Mark, don't lie

It's unattractive, and I have a bigger stick to swing.

If you’re going to quote me, quote me exactly.

I said:

"If the LORD had meant for us to have Hebrew Gospels to work with, we would have them."

You characterized that remark this way:

"The fact is that if the LORD had meant for us to have New Testament texts in Hebrew to study, we would have them."

You then go on to interpret this to mean I favor some English translation of a gospel. This is not so, and I never said that.

What I SAID was that you don’t have a Hebrew Gospel, so you are not free to elevate what you believe Christ said in Hebrew (based on your scholarly investigations and the concurrence of your favorite scholars) over that which the LORD gave us, which is absolutely all he meant us to have, or he would have given us those other texts.

In other words, if the LORD meant us to have Hebrew Gospels as opposed to Greek Gospels, we’d have Hebrew Gospels.

We don’t.

The Greek in those Gospels is superior in all things pertaining to what was said because it is the only Gospel we were given, precisely as God foreordained in his perfect plan. I would make an exception only where Christ is quoting scripture, and thus we know what he quoted was, because we have it, in Hebrew.

So when you, sir, paraphrase what I said (and what you inaccurately quoted) this way:

"In other words, there is no possibility that there could be translation errors in the MY Bible."

You lie.

Furthermore, I made it clear what I did say, with this:

"My position is that in the original texts, we have all the scripture in perfect inspiration that we were meant to have. I did not make a claim that the translations were similarly inspired, but I do think they are reliable."

I then went on to make this statement, about you:

"What (you are) claiming (maybe drifting towards unknowingly) is that the Greek Gospels we have are flawed translations and (you are) pretty sure (based on concurrence with other translators or scholars) of what was ORIGINALLY written in another language and then translated to Greek.

The LORD has not abandoned us in this way. The New Testament Greek texts ARE reliable and ARE the inspired word of God. If they are not the originals, then I would assert that they were written alongside the originals by the authors that wrote the originals. Maybe Matthew was authored in Hebrew but I’d say it was authored in Greek or at least by the same author that wrote it in Hebrew or Aramaic. That’s as far as I am willing to go. We’re not waiting to find an original Hebrew or Aramaic testament to clear up the errors of translation that have crept in."

Don’t make a straw man out of me or what I said, and attack that scarecrow.

(The above is a response to a response to a closed forum discussion. Mark Call is a commenter at a polygyny oriented Christian Forum, and he has his own blog and radio show (podcast?). After the discussion was closed, Mark felt called upon to continue it at his blog yesterday. Because I follow Mark's blog, and promote it at Vermont Polygamy, I became aware that he was choosing to continue the discussion, and so I reply.)

Sphere: Related Content