Some Catholic scientists agree with the NIV: Lucifer is not Satan, Lucifer is the “morning Star”

“Scientists tap the power of ‘Lucifer‘:
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/what-the-devil-scientists-tap-power-of-lucifer/

So it’s out now. Some Catholic Jesuit priests, astronomers, who run the Vatican observatory, have a telescope they call “Lucifer”.

In a twist of irony, LUCIFER’s neighbors are Catholic Jesuits at the Vatican’s observatory on Mount Graham. The neighboring Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, or VATT, is manned by Jesuit astronomers.

The Vatican observatory’s website even features a video titled, “NASA and the Vatican’s infrared telescope called Lucifer.”

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Scriptural, unscriptural

You have called it an “unscriptural doctrine” and yet, you cannot show us even ONE verse where God indicates that he would leave us without a text as a standard for our time or even all time, not even ONE verse that says God would leave the preservation of his Word to the wisdom of men.

—
I’d like to emphasize this point here.

At dictionary.reference.com, scripture: “( sometimes initial capital letter ) of, pertaining to, or in accordance with sacred writings, especially the Scriptures.

You’re talking about the sense in which something is “in accordance with” Biblical scripture.

Again, there is NOT ONE verse or passage of scripture I have EVER seen that says God will have nothing to do with preserving his word as one standard against which all truth shall be measured.

I have seen plenty of scripture that says his word shall be preserved to all generations, God is not the author of confusion, let “one” interpret, that the truth is “line upon line”, that man shall live by “every” word, that “not one jot or tittle shall pass away” till all be fulfilled, that his word is perfect, to desire the “pure” milk of the word of God.

Jesus told us there would be false prophets and teachers that prophecy in his name and that shall deceive many, many who say Lord, Lord, but he never knew them. He revealed to us through John’s writings that the devil will go about to deceive and destroy with more havoc than ever because he knows “he hath but a short time”. God is not a God of the dead but of the living.

He said “By their fruits ye shall know them”.

This set of scriptures taken together have real-world implications.

It is very curious that “original languages only” defenders assert that any copy or translation that follows the “closing of the Canon” cannot be inspired. They scoff at any idea that God could inspire a translation, and use the humble attitudes expressed by the KJB translators as evidence against the idea or as arguing against the idea that God would providentially have one standard for the last days.

But the “canon” (what Jews call the Tanukh) was closed with Malachi at the time of the birth of Christ, and to my knowledge they will not dispute that. They agree that the New Testament book collection was “new scripture” at the time. So they do defend the principle that God himself ultimately decides on what is or what is not “new inspiration” but cannot fathom the idea that it would apply to a “translation”, even while defending the many passages of scripture that are themselves translations.

But they say the inspiration is in the text of the translation as rendered by the “original autograph” rather than whatever it was in the original language.

With that much I agree. But then who can dispute the fact that God directly inspired a translation, and that when God’s hand touches a translation, then it is a “perfect” rendition of the original meaning embodied in that translation?

You might call them “dead inspiration” defenders, since they claim that God only inspired one original penman and let the inspiration die with the last word in the physical text on its medium of the day (lambskin, papyrus, whatnot).

So God’s inspired word happened with the first document, and the rest he left to man’s devices? This is also something that is directly and clearly contradicted by the Word itself.

In the epistle to Timothy, Paul said of the scriptures Timothy had in hand:

All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:–2Timothy 3:16

“All” scripture.

If Timothy was reading scripture given by inspiration of God, and “all” of it was inspired, and God was able to use copyists to copy it, and many of those copyists were not too inspired, then why not a translation? After all, God set the precedent and the doctrine of inspired translations by example in the very “original texts”.

Why the King James Bible is the standard

May – King James Version of the Bible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the 20th and 21st century we cannot find another such group as the group of scholars that translated the King James Bible, in an environment that encouraged, even compelled, a devout respect for the word of God, that rivaled Moses’ awe at the burning bush.

Without even getting into the arguments over what Greek text to use. I mean you got Westcott and Hort and other such ilk that negotiated over land and sea to “rescue” an abomination in a trash basket that became a fake Greek “Bible” (haha wink wink) and got another one from the deep dark dungeons of the Vatican library.

That’s one BIG reason God would not expect us to trust a Greek standard.

===> WOULD GOD USE TRANSLATION? WOULD HE PROMISE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE OF THE KJB? (WHY NOT CHINESE, SPOKEN [Editor’s note:
natively] BY MORE PEOPLE THAN ENGLISH?)

FIRST, God works providentially through his “created means”?. He also gets to pick the standard and intervene at his own whim. It’s not very “providential” if you get a babble of confusion.

There are at least a DOZEN translations in the Bible and clearly exposed as such. A short list of only a few (there are plenty more):

#1. Joseph’s conversations with the Pharoah,

#2 the record of conversations between the patriarchs’ families and their neighbors in Canaan,

#3 Lot in Sodom,

#4 Nehemiah and his king and later his detractors,

#5 Daniel’s pronouncements to the Babylonians and the Persians,

#6 the sign Pilate placed on the cross pronouncing Christ the “king of the Jews” in THREE different languages translated as such in the Gospels,

#7 and “providentially” speaking ALL KINDS of things in a lot of different languages while they were in the Upper Room.
If God caused the writing of the New Testament to appear in Greek as a standard, early enough A.D. at least, why would he do that? Providentially speaking, it makes ALL KINDS of sense that he would engineer a standard Greek-language collection for all the OBVIOUS reasons that He also would OBVIOUSLY want the world of the 20th and 21st century to have one standard Word of God and not want it to be Koine Greek.

After all, if there is any “providence” involved in today’s Bible, it surely does not look like it with a hundred different “versions” of the Bible. Call the variations, variants, perversions, those would be better words.

Which Bible to use? The cafeteria version (pick one you like)?

And what group of scholars in the 20th or 21st centuries can lay claim to the extent of respect for the word of God like the scholars of the KJB, in the supportive culture of the time, and with the support they needed?

Who can say that our generation of this wicked world of today is even capable of doing better than the generation of the culture and society that cultivated such giants of both science and Biblical research as Isaac Newton?

How can you know what phenomenologically occurred? And you can’t find even one verse to back the claim that God would never want us to have a specific text as a “perfect representation of God’s pure word”? Or that if he could he would refuse to do so?

Because my Bible talks about “EVERY word” (caps mine):

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every [word] that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.- Deu 8:3

Every word of God [is] pure: he [is] a shield unto them that put their trust in him.-Proverbs 30:5

And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.-Luke 4:4

God is not the author of confusion – I Corinthians 14

Wherefore let him that speaketh in an [unknown] tongue pray that he may interpret.-1 Cor 14:13

This next one is a doozy for a Bible-confusion cure:

If

any man speak in an [unknown] tongue, [let it be] by two, or at the most [by] three, and [that] by course; and let one interpret. – 1Corinthians 14:27

Pop quiz: Let HOW MANY interpret? How many again?

One interpretation. One. The mark is “in” the right hand or it is “on”. Do you pick one, or find out which one God has picked for you?

The question is also what would God do? Would he have five different versions?

You challenge us to give you verses where God promises that the English of the KJB is the perfect translation, when there are more speakers of Chinese (as a first language) than any other?

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I MADE THIS LIST, and some forum participants in other venues I’ve sent it to talk like they never saw it.

#1. English is recognized by everyone in the world as THE international language more than any other, bar none. Chinese may be spoken as native tongue but how many Mandarins are there, really? Cantonese is not Mandarin like Portuguese is not Spanish.

#2. FLUENT English, enough for rapid-fire communication in an emergency, is THE minimum requirement for ALL air traffic controller at EVERY ONE of ALL international airports in the world, without exception.

#3. English is the international language of business, and is the most popular language to learn in China.

#4. English is spoken by more people in the world probably than Chinese, because English is the number one choice in learning a second language by non-native English speakers.

#5. English is the overwhelmingly dominant language of the Internet.

#6. English is THE language for “hackers”. Eric S. Raymond, of the Open Software Foundation, reluctantly included GOOD English as an absolute requirement for anybody in the world who wanted to be a hacker (in the good sense of the word), because hackers who spoke other first languages demanded it for the benefit of aspirants.

#7. English is THE language for following developments and history in the medical field. Doctors in Latin America that try to stay current with new techniques, medicines, surgeries, programs read ENGLISH-language journals.

#8. English is acting like it’s on a stealth campaign to infiltrate any language in the world. Hondurans think “anyway” is a word in Spanish and after a big dinner they are “full”, Dominicans ask for a “sandwich”, and the French government has to order the French to speak French to expunge English!

#9. No other language has had the unique juxtaposition of conditions as occurred in the earliest years of the 17th century in the context of a culture and society that celebrated the Word, and freed from Rome and in a way still finding its way without an agreed authority like the KJB became.

#10. There is NOT ONE verse that anybody can offer that says God will never have just one standard text as his word, BUT anyone who reads the word and takes it to heart cannot but see that as a presumption that underlies the entire whole of God’s word! Why would God cause intellectual and unending confusion over what he said? If little things like this don’t matter, why does the word of God say they do?

If God says the world was created in six days, he doesn’t mean “maybe” six days. If his word says six hundred threescore and six, it doesn’t mean six hundred thirty-six.

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D James Kennedy, Genesis One, Jerry Newcombe, Bye bye megachurches

I used to listen to Kennedy’s radio station broadcasting from Fort Lauderdale and they had a program hosted by a science professor that taught at Westminster Academy, the Coral Ridge Church high school. It was a low-power station and I think the FCC just simply refused, each year, to let them boost their power for a wider geography.

He was a true champion of Creation Science and Genesis One, and many other things. I learned a lot from some of the programs, though the doctrinal ones were off.

Thew new guy who took over the church (by some kind of vote by members or board or?) is a pale shadow of cream puff preaching that tickles the audience ears. The radio station seems to have converted to some national network and cut a lot of local program. Ho-hum. No wonder Kennedy’s daughter Joyce is so disappointed.

Jerry Newcombe is apparently pastoring a church somewhere else, he would have been (or IS) a good heir to receive James Kennedy’s “mantle”, but I don’t think getting as much traction by someone telling it like it is will get that far anymore. Newcombe probably was the one who wrote some of the books that carry Kennedy’s name. His name is co-author on “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?”

D James Kennedy’s biggest crown in heaven is that a former writer for Christian media who left his wife and kids to live with a boyfriend as soon as he found a “Christian” therapist who told him to do it, wrote that Kennedy “was the worst” in condemning homosexuality.

He shared one problem though and might not have gotten the fame he did otherwise but he built a mega-church. He should have trained an army of the faithful to go out all over and do the same. But he put too much stock in education, degrees, I guess ordinations, but he could have done a lot more by training a dozen more to do like he did. His growth came after a visiting evangelist to his church showed him how to witness to the lost.