WHERE WE GOT MOST MODERN TRANSLATIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
FROM THE BOOK “NEW AGE BIBLE VERSIONS”
BY GAIL RIPLINGER
Silenced Scribes Summon Psychology
Is it scriptural to believe God took men like Westcott, Hort, Lightfoot and Phillips and catapulted them to the position of greatest influence over the body of Christ, that of bible correctors? Scripture identifies them as God's rejected, not God's chosen.
DEATH: A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death. Leviticus 20:27
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.(I Samuel 15:23) So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it (I Chronicles 10:13). And inquired not of the LORD: therefore he slew him. (I Chronicles 10:13,14)
CUT OFF: And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 20:6)
The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and THE SCHOLAR. (Malachi 2:12)
And when they shall say unto you, 'Seek unto them that have familiar spirits….it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:19, 20)
Possessed?
G.W. Balfour, president of the Society for Psychical Research, characterized 'a spiritualist' or ‘channel’ as "a plurality of minds associated in a single organism.”1 Luke 8:30 and Mark 5:9-15 characterize this as possession by a legion' of devils. Symptoms of possession are shown in the New Testament. These include:
Profession (Imitation)
Obsession
Regression
Depression (Deliration)
These four evidences of 'influence' by spirits are manifested in the lives of the 'scribes' under investigation.
Imitation: They may know and proclaim Christian doctrine.
[T]wo possessed with devils….[said,] Jesus, thou Son of God Matthew 8:28,29
[A] certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination….[said,] These men are the servants of the most high God and show unto us the way of salvation. Acts 16:16,17
[A] man with an unclean spirit….ran and worshipped him Mark 5:2-6
This 'imitation' profession is tenet number one of the Spiritualist Church. The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained lists their beliefs as follows:
"[T]he redemptive power of Jesus Christ." (This is true.)
"[T]he Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man." (This is false.)
"[T]he eternal progress open to every soul."2 (This is false.)
New version editor B.F. Westcott, described as a 'Spiritualist' by his son, echoes these 'unclean spirits' in his books.
1. The redemptive power of Jesus Christ.
Historic Faith
2. The Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.
Religious Thought in the West
3. "[T]he reality of the law of progress….and fellowship
with the spiritual world." 3
The Historic Faith
"Progress available to souls after death."
Commentary on St. John's Gospel
These books were written before, during and after his tenure on the Bible Revision Committee. His Introduction to the Study of the Gospels was written the year he started the Ghostly Guild.4 All of his books contain portions in which the language looks rather orthodox. At times it 'looks' like a sheep and 'feels' like a sheep. This jargon serves as the "sheep's clothing" of the false prophets described by Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:15:16.
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
The sheep's clothing cannot camouflage the cry of the wolf. Acts 20:29 warns that “….grievous wolves enter in among you." In order to get 'in' the sheepfold to attack the sheep, the clothing of a "righteous" sheep is required to avoid detection.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of Light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. II Corinthians 11:14,15
Obsession: A second manifestation of possession is a fixation with the dead. This was manifest in the demoniacs in Matthew 8:28 and Marie 5:2-17.
….there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs
….there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs...
Westcott's Ghostly Guild and his writing which includes comments referring to "the dominion which the dead have over us," as well as Phillip's conversations with C.S. Lewis, "after his death" are symptomatic of an overall spiritual condition.
A peculiar phenomenon kept surfacing during my research into the life of these 'scribes'. God apparently cut off their power to speak.
Regression: A third symptom which accompanies spirit possession in the bible is the inability to speak. It is called a 'dumb spirit' in Mark 9:17, 25 and Matthew 9:32, 33, 12:22, 15:30, 31. Those verses disclose the corresponding "frog" in the throat (Revelation 16:13) that accompanies unclean spirits of this kind.
[H]e was casting out a devil and it was dumb….when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake... Luke 11:14
The Living Bible: Taylor
The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. Psalms 12:3
The popular press has made note of author, Kenneth Taylor's, loss of ability to talk. Time magazine, July 1972, states:
Mysteriously half way through the paraphrase Taylor lost his voice and still speaks in a hoarse whisper. A psychiatrist who examined him suggested that the voice failure was Taylor's psychological self-punishment for tampering with what he believed to be the Word of God.
At least thirty million Living Bibles are in print, many now in the hands of children. Even the Introduction to the Catholic edition warns:
[T]his translation cannot be used as a basis for Doctrinal or traditional disputes….People from various Doctrinal traditions may….be chagrined at the particular translations found within this volume.5
Even 'new bible' protagonist D.A. Carson says, "I distrust its looseness and dislike its theological slanting of the evidence."6
New American Standard Version
Let the lying lips be put to silence. Psalm 31:18
Also silenced was Philip Schaff, collaborator on the 'New' Greek Committee and director of the American Standard Version, which formed the foundation of the New American Standard and The Living Bible. (See chapter 33 for further discussion.) Paralleling Taylor's pathology, Schaff’s son finds the same 'frog' in Philip Schaff’s throat. Even as early as 1854, the warning was given, "his voice so affected that he could not speak in public so as to be heard." Finally by 1892….the power of articulated speech gone7
A friend corresponds to Schaff, "It is with great sorrow that I have learned of the affliction which has befallen you." This malady followed his activity with Westcott and Hort on the RV committee and his American Standard Version. Still in 1893 his pathoses deprived him of the power of speeches
New Greek Text: Tregelles
Schaff himself writes of S.P. Tregelles, author of a ‘New’ Greek Text which preceded and strongly influenced the Westcott and Hort revision. Of Tregelles Schaff writes, he was "scarcely able to speak audibly.”
Westcott and Hort Greek Text:
(RV, NRSV, NIV, NASB, CEV, New Century Version, GoodNews for Modern Man, Jehovah Witness bible, The Book, The Everyday Bible, All Catholic bibles et al.)
Westcott's biographer cites that in 1858 "he was quite inaudible" 10 and by 1870 "His voice reached few and was understood by still fewer. 11
The New Testament in Modern English: J.B. Phillips
[T]he froward tongue shall be cut out. Proveibs 10:31
J.B. Phillips tells in his own autobiography, "I was still doing a fair measure of speaking in schools and churches until the late summer of 1961. And then quite suddenly my speaking, writing and communication powers stopped. I was not in panic but I was certainly alarmed, and when a few weeks rest brought no improvement I cancelled all speaking engagements for the rest of the year (age 55). The Price of Success, the title of his autobiography, is apropos.
The speechless sphinx syndrome can even happen to a believer, as it did to Zacharias, because “….thou believest not my words" (Luke 1:20).
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take thy covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee. Psalm 50:16-20
Deliration: Another symptom of possession or harassment by evil spirits is insanity or mental illness. Matthew 17:15-18 records:
[H]e is lunatick….And Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him. [Mark 9:17 adds that this was a 'dumb spirit' also.]
The 'dumb spirit' may plague its host with an accompanying lunacy'. J.B. Phillips' necromancy and the 'dumb spirit' it generated harassed Phillips with life-long bouts of insanity. (Yet author of the NIV Concordance and Interlinear Hebrew Text, John R. Kohlenberger, strongly endorses the J.B. Phillips' New Testament in Modern English calling it, "Certainly the most respected and arguably the best individual translation of the New Testament….”13) His mental illness is chronicled in his autobiography, The Price of Success. It began as what he calls a "nervous illness," after his ordination to the priesthood of the Church of England. He resigned a pastor's assistant job after a friend decided:
[T]hat my trouble must be psychological and arranged for me to see the best psychologist I have ever met….He was a personal friend of Jung….Following the Jungian techniques I lay on a couch….[and] came to see for myself that the seeds of my present distress were sown in early childhood.14
Phillips describes his "clinical depression" in detail.
“I found the mental pain more than I could bear and I went as a voluntary patient to a psychiatric clinic. I was at the point of breakdown….which in popular parlance is called a nervous breakdown….The hardest thing of all to bear is what I can only describe as a nameless mental pain, which is, as far as I know, beyond the reach of any drug and which I have tried in vain to describe to anyone. One of the psychiatrists asked me to write down as far as I could the nature of the almost intolerable pain. He was a distinguished man in his field and was about to visit a number of mental hospitals in a south London group.” [Phillips lists his condition as follows:]
1. There is a slow but inevitable diminution of the self and it is apparently leading to self-extinction.
2. Familiar things become somehow touched with horror….[T]he sense of alienation means that one is not in one's own country or has strayed into a strange country by mistake.
3. [A] roaring galloping torrent of condemnation [is] directed against the self's achievements. With remorseless energy this particular ‘demon’ rushes to and fro up and down in one's mind and with savage cruelty exposes everything that the self has done as being useless and worthless.15
He closes his list with another "demon" and elsewhere writes:
“[D]emon….the hellish torments of mind….utter despair….frightening experiences….seized by irrational panic….despite the use of drugs….the fears of childhood re-appear with monstrous force….The experiences are really evil and they sometimes are terrifyingly so16….[Y]ou may ask where does the Christian faith come in all this. The answer is that probably emotionally it is of little help at all 17….God himself appears to be far away. 18 [He writes of]….praying to an empty heaven.19….I do not believe that there is any substitute for the long unhurried conversations between the sufferer and a compassionate trained psychiatrist.20….I set myself down for what must be a long siege and so it has proved….I never thought, for example, that I should ever know the type of despair that leads people to self-destruction. I know it now.” 21
Phillips can find "little help" in his own new version which is "swept" of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, (e.g., John 1:1, Galatians 2:17, Luke 24:49) His "garnished" view of salvation, wherein "agnostics….are saved," leaves him in "despair." 22 Phillip's own instructions to "empty the mind of the….Authorized Version" left him with the "hellish torments of the mind" brought by the "demon" disguised as C.S. Lewis.23
When he is come he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Matthew 12:43-45
The Jungian analysis on which Phillips relied can be as occult as his encounter with 'the dead'. Jungian analysis can include the use of spirit guides. Phillip's use of the word "demon" to describe the source of his psychosis is confirmed by Jung himself. Jung's Collected Letters Vol I records his discussion with the president of the American S.P.R., William James. He admits, spirits, not the unconscious, were the source of the psychic phenomenon he had experienced since he was three years old and living with his father, a medium and a minister. The official British Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R.) published Jung's views about spirit phenomena in 1920. (This is cited in his From the Life and Letters of C.G. Jung and his memoirs.) Jung's experiences ranged from a six-year mental breakdown during which a spirit entity named Philemon began to channel writings through him, to seeing "the head of an old woman on the bed next to him when he opened his eyes."24
'Psychotic' is found near 'psychic', not only in the dictionary, but in the lives of the scribes. Phillips' autobiography refers to his E.S.P. so often the topic is listed in his index. (The term E.S.P. was coined by Westcott's offshoots in the American S.P.R.) Phillips boasts:
“I have known the gift of telepathy. [This term was first devised by Westcott's protege Fredric Myers.]….I have had first hand incontrovertible experiences of extrasensory perception and a little precognition….I had very occasionally extrasensory powers.” 25
He asked a palm-reader to read his palm, remarking:
“She had never seen me before in her life. At once and without hesitation she began to tell me some of the salient points of my life and to tell me my hopes and fears—This was, to say the least, uncanny and I said, 'Right, now tell me what I was thinking as I walked up the stairs….[W]ithout hesitation she told me that I had been worrying about a new car. This was perfectly true.” 26
His substitution of Jung for Jesus, the TV for the KJV and the 'spirit' of C.S. Lewis for the Holy Spirit makes him an apt translator for a generation of Christians who are unwarily following in his footsteps, leading as they do to mental problems.
Psychology: The Religion of the New Age
The word psychology means ‘study of the soul’ in Greek. The soul is God's domain; when humanists attempt its 'repair' without regard for its 'creator', spiritualism, without the Holy Spirit, is inevitable. Sigmond Freud, father of modern psychology, conceded he would "devote his life to psychical [occult] research" if he were to live over again. Carl Rogers, guru for this generation of psychologists, writes of his involvement with seances and communication with the dead.27 Jung's "Answers to Job," in Psychology and Religion: West and East, published as part of New Ager Alice Bailey's Eranos Lectures, show this inevitable fusion of psychology and false religion.
When Humanity Comes of Age (which begins and ends with an endorsement of two Satanists, Blavatsky and Kingsford) says the "World Government" of the New Age, assisted by the "Spiritual Cabinet of 12 men," will be aided in manipulation of the masses by The Council for Psychology and Education—
….providing the fundamentals of education, religion and psychology. Religion, spiritual ethics, or whatever it is called, will obviously be the basis upon which all education is founded. The second consideration will be the manner of its presentation and application. This will be planned in the sphere of practical psychology….The foundation of education should therefore be psychology interpreted through spiritual laws and spiritual lore….[using] enlightened pioneers, such as Jung….28
Another book New Age Bible Interpretation repeat the New Age focus and affinity for psychology.
The education of the youth of the New Age will include a psychology which will deal with the power of thought….29
Psychology: The Religion of ‘New’ Christianity
The scriptures are like ladders raising the child of God above the tribulations and temptations of this life. Knocked down, they become fences barring die sheep from the "green pastures" of the shepherd. The removal of scores of comforting words and verses from the new versions leaves Christians hungry targets for the New Age bait of 'psychological counseling'. The 'New' Christianity is characterized by members who are overwhelmed by their inability to 'cope' with the small and large "tribulations" Jesus forewarned we would experience "in this world" (John 16:33). Television and radio ministries pop up in response offering a 'quick fix'. Generations of earlier Christians had responded, 'What can I get out of this?'; panicked Christians today bark back at God, “How can I get out of this!" From these seeds of discontentment sprout depression and/or anxiety. As a consequence, at the 'New' Christian Carnival we see a new curiosity on the midway—'Christian Psychology'. Using Freudian, Jungian, or Rogerian darts you can hit 'trauma targets' in your past or subconscious and burst these balloons of anxiety and depression, walking away with the prize: self-esteem. Holding your prize, you move along to see yourself, not as God sees you, but in the distorted house of mirrors.
New Bibles—New Needs
Proponents, like Robert Schuller, tell us "theology has filled." To which Dave Hunt answers, "The obvious implication is that Christianity is somehow deficient and that psychology has found answers to spiritual problems that are missing from the bible."30 His phrase, "missing from the bible" is the missing puzzle piece which, when set in place, gives us a complete picture of the problem. A speedy survey of churches, seminaries and pastors shows that the use of the 'New' versions runs hand in hand with a dependence on psychological techniques. As I was collating the new translations, red flags flashed frequently. Flies in the ointment replaced the balm of Gilead. I couldn't help but think these changes would leave unhealed and scarred, the Christian mind wounded by the daily "darts of the wicked." Not only do new versions remove what Paul calls "the patience and comfort of the scriptures"(Romans 15:4), but present in addition a theology of uncertainty. The peace and healing that previous generations gained from their bibles has been stolen by the thief in the battle for the mind.
My first glimpse down into this dark chasm full of Christians suffering from 'mental chaos' came via a distraught young Christian woman attending a campus bible study. On opening her bible to Luke 4:18 to find Jesus' words, "[H]e hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted," I found the entire sentence had been eliminated from her NASB. I later found it is also missing from the NIV, Good News [?] for Modern Man and all Catholic bibles. This omission is impossible since Jesus was in the synagogue reading from Isaiah 61:1,2, which contains the sentence in question. Its removal is censorship of the strangest kind since the sentence appears in The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text. Its critical apparatus indicates the sigla of the German M, which according to Dallas Theological Seminary professor Zane C. Hodge, indicates the sentence is "one that is supported overwhelmingly." In this case ‘overwhelmingly’ is a modest estimation since all Greek manuscripts except two, Aleph and B, have it. Even Alexandrinus an ancient uncial has it. Tsk….Tsk to Nestle and his resurrected Westcott and Hort 'New' Greek text for leaving it out. NIV committeeman Ronald Youngblood admits his committee disregarded the majority text here.31
A second attempt to arm her (Ephesians 6:17) in her joust with the devil, found the NASB's sword sheathed hiding the key words, "on Thee."
NASB
The steadfast of mind Thou wilt keep in perfect peace
KJV
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee
Isaiah 26:3
UNcomforting Bibles
The person of the “Comforter” has also been removed from all new bibles (John 14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7). He is replaced with “Helper” (NKJV, New World Jehovah Witness Version, NASB), the Counselor (NIV) and the Advocate or Paraclete (Roman Catholic versions). There is no semantic basis for this revision. The NASB translates the same kind of Greek word as “comforter” eighteen times elsewhere (e.g. Matthew 2:8 “she refused to be comforted”) The NIV’s “Counselor” - boletus, sumboulos, is not in any Greek manuscript. The NKJV’s word “helper” or help, boethos, antisepsis, epikouria, is no where in the verse either, nor are words such as antilambano, cheir, epilambano, antecho, propempo, huperetes, or prostatis, all of which the new bibles translate as “help” often……….
The NIV removes ‘comfort’ of the Holy spirit in Acts 9:31. These versions have chopped out the word ‘comfort’ from Colossians 2:2, Colossians 4:11, I Thessalonians 5:11, I Thessalonians 5:14, Philippians 2:1, replacing it with the exact word chosen by the Jehovah Witness version.
The bride of Christ is no longer comforted with the salutation "Beloved," but met with "Dear Friend" in III John 2 (NIV). Ephesians 3:9 speaks of the intimacy of our fellowship with God. New Versions join the Jehovah Witnesses in replacing 'fellowship with the groom' with the coming 'new age administration'.
[RIPLINGER GIVES EPH. 3:9 AS AN EXAMPLE: SO SEE THE NASB; NIV, JEHOVAH WITNESS TRANSLATION….. THE KJV IS: “AND TO MAKE ALL MEN SEE WHAT IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE MYSTERY WHICH FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD HATH BEEN HID IN GOD WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST” - QUITE THE DIFFERENCE - Keith Hunt]
The Greek Textus Receptus has the word for "fellowship," while other Greek texts use a word which could easily be translated as such. The words "by Jesus Christ" are in the majority of Greek manuscripts and are out in only a few Egyptian manuscripts. Ephesians 3:9 is a microcosm of the new versions. They have: (1.) no comforting fellowship, (2.) a New Age world that had no beginning, but is cyclical and (3.) no Jesus Christ.
………………..
TO BE CONTINUED