JD wrote:
MurrayA,
You are talking about religion and the rest of us are talking about truth.
Try to keep up!

As to the rather inane and foolish comment above, may I remind you that the question of the thread is the attitude to the "Church Fathers". Before one can give an opinion one way or the other he must at least know who this body of Christians were. They belong to the early centuries, and many of them to the martyr period of the ante-Nicene age. Are you going to dismiss them with a sneer, like you do with any other Christians of history?

May I remind you that they too will be in the resurrection and in heaven! And because of their stand for the faith in evil days they will be particularly exalted.

Aidan McDowell wrote:
I currently read the NASB and the English Standard Version, the former because our church prefers it, and the latter because it seems to strike a balance between the NASB and the NIV. As for the KJV, it's a masterpiece of English literature...

The important thing in all this is that a version be committee-based, just like the KJV, for that matter. That's not the whole story, of course: so too was the New English Bible, but that was done by liberals and unbelievers.
So a committee of scholars, committed to the historic doctrine of inspiration, and concerned to exalt Christ and His Word. These must be the criteria.

kenny wrote:
And I have always strongly suspected that many of those who exhibit such a sanctimonious attitude in their disdain for those who use the AV do so because they are too stupid and dense to comprehend it's English.
BTW, MurrayA, your website is boring.

I don't have disdain for the AV, but I do have it for the KJVO zealots who are so hidebound in their commitment that it blinds them to both basic realities, and indeed, to the historic doctrine of Scripture, viz. that inspiration applies to the autographs.

Those are simply the facts. If you don't like this, that's too bad.

JD wrote:
I really don't know who "church fathers" would be. Whoever formulated this question should have named a few as examples.

The term "church fathers" is well known to anyone with a modicum of knowledge: beginning with the sub-apostolic fathers (Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Diognetus, Polycarp) we move to the Apologists (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian), and then to the early theologians (Cyprian, Hippolytus, Origen).

The great champions of orthodoxy of the fourth century such as Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and then Augustine dominate the period, along with the church historians Eusebius and Socrates, then theologians such as Theodoret, and preacher-expositors like Chrysostom.

Aidan McDowell wrote:
I've always wondered why the die-hard advocates of KJV-alone take the position they do...Now, everyone knows that the KJV translators didn't have as many original manuscripts available to them as did the editors of the currently-used critical editions from which later translations have been made.

You say "hopefully" the original Hebrew and Greek texts will have been preserved after another 1500 years. Most certainly they will be, should the Lord tarry (not an issue for JD because he believes that his so-called 'rapture' will take place before this current year is out). The Lord has promised to preserve His Word - that is implicit in the Great Commission, and the accompanying promise (Matt.28:19-20).

kenny wrote:
I also choose C.

As far as the Greek word 'theopneustos' is concerned, versions b or d are the best: the word means 'God-breathed', and is a unique, made-up word, most likely by Paul himself. Scripture is the result of 'out-breathing' by God, i.e. He by His Spirit so superintended the human writers that what they wrote was the result of His own 'breathing out'.

Paul speaks here of the OT, but the same applies to the NT as well (John 14:26; 16:13).

However, these considerations apply only to the original autographs, not to any later version, be it Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Slavonic, French, Saxon English, or Jacobean English.

JD wrote:
Michael H
Real bible believers seem to be the only people on here with real names like JD and Michael, and Mike, and Yamil, with real places where they are serving the Lord like Endicot, and Danville, and New York, and Vegas.
Have you ever wondered why almost all these Calvinists are ashamed of their real names?
Is there a message here?
There was one Calvinist that used his real name in the early days. His name was Walt from Michigan but the practice did not catch on with them.
Must have something to hide!
{edit} Oh yea, whats his name from Australia? yeah, MurrayA. He used his real name also.

What's that line about a proposition "dying the death of a thousand qualifications"?

Think, JD, before you launch in where angels fear to tread!

Follower of Messiah wrote:
People go to hell because they sin against God, not because of anything that happened to them "in Adam". People read more into Rom 5 than Paul meant to say. Jerome's Latin Vulgate is the book that added "in Adam" to scripture. It is not in the Greek.

In Rom.5:12ff the phrase "through one" or "through the one" occur frequently, and the reference is clearly to Adam, who is named in v.14. In contrast Christ is the Second Adam, or "the last Adam" is 1 Cor.15:45. He is the new Federal head of, and embodies the new humanity, just as Adam was the federal head of the original humanity which fell into sin.

Moreover, the Greek does instruct the reader to "calculate" (psephizoo) the number of the beast, not merely "interpret", a different word entirely had that been intended. The ancient cryptic practice of gematria, where each letter of a word had a numerical value, and the total of the letter values added up to a final number, seems to be what the text intends.

Integral to this object is the search for water: the evolutionary belief that al you need is a conglomeration of the right chemicals, and then - just add water! When one adds water, hey presto...life!!! You don't believe me? Then listen to the rhetoric!

So it's not just the media which gets on to the life-on-other-planets bandwagon; it's NASA itself.

Hence they will get excited when some lowly organic compound is found - and you will then hear "the building-blocks of life" mantra. The same goes for discovery of water.

But how much water is there really on Mars? Probably not much. I will be interested, of course, but I fully expect that most of the ice-cap will be dry ice, or frozen CO2.

I had not considered doing anything along that line at present, because I want desperately to get the hymns up and running. They have been 'on hold' for a long time now, and I want very much to get them on to the website.

So after that I may well look at an exegesis of the passage you mention.

That's fine, Casob/JD. Just take your time. A lot of time went into researching those pages, so time taken to consider them would be a compliment.

You remark that Psa.12:6 is about the words of God. Indeed it is, and I have said as much in my article. The sticking point is whether the pronoun suffixes of the verbs in v.7 refer to the words of God, or to the persecuted righteous of v.5. I maintain the latter.

This text is not a statement about the preservation of the text of Scripture; it is about God's faithful promises to His own as they face crises.

And you have just proved my point: your "authority" for exegetical decisions, insofar as you know anything at all about the discipline, is your Dispensational system - just plonked on to the text and the latter read through that Dispensational eyepiece. It most definitely IS NOT the data of the text in the immediate or broader contexts; it is not investigation of the Hebrew and Greek texts in the form of word studies, background, grammar and syntax, or any of that sort of thing.

You complain that I have no authority. If I follow your approach all I have is YOUR authority: pope Casob know-it-all JD!! No thanks!

I certainly have done such a comparison, and much more besides. See the discussion of Psa.12:6-7 on my website:
http://www.adamthwaite.com.au/html/preservation_1.html

I make three brief points:
1. You complain about having to make a decision. Time and again this is what exegesis is all about, if you knew anything about it: in determining the meaning of a text there will emerge alternatives, and normally it is the information from the immediate context, or the broader context which will determine which to adopt.

2. The NIV in Psa.12:7 reads "us" instead of "them". There is support for that from the LXX, Jerome, and some Hebrew manuscripts.

We get a whole lot on these threads about what "you think" the Scriptures teach! Whether that's what the Scriptures really do teach is another question entirely.

I for one am not interested in your incessant drivel about what you think the Scriptures teach, and nothing you present makes me at all likely to be interested.

If you are not prepared even to compare various English versions, and consider those other versions as valid translations, to inquire as to the meaning of the text, then you have a completely closed mind, not really interested in investigating Scripture teaching at all, but only interested in confirming your existing prejudices.

Casob wrote:
There is a false end time teaching that is akin to the doctrine from which it sprang, Romanism. The two movements that have arisen that is influencing Christianity in a negative way is Calvinism and Pentecostalism. One is as bad as the other, just in different ways. Both are an attack on the word of God...

2. Arminian Fundamentalism: the view that I say the sinner's prayer, make my "decision for Christ", and God is for me the rest of the way. Or alternatively, i have to work at keeping my free will up to the mark in order to stay in a state of salvation. There are other features of this phenomenon such as extreme legalism, "holding" revival meetings, and jingoistic nationalism combined with Christianity.

3. King James Version Onlyism: the head-in-the-sand obscurantism which equates the Word of God with what a company of translators produced 400 years ago.

The rest is just the same incoherent raving to which I have become accustomed from KJV-only advocates; likewise when you bring in the Calvinist bogeyman, as you have attempted to do before when cornered. Last, and by no means least, you never fail to attack both me and others as unbelieving, Romanist-style priests with no regard for the Word.
Yeah, yeah. Ho-hum. Yawn.

If this is all you can offer then you have NO real arguments, NO debating points, NOTHING of substance at all.

If you spent less time in other pursuits and dedicated yourself to study Greek you would benefit greatly. But you hide behind ignorance and declare that ignorance is not only bliss, but virtue. Then you also presume to attack those devout souls who do want to know the original languages. This mentality masquerades as piety, but is in reality nothing short of blasphemy against the original Word of God.

"How many times do I need to tell you that I am not changing a single word in the KJV..."
And how often do I have to tell you that no translation, English or otherwise, is "what God wrote". The original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts are of immediate inspiration.