Question:
Dr. Lindstrom: I do not often get to hear your show but the times I do get the opportunity I find it interesting and informative. Today (5/9/02) as I listened you said some things that I would like clarification on. 1. You said that you felt Paul’s thorn in the flesh was some physical ailment. I have heard this before; bad eye sight, arthritis, etc. However, it seams that a simple reading of the Bible does not support this contention. 2 Cor 12:7 (KJV) says in part “…there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me…”. It seems to me that a messenger of satan is not an ailment but rather a demon. The root cause of his problem was satan was allowed by God to buffet Paul in order to “keep him humble”. 2. You took some time ealier in the show to take some translations to task. I will commend you for not holding out the KJV as a perfect translation; each of the ones available has their weaknesses. To keep things shorter. . .you used John 6:47 to show the weekness of a particular version. You said “your version” had “HE that believeth on me hath everlasting life” and the other version(s) do not say who to believe in. This made me curious, so I checked several translations that I have and you were “right” they did not have the “on me” phrase. I thought this very odd so I went to the greek; and unless I read the literal translation wrong, the phrase “on me” does not appear in the original greek. It can be seen from the context that believing on Him (Christ) is implied but does not appear in the text. So your preferred translation adds words which are not there. I understand that there is no violation in adding “on me” but it also is not a good “proof text” against other translations. I am not against the KJV; I have used it in my study of the Word; but I also use the NIV, NAS, ESV, NLT and, for the New Testament, a greek-english interlinear Bible. I agree that there are quite a few new translations which clearly violate the text such as “having one spouse” rather than “husband of one wife”. Well enough said; I do appreciate your ministry and be willing to answer the tough questions; thank you for your time and ministry. Joseph Sowers
Answer:
Textus Recepticus Does tell us who to believe in: Jesus Christ. Nestle’s 26th Edition Does not tell us who to believe in: anyone? I must commend you on taking the time to do the research which you did concerning John 6:47. I believe one of the things you learned was that all translations are NOT good translations. A lot of people never learn this. However, we need to take this learning experience a step further. You did well in using the Greek and in using a Greek-English Interlinear Bible, BUT… time for a new lesson, ALL GREEK MANUSCRIPTS ARE NOT THE SAME! The most accurate manuscript is the Textus Recepticus. All others are flawed to a very great degree. In fact IF you research you will find that other Bibles are translated from a Greek made by a very devious and unchristian pair called Westcott and Hort. Just about where ever you look you’ll find Westcott and Hort as unchristian and polluters of God’s Word with the exception of the supporters of the NIV and the NASB. Try looking at Stephen’s Textus Recepticus (1515) in the Greek and you will find the Greek words that you thought were previously missing in the Greek. The words in the Greek are “eis” (of place into, in, toward, to) and the Greek word “emi” (me). The point here is to be careful not only of translations but of flawed texts. If research is important to you try reading The English Bible . Written by F.F.Bruce. Oxford University Press 1970.