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Interview with Ray Faircloth, translator of the Kingdom of God Version of the New Testament

kingdom of god versionI think I’ve met only two people who have translated the whole New Testament from the original Koine Greek to some modern language. One was an American evangelical missionary, who’d translated the New Testament into some obscure tribal language from South America. The other was the Englishman Ray Faircloth, who runs the biblicaltruthseekers website. (Some of his materials are also available here.)

In both cases, I was impressed. What an acheivement, and what a weight it must be, to try to effectively and accurately render what one regards as the most important texts in human history, the communications of God to humankind.

I was privileged to be able to interview Ray Faircloth a few days ago near Atlanta, Georgia, where we were both in town for a conference. Maybe at a later date I’ll post a few representative passages from his translation.

Congratulations on the publication of your translation of the New Testament, The Kingdom of God Version. How long did this take you?

This took three and half years.

Was that full time?

No, it was in blocks of time, so that you’d get so far, and you’d need to move on to another subject, and come back to it at a later time.

What, in your view, is most distinctive about your Kingdom of God Version?

It’s hard to say one thing, but much of it was attempt to get rid
Read More »Interview with Ray Faircloth, translator of the Kingdom of God Version of the New Testament

Anthony Buzzard: That Jesus Should be Worshiped Does not Imply that He is God

(click for image credit)

Sir Anthony Buzzard is the author of a number of books, including the 2007  Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian.

Interesting title, no?

Some Christians will think it true but trivial.

Others, against the evidence, assert it to be false.

Others will urge that he is implicitly but not explicitly a trinitarian, i.e. that his beliefs entailed it, though he did not believe it.

I agree with with Buzzard, though, that it is both true and important. According to the gospels, Jesus’ beliefs included the numerical identity of the one true God with his heavenly Father, and we should assume him to be self-consistent on this subject, so he did not also think that the one true God is numerically identical to this: Father+Son+Spirit. (Things identical to the same thing must also be identical to each other.)

But isn’t Jesus worshiped in the New Testament? And doesn’t that show that he is God himself?

No – I agree with the substance of this recent video by Buzzard:Read More »Anthony Buzzard: That Jesus Should be Worshiped Does not Imply that He is God

Jesus and “God” – Part 7 – What did the Shema originally mean?

I was reading Murray’s and Rea’s new An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion – the Trinity section, of course – and I was struck by this sentence: “… we cannot say that Jesus is the Father, nor can we say that they are two Gods (Deuteronomy 6:4).” (p. 74) I realized some time ago that there are problems in using that famous text as a… Read More »Jesus and “God” – Part 7 – What did the Shema originally mean?

Jesus and “god” – part 4 – Time traveling among the “gods” (Dale)


A perfect likeness, no? (source)

As we saw last time, “god”-talk is very flexible.

In this post, I’ll look at some non-Christian and non-Jewish examples. Let’s imagine that you brush up on your Latin, jump into your time-machine, and travel back to 65 CE. You wander into the imperial palace in Rome, and encounter the above grafitti portrait.

“Who is that?” you ask a nearby soldier.

“Why, that’s Nero.”

“Who’s he?” you continue. (You slept through Ancient History 101.)

“Who’s he?” says the soldier, “why, he’s the divine emperor, a living god”. “What?” you retort – “you think that scruffy-beard dude created the heavens and the earthRead More »Jesus and “god” – part 4 – Time traveling among the “gods” (Dale)

SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – ROUND 4 PART 2 – BOWMAN

In part 1 I argued that Bowman attributes a non-existent fallacy to unitarians. After this faltering start, things get better. Continuing his pre-emptive rebuttal, Bowman argues that there is nothing about the roots of the Hebrew and Greek words translated “spirit” that requires them to mean a force or energy. Surely, this is correct, and his examples show this.

In the end of his pre-emptive rebuttal, Bowman attributes this argument to unitarians:

  1. The Bible contains no progressive revelation concerning God.
  2. The OT does not reveal the Holy Spirit as a distinct divine person.
  3. Therefore, the NT does not reveal the Holy Spirit as a distinct divine person.

I suspect that some current day unitarians do endorse this argument. (Does Burke?) Christians of any stripe who believe in any sort of Hell, in souls, or that the NT more clearly reveals the character of the Father, would probably reject 1. For these sorts of reasons, I reject it myself. In my view progressive revelation is different from the Islamic idea of “abrogation” (later Quranic verses contradicting and cancelling out or over-ruling earlier ones). Progressive revelation doesn’t involve contradiction of something earlier asserted, but rather clarifying something previously unclear, and contradicting things one might have inferred from what was formerly asserted. But back to Bowman.

Bowman opines that the OT unclearly hints at the Spirit being a distinct divine person, but he wants to say that this truth is only first clearly revealed in John 14-16. I think this puts him far off of patristic exegesis, btw – but maybe that’s a good thing.

The real meat of Bowman’s case is his exegesis of the books of John and Acts. His first positive argument is essentially this. Jesus promised that after leaving, he’d send “another Paraclete”Read More »SCORING THE BURKE – BOWMAN DEBATE – ROUND 4 PART 2 – BOWMAN

podcast 128 – Ehrman and Bird on How Jesus Became God – Part 1

In this episode I review the first portion of a recent debate/discussion between Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. Michael Bird, held at the at the 2016 Greer-Heard Point Counter Point Forum in February 12-13, 2016 at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Do the Gospels disagree about Jesus and God? Part 2 – Counting the Costs

Last time we looked at this inconsistent triad of claims, one of which we must deny: The New Testament gospels agree in their core claims about Jesus and God. Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t teach that Jesus is God. John teaches that Jesus is God. We can look at this from two directions. First, we can ask what the evidence for each  of 1-3 is.… Read More »Do the Gospels disagree about Jesus and God? Part 2 – Counting the Costs

Do the Gospels disagree about Jesus and God? Part 1 – Three Options

Let’s define “Jesus is God” to mean one or more of these: Jesus is numerically identical to the one God, YHWH, or Jesus fully possesses the divine nature of the one God, or Jesus is one “divine person” within the one God. The New Testament gospels are centrally concerned with Jesus, and with the one God. But how do they relate the two – or… Read More »Do the Gospels disagree about Jesus and God? Part 1 – Three Options

Jesus and “God” – Part 8 – Some recent Jewish scholars on the biblical Shema

Last time we looked carefully at the verse normally translated as “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” We saw, surprisingly, that on any credible translation, it is not itself an assertion of monotheism – although it’ll probably be consistent with monotheism – depending on what is understood by “monotheism”! And that is a tougher problem that must be faced, for… Read More »Jesus and “God” – Part 8 – Some recent Jewish scholars on the biblical Shema

10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #2 Get clear about “God”

What sort of being is “God” supposed to be? Your answer to this will constrain your options when it comes to thinking about the Trinity. The “Trinity” (in the primary sense of the term) is supposed to be none other than the triune God, the tripersonal God of officially catholic traditions since the late 4th century. In other words, the Trinity and God are supposed… Read More »10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity – #2 Get clear about “God”