Category: Satire

New Dead Sea Scrolls Find Gives Hope

The Young, Textless, and Reformed1 Comment

Introduction

On Tuesday the Associated Press reported that archaeologists discovered dozens of new Dead Sea Scroll fragments in a desert cave. The manuscript fragments include lines of Zechariah and Nahum in Greek. Crossway and Zondervan have already begun preparing the ESV and NIV 2021 to account for the changes. Among the find includes 2,000 year old coins along with a 6,000 year old body and a 10,500 year old basket. The basket is reported to possibly be the oldest surviving in the world.

Scholars have not yet determined how the mummy had earned that much gold 4,000 years after dying, or how the oldest basket in the world was found with a 6,000 year old body. Dan Wallace has not issued a statement yet regarding the lack of fragments from the Gospel of Mark in the find. If the discovery had yielded any fragments of Mark, that would have made them older than any text from the New Testament to date, putting them around the 3rd century BC.

Anti-KJV Discussion Board Sustains Injury While Highfiving Each Other

The Young, Textless, and Reformed2 Comments

Introduction

I recently discovered a Bible Version Discussion board devoted to people who love cheering each other on in an Anti-KJV bubble. I spent some time perusing the post titles and content and I’ll admit, it was very entertaining. I imagine in some alternate timeline I would enjoy hanging out with these people, as they have a similar sense of humor to mine. If we can learn anything from this discussion board, is that Christians need to be able to take an insult and not record 20 hours of Dividing Line content demonstrating what thin skin looks like in real time. So my reader can have some context, I will be very loosely using a post entitled, “Dane Johnson Writes About Preservation But Says Nothing Important” as a mold for this post. I am particularly entertained by this post title because it a) in accordance to the Chad handbook, intentionally spells Pastor Johannsson’s name wrong and b) is dismissive in a way that I find particularly fun. The first rule to asserting dominance is to pretend like you don’t know somebody’s name. In any case, this article is not going to be a rebuttal, but rather an introduction. Hello, my name is Taylor “Hernando” DeSoto and I accept your invitation to banter.

Finding a Needle in a Haystack with No Points

I’m sure there are plenty of things to critique my articles for, which is unfortunate that “Maestroh” couldn’t find any. Unfortunately, for somebody who calls themselves “Master”, he is equally awful at thinking and spelling. Or perhaps he’s going with the Spanish word for teacher…in any case, the mispelling of either is rather unfortunate. I’m actually not a fan of correcting grammar or spelling, but in this case I felt it appropriate.

Now you may think that I am being quite uncharitable, and you’d be correct. This is how we have fun together, right? If I were to take every critique seriously I’d have pulled all my hair out years ago. Out of the rebuttals given, the most substantial I could find were claims of strawmen and simply ignoring what was said in the article being addressed. Since there is nothing substantial to rebut in the post responding to Pastor Johannsson, I’ll simply offer a critique to demonstrate to my reader the “kind of argumentation you’re going to find out there.” Shouts of “strawmen” and “Genetic Fallacy” might mean something if Maestroh and his pals didn’t do so themselves at every turn (Although I do like that I’ve been fondly nicknamed “hernando” and “The little bald guy”). I rather like the alternate reality in which I am descended from a Spanish Conquistador and am not a 200 pound fat man. In any case, the examples given of strawmen and genetic fallacies weren’t relevant to the points made by Pastor Johannsson, which I suppose I’ll investigate in further detail in a later post. This is an introduction after all.

The real problem with all of Maestroh’s critiques, as I can tell, is that he refuses to take the scholars at face value. For example, he looks at what Dan Wallace says, and shouts “context!” when Dan Wallace clearly says that there is no Bible and will never be a Bible. The surrounding context is that Dan Wallace doesn’t think that not having the Bible shouldn’t give Christians any discomfort because finding the original text isn’t in Dan Wallace’s per view. Unlike those in the Critical Text crowd, we let our reader decide if such statements should be cause for concern. Furthermore, Maestroh, despite engaging in polemics himself, seems to dislike it when others engage in polemics. If you’re wondering why I haven’t actually rebutted anything our critic has said (yet) is because he hasn’t actually engaged with anything said other than to blame “context” or “strawmen” or “genetic fallacies” for his inability to offer a meaningful response. I highly advise my reader to check the article linked above out to see for yourself the quality of argument we see from our dear Maestroh.

In Maestroh’s world, the scholars don’t mean what they say and nobody is questioning our beloved passages such as John 3:16. It would be easy enough to simply read my articles or the quoted source material to find that he is characteristically wrong. Perhaps Maestroh and MMR can have fun finding the “context” of the quotes from this article in his next post. I suggest the title, “Funny Bald Man Tyler Soto Can’t Read”. For those that perhaps don’t know me in real life, I write this article with a light heart as I sip my third cup of black coffee. I have a feeling Maestroh can handle critique better than James White. If not, I suppose I read the room wrong, which is common for a person like me.

Conclusion

As I understand it, our dear Maestroh is away at a funeral, so I’d appreciate if my reader would join me in praying for him and those near him. And no, that is not tongue and cheek. I look forward to engaging with our Masked Maestroh in the future. I hope my reader is excited for articles that address his specific rebuttals. As for now, consider this an introduction to a new series in which I will demonstrate to the world what Critical Text argumentation looks like in the blogosphere and beyond. Hopefully you can have as much fun as I did reading the absurdity that is the KJV Only discussion board on Tapatalk.

Why the KJV Should Be Burnt First in the Event of a Socialist Takeover of America

The Young, Textless, and Reformed3 Comments

Many people are worried that the United States is in a rapid free fall towards socialism. The media says that Joe Biden is a moderate, so these people are obviously wrong. In any case, all Christians are known for their irrational behaviors, such as prepping. Storing months worth of food at a time is not logical, because you can just go to the store and buy food, just like you can go get money from an ATM. This is obvious for the scientifically minded. It’s unfortunate that we are bound to the white construct of having food and money, but that’s the racist world we live in. One day we can hope to live in a perfect socialist society where we don’t have to work (white supremacy) and we can just order food to our door from our iPhone via Doordash. Capitalists just don’t understand how the world works because they are too busy contributing to the patriarchal structure of laboring and raising a family.

My audience happens to be anti-science fundamentalists, however, so I thought I would prepare them for the situation where we need to burn our books for warmth. Most people think that the book burning under a socialist regime is entirely ideological, and they are wrong. It is also a practical way to stay warm for a few minutes. Rather than start with invaluable works such as “Woke Church” and “Stamped from the Beginning,” I suggest that we start with our Bibles. Specifically the King James Bible. We want to save our most important works for last.

In the event of a socialist takeover, we want to ensure that all of our ESV’s survive. Except for the 2016 permanent edition. We only want Bibles that aren’t permanent to survive. In addition to this important foundation, we need to take into account that the average adult has a fourth grade reading level, and we want our Bibles to be readable. The KJV is basically written in Latin, and it isn’t changing, so that is two strikes against it. Finally, and the most important reason, nobody who will live in comfort in the academic class reads the KJV, and we want them to stay spiritually fed while they continue to make new Bibles during the socialist decline. If we burn all the ESVs, there will be nothing for them to mount as a trophy on their wall to show that they did something for us. We have to make sure our textual scholars stay encouraged while we stand in the bread lines.

The socialist takeover of America will be difficult for most of us, but I see it as a great opportunity to get rid of the KJV once and for all.

If the Text-Critics Went to Lunch and Didn’t Come Back

The Young, Textless, and Reformed5 Comments

Introduction

An important practice in the business world is determining the viability and impact of a project before investing resources into that project. It seems this is a wise analysis to consider for evangelical text-criticism.

 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Lk 14:28–30.

Christians should now act like wise investors. The church has been patient, but it is time to analyze the project afresh. The evangelical text-critics have determined that while we will never have the original text God inspired, what we have is close enough. A valuable analytical process is to determine the impact of ending an ongoing project. According to the careful analysis and hard work of the evangelical textual scholars, the church has all it needs from the manuscripts to get by. No doctrine has been affected in nearly 200 years of textual criticism, the church has what it needs. So what is the impact on the church, if all of the text-critics went out for lunch and never went back to work?

Seven Benefits to Ending the Effort of Modern Evangelical Text-Criticism

First, Greek Bibles would stop changing. No new additions or subtractions would be made to God’s Word. The only changes to God’s Word would have to be made by translation committees. 

Second, the text of the modern Bibles would be stable. Christians could buy a translation and keep it their whole lives without it expiring. 

Third, the work of men like Bart Ehrman would be irrelevant to the church, because Evangelical scholars wouldn’t be working with him and for him and under him any longer.  

Fourth, Christian textual scholars could spend more time doing exegesis for the church and pastoring, rather than scraping through manuscripts and counting words. Many of these men have a Masters of Divinity from well reputed seminaries, they could apply their education to shepherding the flock. 

Fifth, seminaries could remove Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman’s textbook from the standard curriculum. We have what we need in our Greek texts, there is no need to continue giving Erhman a platform. 

Sixth, the heroic apologists of the Christian faith could spend more time defending the teachings of the Word of God, rather than trying to discover what it says. 

Seventh, resources spent on text-criticism could go to planting churches, supporting struggling churches, and training pastors. 

Conclusion

 If the best and the brightest text critics say that they haven’t found the original text in a time where we have “the best data,” and have determined that “we have what we need,” there is no point in carrying on. “No doctrine has been affected,” so it seems the church is equipped to press on. The church does not need to support a project that has already made the necessary conclusions. Instead, it should support those evangelical textual scholars in putting their MDivs to use pastoring churches and feeding God’s people. Let the secular academy continue their quest for the “historical Jesus” and free up the men of God to do work for the Kingdom! 

A good question to answer to determine the impact of ending such a project is, “What would happen if evangelicals stopped making Greek New Testaments?” The answer is nothing. Nothing would happen. The church would carry on without a hiccup. Pastors would preach, seminaries would train, and the Gospel would still go forth to all the nations. The average Christian would be none the wiser. The Bible has been preserved after all, no need to keep working on a finished product.