As many blog readers may know, I should have the privilege, Lord willing, this upcoming February of debating Dr. James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries on the topic “The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.” Dr. White has debated or discussed the King James Only position with people like Gail Riplinger, author of New Age Bible Versions and leading New Age conspiracy theorist, and Steven Anderson, the acclaimed Holocaust denier and promoter of “1-2-3, pray after me, 4-5-6, hope it sticks” evangelism.

I have found a great argument to use against the Legacy Standard Bible which will be defended by James White.  Rather than using arguments from my resources on Bibliology or from Thou Shalt Keep Them: A Biblical Theology of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture (also here; Amazon affiliate link), I have an update to Dr. Gail Riplinger’s argument from Acrostic Algebra.

Dr. Riplinger, as you may know, wrote the book New Age Bible Versions. David Cloud has a review of her book. She has also written a large volume about why Christians should not study Greek and Hebrew.  Ms. Riplinger herself is highly qualified in the Biblical languages-as a little girl she took Latin in school, and she taught English to immigrants from Greece.  She received an honorary doctorate from Hyles-Anderson College, indicative of the scholarship of New Age Bible Versions, with which Hyles-Anderson wishes to identify.  (I am reminded of the honorary doctorates that my first year Greek class received-all the students formed their own school one day, and we gave everyone an honorary PhD, ThD, DD, or comparable honorary doctoral degree-except for one student, to whom we gave an honorary GED.) While many Hyles graduates are not known in the scholarly world, they do excel at gathering crowds of children with candy, leading them to repeat the sinner’s prayer, and then baptizing millions of them on the backs of church buses, often baptizing the same children many times, thus creating more sinner’s-prayer-repeaters by far than the number of converts gathered on the day of Pentecost, when Peter, not having read Hyles’s church manual, told the lost to repent instead of telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts (although the converts at Pentecost seemed to stick around a lot longer, even without gifts of soda pop and candy, Acts 2:41-47).  Dr. Riplinger also has earned degrees in home economics, which help her to be qualified not only to be a keeper at home, but also to write scholarly works on textual criticism and Bible versions. Among many other fine arguments by Mrs. Riplinger, her Acrostic Alegbra stands out, proving the New American Standard Version and New International Version are inferior to the Authorized Version:

• Step 1: (NASV – NIV) – AV = X
• Step 2: (NASV – NIV) – AV = X
• Step 3: (ASI + NV) – AV = X
• Step 4: ASI + NV – AV = X
• Step 5: SIN = X

Clearly, the fact that one can get to the letters “SIN” from the NASV and NIV in this fashion proves the inferiority of these Bible versions.

Since I am supposed to debate James White on the LSB, or Legacy Standard Bible, which is an update to the NASV, it is appropriate that I also update Dr. Riplinger’s Acrostic Algebra.  Note:

The LSB leaves things out, as do other modern versions.  If one leaves out the middle line of the “B” in “LSB,” one is left with “LSD,” a dangerous drug which is a SIN.  Thus, just like the NASV and NIV, through acrostic algebra, lead to SIN, so does the LSB.

-QED

My discovery of this argument reminded me of the quality argumentation of leading atheist Dan Barker, who, employed Dorothy Murdock’s great mythicist scholarship in my debate with him. Ms. Murdock argued that Moses is borrowed from pagan mythology because of a 16th century AD Michelangelo painting displaying horns on Moses’ head, which represent psychedelic mushrooms or LSD.  Barker also employed the weighty arguments of Barbara Walker, an author of books about tarot cards and knitting, in our two debates over the Old Testament.

I think that this update to Dr. Riplinger’s Acrostic Algebra should prove very convincing.  James White, get ready!

Note: Wishing to be fair, I tried to reach out to Ms. Riplinger by means of the website where she sells her books.  I asked her about the acrostic algebra. I would have liked to reproduce the response I received, which both asked about whether those who questioned her use of it had taken a class in symbolic logic at Harvard (which I assume she believes would somehow support her use of acrostic algebra-indicating she never took a class in symbolic logic at Harvard) and also said that the acrostic algebra was simply rhetorical rather than a substantive argument.  However, I was not given permission to reproduce the email.  So I wanted to give Ms. Riplinger a chance to defend the Acrostic Algebra in her own words, out of fairness, but I was not allowed to do so.

–TDR