Think of the base lukewarmness that will brook anything derogatory to God and His Word and which would allow professed Christians to sit in the sessions of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Paris last summer and listen without protest to John Marsh of Mansfield College at Oxford University saying:
"The priestly writers of Israel seized upon the myths of Babylonia about the creation of the world, and made them serve the high monotheism of their belief in Yahweh."
And remember that most major Protestant denominations and many lesser ones are part and parcel of the National Council of Churches in the U. S. A., and it in turn is a part of the infidelgoing World Council of Churches. 0 Christendom, Whither art thou bound? To the great apostasy, no less. And it is almost upon us. It has not far to go. The coming of the Lord to remove the true believers and leave Christendom's house empty like the temple of old would bring to culmination that dreadful apostasy.
The Revised Standard Version is owned in full by the said National Council of Churches.
We probably should quote the following regarding the R. S. V.:
"For ten years, Thomas Nelson and Sons has held exclusive publishing rights to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.... Lately the RSV has been selling a million copies a year. Last week the Nelson monopoly ran out, and five more publishers jumped into the RSV field after
being blessed in a special service at Manhattan's Riverside Church."-Time. October 12, 1962.
This means more advertising and more propaganda for the property of the modernist National Council of Churches which is committed to the one church objective—ecumenicalism.
Speaking of the World Council of Churches, one of their presidents, Archbishop Ramsey, the highest ecclesiastical voice in Britain, is on a tour of the United States at present. He is an ardent proponent of uniting all profession—Protestant, Roman, Greek, and communist-controlled churches—into one great monolithic body. And he himself said recently, that he expects to find some atheists in heaven. How does he expect to get there himself? His speech betrays him.
The following organizations will now be engaged in printing, and will be pushing the sale of the Revised Standard Version: A. J. Holman Co.; Oxford University Press; William Collins Sons and Co.; Harper and Row; and The World Publishing Co.
The New English Bible New Testament published by Oxford and Cambridge Presses is in our opinion a more dangerous and worse translation than the R. S. V. New Testament was. We have a short tract on a few of its more glaring errors, some of which cannot be classified as honest mistakes. Its deference to Mary, and its concessions to Roman theology, are abhorrent to any, unless they have a predisposition to cast in their lot with the Roman Church at some future date. This translation is owned by the major denominations in Great Britain.
The publicity that the "panel of biblical scholars," which is at work on the Old Testament, is getting seems to indicate a public relations operation. The article about British scholars using the scissors and deleting "nonsense" passages is a newspaper report from London by the Associated Press. Our source of the article is the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, August 20, 1962. Mr. Godfrey R. Driver, Professor of Semitic Philology, who is director of the group now at work, says that "nonsense" passages are getting a thorough reworking. Would that the gentleman would state what in the Holy Word of God is "nonsense." He also says that he finds "some of it quite incomprehensible." Well he might; he is not alone in that state. But let him state it clearly that the fault may lie in him. Does it not say that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise"? (1 Cor. 1:2727But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; (1 Corinthians 1:27)).
It has been said of late that to translate the Bible from Hebrew or Greek into English, all one needs is sufficient education in these languages. This plainly is not so. "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." Also, "the natural man [He may be educated above all his contemporaries, and remain a mere man of nature] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (See 1 Cor. 2.) Professor Driver might be interested to know that the NEB translation of this verse says, "neither can he grasp it." This reminds us of a word, "incomprehensible."
The false prophet of divination, Balaam, was respectful, for he said, "God is not a man, that He should lie;... hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless... and I cannot reverse it." Numb. 23:19, 2019God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? 20Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. (Numbers 23:19‑20). Salaam would have changed God's word if he could, but he would not go that far. O that some modern critics would follow his example!
We are glad to have a professor of philology at Oxford say that the "Dead Sea Scrolls were very disappointing indeed." We have been expecting some critics to come forth with great claims for making changes based on them.
Professor Driver also follows the R. S. V. in changing the word "virgin" in Isa. 7:1414Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14) to indicate only "a marriageable young woman." May we ask what sign that would be? It is to be expected that a marriageable young woman would marry and have a child. But the Jewish scholars before the day of Christ, those who knew their own language better than any professor at Oxford, made it a "virgin" in their Septuagint Greek translation from the Hebrew. But modernism (which has swept Christendom) must get rid of the supernatural and the direct testimony of God to the deity of Christ. Did not Gen. 314And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (Genesis 3:14) foretell that it would be the Seed of the woman which would bruise the serpent's head? We are much afraid that the wish is the parent of the thought, and the thought the parent of the bold words.
A larger text of a newspaper article, as it appeared in the Sunday Times of England on August 19, 1962, says that the word "leprosy" is also to disappear from the new Old Testament. The author says that it is only a skin disease with white flaking of the skin. But while they were removing the word, did they also eradicate the dread disease from that part of the world? God uses leprosy as a figure of the defilement of sin, and says of a man who had it in his forehead that he was "utterly unclean." Of no other form or place of leprosy was this said; it indicates what God thinks of man's reasonings against Him. Another remark from the Sunday Times may well speak for itself:
"These radical changes come at the end of a tortuous and fascinating process of scholarship and inspired guesswork."
What a word to couple with guesswork!
In this new work, both "thee" and "thou" will be removed except in personal address to God. This leaves many loopholes in the Old Testament for treating Christ as a man in the prophetic word. Time will tell what these scholars will do. They are going to allow Satan to address God as "you" because he could be expected to be less reverent. But let anyone, in all soberness, ask himself if he thinks God will permit even the devil to be disrespectful. Will such conduct be tolerated by the Queen of England because some subject is "bumptious"? Well may we cry out from the heart,
"Lord Jesus, come!
And take Thy rightful place
As Son of man, of all the theme!
Come, Lord, to reign o'er all supreme,
Lord Jesus, come!"
We marvel at the long-suffering of God with this wicked world, and now with a Christendom that has a form of piety but denies the power of it.
Perhaps the most shocking and amazing article on new translation comes from an article in the New York Times, entitled, "A New Translation Alters Bible." This work is being done under Dr. Harry M. Orlinsky, Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College. Dr. Orlinsky is editor-in-chief of this new work. Perhaps some of our readers will remember his name, as he was one of the panel which executed the R. S. V. Old Testament. He was the only scholar in the panel who disavowed even nominal Christianity. We felt his presence on the panel might have caused some of the renderings of the Old Testament. How can a man who denies that Jesus is the Christ, objectively translate those passages which point to Him. Any little difficulty would be resolved according to his predilection. The whole list of the panel at that time was not one to inspire confidence, for the men were almost all taken from schools of modernist commitments or leanings.
Now Dr. Orlinsky is free to revise the Old Testament. One of the first things we read is that "Scholars Find Moses Crossed a Marsh, Not Red Sea." "Scholars" covers a lot of area and prepares the way for more. The objection to Israel under God's direction by the hand of Moses crossing the Red Sea is older than any of these "scholars." It is an old infidel objection which we have heard for many years; now it is to be legalized in the name of scholarship. Infidels have scoffed at the miracle of the Red Sea being driven back and a pathway dried for the feet of the Israelites. They have sought to make it as this article says—that "Moses crossed a marsh." This easily removes God from the picture and makes Israel their own deliverer. But will they account for the fact that all the hosts of the Egyptian armies were drowned in a marsh, and the Pharaoh who led them never came to find a resting place in the British Museum as a mummy? This work looks to us like the same old unbelief of the ages. God is left out.
It might be well to call the reader's attention to the fact that many scriptures attest to the same thing. It is not merely doing away with a word in Exodus. See also Exod. 15:4, 224Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. (Exodus 15:4)
22So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. (Exodus 15:22); Josh. 2:10; 4:23; 24:610For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. (Joshua 2:10)
23For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: (Joshua 4:23)
6And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea. (Joshua 24:6); Psalm 106:7, 9, 22; 136:13, 157Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea. (Psalm 106:7)
9He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. (Psalm 106:9)
22Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea. (Psalm 106:22)
13To him which divided the Red sea into parts: for his mercy endureth for ever: (Psalm 136:13)
15But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 136:15); Acts 7:3636He brought them out, after that he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years. (Acts 7:36); Heb. 11:2929By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. (Hebrews 11:29). Did all of these writers conspire together to tell an untruth? Or would anyone dare to say that the Holy Spirit of God perpetuated a fiction? No, "Let God be true, but every man a liar." Incidentally, the Greek Septuagint Version gives it the same way in each instance and calls it the Red Sea. Would not Jewish scholars 2000 years closer to the events and to the original Hebrew language know as much then as scholars do today?
The coming new Jewish revision of the Old Testament also renders the first words of Genesis thus:
"When God began to create the heaven and the earth."
Another article referring to another translation says that the Bible must harmonize with evolution. Is that the purpose of the change of Gen. 1:11In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)? But let Dr. Oscar Riddle, the great biologist, and one of the greatest evolutionists, answer that: "some opportunists among the liberal clergy of various countries are busily engaged in making the obscurities the basis for the assertion that the conflict between science and theology is approaching reconciliation. The difficulties and the vicious error of this claim are evident to logical thought.... For those who assume they can believe that the natural processes of evolution are God's chosen methods of creation, there are some most awkward facts that deprive Him of the attribute of mercy."—The Unleashing of Evolutionary Thought, pp. 61, 63.
Here is a giant in the field of biology and of evolution, and he scorns anything like compromise between God and the evolutionary process. While we leave this outspoken atheist to the God he will yet have to meet in judgment, he is at least honest enough not to try to mix evolution and the God of creation—even a god who works in evolution. He has nothing but contempt for the would-be compromisers. We affirm boldly that we must have either creation or evolution, and our readers know where we stand as between the two. It is not and cannot be both—the real evolutionist being the judge.
The modernist theologian is not honest. Let him show his true colors and not try to help accommodate the Word of God to his unbelief. Either the Bible is what it claims to be (and which we unhesitatingly believe), or it is the biggest fraud on earth.
The new Hebrew Old Testament on which they are working is to delete the word soul and make it mean "the man himself." The Time account, of October 19, 1962 says that these translators
(probably better, "interpreters") have decided that the Spirit of God who moved upon the face of the waters was merely a primeval wind. How convenient! At one fell swoop it removes the suggestion of one Person of the Trinity, and opens up the way for the evolutionary process to do the work. And this form of apostasy is not confined to modern Jewish teaching; it is in the warp and woof of a very major part of Protestantism, and is even found in Catholicism now. We have seen numerous remarks of late from various Catholic men of renown who espouse modernist religion.
We were recently informed that one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, which has churches and seminaries from the Atlantic to the Pacific, does not have one seminary which teaches the young budding preachers that the early chapters of Genesis are fact and truth. The first ten chapters of Genesis are explained away as "myth" or fable which is used to illustrate something. To illustrate what? nothing but their unbelief, as far as we can see.
In one of these inane explanations of what might be taught by these myths was that somewhere along the evolutionary process man lost contact or communion with God. Please tell us when the evolving amoeba, tadpole, or whatever one may call him, ever had communion with God to lose. God said that He created man in His image—representation—and after His likeness—moral likeness. Paul said in Athens, "We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." Acts 17:2929Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. (Acts 17:29). How much less is he like some wriggling little creature who decided to be like man. There is no folly too great for the unbeliever whose basic desire is to satisfy himself that he will not come into judgment from a holy God. He will accept anything if it will only insure him against having to meet God; but meet God he MUST. And if there is a creator whom the creature must meet, then that God must be a holy God. Scripture says that angelic beings veil their faces before Him and cry, "Holy, holy, holy."
Christians, beware of the fast inroads of modernism which are nothing but stages of bold atheism. And young Christians, beware of your teachers and professors at schools and colleges. Most of them are only "blind leaders of the blind" who would
insidiously plant infidelity and rank atheism in the pliable young heart and mind. "Let them alone." Do not argue with them, for their arguments are fallacious, and they are masters of it. Young Christians often do not see through the folly of their statements. "If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. 8:2020To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:20). And beware especially of those religious schools which purport to teach only the truth, and yet are now accommodating themselves to the unproved and unprovable hypothesis of evolution. Let there be no compromise with the devil's religion.
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