You know, one of the really cool things about living in Ottawa is the presence of a number of good university libraries.
On the other hand, one of the really
non-cool things is that I live and work in the suburb that is farthest from either university. No matter; last night after work I hopped on the bus and headed down to Carleton University, in the end spending about 5 hours of time to do 5 minutes of looking things up, the extent of the research necessary for confirming our next inductee into the KJV-only Liar's Club: Gail "The Ripper" Riplinger.
It seems as though The Ripper cannot read. At least, her book
New Age Bible Versions is one long, freaky mess of mangled misrepresentations from front to back. But never mind their original context; Gail The Ripper is on a Mission From God to "expose" the modern translations. It is irrelevant that they don't actually
need exposing. If reality isn't in accord with her thesis, then why shouldn't The Ripper just rearrange reality a bit? I guess that in The Ripper's deluded mind, this is "defending" the Bible. Out here in the Real World, we call it "lying."
Here is a representative sample. Riplinger is quoting Bruce Metzger on the Egyptian papyri, which she claims supports the KJV's readings. (Note that my "page numbers" come from the electronic version of
NABV that is available from
www.firehouse.org; I do not own a paper copy of this book, although I would be more than happy to accept one from any concerned KJV-onlyist who feels I ought to cite from an authoritative source. If not, deal with it!) [Note from Scott in the present:
www.firehouse.org is now history. You may find this hypertext edition of
NABV by searching Google for "nabv.exe" but I make no promises.]
Metzger says, "Papyrus 75 supports the majority text dozens of times. In relation to the [majority] text, P46 (about A.D.200), shows that some readings. . .go back to a very early period. . .P66 [has] readings that agree with the [majority]. . . text type." (screen 973)
The Ripper cites Metzger,
Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981) 64, 108.
The way cool thing about this citation is that it doesn't actually exist; at least, it doesn't exist all in one place, or with the words quite in that order. Indeed, some words don't even appear at all. I had been in the very same library on Sunday afternoon looking at the same book, copying down a few points; last night I was rather surprised to find out I had already seen these quotations from The Ripper, and didn't even realize it because they're in disguise!
First of all, she cites the wrong page numbers.
Some of the quotation—the last part—appears on page 64.
None of the quotation appears on page 108. I'm looking at the same edition of the book (1981), so that's not the problem. What's left appears on page 66. It's bad enough that The Ripper thinks jamming a whole bunch of lines from different pages together as though they
belonged that way is a proper citation, but it's a foregone conclusion that Metzger never intended them to be jammed together
out of order as well.
Here's what Metzger
really says about
p46 on page 64:
As regards Western readings in p46, according to A. W. Adams the codex "offers no support for those attested by D alone, and this raises the question whether the 'Western' readings it supports are properly so called, and are not rather very early elements common to both East and West which have disappeared from the Alexandrian and Eastern traditions. In relation to the Byzantine text p46 shows that some readings (faulty as well as genuine) go back to a very early period." (Metzger 64, emphasis added)
The first thing worth noting is that The Ripper can't get her attributions right: Adams said that, not Metzger (he is citing a secondary quotation from F. W. Kenyon). Second, I wonder why The Ripper wasn't
honest with her readers and point out that Metzger/Adams say some Byzantine readings are "faulty
as well as genuine"? Reality doesn't agree with The Ripper, so The Ripper decides to ignore reality, I guess. What Metzger
really says about
p46 is this:
Textually p46 is frequently in agreement with the Alexandrian group of witnesses (B [Aleph] A C), less often with the Western (D F G), and occasionally with the later Byzantine witnesses. (64)
Here's the other citation from Metzger that The Ripper mangles, this time on
p66:
Like Codex W . . . p66 varies in textual type from one part of the manuscript to another. In chapters 1–5 [of the Gospel of John] it shows close realtionship to the three major Alexandrian witnesses, p75 B C, while in the rest of the book it exhibits a mixture of Western readings—abundant in chapters 6–7 and again in 11–12. It also possesses a certain number of readings that agree with the Byzantine type of text; most of such readings appear to be secondary, creating an easier text or a more common Greek style. (66, emphasis mine)
This citation has been heavily redacted by The Ripper to make it agree with her thesis. I wonder why she wants to make it look like Metzger is saying the papyri are overwhelmingly Byzantine, when what he is
really saying is that they
occasionally agree with the Byzantine family?
But here's the best part. That first part of The Ripper's quotation, about
p75,
does not exist. Not on page 64, not on page 108, not on page 66 where
p75 is described.
Not anywhere in the book.
Here's what Metzger
really says about
p75. Note the last bit especially, because it explicitly refutes one of the key arguments of KJV-onlyism:
Textually the manuscript is of importance in showing that the Alexandrian type of text characteristic of the fourth-century codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus ([Aleph]) was current at the beginning of the third century. . . . Furthermore, not only is the text of p75 Alexandrian, but it is closer to B than that of any other manuscript, while the influence of the readings of the Western type is almost non-existant. This goes a long way, as A. W. Adams remarks, "to showing that the B-type of text was already in existence in Egypt, and in a relatively pure form, before the end of the century. If so, the view much canvassed [??—sorry, can't read my own handwriting on that word—SAM] in recent years, that the Alexandrian text-type was a third or fourth century recension—i.e. a deliberately revised or 'made' text formed out of the 'popular' texts of the second century—will need considerable revision." (Metzger 68)
So Metzger doesn't say that
p75 supports the Byzantine text dozens of times.
The Ripper made it up!
Why would she do that?
Was she stoned?
Was she temporarily insane?
Did some nasty Alexandrian Cult hacker break into her computer files and change things to make her look bad?
But really, what would possess someone to manufacture evidence like that? Surely no one who would write something so transparently false, enabling anyone with a library card to go and laugh loudly at her incompetence, can be quite right in the head. If I had pulled a stunt like that in school, I'd have been out on my ear. It's called "academic fraud." Has The Ripper been so blinded by the god of this age that she gladly and willingly makes stuff up to support her unbiblical ideology?
And if that weren't bad enough, The Ripper has the gall to blame her ineptitude on God. She wrote, in the Jan./Feb. 1994
End Times and Victorious Living, the newsletter of Joseph R. Chambers:
Daily during the six years needed for this investigation, the Lord miraculously brought the needed materials and resources—much like the ravens fed Elijah. Each discovery was not the result of effort on my part, but of the directed hand of God—so much so that I hesitated to put even my name on the book. Consequently, I used G. A. Riplinger, which signifies to me, God and Riplinger—God as author and Riplinger as secretary.
Finally, The Ripper has been awarded an honourary Ph.D. from Hyles-Anderson College. Of course, Jack Hyles isn't exactly generous with the truth either; in the preface to his book
Let's Go Soul-Winning he claims to have preached over 50,000 sermons. (For those of you running the numbers, that's between two and three sermons every single day for 50 years straight! Think that adds up?). If HAC has any doctoral candidates, they might be wise to start assessing what their earned Ph.D. is really going to be worth if Hyles hands them out on such flimsy premises.
For that matter, there's an
easier and cheaper way to get an HAC Ph.D. It goes something like this:
</font>
- Waste 6 years of your life doing spurious and worthless research.</font>
- Write a book and publish it yourself. Don't hire a copyeditor; that costs extra.</font>
- Sell tons of copies to thousands of gullible fundamentalists who'll believe anything printed in a book as long as it supports their pet "doctrines."</font>
- Find some credulous Christian "leaders" to support and sell your book from their pulpits/newsletters/radio shows.</font>
- Find a super-gullible person to produce a video of one of your lectures. Sell that too.</font>
- Do tons of radio interviews and lectures.</font>
- When someone points out that the Empress has no clothes [shudder!], whine about it through two or three more books.</font>
- If you get caught in a really silly lie, make sure God gets the credit.</font>
I guess Paul knew what he was talking about:
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1 Tim. 2:12–15)
