The NIV and six degrees of Rupert Murdoch

We see it in panicked blog posts and garish YouTube videos, and hear it in whispers from concerned friends! That Rupert Murdoch is trying to take your Bible away from you and make you use the NIV Bible instead! That he is a friend to the Vatican and a pornographer and the guy who put shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on TV, and so he must be involved in some sort of Illuminati/Vatican/Jesuit/New World Order/Antichrist/Satanist conspiracy. And of course, anyone who helps in the production of Murdoch’s Bible, any pastor or seminary professor who recommends it, must be under suspicion of being neck-deep in the conspiracy.

Rupert Murdoch – I won’t be defending him; frankly, I don’t have to defend him

The narrative boils down to:

Rupert Murdoch owns a publishing company that sells Bibles in the New International Version. Therefore, it is said, should we not reject the NIV, given that Murdoch might be trying to destroy the church’s faith in God’s Word? And so, shouldn’t we just stick with the King James Version, which is tried and true?

(more…)

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Published in: on July 18, 2017 at 4:50 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Women in Ministry, according to F. F. Bruce

Woman-Praying-Bible

This is a topic which interests me very much, not just in theory, but because of my involvement of training both female and male soldiers for the kingdom of God. I hope to publish some thoughts of my own at some point, but for now I yield to the master, and his brief article from 1982.

Evangelical scholar F. F. Bruce promoted the ministry of women in the Christian Brethren Review, which is significant, as anyone who has attended a traditional brethren assembly will recognize. As was his custom, Bruce turned to the Word of God as his authority.

I would not say that he was “ahead of his time,” which attribution is not necessarily a compliment. But I do think he was able to see beyond his tradition and to look at Scripture afresh; also, to realize that the charge that one’s opponents are under “cultural influence” is a sword that cuts both ways.

Enjoy! Gary

Women in the Church – A Biblical Survey FF Bruce

See also:

Thoughts on Greek from a scholar – F. F. Bruce

Gary S. Shogren is Professor of New Testament at Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on July 18, 2016 at 10:54 am  Comments (4)  
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Did a NASA supercomputer prove the Bible?

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NASA proved the Lost Day of Joshua, using a supercomputer! This story surfaces once in a while, and the internet only serves to give it more “credibility” by making it come at the reader from a hundred directions:

So, what happened is, NASA scientists fed all the data of history into a big computer program, and it turned out that there was a day missing. It turns out that NASA proved that the earth stood still for Joshua, and also that a sundial went backwards during the reign of Hezekiah, as recounted in Isaiah 38.

Although the story was long ago discredited, it has arisen again on Facebook. This blogger states it as a fact (click HERE). He implies that NASA covered it up, but provides no evidence. My friend Robert Newman – who has a PhD in astrophysics from Cornell – has a full, detailed study on this rumor and many other articles on the Bible and science (click HERE). He shows that the tale has been circulating since 1890. To repeat, this is not some random idea that I heard from a friend of a friend, you can contact Dr. Newman and ask him for yourself.

DO YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT OTHER CIRCULATING MYTHS? click HERE.

FOR SOME EXCELLENT, WELL-FOUNDED STUDIES
OF THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE, go to http://www.ibri.org

I love God’s Word (and believe in the book of Joshua!), and therefore react when I read long-discredited stories. In fact Stephen Jay Gould, an atheist opponent of our faith, uses the NASA story as an example of how Christians will believe anything we’re told. Let’s look sharp when we hear rumors, and look them up before passing them along! The easiest way to do so is to google something like “Joshua missing day hoax” – if it’s a hoax, you will soon find out.

“Did a NASA supercomputer prove the Bible?” by Gary Shogren, PhD in New Testament, Professor at Seminario ESEPA, San Jose, Costa Rica

Published in: on April 28, 2014 at 4:14 pm  Comments (5)  

Is the NIV 2011 a Satanic, Homosexual, PC Bible? Part II

Click here to read Part I, which is necessary to understand this Part II.

Some take issue with the 2011 update of the New International Version. For example, here’s the official statement from the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood:

As the evangelical community turns to CBMW for trusted counsel on contemporary Bible translations that are faithful and accurate in their rendering of gender-language, we will continue to point them to the many translations available today that do a better job than the TNIV and new NIV (2011) – translations like the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), the New American Standard (NASB), the New King James (NKJV), and the English Standard Version (ESV).

I do not agree with the CBMW’s position, but I appreciated the measured attitude.

But if you listen closely, you can also hear sounds of breast-beating, garment rending, bursts of outrage and charges of blasphemy and apostasy. You can hear slogans in place of careful study. And I’m afraid that the alarmists are outshouting those who are reasonable:

The Bible teaches a masculine Godhead….[But feminists] have fabricated their own theology that attempts to portray God as having a feminine side. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible speaks of God the FATHER, and of Jesus Christ the SON, and of the Holy Spirit Who is referred to with the pronoun HE in the faithful King James Bible (John 16:13)…The NIV 2011 attacks the masculine authority of God, the ruling husband, and the authoritative preacher.

The Devil’s feminist, homosexual, abortionist crowd wants to produce a unisex Bible that doesn’t condemn the sin of homosexuality.

The NIV 2011 attacks the masculine authority of God…The NIV 2011 is evil, catering to the homosexual agenda.

The new gender-inclusive NIV…contains thousands of changes to the Bible’s male-gendered language. Having a gender-inclusive Bible appears to be the latest trend amongst cutting-edge, cappuccino-slurping Christian hipsters.

And while I dislike posting another site online, the page http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/ is about the worst example I have seen of disinformation, ignorance, exaggeration, backwardness, and uninformed writing that I have seen with respect a whole range of themes, and to Bible translating and the NIV in particular; I mention the site because, unlike most reputable bloggers, they do not provide any means for people to comment on their posts – otherwise I would have interacted with them on their own turf.

Now, when people say that a Bible is “evil” and the work of Satan, they had better tread with extreme caution. If you dislike a particular version – as does the CBMW – that’s fine; but you had better do your homework. You had better be certain that God stands with you before holding up a Bible and calling it a product of hell or, as one site instructs its readers, to use the Bible as “toilet paper”. This is God’s precious Word we’re talking about.

I cannot imagine that those who have written such comments have given any serious attention to the text of the NIV 2011, which is freely available online. Let’s begin by sweeping away the wilder claims:

Does the NIV 2011 remove God’s “masculinity” and replace it with a feminine goddess? Goodness, no! Our proof: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV 2011) and every other relevant verse throughout the Bible. (more…)

Published in: on May 1, 2012 at 6:35 pm  Comments (15)  
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