Wednesday, November 13, 2013

What's the Big Deal about Dr. James White - Part 1

This video demonstrates Dr. James White's ignorance of the English language, although he is a "scholar."

Monday, November 11, 2013

James White - Vocabulary Fail

I am not a fan of Sam Gipp, but James White says some ridiculous things in the video below. For someone who is well known as a "scholar," he doesn't have a very large vocabulary. At around 8:10 in this video, he starts rattling off a list of "archaic" words in the KJV. In the process, he grossly mispronounces the words "ado" and "choler" which are both commonly used modern words. Maybe they sound unfamiliar because you are pronouncing them wrong!

From 14:32 on, he spends several minutes going on and on about how "shambles" means something completely different today than what it meant in 1 Corinthians 10:25.

1 Corinthians 10:25 Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake:

I immediately went to dictionary.com and looked up the word:

sham·ble

1 [sham-buh l] 
noun
1. shambles, ( used with a singular or plural verb )

     a. a slaughterhouse.
     b. any place of carnage.
     c. any scene of destruction: to turn cities into shambles.
     d. any scene, place, or thing in disorder: Her desk is a shambles.
2. British Dialect . a butcher's shop or stall.
Where in the world is he getting his information? The KJV definition is definition #1 in a modern dictionary! The definition he knows is definition #4 in a modern dictionary. He says you would need to carry around a dictionary of "Old English" or "Middle English" to understand the KJV. This man is a scholar?!

Here is a sample of Old English:

Hwæt! We Gardena         in geardagum,
þeodcyninga,         þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas         ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing         sceaþena þreatum,

Here is a sample of Middle English:


1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,


Just like the KJV, right?

 
In reality, every word in the King James Bible is in a basic handheld, contemporary English dictionary. No special dictionary is needed to understand any of the words in the KJV. James White's knowledge, like that of almost all "experts" and "scholars," is of course, overrated.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

1 Samuel 13:1 in the ESV (English Standard Version)

Here is the passage in context from the King James Bible:

1 Samuel 13:1 Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,  
1 Samuel 13:2 Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Beth-el, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.

There are two different versions of the ESV, so I will give you 1 Samuel 13:1 in both versions:

1 Samuel 13:1 ESV-UK "Saul was…[a] years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for… and two[b] years over Israel."

What in the world?! Can you imagined being called on to read this chapter out loud in front of the church? How do you even read that?

Here it is in the American version of the ESV:

1 Samuel 13:1 ESV "
Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel,"

As you can see, it is completely different in the two versions of the ESV. So according to the American ESV, Saul was a one-year-old when he became king! The most amazing part of all is that he was already tall enough to be head and shoulders above the people (1 Samuel 10:23) at one year old! The ESV is looking more like the Weekly World News than the Bible.

The ESV is supposedly the choice of great Bible scholars, yet they are dumb enough to think that King Saul was one year old when he became king.