Originally Posted by MC1171611

Brother, help the South secede again! I've already got half a mind to go to the League of the South meeting in North Carolina in December! I know I don't want that ungodly wretch as my president.

*shudders*

No, brother, I can't see it. Secession isn't gonna happen; if a relatively decent man like Lincoln went to war to stop it, think what Obama would do! He'd probably nuke the South - - - after evacuating all the people of a certain demographic.

No, whoever wins, I'll just pray for them, as I did for Clinton and Bush.

I really, really want Palin for Veep; in fact, I want McCain to get saved and die, so she can be President. But if Paul could obey Nero, we can obey Obama or McCain.

I'm glad the subject of the thread has been changed!

[atlas]

MC,

Brother, help the South secede again! I've already got half a mind to go to the League of the South meeting in North Carolina in December! I know I don't want that ungodly wretch as my president.

Now you can take this for what it's worth.

If you do have half a mind you'll stay away from people and groups like this.

If you do not have half a mind you will join this group and get on some FBI watch list. This is asking for trouble.

I was told this same advice years ago when the KKK had a rally in a town close to my home town. I said I was going to go and check it out. I was not going to join or anything. I just wanted to see what was going on. My Grand pa told me that this was a very bad idea. He said the FBI would be there, they are always at any kind of meeting like this. He also said if anything ever happened to a black person and the KKK was being looked into they would also take a good look at me. He was right, something happened a few years latter and here came the FBI. This was sound advice from a very wise man. Needless to say I stayed at home where I belonged.

The FBI will be at the meeting. More than likely an agent will be in the leadership of this group. The FBI will also know you are there. So go if you wish, just do not be a fool and go there with your eyes wide shut. With a wife and a long life ahead of you, I'd advise for you to stay at home where you belong. This is a free nation ( or so they say ) do as you wish my friend.


Now I give advice for a living, I gave you this sound advice for free. Good luck with whatever you do.


Atlas

Atlas is right, and it's no laughing matter. Putting aside politics for a minute, it's simply a fact that Bush has expanded Federal powers, especially FBI/ATF/DEA/CIA powers, far past anything that has been done before.

Okay, fine. Maybe you like Bush. Maybe you trust him with the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, and other things we're not even aware of.

But, when Bush leaves office in January, somebody else will have those same powers - - - and will use them.

I know whereof I speak: the FBI will open a file on you with the slightest provocation. If you think Bush 41 went over the line at Ruby Ridge; if you think Clinton went over the line at Waco ...... what do you think Obama will do?

And if Obama loses, McCain is likely to give the investigative agencies even more power; he certainly won't reduce it. And these agencies function independently, year after year; they don't suddenly become gentle and respectable just because a new President is sworn in. What kind of Attorney General do you think Obama will appoint? I'll tell you: the kind of person who has Ashbrook's zeal, and Janet Reno's ideology.

Am I telling you to be afraid of the Federal government? No. We're to fear God. But I'm asking you to be realistic about what we're up against.

Think about this. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Atlas is right!

[Biblestudent]

Hey, guys! How did US politcs get into the LXX thread?

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride;

A question, Brother Steven: who cares? What difference does it make?

It only cares if you are discussing the issue intelligently and trying to convince informed people that the 'LXX' is not relevant and you beleive that properly representing the facts is important to that endeavor and that Bible apologetics.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

If someone is simply asking what the LXX is, because they simply don't know, the Gipp approach is best, because it's most accessible.

Until they do a little fact-checking, and you have egg on your face.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

But what conceivable value does the existence or non-existence of the LXX offer to a Bible believing Christian who's simply trying to understand God's word?

If he is a Bible-believing Christian who is concerned about the truth and accuracy and full context of the information he receives and transmits, the value of good information versus a porridge of propagandistic (mis)information is fairly obvious.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

I understand, of course, that the "scholars" love to drone on and on about it; but that's their profession. That's how they put food on the table, and pay the mortgage.

There is some truth to that. Especially I have found that an 'LXX scholar' is very slow to accept any line of reasoning that devalues the LXX and thus their butter and bread livelihood.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

But, unless one is a professional Greek scholar, why should he or she care one way or the other?

People ask the questions for many reasons. In my case I mainly wanted to more fully understand the corruptness of the 'LXX' and also its smoothing of text to the NT (a critical issue in understanding the falsity of the 'apostles used the LXX' argument) such as the gross textual abomination of Psalm 14. In so doing, I wanted to have accurate information given to me and given out by me to others.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

I can talk, and sometimes have talked, about Vaticanus and Sinaiaticus and P38 and all the rest, far into the night.

Note that above I was responding to a 16 MS presentation, supposedly from Ruckman or Gipp, that was really virtually irrelevant. In a sense I try to simplify the issue as well as showing the factual backdrop.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

But, so far, in 39 years of the Christian life, the only value such chattering has had is in the area of explaining the provenance of the KJB to unbelievers and Christians who don't use it.

Which is part of the general context here, however I have also talked about it with KJB believers who want to understand more excellently. And also non-Christians like skeptics who use the LXX issue as part of their negative apologetics. They will especially pick apart misinformation, as will the Christian-oriented scholarship groups, whatever their level of belief.

Originally Posted by Vendetta Ride

It strikes me as vanity and vexation of spirit. For me, at least. Of course, I am a simple and uneducated soul, and not privy to the enthusiasms of the scholarly class.

You are welcome to simply link to the Samuel Gipp material when the issue comes up, as here. Just be prepared to have your presentation picked apart by folks whose tude will be hostile and will use the questions about the presentation to their advantage against the King James Bible.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Originally Posted by Steven Avery

It only cares if you are discussing the issue intelligently and trying to convince informed people that the 'LXX' is not relevant and you beleive that properly representing the facts is important to that endeavor and that Bible apologetics.

Until they do a little fact-checking, and you have egg on your face.

Thank you for your reply, brother. I meant no criticism in my question, and wasn't trying to be dismissive of your concerns - - - although I was, obviously, being dismissive of the importance of the LXX. Your reply sounds a wee bit testy; if I offended you, I ask your forgiveness.

Please be assured that, when discussing this with an "intellectual" or someone who has some background in the area, I don't use Gipp; but I find Gipp to be helpful to neophytes. If his material is flawed, or if Ruckman's material is flawed, so be it. It's a side-issue. If the neophyte expresses a continued interest, then we move on to the heavier stuff. If I had to debate a professor of Greek on the subject (which I would never do), I would use an entirely different set of resources, although Ruckman and Riplinger would be crucial to my own preparation.

If he is a Bible-believing Christian who is concerned about the truth and accuracy and full context of the information he receives and transmits, the value of good information versus a porridge of propagandistic (mis)information is fairly obvious.

If you're going to throw around such loaded terms as "propagandistic (mis)information," perhaps you'd better identify the malfeasors you have in mind. Otherwise, your comment sounds like mere polemics.

Incidentally, it should be obvious, but when I referred to Gipp, I wasn't replying to you, but to Brother Chette, who opened the thread. Not knowing how much or how little he knew about the issue, I started with the basic, most accessible stuff: which is what I always do with neophytes, and which I do when introducing myself to a new subject I haven't studied before. I'm never ashamed to start with baby steps; without them, we never get to the sprints.

Which is part of the general context here, however I have also talked about it with KJB believers who want to understand more excellently. And also non-Christians like skeptics who use the LXX issue as part of their negative apologetics. They will especially pick apart misinformation, as will the Christian-oriented scholarship groups, whatever their level of belief.

You're exactly right. I have discussed, and continued to discuss, the matter with both believers and atheists, and the latter do pick everything apart. I am doing such stuff right now at one of the most hostile forums on earth, Pravda.ru, where I won't use Gipp; and if you can do it better, you're welcome to join me.

You are welcome to simply link to the Samuel Gipp material when the issue comes up, as here. Just be prepared to have your presentation picked apart by folks whose tude will be hostile and will use the questions about the presentation to their advantage against the King James Bible.

Horrors! I've never been subjected to hostility before! Pardon the sarcasm, brother, but I've been fighting these battles for many, many years. You're not talking to a newbie.

I appreciate your time, your concern for precision and accuracy, and your warnings, which are well-intended. God bless you!

[Steven Avery]

Hi Vendetta,

Please understand, I was not trying to be hostile to you personally at all. I was simply a little surprised that the reaction to my post, attempting to help inform on the true LXX situation, was "why bother" ? Unexpected on this forum.

My view: I don't accept the idea that we write with two very different accuracy and precision standards. Although we simplify and keep the tone lighter in some forums, generally we have to be fact-careful everywhere.

King James Bible defenders at times get a smidgen of a reputation of being too foot-loose on factual issues, and historically this has included the LXX discussion. In fact, as much on this issue as anywhere.

Overall that rep has been changing the last few years, and a number of defenders are extremely conscientious and write superbly. Thomas Holland and Tim Dunkin and Will Kinney and Matthew and Brandon and others have raised the bar. And when they need to make an update or enhancement, they generally do so, a web advantage. (Others, like Floyd Nolen Jones on the LXX, have generally good material on the Net but no easy mechanism for updating, correcting, enhancing.) The current web-crew is quite good. To give an example, I know I can recommend Brandon's Magic Marker page to make 200 alexandrian corruptions known quickly and fully, where one HTML-chart is worth 10,000 words.

However we do have to deal with a legacy of arguments, some of convenience, that were not so careful. And other problems. e.g. I did some research on the Johannine Comma recently and saw a lot of statements that had to be at least tweaked. And I see errors that were made a decade or two ago popping up anew in forums and web-sites.

The sources are varied, but until recently the lack of fact-checking was a problem (Michael Maynard helped the Johannine Comma situation tremendously with his book). Some have come from Peter Ruckman, stuff that he had written decades ago in books and that has not been clearly updated. (He was largely pioneering the available-to-the public research.) While his material on the topic was generally good afaik the flaws were never clearly addressed.

With the LXX we have Sam Gipp making some statements that misinform. One I pointed out, about the extant fragment. There is more than the one he indicated. Beyond that Sam Gipp says "it may be the existence of this fragment that led Eusebius and Philo to assume that the entire Pentateuch had been translated by some scribe" as if Philo was sitting with the Ryland Fragment rather than a wealth of Jewish information about the goods and bads of Greek (Jewish tradition takes both sides of this). Almost surely Philo in Alexandria did in fact have a Greek Pentateuch (even if such was completely unused by Jesus and the Apostles) so why confuse the reader by trying to give the impression that Philo was searching down one small fragment ? Unfortunately, that is not history, that is rather wild and unfortunate conjecture. You have similar problems in how Sam Gipp discusses the Hexapla. Also in trying to cast Philo as a villian, Josephus is not even mentioned ! Despite his large section, which surely is an evidence. Ironically, Josephus actually helps seal our overall case because to him the "LXX" was simply the Pentateuch and he even indicates the unavailability of the histories in Greek. You don't learn that in the Gipp article, a totally different impression is attempted to be given, that all the early evidence, including the Letter of Aristeas, is from Philo; plus one fragment.

Thus there is lots of misinformation, or at least disinformation, being used for propagandistic purposes. The fact that we agree to a large extent with the ends does not really justify such writing. (Propaganda is actually more a neutral word than people realize, it is more writing for a cause than anything else.)

Incidentally there is little problem debating a Greek professor about the LXX. The real issues are textual and paradigmic (e.g. the preservation of the Hebrew Bible, the errors and inconsistency of the "LXX", the truth of the Reformation Bible) not linguistic. Once I called up Robert Kraft about some stuff and asked him about Psalm 14, to see if a Professor in his position would simply say "LXX tampering from the NT". Nope.

My Russian is weak for Pravda.ru. I see they have an English Religion section where all sorts of stuff goes on.

Shalom,
Steven

Yes, the Religion forum at Pravda is a wild and wooly place. I'm sure you could see my posts; I use the same avatar, although a different name. Anyway, I'm posting all over that forum, just to establish an identity; I even have a "blog" there. Please pray for a man named Harris; I sense that he might be ripe.

Have you read Ruckman's book on "The Mythological Septuagint?" It's heavy going, simply because, as in so many of his books, he gets sidetracked assailing the "scholarly class;" but it's fairly recent.

I agree that there shouldnot be two standards of accuracy or precision, and if Gipp (or anyone else) misstates something, I don't buy it.


But, as I said, people coming to these issues anew need to crawl before they can walk.

Gipp's value, and Ruckman's is largely in poking a hole in the hideously over-inflated reputation that the so-called LXX continues to enjoy among "scholars." With normal Christians, the issue rarely comes up in conversation.

The Johannine Comma isa different matter. It's attacked in the margin of nearly every bible, so people wonder about it. But I'm perfectly satisfied by Edward Hill's chapter on the subject in The King James Version Defended.

God bless you, brother!

[Tmonk]

"The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the Original in many places, neither doth it come near it, for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet which of the Apostles did condemn it? Condemn it? Nay, they used it, as it is apparent, and as Saint Jerome and most learned men do confess) which they would not have done, nor by their example of using it, so grace and commend it to the Church, if it had been unworthy of the appellation and name of the word of God."

AV1611 Preface , Translators to the Reader.

[Here Am I]

"Scholars" are fallible, the Lord is not.