blood?	freed us	1:5	washed us
temporal	a kingdom	1:6	kings
DEITY	his God and Father	1:6	God and his Father
Power Rangers	power	1:6	dominion
watered down	mourn	1:7	wail
DEITY?	OMIT	1:8	the beginning and the ending
works	perseverance	1:9	patient
DEITY?	Jesus	1:9	Jesus Christ
DEITY?	Jesus	1:9	Jesus Christ
DEITY?	OMIT	1:11	I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last
DEITY?	a son of man	1:13	the Son of man
pantheism?	I am the Living One	1:18	I am he that liveth
purgatory?	Hades	1:18	hell

HOW TO WIN A JEHOVAH WITNESS (OR JEWISH PERSON) TO CHRIST WITH A KJV
(an NIV won't work).

------------ 1 ------------
Point him to Rev. 1:11 and read: "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last":

------------ 2 ------------
Ask him, "Who is the 'first and the last'?" Who is speaking?

------------ 3 ------------
Every J.W. (or Jewish person even slightly versed in scripture) will say, "Jehovah," based on Old Testament verses such as Isaiah 44:6 or 48:12 which say, "I am the first, and I am the last..." "I am he..."

------------ 4 ------------
Then point him to Rev. 1:18, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore,"

------------ 5 ------------
Ask him, "When was Jehovah dead?"

------------ 6 ------------
They then realize that Jesus Christ was "God manifest in the flesh." (1 Tim. 3:16)

------------ 7 ------------
This technique has been used to lead more J.W.'s to Christ than any other. It works every time I've done it.

------------ 8 ------------
Of course NONE of this is in an NIV OR a Jehovah Witness New World Translation!

The NIV and other new versions make other changes to detract from the deity of Christ. Liberals have always tried to pretend verse 8 and verse 11 are different speakers. They insert "God" in Rev. 1:8 to pretend the speaker is not Jesus Christ but God the Father. "Words of Christ" in red editions sometimes do not put these words in red to perpetuate this false idea. They point to the use of the words "Lord God Almighty" (the three words used in Rev. 1:8 by new versions) as a title belonging to God the Father. The KJV's "Lord" "Almighty" could too easily point to the Lord Jesus (i.e. 1 Cor. 6:14).

Rev. 22:13 and 16 tie together the common identity of the person of Rev. 1:8 and 11 saying,

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last...I Jesus...I am the...morning star..."

There is no mistaking that it is Jesus Christ who is "the beginning and the ending" of verse 8 (omitted in new versions) and the "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" of verse 11 and the Old Testament (also omitted in new versions).

In fact, in new versions, the identity of the speaker becomes the fallen "morning star" of Isaiah 14 who the NIV describes as "an oppressor" "a corpse trampled under-foot" because "you have destroyed your land and killed your people...made the world a desert" and would not let his captives go home..."

How unlike our precious Saviour.

White misrepresents the MS evidence for Rev. 1:11. He misinterprets both Hodges and Hoskier and the available collations and mistakenly reports, "a little more than a dozen manuscripts containing the phrase..."

Contrary to White's error, the facts reveal that the phrase is in 57 of Hoskier's cursives; it is in most of the Andreas line (about 80 MSS). Note P. 1, 42, 61, 104, 336, 628, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2057, and Von Soden's Ia (181, 296, 432, 598, 743, 2026, 2031, 2033, 2054, 2055, 2056, 2060, 2064, 2067, 2068, 2069, I b2 (104, 459, 922). Andreas, Cappadocia, 614. Also including the phrase are men like Tyndale, Stephens, Beza, Elzevir, (Geneva)(Bishops)--men who had access to even more versions and manuscripts.

Readers are directed to J.A. Moorman's When the KJV Departs from the Majority for a primer on the Andreas/048 dispute in Revelation. Many noted scholars have faulted Hodges for his preference for following: 1.) a poorly collated resource (Hoskier), 2.) the 048 line instead of the OLDER Andreas line 3.) Schmid's recension/grammatical form theory.

Moorman adds, "There is strong internal evidence for its [Rev. 1:11] inclusion. After the Superscription (1:1-3), and Salutation (1:4-8), John, beginning at 1:9 describes his first meeting with the Glorified Christ on the island of Patmos. He hears the voice in 1:10, receives the command in 1:11, and turns to see the speaker in 1:12. In verse 11, it would be strange if the speaker did not first reveal his identity before giving John such an all-embracing commission."

Once again, White's lack of familiarity with the debates and collations within the field of textual criticism, has led him to make false statements. White, like Ankerberg, Hanegraaff, McMahon, and others who pretend to be an expert in all fields, becomes a "jack-of-all-trades and a master of none".

JAEL'S NAIL

Judges 4 lists no degrees; Jael had no Ph.D.'s.
Just a Bible on her knees, and a God she
hoped to please.
No power of her own to boast.
No warriors waiting for a host.
But to her tent was Sisera sent
And through his head the nail went.
"The head's the spot to aim the blow,
for 'knowledge puffeth up', you know."
Look past his power; forget her few.
See God who drove the nail through.

White's false accusations have brought him much public embarrassment. The Christian radio station in White's very own town aired several broadcasts presenting North America's most beloved Bible teacher, Cecil J. Carter--the title: "The Public Spanking of James White."

"Welcome to our radio congregation: This includes a welcome to the person of Mr. James White, director of the Alpha & Omega ministries. I understand that he has promised that he will be listening...

Your great activity in promoting new versions, downgrading the KJV, and viciously attacking defenders of the Bible as, for example, Mrs. Gail Riplinger, is having a deadly effect in many lives...

Picture if you can the multitudes of men, women and children, who will arise in the day of judgment and charge you with their doom, because you have convinced them that new bible versions which are based on inconceivably corrupted manuscripts are in reality the true word of God...

My prayer to God is that he will be merciful to you and those who have been deceived by you into casting away the true Bible for these miserable counterfeits...

In your two articles and booklet attacking Gail Riplinger and her amazing book: New Age Bible Versions, you are obviously so angry that you have not hesitated to try to destroy the credibility, honesty, and reputation of a gracious Christian woman...this is to your shame, because you have gone far, far beyond the proper bounds of scholarly criticism...

These all, along with you, have opened your mouths against one of the most courageous Christian women, in a most despicable manner...Do you not think it is time someone called a halt to these extravagant charges against a gracious Christian woman...

That which you cannot find wrong, you invent with false accusations, and please do not say that you do not. A simple examination of your booklet reveals the fact...

Now you cruel, ungracious, voracious critics, shame on you!...You appear like so many terrible birds of prey lodging in the branches of the church ready to interfere with anything that might awaken the multitudes who have been deceived by your lectures and writings into forsaking the pure word of God (Matt. 13:31-32)...

Howl, you sinners and cry unto God to have mercy on your money loving souls. Yes, you are quite right, if Gail is right in her contention that the new versions rest on corrupted MSS., and she is right, no doubt about that, you will sell less of your books which are filled with quotations from those dangerously polluted versions...

Rejoice in the great mercy of God: when Job's friends humbled themselves they had to come to the one they had accused so heartlessly in the midst of his other trials...

[T]here is a way back; take it and rejoice in restoration of your soul, and say with David the man after God's own heart: He restoreth my soul..."

Cecil J. Carter

For the leaders of this people cause them to err...

Is. 9:16"

End of Part 3
To be continued...