I was bruising the Internet(or is it browsing?) the other day, in my Reverendly spare time, when I came upon a wonderful web site dedicated to scriptural and spiritual truth. I believe it is operated by Reverend Cumulo Nimbus, and there are many remarkable things on this site. Would you believe, for instance, that there are lists of churches all over the United States that are recommended by Reverend Nimbus, in case the inquirer is looking for a place of worship. He prefers independent Baptist Churches, which is certainly a step in the right direction, in the writer’s humble opinion. He defines “Independent Baptist” as “a church which is Baptist in polity and which is unaffiliated with a denominational structure.” The churches he really likes are given two asterisks. I notice that most of those churches seem to be Baptist Bible Fellowship churches. One wonders if they meet his definition since, if they are unaffiliated, they would not find it necessary to “get out of the BBF” when they decide to leave. Just a thought to ponder.

Another characteristic of churches most highly recommended by Reverend Nimbus is that they are non-Calvinistic, because ”we do not want to see people trained in a theology which we believe is unscriptural.” Now as a doctrinal expert, I must here mention that “Calvinistic” theology (always defined by the user’s perspective) spans the spectrum, from anyone who prays that the Holy Spirit go before them in visitation, to those who get their sub tangled in their supra and lapse into Aryanism. I notice the church pastored by my friend (at least he was until this moment) Bro. Forrest Keener has the name of a flower after it. I wonder if he wanted it there. A church for the sixties, no doubt. And while “Calvinist” means many things to many people, I am sure that some, who hold certain biblical doctrines precious, would just as soon not be called by the name of one who persecuted their spiritual forefathers. And I guess that also means that a church unfortunate enough to have the likes of Charles Spurgeon as pastor could not make the double-asterisk qualification, since he was prone to make such a callous remarks as the following:

“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his one free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, ‘you are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.’ My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will.” Charles Spurgeon

But Spurgeon probably didn’t understand, anyway. I’m sure he was misquoted on December 2,1855, when he said, “ It has already been proved beyond all controversy that free will is nonsense.” Doesn’t even sound charitable. I then began to peruse his references on the defense of the King James Version of the Bible. Now I need to preface all of this by saying that if you want to know what Doc Trin believes about the King James Version, you can read the tract Use the Bible God Uses by that superlative writer, E.L.Bynum. So I don’t want to receive any letters from Bro. Ken Johnson as a result of this because I wouldn’t be able to understand them, and I detest being destroyed by verbiage that I can’t even understand. Just remember that it HAS TO DO WITH THE TEXT.

I was browsing (there, I got it right) through an on-line encyclopedia of religious terms, on Bro. Nimbus web site, when I came across the word Easter. The word Easter, as all Reverends (especially the Always-Right ones) know, is a source of contention in version defense, since it appears, in Acts 12:4 as a translation of the Greek word pascha. The word is translated 28 times as Passover in the KJV, and once as Easter. Most people didn’t notice it too much until all the nouveau-textual critics who don’t know Greek became experts by putting as much faith into the writing of humans on the subject as they put in the Holy Ghost. Now we just all quote our favorite author and yell at one another.

Anyway (anyone have a Diet Coke?), the comment under Easter says that “some say this should be translated ‘Passover’ and they point to this as an error in the KJV, but they are wrong….’Easter’ is a proper translation to distinguish it from the Jewish Passover, and the KJV translators are wise in their choice of the word.

In using the term ‘Easter’ in Ac.12: 4,The King James Translators (don’t ask me why this term is capitalized in the text-doc) merely left intact the reading of Tyndale, Matthews, and the Geneva Bible.”

Now I have to ask myself what kind of muck we are about to sink in here. I got out my 1599 Geneva Bible (yes I admit it, I believe the Word of God existed before 1611-Tyndale must have died for something). I turned with great trepidation to the book of Acts, found chapter 12, and read to verse foure:

And when he had caught him he put him in prifon, and delivered him to foure quaternious of fouldiours to be kept, intending after the paffeouer to bring him foorth to the people.

Now here I am in a real fix. Do I believe Reverend Nimbus, or do I believe my copy of the Geneva Bible? (not to mention Adam Clarke, the worthy devine who said “the Geneva Bible very properly renders it the passoverif. Did the printer of my Bible do this just to cause trouble, knowing that he wouldn’t have to answer to me four hundred years later? Does my doctrinally overburdened mind need this kind of gamesmanship to confuse me? Do I now hide the truth to defend the truth?

I did research on the issue, and if my sources can be believed, the word Passover was invented by Tyndale. Originally, it seems that he used Easter in his translation of the New Testament in all the places, because the term Easter meant, to the English-speaking people, the season of Passover. He used ester or caster fourteen times, esterlambe eleven times, esterfest once, and paschal! lambe three times. But when he went to translate the Old Testament, he figured it would seem a little strange to use a word no one would have known so he invented the word Passover. It now means something in English. And since it means something in English, we can now criticize the KJV translators for not using the new word Tyndale created, but instead using an old word that may have a different meaning to some, and probably had pagan leanings (Astarte, goddess of fertility-comprehendez?)

Wycliffe hadn’t translated the word. He just left it as pask or paske when he translated from the Latin. Wise man, Wycliffe. Saved a lot of argument. Eventually, Passover replaced Easter in the New Testament. The KJV translators left it in one place, just for us to fight over. Now we are obligated to defend it. Or are we? Should we defend it any more than we should defend the other instances where Tyndale used it to begin with? Do we defend all of Tyndale’s versions, or just the ones that support the version we now defend?

I read a long article defending the use of Easter because the Passover was one day, and the “days of unleavened bread” followed, so the translation should be Easter in just that one place, since it had to do with the period after the Passover. Now here is my question. Please listen very carefully as I ask this. This is not a trick question.

DID LUKE KNOW WHAT HE WAS WRITING?

Luke wrote pascha (In Greek, of course), or a reasonable facsimile, in Acts 12:4, and we are supposed to now believe that he knew it was different from the pascha that he wrote in Luke 22:1. I wonder if he knew he was writing two different things. I wonder if he knew he was distinguishing between “Passover” and “the days of unleavened bread” by writing pascha in one place, and pascha in another? Obviously different. And if he did know, how do we know he knew? By revelation??(Oh, that’s another author.)

So now, if we say that the King James translators were “inspired” to write it two different ways, because they knew it was two different things, and actually applied to two different periods of time, I figure they must have known something Luke didn’t know. So we now have a new doctrine. I have named this new doctrine, because I am imminently qualified to do so, as the DOCTRINE OF PROGRESSIVE INSPIRATION.

This doctrine is defined as occurring when we know more of God’s Word after the translation than before, because we have been inspired by God to understand what he meant, even if he meant something different than the writer thought he meant when God breathed it through him. We can now understand things that the writers of the Bible did not understand by benefit of the newly defined doctrine.

Or, if we don’t really want any more new doctrines, perhaps there is another option. There are many cases where one word in Greek is translated more than one way in English, and we accept it as a valid translation because it means something to us in the language into which it was translated. We do not necessarily call it an error. If we look up “Easter” in the Webster’s (the 1913 unabridged was the oldest I could find) it says it’s the Jewish Passover.

So is my Geneva Bible uninspired because it says Passover? Is the KJV uninspired because it says Easter? Would Passover have been a better word (as Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Adam Clark, etc. hold)? Were Tyndale’s earlier versions uninspired because they used Easter more than once, and failed to properly differentiate the “days of unleavened bread” as we would now assert? Or is, perhaps, the Word of God inspired because it is the Word of God, the writers actually did know what they were writing, and translations are valid if the meaning of the correct text is properly and wholly conveyed in the language into which it is being translated?

Isn’t that better than relying on statements that seem to be less than true to defend our own statements that may be false?

Oh well, so much for making the approved church list.

Yours for the sake of paranoia, Doc Trin