Myles Coverdale on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: English ecclesiastical reformer and Bible translator Myles Coverdale died on this day in 1569. In 1535, Coverdale produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English.

Coverdale was also involved in translating The Matthew's Bible (1537), The Great Bible (1539) and The Geneva Bible (1557).

On inspecting my copy of Coverdale's Bible at Exodus 3, I notice that Coverdale does not translate ‘ehyeh asher ehyeh’ in verse 14 as "I am that I am." He instead translates this as "I wyl be what I wyll be', and in doing so breaks the connection to John 8:58 where Jesus says "I am." (Many use the connection between these two Scriptures as proof that Jesus is Jehovah). Coverdale may have drawn on William Tyndale's translation of Exodus 3:14 where he writes, "I wilbe what I wilbe."

While your mainstream standard Bible may say "I am that I am" many of them will feature the other reading in the margins or footnotes [American Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; NIV Study Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New Revised Standard Version - "I WILL BE"; New English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Revised English Bible - "I WILL BE"; Living Bible - "I WILL BE"; Good News Bible - "I WILL BE."].

Many alternative Bibles do not translate Exodus 3:14 as I AM, but rather "I will be," such as The James Moffatt Translation and Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation By Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi Brettler says that Exodus 3:14 is "probably best translated as 'I Will Be What I Will Be'" and Robert Alter in his Hebrew Bible concludes as well that "I Will Be Who I Will Be" is the most plausible construction. Frederic Huidekoper in his "Genesis, Chapters I.-XI.: In Parallel Columns" also believes "I Will Be What I Will Be" "is the only translation." https://tinyurl.com/se9cupw . Even Walter Martin in his The Kingdom of the Occult at footnote 25 in the Eastern Mysticism and the New Age section that "the original words literally signify 'I will be what I will be.'"

"There is high probability that ehyeh is mistranslated as “I am” (as was pointed out by M. Buber in the New Bible Dictionary)." Source

See also: I Am, or, I Will Be at Exodus 3:14?

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Pope Boniface VIII on This Day in History

 

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Boniface VIII was elected pope on this day in 1294, replacing St. Celestine V, who had resigned. He is considered on the eight Bad Popes in Russell Chamberlin's book of the same name. Bonifacio VIII imprisoned his predecessor Celestine V, who died in captivity. Accused by his contemporaries of such wrongdoings as violating confessional secrets, Boniface VIII was himself imprisoned, and died soon after of a violent fever.

The pope is said to have been short-tempered, kicking an envoy in the face on one occasion, and on another, throwing ashes in the eyes of an archbishop who was kneeling to receive them as a blessing atop his head.

Also: "A famous and horrifying quote of Boniface VIII was that paedophilia was no more problematic than 'rubbing one hand against the other.' Elected in 1294, Boniface VIII established a string of statues all around the city and even destroyed the city Palestrina over a personal feud. He had a reputation for stubbornness and a knack for starting fights." Source

Boniface was so hated that posthumous trial for heresy was planned but eventually abandoned.

The pope was so bad that Dante, in his Inferno portrayed Boniface VIII as destined for hell for the offence of buying and selling offices of the church (simony). Boniface's eventual destiny is revealed to Dante by Pope Nicholas III, whom he meets. A bit later in the Inferno, Dante recalls the pontiff's feud with the Colonna family, which led him to demolish the city of Palestrina, killing 6,000 citizens and destroying both the home of Julius Caesar and a shrine to Mary. Boniface's ultimate fate is confirmed by Beatrice when Dante visits Heaven. It is notable that he does not adopt Guillaume de Nogaret's aspersion that Boniface VIII was a 'sodomite', however, and does not assign him to that circle of hell (although simony was placed in the eighth circle of fraud, below sodomy, in the seventh circle of violence, designating it as a worse offense and taking precedence above activities of sodomy).

He is also mentioned in François Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel. In the chapter that Epistemos lists the inhabitants of hell and their occupations, he says that Boniface was (in one translation) "skimming the scum off soup pots".

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The Trinity Doctrine Examined in the Light of History and the Bible By Nelson Herle

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 Nelson Herle's classic work, _The Trinity Doctrine Examined in the Light of History and the Bible_ is now online at this link here.

Gerard Gertoux book _THE NAME OF GOD YeHoWaH. ITS STORY_ is online at https://lifes-purpose.info/divinename/NameofGod1.htm

Someone posted Heinz Schmitz's old yhwhbible website at this link.

Rolf Furuli's _The Tetragram in Hebrew Sources in BCE and the First Century CE, Part One_ is posted here.

Jason Beduhn's Truth in Translation [Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament] is posted at https://thebibleisnotholy.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/truth-in-translation.pdf

Lesriv Spencer on Acts 20:28 is posted at https://vdocuments.mx/acts-2028-whose-blood-gods-or-christs.html?page=1

The Significance of the Anarthrous Predicate Nominative in John by Paul S Dixon is posted at http://lareopage.free.fr/dixon.pdf

Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1 is posted at http://fdier02140.free.fr/Harner.pdf

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Mormon Forger & Murderer Mark Hofmann on This Day in History

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This Day In History: Forger and counterfeiter Mark Hofmann was born on this day in 1954. Considered as one of the most accomplished forgers in history, he often created documents relating to Mormon history that could embarrass them, and then sold those documents to the Church so that they could suppress them. Hofmann also forged and sold signatures of George Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Boone, John Brown, Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, Francis Scott Key, Abraham Lincoln, John Milton, Paul Revere, Myles Standish, etc. Hofmann also forged an Emily Dickinson poem. Afraid of being discovered, he killed several people with bombs to throw suspicion away from himself. All this made for a fascinating book called The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.

After Hofmann was imprisoned, he was excommunicated by the LDS Church and his wife filed for divorce. Hofmann attempted suicide in his cell by taking an overdose of antidepressants. He was revived, but not before spending twelve hours lying on his right arm and blocking its circulation, thus causing muscle atrophy. His forging hand was thereby permanently disabled.

Hofmann's story was recently featured on Netflix as an American true crime documentary television miniseries called _Murder Among the Mormons_. In the week of its debut, the show was ranked third overall for original-content Video on Demand streaming, with 587 million minutes streamed, according to Neilson.

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Listen to: Who is Mark Hofmann? The Truth Behind the Salamander Letter Bombings

Listen to: The Career of a Counterfeit Artist and the World of Literary Forgery

Inconvenient Truths about the New Testament and the Trinity

 

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From Henry Ware (1832):

 'If the Apostles worshiped God in three persons, it will so appear in their conduct and writings; this circumstance will characterize their devout expressions everywhere. And this the more especially, because they were Jews, - a people who worshipped God with a strict and most jealous regard to his unity. They could not have changed their practice in this particular without the change being most strikingly observable. Yet we have no intimation of such a change. They appear to have gone on with the worship of the One God of their fathers, without any alteration. Look at this fact. When Paul was converted, he must have passed supposing the Trinity to be a christian doctrine from believing Jesus a blasphemous impostor, to believing him the Lord Jehovah. Is there the least hint of such an amazing change? He speaks with admiration and rapture of the new views and feelings which he enjoyed with his new faith. But all the rest together was not so astonishing and wonderful as this particular change. Yet he nowhere alludes to it. Is it then possible that it could have been so? that so great a revolution of feeling should have taken place, and no intimation of it be found in any act or expression? He speaks frequently of his prayers. And how? 'I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom.' It is plain therefore to whom Paul directed his worship. - His epistles contain many doxologies and ascriptions of praise to God. And in what terms? Always to One person, God the Father. And not once, either in his epistles, or in any other writing of the Bible, is a doxology to be found, which ascribes praise to Father, Son and Spirit, or to the Trinity in any form. This fact is worth remarking. The New Testament contains, I think, twenty-eight ascriptions in various forms; and from not one of them could you learn that the doctrine of the Trinity had been dreamt of in that day."

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Samuel Clarke on This Day in History

 

This day in history: English philosopher and Anglican cleric Samuel Clarke was born on this day in 1675. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley. 

Clarke's reputation rested largely on his effort to demonstrate the existence of God, and his theory of the foundation of rectitude. However, his reputation took a hit when he published _The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity_ in 1712. After examining numerous passages in the Bible, he concluded, "There is one supreme cause… of all things [i.e. the Father]; one simple, uncompounded, undivided, intelligent agent, or person; who is the alone author of all being, and the fountain of all power...The Father alone, is, absolutely speaking, the God of the universe; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel; of Moses, of the Prophets and Apostles; and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

This left no room for the Son to be almighty God. "The book caused a firestorm in Anglican circles as one of their own argued against the Trinity and endorsed what is most often described as an Arian view of God." ~Selling Science in the Age of Newton By Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth [Arianism was an influential "heresy" denying the divinity of Christ, originating with the Alexandrian priest Arius ( c. 250– c. 336). Arianism maintained that the Son of God was created by the Father and was therefore neither coeternal with the Father, nor consubstantial.] He shared these views with two associates of his, William Whiston and Isaac Newton.

Clarke wrote of the time of the Nicene Creed, "But in process of time, as men grew less pious, and more contentious, so in the several churches they enlarged their creeds and confessions of faith, and grew more minute, in determining unnecessary controversies, and made more and more things explicitly necessary to be understood, and (under pretense of explaining authoritatively) imposed things much harder to be understood than scripture itself, and became more uncharitable in their censures, and the farther they departed from the fountain of catholic unity, the apostolical form of sound words, the more uncertain and unintelligible their definition grew, and good men found nowhere to rest the sole of their foot, but in having recourse to the original words of Christ himself and of the Spirit of truth, in which the wisdom of God has thought fit to express itself." Source

Read The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity here

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Fawn M. Brodie on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Fawn M. Brodie was born on this day in 1915. Brodie was an American biographer and one of the first female professors of history at UCLA, who is best known for writing No Man Knows My History (1945), an early biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint (Mormon) movement.

In No Man Knows My History, Brodie presented the young Smith as a good-natured, lazy, extroverted, and unsuccessful treasure seeker, who, in an attempt to improve his family's fortunes, first developed the notion of golden plates and then the concept of a religious novel, the Book of Mormon. This book, she asserts, was based in part on an earlier work, View of the Hebrews, by a contemporary clergyman, Ethan Smith. While previous "naturalistic approaches to Joseph's visions had explained them through psychological analysis", regarding Smith as honest but deluded, Brodie instead interpreted him as having been deliberately deceptive. In No Man Knows My History, Brodie depicts Smith as having been a deliberate impostor, who at some point, in nearly untraceable steps, became convinced that he was indeed a prophet—though without ever escaping "the memory of the conscious artifice" that created the Book of Mormon. Jan Shipps, a preeminent non-LDS scholar of Mormonism who rejects this theory, nevertheless called No Man Knows My History a "beautifully written biography ... the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life."

The title, No Man Knows My History, alludes to a comment Joseph Smith made in a speech shortly before his death in 1844.

No Man Knows My History has never been out of print, and 60 years after its first publication, its publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, continues to sell about a thousand copies annually. 

See also Over 300 Books on Mormons (Latter Day Saints) on DVDrom (Joseph Smith etc)