A HELPFUL SUMMARY OF BIBLE TRANSLATIONS

 The King James Version, also known as the Authorized Version of 1611, is the one that some of us grew up with and memorized from extensively. But the KJV we used actually dates from the 1750's and is the "Oxford Edition".  It was generally accurate for its day but has four weaknesses: it was a "one church" translation (Anglican/Episcopal); it was translated from late manuscripts;  some portions are difficult to comprehend even for well read people; and, finally, every verse is printed as a separate paragraph, further hindering comprehension. Since it was THE English Bible for three and a half centuries every generation should become, at least, familiar with it.

The American Standard Version of 1901 was updated in 1971 by the Lockman Foundation and published as The New American Standard Bible. Its literalness is both its strength and its weakness. It is trustworthy but its literalness makes for very poor English sentences. The other problem is, like the KJV, every verse is made a separate paragraph.

The Revised Standard Version (1952, updated 1988) was not trusted by Evangelicals because all but two of the translators were theologically liberal. Most of it was, with some lamentable exceptions, accurate.

The New International Version (1978, 1984 and 2011) was the largest and most thorough effort of English Bible translation ever done. The 105 translators followed the method used by missionary translators called "dynamic equivalence"; word for word except when "thought for thought" will actually be more accurate. Changes in 1984 and 2011 have weakened trust and acceptance of the NIV. Those changes should have been kept in the footnotes. I have used and recommended the original NIV of 1978 since the day it came and will continue to do so as long as I live.  Since the original of 1978 has been out of print since 1984 anyone who wants one can easily find a copy on Ebay.

The English Standard Version was the product of those who wanted something in between the New American Standard Bible and the NIV.  What it actually is, to understand it, is an Evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version. My judgment is that it is no improvement over the NIV and, in a few places, carries forward some of the highly questionable translations of the RSV. 

Paraphrases: The first and most eloquent of 20th century paraphrases of Scripture was the Phillips, New Testament in Modern English (1958). The Living Bible (1971) by Ken Taylor was one of the best selling books of the 20th century. It has been updated into the New Living Translation. There are numerous others. The one good thing that can be said about all of them is they attract people to the reading of Scripture for themselves.

Finally, there is no such thing as a perfect translation and those who dogmatically insist that there is "only one right translation" need to keep that opinion to themselves. I have stated above which one I recommend and why but even I sometimes quote the KJV or my own translation of a particular verse.

Conclusion: the NIV of 1978 has in its favor 1) the large number of translators; 2) their method and the cross checking of each other's work; 3) the multidenominational makeup of the 105 translators; 4) the review of the final work for good English style.

WAS THE "LAST" SUPPER THE PASSOVER MEAL?

    I want to summarize for you the reasons why that meal was, in fact, the Passover.  I put the word "last" in quotation marks because it is inaccurate.  For forty days after His Resurrection Jesus taught and ate meals with the disciples.  I want to acknowledge the highly respected New Testament scholar D.A. Carson as my primary source for the following.

   The "Synoptic" Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) clearly speak of that meal as the Passover.  Several statements in the Gospel of John seem to indicate that it was "before" the Passover meal.  John as been misunderstood and misinterpreted.  Here is why.

   "Before the Passover Feast" (Jn. 13:1) refers to the act of washing the disciples feet.  The KJV "supper being ended" was a mistranslation.  The meal had "been served" but not yet eaten ("during supper").  

   The words in Jn. 18:28 :to eat the Passover" refer to the entire Feast of the Passover including the days of Unleavened Bread.  

   Considerable evidence exists to indicate that the words "day of Preparation" in Jn. 19:14 were a technical term for the Friday of Passover week.  The Sabbath (Saturday) of Passover week was a "special" and "high" Sabbath.  Thus the NIV has "the day of Preparation of Passover Week".

   There remains, therefore, little if any reason to see any real discrepancy between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John.  Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples. 

   The reader is referred to the fuller discussion of this in the Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pages 528-532.  D.A. Carson was commissioned to write the commentary on Matthew (600 pages!) for this excellent series.  He dealt with all the major problems relating to the four Gospels, including this one on the "Last" Supper.  I disagree strongly with Carson on his interpretation of passages relating to the Tribulation and the Second Coming but in

this matter of the "Last" Supper being the Passover meal and in nearly all other matters I have the highest regard for his scholarship. 

BEEF CATTLE AND GOD'S PROVISION

 

   Memory takes us back a half century.  We were living on a farm that belonged to a Christian businessman and his wife.  When he told me to obtain some feeder cattle to raise I inquired of my neighbor, a veteran farmer filled with wisdom, as to whom I should contact.  He referred me to a man who hauled cattle and could be relied upon to get me good stock.  I do not recall the number of young feeder steers he brought but it was, I believe, at least eight.  They were Herefords like those in the photo you see above.  It was late in the summer so we kept them on pasture until winter.

   During the winter I kept them on clean straw with clean water always in front of them.  I kept good quality hay in front of them with a daily ration composed of the following ground up together:  three fourths parts of ear corn (cobs and all), one fourth part oats, all combined with molasses and beef mineral supplement.  This is very different from today's beef rations which tend to put more fat on the beef.  Almost no one has ear corn today since corn is shelled as it is harvested and the cobs go back on the ground with the corn stalks.  But this ration was once recommended at the Ohio State College of Agriculture in the 1950's.  I found that it produced more meat and not excessive fat on the cattle.  At the time it was ridiculed at "taking forever to fatten the cattle".

   I also provided an area outside the barn where the cattle could walk around and not be in mud.  In the spring the cattle reached a weight of around 1100 - 1250 pounds.  The owner of the farm then said an amazing thing:  "Get the cattle processed and give a half of beef to every teacher at Mansfield Christian School".  We were not nearly so large a faculty then as that school has now.  I contacted Nevin Border of Plymouth to process the beef.  In those days he and two helpers came to the farm to slaughter cattle and then took the carcasses to his market to process.  He did three at a time.

   The first time he came to do three he asked me if the people getting the beef would be paying me directly or were they to pay when they picked up the beef at his market.  I said, "Nevin, this beef is all being given to people".  How I wish I had a photo of the look on his face.  When he was finally able to speak he said,  "Well, you tell them they are sure getting nice beef".  Whether or nor the beef would have graded prime or top choice I do not know but to this day my wife Susan will tell you we have never had better beef and very rarely had any as good.

   I should add that it only cost each teacher at MCS about $35 to have their half processed.  Inflation has changed that considerably.  This was just one of many time times that this businessman and his wife helped people in very generous ways.  They are both gone now but I sometimes pray a blessing for their children and grandchildren as I remember these things.

   I enjoy relating all this because there are both spiritual and practical agricultural things to be learned.  As I mentioned earlier, modern feed rations often put excessive fat on cattle or have other drawbacks.  The cobs of the ear corn added good roughage to the feed and the slower growth made for an overall better product in the end.  Much as been made in recent years about Angus (black) cattle being better than Herefords.  Grocery stores advertise "Angus Beef Only".  But I can assure that I have never had Angus beef that came close to the quality and flavor of those Herefords.  But, more important is the example of generosity in all this.  We do not have to be wealthy enough to give away several cattle.  We can share a beef roast at a meal in our home with someone who needs encouragement and bless them in Jesus' Name.

FIGHTING CANCER: A CHRISTIAN VIEW

   For a long time I have been intrigued by the statement, "___________ is fighting cancer".  What is meant by that, of course, is that ___________ is undergoing treatments.  They are not, themselves, "fighting" the malignancy; the medical professionals are fighting it with various therapies:  chemical, radiation, surgery, etc.   The person being treated, if they are fighting at all, is probably fighting a mental and psychological battle.  "Do I continue enduring this or do I just give up?"

   My wife Susan fought that battle in 1989 while undergoing the chemotherapy protocols of that time.  She endured for six months and the protocols called for two more rounds of treatment, but she said "enough".  Her oncologist agreed.  The cancer she was "fighting" was follicular lymphoma.  Over the next twenty

years it reappeared at least four times and was treated with oral chemotherapy, radiation and finally with what is now the cutting edge of cancer therapy, monoclonal antibodies.  If it does not appear on her scheduled C-scan this December she will have gone ten years without a relapse.  

   Any number of our friends have not had the same happy results that she has had.  This leads us, as Christians, to the question of why seemingly so few are delivered from cancer in answer to earnest prayer on their behalf by other believers.  That miracles do occur has been well documented.   So, is God "arbitrary".  Or, are there other answers?  Or, will we never have all the answers in this life?

   The purpose of this blog is to redefine, or at least expand the definition of, what it means to "fight cancer". Actual, meaningful fighting of cancer, and all other diseases, begins as soon as one is old enough to make decisions about what they will eat.  The research is massive and the conclusions are undeniable.  The weapons in this war are, or should be, well known by now:  green or other brightly colored vegetables and fresh fruits; adequate intake of vitamins C and D and trace elements such as boron; minimizing the intake of red and fatty meats;  minimizing the intake of refined sugars; adequate amounts of fiber; more intake of fish, especially salmon;  and adequate intake of water.

   This does not exhaust the list of physical weapons but it constitutes a pretty good arsenal.  We turn now to the spiritual weapons against disease.  In the image you see above is a quote from Isaiah chapter 58.  Please look at the entire chapter, especially verse 8 and the words "your healing will quickly appear".  A life spent helping to relieve the suffering of others, this passage says, brings blessings from God upon one's own health.  There is no formula to guarantee perfect health in this life but a war against disease waged with both the physical and spiritual weapons we have briefly mentioned here would, I am convinced, result in much more health than we are seeing at present.

   "What if I follow all the advice in this blog and still, someday, get a diagnosis of terminal cancer", you ask.  I answer that you can look to God, and to the people standing ready to pray for you, with a clear conscience that you have done all that is humanly possible.  Your future, and mine, is then in the Hands of Him Who "spared not His own Son but gave Him up for us all" and from Whose Love "nothing can separate us".

THE PRESIDENT'S GREATEST SPEECH -- NEVER GIVEN

 The White House,  Washington D.C., December 2020

   "My fellow Americans:  I come to you for what may be my last address as your President.  I, like millions of you, believe that there is probable cause to believe that the votes in this recent election have not been counted accurately.  I could press on challenging the results.  However, I can see no good for our beloved country coming from my doing so. I accept the advice of members of my cabinet that there is, at this time, insufficient evidence to press ahead with challenges.   I have, therefore, reached one of the most difficult decisions of my lifetime.  I will henceforth cease all challenges to the results of this election.

   We have been unable to convince the courts of this land, including the highest court, to overturn the vote count in any state.  Out of respect for the Judiciary as a separate and coequal branch of government, I will honor their decisions and cease all challenges to the electoral count.  

   Word has come to me that many of you are planning to come here to the capitol in January to show your support for me.  While this would be greatly encouraging to me personally I can see no good coming from it for our country.  I can only see the possibility of the event being somehow misused by those who wish us ill.  I therefore plead with you to not go ahead with this gathering.  Please, I beg of you, remain at your homes and your jobs.

   We believe that the historical record will show that with your support we have been able to do more good for this country than any single term in history.  While there is much more to do to secure our freedoms, to strengthen our economy, to secure our borders and to stop foreign threats to our security we have done all we can do in one term.  We have done this even with unparalleled hostility against us from the day we were elected.  Unreasoning hatred for me has motivated our opposition to do harm to our country in pursuit of fanatical efforts to destroy me.  This leads me to express a sincere regret.

   In my zeal to defend your liberties I am afraid I may have at times stooped to the level of our opposition.  If I had it to do over I would not have used social media to engage in verbal battles with those who were unworthy of a reply.  I now urge all of you who have supported me to stay on the high ground in the days ahead.  Do not under any circumstances stoop to the level of those who may have won this election unfairly.  Let us all work toward winning the House and Senate in 2022 by reasoned and civil argument and fair and honest electoral campaigns.

   To show that the cause I have been fighting for is not my personal advancement but rather the cause of our freedoms, I now solemnly pledge to you that I will never again run for any elected office.  I will support those like Vice President Pence and others who are worthy of your trust. I will now devote myself to a smooth transition to the new administration.  I intend to spend these last days of my administration in a way that will make you proud of your trust in me.  The torch I have carried for you these four years will now be picked up and carried by others.  Give them your support and prayers for their success and safety.

   It is customary to close a Presidential address with the words 'God Bless America'.  He has, in fact, blessed us all far more than we deserve.  For this we are profoundly and eternally grateful."

Donald J. Trump

 

TIME TRAVEL TO THE LATE 1950's TO PEYTON PLACE

It began as a novel in 1956 that stayed on the New York Times best seller list for five years.  It was made into a major motion picture in 1957.  In high school in those long ago days one student would whisper to another "read it" or "see the movie".  Since it dealt with incest and implied without actually showing a couple swimming naked,  parents were wishing that the kids would do neither.  I saw it a year later but since it wasn't a war or cowboy movie I remembered little of it.  Nearly twenty years later I watched it on TV and thought to myself "that wasn't as wild and raunchy as they led us to believe back in high school".  Had I been desensitized?  Then about another twenty years went by and I watched it on TV again.  My reaction that time was "that came close to being a Christian movie".
     How could something considered very explicit in the 1950's be considered by a critical thinker today (as I believe I am) as being very close to a Christian treatment of the themes of incest, murder, adultery, illegitimacy, a couple swimming nude, etc.  

   The name "Peyton Place" may have been fictional but it seems the author, Grace Metalius, combined three towns in New Hampshire to create the Peyton Place setting.   A sequel, Return to Peyton Place, was filmed in 1959 and it became a TV soap opera series from 1964 to 1969.  The title kept reappearing on TV in soap opera settings or made for TV films.  One does not hear it much any more.  It may even seem quaint.  The themes of the book and the movie have been portrayed in the years since 1957 in ways that leave nothing - I mean nothing - to the imagination.
     When I listed the themes of the book and the movie I omitted  two major ones:  gossip and hypocrisy.   Near the end, after attending church,  one of the characters makes a powerful statement against these two evils that would, as I implied earlier, do justice to any Christian movie.  This movie did not even come close to being "explicit" in the way that movies became a few years later.  The fact that the book and movie were "hush, hush" among polite people in those days is a most powerful witness to the reality of a Christian consensus then.  A survey just several years ago revealed that several hundred young adults overwhelmingly considered "not recycling" and "using too much water and electricity" as much worse sins than viewing pornography and watching explicit movies.  The degrading of ourselves, each other and our bodies is now "no big deal".
     Don't believe those who dismiss all this by saying that the 1950's were "puritanical".  C.S. Lewis warned us about the reckless and ignorant use of that adjective.
     "Don't be under any illusion -- neither the impure, the idolater or the adulterer; neither the effeminate, the pervert or the thief; neither the swindler, the drunkard, the foul-mouthed or the rapacious shall have any share in the kingdom of God.  And such men, remember, were some of you!  But you have cleansed yourselves from all that; you have been made whole in spirit; you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the very Spirit of our God."   (I Cor. 6:9-11 from The New Testament in Modern English by J.B. Phillips [1958]; italics his)  How amazing is it that this very accurate reading of this passage of Scripture was going to press at the very time that Peyton Place appeared?
     At the heart of the Peyton Place story was the fact that what people condemn in public they may be doing in private.   Since God sees all of our private world maybe He looked at the behind-the-scenes America of 1957 in much the same way we see the public life of people today.  Sin has always been here whether it was Sodom, Babylon, Rome or the United States.  The one very large difference between 1957 and today is the rejection of all absolutes by which to judge anything right or wrong.
     In the same year that the movie appeared the newly formed South Central school district in Huron County, Ohio was torn by dissension.  A teacher sent a letter to the local newspaper.  I have a copy of that paper and one line from that teacher's letter reveals a lot about the  prevailing Christian consensus in the U.S. in those days.  Speaking of the angry dissension in the school district about creating one new high school she said, "we are not acting like Christians".  What would be the reaction if a public school teacher said that in a letter to a newspaper today.

"FINAL JEOPARDY: AND THE CATEGORY IS . . . ."

     And the category is . . . God!   Your first clue is:  a nine letter word beginning with 'a', meaning anything that God is in His essential nature.   What is attribute?   Correct!  And that is your next category:  'The Attributes of God'.  Your first clue:  The attribute of God that is most difficult to define.  Correct!  Next clue:  the attribute of God that the mighty angelic hosts of heaven cry out three times.  Correct again! 
     Next clue:  the attribute of God that means His absolute 'otherness' from all His Creation.  Correct!  You are on a roll!  Next clue:  the attribute of God that means His absolute perfection in all other attributes of love, mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice.  Correct again!
     Next clue:  The attribute of God that angels cover their faces to cry out in awe filled worship and that caused Isaiah to cry out "Woe to me!  I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."  And you are correct again!
     Your next clue:  the attribute of God that he graciously imparts in some measure to each believer in His Son:  ". . . we have been made _____ through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10)."    Correct again!
     Next clue:  the attribute of God that you are most likely to hear spoken or see on social media in such expressions as: '_____ crap';  '_____ s - - t';  '_____ hell';  '_____ smoke';  '_____ moly' and similar expression of contempt for the awesome, eternal majesty of the Living God; expressions that clearly show that "since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over in a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done; (that) they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity; (that) they are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice; (that) they are gossips, slanderers, God haters insolent, arrogant and boastful; (that) they invent ways of doing evil; (that) they disobey their parents; (that) they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless; and (that) they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue too do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."   (Romans 1:28-32) 
     Your response is correct again and your soul is no longer in eternal jeopardy.  You realized that all the correct responses were one and the same -- HOLY!
     "Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:  'You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, THE HOLY ONE, because you have so judged; for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.'  And I heard the altar respond:  'Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments'."
     Footnote:  A theologically liberal Protestant denomination wanted to use the beautiful contemporary hymn "In Christ Alone" in their new song book.  They asked those who wrote this song if they could change the words "saved from the wrath of God" and substitute other 'less offensive' words.  To their everlasting credit they refused to grant permission to this liberal denomination to show disdain for the holiness of God.  "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on Him."  (John 3:36)
     "Holy, holy, holy; Lord God Almighty.  Early in the morning my song shall rise to thee."