AV Verses Vindicated. Hebrews 13: 4 comments updated

Hebrews 13:4

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled,

for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous”.                                                   ESV

We hear this statement, "The AV wrongly reads...." and we might think that we are being given the benefit of scholarly information. More often it is modernistic misinformation. An example lies before me; I quote, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but fornicators (not 'whoremongers' as the AV wrongly reads)...."

John Spencer helped translate the book of Hebrews for the 1611 AV Bible. At 19 years of age he lectured in Greek at Oxford. Another translator was John Bois. By the age of six he could read and write Hebrew. Most of the translators were fluent in a number of languages besides Hebrew and Greek. I would like to know what are the linguistic abilities of our modern critics.

As for the AV rendering of 'pornos' translated 'whoremonger' in Heb.13:4, I look in my Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, 1805 edition, and read:- "pornos: an impure or unclean person of whatever kind". Reliable English dictionaries tell us that 'whoremonger' is in current usage, (i.e. not an archaic word) meaning an immoral person. The AV therefore rightly reads.

Regarding the ESV reading of this verse, we note that R Collings, writing in Precious Seed under the heading “What is scriptural marriage?” (May 2012) quotes it. Perhaps this is because it so adequately destroys much of the truth concerning marriage. Collings, teaching his readers what is scriptural marriage fails to mention that remarriage while the first spouse remains alive is adulterous.

Marriage IS honourable. God asks none to let it be so (ESV)

It is honourable in every respect. It is not according to some majority vote (among all- ESV)

For married couples the bed is undefiled. There is no marriage bed in Scripture, Otherwise the adulterers may simply use a different bed. .

A Denial of Bible Teaching

Review of “What God has Cleansed” by Robert Revie; Bell and Bain Ltd.; 2012

(Revie suspected of plagiarising Michael Penfold. See addendum below this blog)

The subtitle is Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, Salvation, and reception into a local Church.

The title is an abuse of Scripture. The words “What God has cleansed” are taken from Acts 10: 15, 11:9. The rest of the sentence is ”call thou not common”.  They were spoken to Peter while he was in a trance and related to the offer of salvation now to be taken to the Gentiles. The title and subtitle of Revie’s book do not relate to each other.

This is further underlined by the misuse of 1 John 1: 7 The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. (p.84). This verse, we are told, absolves the fellowship seeker from the sin of pre-conversion divorce. But here, “cleanseth” is in the present  tense and provides cleansing of post-conversion sin for the confessing believer.

The foreword is written by Jim Allen of Newtownabbey, N.I. who, like Revie, is hostile to the Authorized Bible. Allen is concerned about  those who hold “entrenched positions”, i.e. they don’t agree with him. For those who don’t agree, he says,” [their] teaching [is] concise and cold as ice

One infers from Allen’s foreword that the genuine loving believer will come to see that God allows fornication, and adultery, and remarriage.

 In the preface are the names of a few in sympathy with Revie’s views. Bert Cargill (whose parents entertained me in their home nearly 60 years ago) Douglas Mowatt,  Alistair Sinclair, and Bill Stevely. There are many others actively engaged in promoting this error.  

Revie gives several reasons why divorced and remarried persons prior to salvation may be received into church fellowship. All are unsound and require mutilation and misinterpretation of the Scripture:

Three of his reasons are given below.

1.When divorce has taken place and remarriage has been entered into that person is not “still married in the eyes of the Lord to the first husband”.

This argument is based on Mosaic Law that Revie interprets to mean that God allows divorce.

2. The word fornication does not mean premarital sexual relationships only.

The ten usages of the word fornication in the Authorised new Testament do not suggest anything else but premarital sexual intercourse.

3 When a person trusts in the Saviour, all their sins have been cleansed and no accusation can be brought against them.

This is serious error. There is nothing in the New Testament about sins being cleansed. They are forgiven. It is not possible to have clean sin. Revie is teaching that the believer can go on sinning.

Chapter 16 is headed, “What does 1 Corinthians 7 Teach?”  He claims that vv. 10-24 teach Marriage and Divorce.       

Divorce is not mentioned in 1 Corinthians 7. It is not alluded to. Provision is made for an unbelieving spouse to leave their partner. Paul says to the believer, if they want to go, let them.

Revie is compelled to  alter Scripture to press his pernicious argument. Thus we read:-

Note that there is only one marriage in view in [Romans 7]v.3. The Authorised version translators, presumably in order to assist with their understanding of the verse, have inserted a word that does not appear in the original which is the word “married”! Darby’s Translation and Young’s Literal Translation are more accurate.      ̶  p.40        

Romans 7: 3

….though she be married to another man. AV

“though she be to another man”.     JND

“….having become another man’s.:  YLT

R Revie, in his book defending what God hates; “What God has Cleansed”,  tells us that the word married does not appear in the original. He tells us  that Darby’s translation and Young’s Literal Translation are more accurate.

Darby’s translation is mere gobbledygook. It may be neither he nor Revie could not even grasp the meaning of Young’ phrase. The apostrophe in man’s begs the question “man’s what?” the answer is of course, “his wife”.

We notice however that ginomai (married) is not only in the Received Text, it is also in Westcott and Hort’s, and the latest NA critical text. So we find it represented in the NIV and about all other versions.

Revie, in order to promote his obscene doctrine of devils, that God allows divorce, remarriage, and even church fellowship, must rubbish the word of God. He does this again in v.4

In many other places Revie allows his opinions to conflict with the word of God.

Michael Penfold of Hebron Hall Bicester holds and promotes views identical to Revie's. I suspect that Revie has plagiarised some of his comments. See below.:-

Addendum
 

One of the weirdest arguments in support of divorcees remarrying has been put out by M Penfold of Penfold Book and Bible House. Penfold, a severe critic of the AV Bible, claims that only the act of remarriage constitutes adultery. The pair still together the next day are therefore NOT committing adultery. Therefore, he argues, they are fit for fellowship. 

This argument is based on what he calls the ‘gnomic’ present. He writes,

….in Matthew 13v14 we are told the man “goeth and selleth….and buyeth that field.” Here are three present tenses, none of which refer to an ongoing series of events. The man was not always going, he was not always selling and certainly he was not always buying that field. It was, by the very nature of the story, a once for all transaction and yet it is related in the present tense. Such examples could be multiplied. The present tense is very frequent on statements of general principle and fact. Grammarians call such a tense the ‘gnomic’ present.

Penfold chooses to ignore the consequences of actions described in the present tense. The field remained the man’s purchased possession. The divorced person remarrying remains in the adulterous relationship.

 Maxims or aphorisms may be described as gnomic. Because they are wise sayings and permanently true they are usually in the present tense. For example: A rolling stone gathers no moss. These sayings are not restricted to the present tense. Thus they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind (Hos 8: 7) may be regarded as a gnomic saying but has no present tense.

However, it debases the words of the Lord to reduce them to gnomic utterances (as the wisdom of gnomes) as though some of His words were maybe not so wise as to be considered “gnomic” I personally regard the implication as blasphemous

.

So moicatai found in Mtt.19: 9 and translated “committeth” is claimed to be gnomic and applies only to the act of marrying!

It is in any case a matter of opinion among the “scholars” as to whether the statement is gnomic. It remains an opinion which not many Bible believers will adhere to. 

 --taken from Waymarks 35. This whole article may be found in my archived blogs for 2007. The Biblicalm Teaching Relating to Marriage.

Penfold has invited D Gilliland to speak at the Bicester Easter Conference, 2013. Gilliland is a notorious proponent of the Reception of Adulterers error.

 

Higher Criticism

Higher Criticism of the Bible is a frontal assault upon God’s Words! Ever since this diabolical theory of dealing with God’s Word(s) was introduced in Germany in the 18th century, the Traditional Text of the Bible, which underlies our King James Bible, has been under attack.

Higher criticism treats the Bible as a text created by men. Their presupposition is that the Bible is a conglomeration of works by unknown authors and editors which was assembled and modified at the authors desired. They assert that the Bible has not been carefully preserved and therefore the Bible cannot be entirely authoritative. In particular they reject the texts that underlie the King James Version of the Bible, claiming that those texts are of a much later date, an editorial “recension” or revision of the earlier true text. They promoted that lie that there were NO early manuscripts from the Traditional Text. The so called Alexandrian and Western texts were older and better.  ̶  Dr. David L Brown; KJB Research Council.Com

The claim that the Bible is a man-made text and has not been preserved is confirmed in the book Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament by David C Parker; OUP; 2012. The book was originally delivered as the Lyall Lectures in Bibliography given by the author in Trinity Term, 2011, Oxford.

Parker is Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the University of Birmingham, Uk and Director of the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing. He is Executive Editor of the International Greek New Testament Project, He is also on the editorial committee of the Nestle-Aland (29^th edition) and United Bible Societies (sixth edition) Greek New Testaments.

The first thing I noted in this book was there is no reference to God. There is probably no need, therefore, to make further comment. However, we wish to expose this apostasy of modern textual criticism and its effect today on many of our bible teachers.

The title, Textual Scholarship and the Making of the New Testament, indicates the view  that these Textual “Scholars” are themselves responsible for the making of the New Testament. After some 2000 years the New Testament is still not yet made because they are still working at it.

Parker believes the first Christians were the first textual critics when they began to modify the text to accommodate how they thought it should read. He wrote. ̶ 

With regard to the Gospels….in the earliest period of their transmission the individuals  and communities who read them and passed them on considered themselves free to adapt the the wording, the meaning, the letter, to bring out the spirit.

The evidence for this, Parker claims, is the existence of the many variant readings which alter the sense of the Gospels, especially the words of Jesus.

In fact, the variant readings found in a limited number of manuscripts are few in contrast to the majority of manuscripts which carry what we regard as the Received Text.

Parker doesn’t understand the nature of the born again Bible believer. We believe the mutilations of a few early manuscripts was done by a handful of mischievous  men and ignorant monks.

The cancer of false scholarship now permeates the whole of Christendom, including the branch  once regarded as conservative, fundamentalist, and evangelical.

Conversational Bible Readings, once popular among the Brethren, are now reduced to dissecting the texts. I asked a prominent Brethren teacher what bible could he hold up and declare to be the word of God from cover to cover. He informed me there was no such book.  That man is currently on the sex offenders register.

Another Bible teacher assured us that false teaching leads to immorality. There is a co-relationship. 

I know of no Bible teacher in the Brethren Movement who still believes in the infallibility of Scripture. They all follow the line shown up in Dr. David L Brown’s article. Read his article on the KJB Research Council website.

1 Corinthians 11: 24

Assembly Testimony error

A Summers, writing in Assembly Testimony No.363, Jan/Feb2013, states,

….[M]ost translations (e.g. R.V., J.N.D., E.S.V.)drop the word “broken” in 1 Cor. 11.24 because of a lack of reliable manuscript evidence. They read “this is my body which is for you”.

It is a palpable lie that there is a lack of reliable manuscript evidence for the word “broken”. It may be that A Summers followed the perverted line of textual criticism without examining the evidence for himself. The evidence for inclusion is very strong.

I include my notes on this verse, taken from AV Verses Vindicated. 

The word 'broken' is omitted in the RV etc, but has the support of the majority of the Byzantine mss. and lectionary copies. It is also in the Peshitto and Harcleian Syriac and is quoted in the writings of some of the early fathers. The Codex Siniaticus is one of the few manuscripts omitting the word, but even this has been altered by a corrector to include it.

The  RV was the work of Westcott and Hort based on their own version of the Greek Text. But we note that even they did not remove klao (I break) from their new text. JND would have seen this. It was eventually the Nestle/Aland Greek Text that abandoned klao.  

In this there is,

" no contradiction and no departure from the Passover symbolism. The bones of the Passover Lamb were not to be broken. The bones of the Lord Jesus Christ were not broken. The body of the Passover Lamb was certainly broken, when its blood was shed, and when it was skinned before roasting. It is equally true to say of the Lord that, while no bone was broken, His body was broken when the crown of thorns broke the flesh of His brow, when the scourging broke the flesh of His body, when the nails broke the flesh of His hands and His feet, and when the spear broke the flesh of His side. There was thus a literal fulfilment of the Passover symbolism in that His bones were not broken; and a fulfilment of Isaiah 53 - He was wounded for our transgressions."

Last paragraph quoted from TBS. Leaflet No.65.