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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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on July 18, 2017 at 4:50 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Bible, Christian, ESEPA, evangelical, NIV

Is the Nestle-Aland Bible against the deity of Christ? No!

It is the narrative in a few remote corners of Christendom that only the Textus receptus reflects the original text of the New Testament. Some would add a second chapter, that newer critical editions – which, in fact, are based on almost 6000 manuscripts, let alone ancient versions and church fathers – are part of a conspiracy to destroy the church’s faith. Their editors are supposedly hell-bent on erasing any Bible verse that affirms the trinity, the deity of Christ, redemption by his blood, justification by faith, and other cardinal doctrines. Or so the legend goes.

The evidence for this curious notion simply does not add up. Take a look at the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, and you will find all of those doctrines fully and clearly taught; and you will find no evidence of any systematic dismantling of the faith once for all handed down to the saints. This will be evident to those who can read Greek: they can freely access the NA28 online, as well as other information. [1] English readers might look over the ESV on the same quest.

And in fact, there is some nice counter-evidence to the theory. It appears in the little epistle of Jude, where the deity of Christ is more clearly set forth in the latest critical edition than it has been in previous ones.

First, let’s place the critical version in context. (more…)

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on March 17, 2017 at 6:56 pm Comments (1)
Tags: NA28;Bible;Christian;evangelical

Strong’s Concordance – a Good Tool Gone Bad

To download the entire article, click here Shogren_Strongs Concordance or take a photo

Strong’s Concordance – a Good Tool Gone Bad

For Bible students who don’t use Hebrew and Greek, the Strong Concordance is a popular tool, available online. [1]

But it has a serious limitation – namely:

the “dictionary” in the back of Strong’s is not really a dictionary at all, and should not be used to find the “real, true, or root meaning” of a word

I will use the KJV version of Strong’s, since that is the one version I have on hand, but the same thing applies with the ESV or NASB editions.

We are all familiar with Matthew 1:20 –

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Let’s say I want to learn more about the words angel (Strongs #G32). (more…)

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on August 16, 2016 at 3:12 pm Comments (8)
Tags: Bible, Christian, concordance, Strong

Is the KJV a perfect translation? According to its translators, no

George Guthrie has an informative and edifying article on the King James Version. In particular, he explores how the translators themselves regarded what they were doing and how it stood in relation to other versions. They also expected the KJV to be later corrected and improved!

By implication, they did not hold to the doctrine that their King James Version is the product of “divine preservation” which supposedly kept one single edition or one single version of the Bible absolutely perfect; this doctrine is recent and not taught in Scriptures.

http://georgehguthrie.com/new-blog/2016/7/5/what-the-kjv-translators-thought-about-other-translations

The Emperor Constantine the Great – a villain or a hero, or something in-between?

Download the article as a pdf: Shogren_The Emperor Constantine the Great – a villain or a hero, or something in-between

To many, the Emperor Constantine was a saint: in the Orthodox church he is one of the “Equal-to-Apostles” (isapóstolos) a title given to people (such as Patrick, Cyril the evangelist of Russia and others) who were especially effective in establishing the gospel.

To others, Constantine is Great was a tool of evil, a corrupter of the church.

The attacks against Constantine come from several quarters. Some Messianic believers imagine that he turned the church into a Gentile movement. Others charge him with introducing pagan practices into the church. Seventh-Day Adventists credit him (or some pope) with changing the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.[1] Jehovah’s Witnesses think he turned Jesus into God, made the cross a symbol of Christianity, and established Easter and Christmas. All of these parties tend to gang up and use the same materials as the basis for their attacks – for example, many anti-Constantine groups hale back to Babylon Mystery Religion – Ancient and Modern, by Ralph Woodrow (1966). And they and Woodrow borrow much of their “information” from Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons (1858), another sketchy attempt to connect Catholicism with Babylonian religion.[2] More on this later.

Who was Constantine? (more…)

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on November 11, 2015 at 6:23 pm Comments (6)
Tags: Catholic, Christian, Church, Constantine, History

Ancient scrap of Mark’s Gospel

This little piece of papyrus is an amazing find, and it looks like it’s now regarded as authentic. It is a scrap of the gospel of Mark, hand-copies in the 80s AD at the very latest. It comes from Egypt and was dated by its handwriting style, by Carbon-14, and by other texts found near it.

I have told my students about early manuscripts of the New Testament and usually I end with, “But they will find even older and more remarkable ones over the next few years, I’m sure of it. From the first century, even.”

Here we are.

It is just a tiny portion of Mark 5:15-18 (the account of the exorcism of Legion), and is about the size of two fingers. On the sixth line you can see part of the word for “demon-possessed” – (δαιμο = …daimo…)

The short text is letter for letter in agreement with the text of the critical New Testament – the Nestlé-Aland 28th edition – in use around the world today and is the basis for all new Bible versions. Even if you don’t read Greek, the letters are clear as can be.

See the full story and a video here – http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/mummy-mask-may-reveal-oldest-fragment-of-the-gospel-of-mark

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on January 21, 2015 at 4:34 pm Comments (4)
Tags: Bible, Christian, Mark, papyrus

The Eclectic Text of the New Testament – a conspiracy against the Word?

God’s beloved Word – you’d better believe I study it daily. Yes, as a Bible teacher, since my ministry is teaching the New Testament in Spanish and English, and also from the Greek. But more fundamentally I read the Bible simply as a Christian, because it is through the reading, meditation, and obedience of God’s Word that we grow as believers. [1]

Therefore it concerns me when I read about a supposed conspiracy, made up of people who secretly despise God’s Word and are paving the way for antichrist, out to destroy the Bible and leave us in spiritual darkness. These charges are leveled against the Nestle-Aland edition of the Greek New Testament, the exact same “critical” edition I and my students read and interpret. [2]

That’s why I am impelled to read up on the so-called Alexandrian Conspiracy to ruin the Bible. If it is a real and present danger, I want to know. If it is a false alarm, then I must communicate that to you, the readers.

“Don’t destroy God’s Word! Or change it!”

My conclusion:

If the critical edition of the New Testament be treason against God’s Holy Word, then it’s the most poorly executed conspiracy in the history of Bible study.

Let’s see why. One extreme theory has it (more…)

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on October 9, 2014 at 2:37 pm Comments (20)
Tags: Bible, Christian, critical text, Gipp, Greek, Hort, inspiration, Nestle Aland, New Testament, Textus Receptus, Westcott

“But the Greek REALLY says…”: Why Hebrew and Greek are not needed in the pulpit, Part 2

“…Okay, wait, so then, hah, hah, so then the second guy says to the first one, ἐκεινος οὐκ ἐστιν ὁ κυῶν μου!! Oh, that one gets me every time!"

“…Okay, wait, so then, hah, hah, so then the second guy says to the first one, ἐκεινος οὐκ ἐστιν ὁ κυῶν μου!! Oh, mercy, that one gets me every time!”

In Part 1, I argued in favor of a sharply minimalist use of ancient Hebrew and Greek words during a sermon, especially if there is no compelling purpose or, worse, if the goal is to impress the crowd: it is a pitiable housepainter who departs the job with his scaffolding still up, hoping you’ll notice how far he had to climb. See “But the Greek REALLY says…”: Why Hebrew and Greek are not needed in the pulpit, Part 1 and Part 3.

Now, I believe an interpreter of the Word should invest the time necessary to work through it in the original, just as you would learn Spanish if you were going to teach Don Quixote, week in and week out, for the rest of your life. However, in our sermons we should avoid Hebrewfying and Greekitizing, simply because it is rarely of help.

Now we will explore some issues with the Greek language (more…)

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on June 29, 2013 at 11:15 am Comments (22)
Tags: Aramaic, Bible, Christian, expository preaching, Greek, Hebrew, inspiration, priesthood of the believer, Word study

“But the Greek REALLY says…”: Why Hebrew and Greek are not needed in the pulpit, Part 1

Para la versión castellana, vaya AQUI.

Come with me to ESEPA Seminary in Costa Rica: we meet at night around a table, and with me are all my advanced students of Greek. Throughout four semesters we have studied the ancient dialect, koinē, and they have found blessings as they read the New Testament in the original.

Tonight we’ll take a different tack: “I’m about to impart something very important to you,” I alert them. Nodding, they lean forward.

“Here’s the mystical wisdom: (1) With almost no exceptions, whenever I preach, I study deeply the passage in the original language. But, (2) I almost never mention a Greek or Hebrew word from the pulpit. In fact, I go for years without making a peep in those languages.”

I let that sink in.

Then: “If you cannot state in plain, precise Spanish what you have found in the text, then you don’t really understand the passage and you shouldn’t be preaching on it.” (more…)

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