This Day in History: The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools on this day in 1963.
Billy Graham said, "[i]n my opinion... the Supreme Court... is wrong.... Eighty percent of the American people want Bible reading and prayer in schools. Why should a majority be so severely penalized...?"
There was a time where I would have applauded the Supreme Court's decision and sneer at Billy Graham. There was a time where I thought that the New Atheists (Hitchens, Harris & Dawkins) made a lot of sense.
I've changed my mind. The secularism that the West has embraced has failed society.
Why?
In 1963 most families were intact.
In 1963 everyone knew what a woman was.
In 1963 there were only two genders. In fact, the word "gender" was only used in relation to language.
In 1963 profanity was not as ubiquitous as it is today. In 1963, the entertainment industry adhered to the Hays Code which prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, graphic or realistic violence, sexual persuasions and rape.
In 1963 there was no Pride Month. People kept their peccadillos private.
From: The Doctrine of the Trinity, founded neither on Scripture, nor on Reason and Common Sense but on Tradition and the Infallible Church (1831):
"And Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and my God."
Thomas was a Jew - a believer in the one invisible and immortal God - a disciple of Christ-incredulous - a sceptic who required no less than ocular and palpable proof that the body of Christ had become re-animated and arisen from the dead. Our Lord condescended to give him the proof required, on which occasion he uttered the words just quoted.
Now, what do we learn from them? The Athanasians would have us believe that this incredulous Apostle who would not credit the testimony of his fellow disciples as to a plain matter of fact, passed in a moment to the belief, of which he had not the least previous hint or conception, that in the crucified Jesus, whose flesh he handled, and whose wounds he felt, he saw, touched and addressed the infinite and incomprehensible Jehovah, whom he had been taught to think no man could see and live! That he whom he had so lately beheld nailed to a cross, and mortally wounded by a Roman spear - was Jehovah of hosts - the Lord God of Israel, who liveth and reigneth for ever and ever! Verily, the credulity of the Athanasians exceeds, the incredulity of Thomas! But the Saviour's address to his disciple sufficiently proves the gross folly and absurdity of such imaginations. "Jesus said unto Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed." Believed what? That of which he had previously doubted,-Christ's resurrection. Our Lord continues, "blessed, or happy, are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." -Not seen and yet believed what? Not seen Christ personally, as Thomas had seen him and yet believed that he was actually risen.
There is not the slightest ground for any of the Athanasian whims in the whole passage. Thomas, under the influence of excited and wonderstruck feeling, gave way to his emotion, as was perfectly natural, by apostrophizing God. All men under such impressions, express themselves in language precisely similar. Thus, when Gideon saw that one with whom he had been conversing was an angel of Jehovah - he said, “Alas, O Lord Jehovah! for because I have seen an angel of Jehovah, face to face."-Judg. vi. 22. Thus, Jonathan in the ardour of his friendship, "said unto David, O Jehovah God of Israel, when I have sounded my Father, &c." - 1 Sam. xx. 12. Had Thomas been capable of embodying all his feelings in words, he might have uttered some ejaculations like these, in addition to "my Lord and my God." It is then true! I doubt no longer! Here is proof! I yield O my God, how great is thy power, how wonderful thy deeds! Now, I see, now I believe that thou hast indeed raised from the dead, thy holy child Jesus! That our Saviour understood him thus is evident from his address to the disciple. - Milton refers the words my Lord to Christ, and my God to the Father, who had testified that Christ was his Son, by raising him from the dead. The whole comment of this great genius on the passage before us, is well entitled to the readers serious consideration. He regards the words of Thomas as an abrupt exclamation in an exstacy of wonder, and deems it incredible--
"That he should have so quickly understood the hypostatic union of that person whose resurrection he had just before disbelieved. Accordingly the faith of Peter is commended-blessed art thou, Simon-for having only said-thou art the Son of the Living God.-Matt. xvi, 16, 17. The faith of
Thomas, although, as it is commonly explained, it asserts the divinity of Christ in a much more remarkable manner, is so far from being praised, that it is undervalued, and almost reproved.-Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And yet, though the slowness of his belief may have deserved blame, the testimony borne by him to Christ as God, which if the common interpretation be received as true, is clearer than occurs in any other passage, would undoubtedly have met with some commendation; whereas it obtains none whatever."
This day in history: Bible translator Charles Bray Williams died on this day in 1952. C.B. Williams should not to be confused with Bible translator Charles K. Williams.
Williams graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem NC, and was a Baptist minister.
Williams stated, "Our aim is to make this greatest book in the world readable and understandable by the plain people."
Some have noted that there are many similarities between Williams New Testament and Goodspeed's New Testament (one of the greatest New Testament translations ever produced).
Here are some comparisons:
Revelation 5:10 "and have made them a kingdom of priests for our God, and they are to reign over the earth." Goodspeed
"and have made them a kingdom of priests for our God; and they will rule over the earth." Williams
While "over" is a better translation, most Bible use the word "on".
John 10:38 "But if I am doing so, even if you will not believe me, believe the deeds, that you may come to know and continue to know that the Father is in union with me and I am in union with the Father." Williams
"But if I am doing them, then even if you will not believe me, believe the things I do, in order that you may realize and learn that the Father is in union with me, and I am in union with the Father." Goodspeed
Both Goodspeed and Williams use the phrase "in union with" many times.
John 8:58 "Jesus said to them, 'I tell you, I existed before Abraham was born!'" Goodspeed
"Then Jesus said to them, 'I most solemnly say to you, I existed before Abraham was born.'" Williams
This is a better translation than the traditional "I am" as the "Greek at John 8:58 fits an idiom described by grammarian Kenneth McKay as the “Extension from Past”, which occurs when a present tense verb is “used with an expression of either past time or extent of time with past implications.” (A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach), p. 41, 42 (Source)
However, Williams was much more conservative/fundagelical in many passages.
For instance at John 1:1 where Goodspeed has "the Word was divine", Williams goes overboard with the horrible rendering of "the Word was God Himself."
At John 1:18, where it should read, "No man hath seen God at any time; an only begotten god, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him", Williams has, "No one has ever seen God; the only son, Deity Himself, who lies upon His Father's breast, has made him known."
Where Goodspeed would use "homage" in places like Matthew 2:2, Williams reverted back to the word "worship,"
Additionally, Williams insisted on continuous action of a Greek verb made Mark 1:5 sound like the people were being repeatedly baptized, "And people from all over Judea and everybody in Jerusalem kept on going out to him and being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins."
This day in history: David Bentley Hart's _The New Testament - A Translation_, was released on this day in 2017.
Bing gave me this description of his New Testament: "David Bentley Hart is a theologian who has translated the New Testament into English. His translation is 'pitilessly literal' and 'not shaped by later theological and doctrinal history.'"
That's not entirely true. He capitalizes the I AM in John 8 is if it has some mystical value and relationship to the words at Exodus 3:14. This is a notion that is "shaped by later theological and doctrinal history" and any relationship between John 8 and Exodus 3 falls apart after closer examination.*
However, Hart's translation is still better than most. I have always had a singular fascination with John 1:1.
David Bentley Hart's New Testament 2017 reads at John 1:1 "In the origin there was the Logos, and the Logos was present with GOD, and the Logos was god." (Notice the word "god" in small letters in the last clause.)
"As a general rule, the 'articular' form ho Theos—literally, 'the God'—was a title reserved for God Most High or God the Father, while only the 'inarticular' form theos was used to designate this secondary divinity. This distinction, in fact, was preserved in the prologue to John, whose first verse could justly be translated as: 'In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was a god.'"
It's unfortunate that DBH felt the need to tone it down for his New Testament translation.
His John 10:33 now reads: "We stone not on account of a good work, but rather on account of blasphemy, and you who are a man make yourself out to be a god."
The first edition had "make yourself out to be God." Few other modern Bibles are brave enough for this rendering (The New English Bible comes immediately to mind).
He made a similar change at Philippians 2:6 where he has: “who, subsisting in a god’s form, did not deem existing in the manner of a god a thing to be grasped.” QEOU should be taken as indefinite here, such as in “form of a god.” This would highlight a parallel that is overlooked by most, the parallel between "the form of a god" and "the form of a slave." (Verse 7)
Let me know in the comments section of any other verses you may want to share from this New Testament translation.
In the Bible, the word "Soul" comes from the Hebrew word "nephesh"
and its Greek equivalent "psykhe". As we can see in the following
chart, it certainly doesn't have the immortal aspect to it that people
think it does.
Abbreviations:
N = New
S = Standard
A = American
L = Living
E = English
B = Bible
V = Version
T = Translation
W = World
C = Contemporary
To = Today
I = International
Bible
Gen. 2:7
Gen. 9:5
Ezekiel 18:4
Matt 10:28
Acts 3:23
1Cor. 15:45
1Peter 3:20
Rev. 16:3
N.W.T.
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
King James
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
L. B.
Person
Omit
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
BODY
Persons
Everything
A.S.V.
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
R.S.V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
Person
Thing
N.E.B.
Creature
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
Being
Persons
Thing
N.L.T.
Person
Person
Person
SOUL
Omit
Person
People
Everything
N.A.B.
Being
Life
Life
SOUL
Everyone
Being
Persons
Creature
N.R.S.V
Being
Life
Person
SOUL
Everyone
Being
Persons
Thing
To.E.V
Live
Life
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Being
People
Creature
N.I.V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Anyone
Being
People
Thing
N.King James V.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
SOUL
Creature
C.E.V.
Life
Life
Those
SOUL
No one
Person
People
Thing
N.A.S.B.
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
Thing
Modern Language B.
SOUL
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
Young
Creature
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
SOUL
SOUL
Deaf
Thing
Life
Person
SOUL
Person
Thing
People
Thing
Darby
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Jerusalem B
Being
Life
Man
SOUL
Man
SOUL
People
Creature
Rotherham
SOUL
Life
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
A.T.
Being
Lives
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Creature
People
Thing
Lamsa
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Person
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Webster B
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Amplified B
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
People
Thing
Phillips
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Thing
Douay
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Beck
Being
Anyone
The One
SOUL
Anyone
Being
Persons
Thing
Concordant
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Emph Diag
N/A
N/A
N/A
Life
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
SOUL
B. Basic E.
SOUL
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Persons
Thing
Moffatt
Being
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Being
SOUL
Thing
Weymouth
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
Everyone
Animal
Persons
Creature
Williams
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
Person
Creature
People
Thing
Byington
Person
Life
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Life
R.E.B.
Creature
N/A
Person
SOUL
Anyone
Creature
People
Thing
Schonfield
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
N/A
SOUL
Persons
Everything
Wuest
N/A
N/A
N/A
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
SOUL
Creature
As we can see from the above, a SOUL is simply...YOU!! It is
not a separate being outside of you. Even animals are souls-Revelation
16:3
While doing a hand-count in the 80's, of the 858* instances of the
Hebrew word for SOUL [NEPHESH] and the Greek equivalent [PSYKHE] that I
looked at, only the New World Translation (Reference Edition) translated it SOUL every time.
The New American Standard Bible (considered to be the most literal Bible)
only did so 297 times. Other versions are as follows:
Darby Bible: 575 times
Douay Bible: 551 times
King James Bible: 534 times
Young's Literal Version: 533 times
English Revised Version: 504 times
American Standard Version: 503 times
Rotherham Bible: 493 times
Revised Standard Version: 242 times
New International Version: 138 times
*I realize that hand-counting might not be the most accurate way
to do this, especially now with software making this much easier, but this
does give an overall view of the ways this word was translated..
SOUL; SELF; LIFE nepesh-"The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing,
taking a breath." W.E. Vine
psyche-"denotes the breath, the breath of life." W.E. Vine
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (edited
by C. Brown, 1978, Vol. 3, p. 304) states: "Matt. 10:28 teaches not the
potential immortality of the soul but the irreversibility of divine judgment
on the unrepentant."
"However much God may give his spirit to frail man, and however exalted
the resurrected Jesus has become, man, from the biblical point of view,
is dust animated by spirit, and not body and separable soul,which is a
Greek idea. 'Human Being' by definition denoted mortality, subject to frailty
and death. 'It is appointed unto man once to die...' (Heb 9:27)." The Doctrine
of the Trinity-Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound by Anthony Buzzard/Charles
F. Hunting
D.R.G. Owen, "Body and Soul in the New Testament," In Readings and Christian
Theology, ed. M.J. Erickson (Baker Book House, 1967), 86: "In Hebrew thought,
as we have seen, the word translated 'Soul' regularly stands simply for
the personal pronoun and means the self, and the phrase 'body and soul'...stands
for the Hebrew idea that man is an 'animated body' and not for the Greek
view that he is an 'incarnated soul.' "
"Many people today, even believing people. are far from understanding
the basis of their faith...Quite unwittingly they depend upon the philosophy
of the Greeks rather than upon the word of God for an understanding of
the world they live in. An instance of this is the prevailing belief amongst
Christians in the immortality of the soul. Many beleivers despair of this
world; they despair of any meaning in a world where suffering and frustration
seem to rule. And so they look for a release for their souls from the weight
of the flesh, and they hope for an entry into the 'world of the spirit,'
as they call it, a place where their souls will find a blessedness they
cannot discover in the flesh. The Old Testament, which was of course the
Scriptures of the early Church, has no word at all for the modern (or ancient
Greek) idea of "soul". We have no right to read this modern word
into St. Paul's word "psyche", for by it he was not expounding what Plato
had meant by the word; he was expressing what Isaiah and what Jesus meant
by it...There is one thing sure we can say at this point and that is that
the popular doctrine of the soul's immortality cannot be traced back to
the biblical teaching." -G.A.T. Knight, Law and Grace (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1962), 78, 79.
"Both man and animals are souls, they are not bipartite creatures consisting
of a soul and a body which can be separate and go on subsisting. Their
soul is the whole of them and comprises their their body as well as their
mental powers. They are spoken of as having soul, that is, conscious being"
(Life and Immortality, B. F. C. Atkinson, M.A., PhD., p.2).
"Although Heb. nepes has a wide range of usage, it most frequently designates
the life force of living creatures.
Thus, all the earth is full of "living creatures" that have the "breath
of life" (Gen. 1:20-21,24,30). When God creates Adam, God breathes the
breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and Adam becomes a "living being"
(Gen. 2:7). Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, "soul"
refers to the whole person. Thus, a corpse is referred to as a "dead soul,"
even though the word is usually translated "dead body" (Lev. 21:11; Num.
6:6). "Soul" can also refer to a person's very life itself (1 kings 19:4;
Ezek. 32:10).
"Soul" often refers by extension to the whole person. Thus, Leah bears
Jacob 16 souls (Gen. 46:18), and when Jacob moves into Egypt, there were
"70 persons ('souls') in his house". In the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) Israelites
are commanded to love their God with all their heart, soul, and strength.
Although "soul" appears in the translation to be a separate faculty of
the body, the verse is an exhortation to love God with ones entire self.
The soul is also the seat of the emotions. It is both the center
of joy in God (Ps. 86:4; cf. 62:1[MT2]) and the seat of the desire of evil
in the wicked (Prov. 21:10)
In the NT “soul” (Gk.psyche) refers to the living being of the whole
person (Acts 2:41; 3:23) and to a person’s life. After Herod’s death,
the angel commands Joseph to take his wife and child (Jesus) back to Israel,
for “ those who were seeking the child’s life (soul) are dead” (Matt. 2:20).
Before he heals the man with the withered hand, Jesus asks the synagogue
authorities whether it is lawful on the Sabbath to “save life (soul) or
to kill” (Mark 3:4). In the parable of the rich young fool (Luke
12: 13-20), the young man says to his soul that he has ample goods laid
up for many years; Jesus then tells him, “ This very night your soul (‘life
force’) is being demanded of you.”
Although the NT contains little evidence of the body-soul dualism
that is apparent in Hellenistic philosophy, some passages indicate that
the soul lives on after death (Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19)."
Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible
[Let us see if this is really so. Luke 9:25, “ What benefit
is it to anyone to win the whole world and forfeit or lose his very self.” Luke 12:4, “ To my friends I say: Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body and after that can do no more.” Luke 21:19, “ Your perseverance will win you your lives.”
New Jerusalem Bible As you can see, the scriptures mentioned do not point to an immortal
soul or life after death. As Ecclesiastes says, “for the living are
at least aware that they are going to die, but the dead know nothing whatever.
No more wages for them, since their memory is forgotten…Whatever work you
find to do, do it with all your might, for theirs in neither achievement,
nor planning, nor science, nor wisdom in Sheol where you are going.” New
Jerusalem Bible]
Can souls die? Yes, according to the following scriptures:
(Job 36:14 [KJV margin]; Psalm 56:13; 78:50;
116:8; Ezekiel
18:4, 20; James 5:20; Psalm 22:29; 30:3; 33:18, 19; Isaiah
55:3; Ezekiel
13:19; 18:27; Psalm 49:8; Psalm 35:17; 40:14; Proverbs 6:32;
Ezekiel 22:27;
Acts 3:23; James 4:12; Ezekiel 22:25; Matthew 16:25, 26 [the
Greek word for soul is here translated life in many translations]; Leviticus 22:3; Numbers 15:30) The body is not the soul, but it is a component of the soul. The soul is made up the body and the spirit (or breath) of life from God. (Genesis 2:7) When one dies the soul dies [ceases to be a living sentiency] and the original life process is reversed. (Ecclesiastes 12:7) With the life-giving source departed from the body, the soul [sentiency] ceases to exist.
A Portion of the Bay Psalm Book with the Divine Name Iehovah
This day in history: A Bay Psalm Book was auctioned off on this day in 1947 for $151,000.00.
"THE first piece of literature known to have been written and published in England’s American colonies was the Bay Psalm Book. Its original edition was printed by Stephen Daye in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the year 1640. That early publication contained the Bible book of Psalms, translated from Hebrew into the English language as spoken and written at that time." Source
It is interesting to note that this, the first ever book published in British North America contained the Divine Name Iehovah quite a few times, as is evidenced in the image above.
This day in history: Michael Behe was born on this day in 1952.
Michael Behe is a biochemist, author and professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Michael Behe received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, where his dissertation was on sickle cell disease, and he subsequently spent four years researching aspects of DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health before joining the Lehigh faculty in 1985.
His books include Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, which both highlight the inherent problems with evolutionary theory and present a case for intelligent design. He argues that molecular machines, such as the bacterial flagellum, are irreducibly complex. Such machines require all of their parts to function, Behe says, and so could not have come into being through an unguided process. He considers this evidence that the flagellum must have been designed.
Behe observed:
"There is no publication in the scientific literature that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations." Darwin’s Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 186
