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Dr. dino
Seminar 7    Questions and Answers, part e
Dr. dino
(this seminar was given in 2005)
(some parts of the originally given seminar appear removed in the latest English DVD release of this,
that what is presented here is the unedited version)

[Introduction to Dr. Hovind],  [Dr. Hovind's justice cycle],  [Is Dr. Hovind being edited?],  [Dr. Hovind vs Wikipedia]
[Video presentation of seminars 1-7],  [Introduction to seminar transcripts],  [Seminar 1: “The Age of the Earth”],  [Seminar 2: “The Garden of Eden”],  [Seminar 3: “Dinosaurs and the Bible”],  [Seminar 4: “Lies in the Textbooks?”],  [Seminar 5: “The Dangers of Evolution”],  [Seminar 6: “The Hovind Theory”],  [Seminar 7: “Question and Answers”]

  
        
“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
        
 
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
 
    James 1:4-5  


Seminar 7: Questions and Answers  
(part e)


Go to “Questions and Answers” index page



 
Back to Main Index About Easter festivities...

 
Go back Contradiction: Easter or Passover...?

Another contradiction people often ask about is: “Isn't the word ‘Easter’ in the King James Bible an error? Didn't they make a mistake, here?” Every other version of the Bible, and I got a whole collection of them here on the table, they use the word ‘Passover’ in Acts 12:4. You look up Acts 12:4 and they say: “After Passover.” King James says: “After Easter.” Well, let's read the passage and see what the truth is. “Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” (Acts 12:1-4) Is Easter a mistake? All the other versions say ‘Passover’ right there.

 
Go back The original Passover (leaving Egypt; Exodus 2)

Well, let's go back and study the original Passover. In Exodus chapter 12 (v. 1-3): “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, he said, this month (talking about April) shall be the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak unto all the congregation of Israel. In the 10th day of this month take a lamb.” April 10th, you pick out a lamb, keep it up for four days. On April 14th you kill it, and you eat it that night. (Ex. 12:3,6-7) That was the Passover when they were getting ready to go out of Egypt, ok. “And then you put the blood on the two side posts and the top of the door. It says they shall eat the flesh that night; April 14th.” (Ex. 12:7) Kill the lamb, put the blood on the door, and eat the lamb that night. Verse 11: “It's the Lord's Passover. Eat it in haste; have your shoes on; hold your staff in your hand.” There are Jews today still who go through this, you know, every year they go through the Passover celebration, amazing to watch. We did this as a kid. My mom had our family do this several times while we were kids, and we loved it, ok. Verse 14: “This day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast.” Verse 15: “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread.”

Here's the sequence; On the 10th day, pick out a lamb. Watch it for four days, making sure there are no blemishes. On the 14th day, kill it. That night is the Passover, when the Death Angel passed over the children of Israel if they had the blood on the door posts. Eat it that night. For the next 7 days, you're going to be traveling around, running from Pharaoh, and so you eat unleavened bread. They had their kneeding troughs, put the bread in there, but no leaven, wrapped it up, put it on their shoulder, carried it around through the wilderness, and ate unleavened bread for 7 days. That was the 7 days of unleavened bread, and they still today do that, commemorate this, the great Passover. It reminds of the 7 days they ate unleavened bread. Verse 17, it says: “You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread.” (v.) 18: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at evening.” Starting the 14th for the next seven days, until the 21st, eat unleavened bread. Numbers chapter 28 (16-17): “The fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover, the fifteenth day of the month is the feast; seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.”

 
Go back A pagan festival

So, here's the sequence of events:

  1. The Passover was always at night on April the 14th (mid-April).
  2. For the next 7 days they ate unleavened bread. That always followed the Passover.
  3. Now there was a pagan festival of Ishtar, or Eshtar, or today called Easter. That was a pagan festival that always came near the end of April. And it was so many days after the first full moon and they had all kinds of formulas to figure out when this day came.

And we still use the same formula today to calculate when Easter is. But Easter was a pagan holiday to commemorate the earth's regenerating itself. You know, things start to grow again, you got Easter lilies, and so fort. That's why they have all kinds of regeneration symbolism in the Easter holiday. The Easter bunny, like Playboy bunny, all stuff on fertility symbols, like Easter rabbits, Easter eggs. Those are all symbols of fertility, and it is definitely a pagan holiday. Now is it something worth fighting and beating somebody up over? No, ok. Christ did rise from the dead, and if you want to celebrate that day, that's fine. People can get carried away over these holidays, you know, refuse to celebrate any holidays. I don't think you ought to do that. But you need to understand Christmas and Easter both are pagan holidays, no question, that date anyway is. But I don't think it's worth beating somebody up over.

  1. So the feast days are never called Passover anywhere in Scripture.
  2. Peter was arrested during the days of unleavened bread. It says so very clearly in Acts 12, which means the Passover was already gone. It has to be.
  3. Herod wanted to kill him during his own pagan festival of Easter coming up in a few days.
  4. The King James Version is the only version to get it right.

Now look at Acts 12 now, verse 3: “Then were the days of unleavened bread. And when he apprehended him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.” King James is the only one that got it right! And we'll cover more on that in a minute. The guy who invented the word ‘Passover’ is William Tyndale. He made up the word and he didn't use that word in Acts 12 in his translation. We'll cover more about that in our College Class.

 
Back to Main Index About how King Saul died...

Contradiction: Suicide or slain...?

“How did King Saul die?” Heretics will say: “Well look, you've got a contradiction here in the Bible.” In I Samuel chapter 31 (v. 4-5) it says: “Saul took a sword and fell on it and killed himself. He committed suicide. He asked the armor bearer: Hey, will you kill me? I'm wounded. The guy said: No, I'm scared. And so Saul killed himself.” When you read chapter two, this guy walks up to King David at the camp and says: “Hey, here's Saul's crown, and his jewelry. I killed him.” (II Samuel 1:8-10) Because he knew David and Saul were enemies. And the Amalekite said: “I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure he could not live after that he was fallen.” Well, did he die by suicide, or did he die by the Amalekite? There's no contradiction here. He died by suicide and this guy's lying. He's hoping to get a reward. “Hey, David, I killed Saul. Give me my reward please.” David's reward was, I'm going to cut off your head, son, ok.

So there are all kinds of supposed contradictions in the Bible, and we cover a lot of these in our College Classes, or you can call into our radio program. We'll just cover a couple more, because we could spend forever on supposed contradictions. There's a book called The “Errors” in the King James Bible by Peter S. Ruckman. It used to be called Problem Texts. It's basically the same book with a different cover on it. But in here he covers 500 of the supposed contradictions in the Bible. We've got about 90 pages of data on supposed contradictions on our website, in our downloadable section, on articles about contradictions.

 
Back to Main Index About Jonah and the whale...

Contradiction: Whale or fish...?

Here's one the atheists always give to me. They'll say: “Was Jonah swallowed by a whale or a fish?” If you read Jonah 1 it says: “The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was three days and three nights in the fish's belly,” ok. Chapter 2, verse 1 , he was in the fish's belly. But when you read the story in Matthew chapter 12, it says: “Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly.” And the atheist will say: “Aha, the Bible's wrong. A fish is not a whale, a whale is not a fish, ha, ha, ha.”

Well, in our modern 21st century classification system, a whale is not a fish. But in the Biblical classification system, a whale is a fish. If it swims in the water. A dolphin is a fish, in the Biblical classification system. So you can't take, you know, Carolus Linnaeus's classification system in the last 200 years and superimpose that on the Bible and call the Bible wrong. No, a whale and a fish are the same thing in Biblical classification.

And we could talk about some of the little minor stuff. There are about 500 passages that people commonly say are mistakes in the Bible, and all of them are covered in Ruckman's book. He's a little rude, crude, and unnecessarily mean about it, but he's right, ok, his logic is really good.

 
Back to Main Index About insects having ‘four feet’...

Contradiction: 4, 6 or 8 legs...?

This one, the atheists love coming up with this one. They'll say: “Well, do insects have four feet?” And I say: “No; well sort of,” because I know where they're headed with that one. In Leviticus chapter 11 it says: “...these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing ... the locust ... the beetle ... grasshopper ... But other flying living things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.” They'll say: “See, insects have six legs. Everybody knows that. Moses must have been stupid. Or there is a contradiction in the Bible.” Well, I'm sure Moses saw plenty of insects during his life, and he knew about the six legs. Why did he say four feet?

Well, insects do have six legs, according to our way of thinking. We have a model here of a giant mosquito, somebody made for us out of copper pipe. And you see, it's got six legs; well... sort of. Spiders, do they have eight legs? Well, we'd better be cautious how we define this. If you look at the Bible carefully, you'll see in the book of Proverbs chapter 30, it says: “The spider taketh hold with her hands.” Could it be, that four of them which point backwards are considered feet, and the four that point forward are considered hands? Just because we consider all 8 of them to be legs, doesn't mean the spider considers them 8 legs. If a spider is going to do something, like, you know, maneuver things around, it's going to use its hands. How about the mosquito, does he have 6 legs, or 4 legs and 2 hands? Just because he happens to walk on all 6 of them doesn't mean they're all legs. I don't think there's a contradiction in the Bible. We could spend forever on supposed contradictions in the Bible.

 
Back to Main Index About the King James translation...

People say: “Dr. Hovind, why do you use the King James? Man, it's Old English. Nobody can understand it. It's hard to read.” I understand all that, and as a brand new Christian, saved out of the Methodist church, my mom gave me every kind of new Bible version there was. If a new one came out: “Heh, son, you're gonna love this one.” So I got a huge collection of all the Bible versions. When I was 16, I had the ‘Reviled Substandard Perversion’ [Revised Standard Version, RSV] of the Bible. It's here someplace, my original copy. I was reading that, going to church, going to this little independent, temperamental, fundamental, right wing, chicken eating Baptist church. And the preacher was banging on the pulpit, saying the Bible is the Word of God. And I was making notes in my Revised Standard Version. And after a couple of months, he said: “Brother Hovind, you've been a Christian a few months now. It's time you get a Bible.” I said: “I got a Bible.” He said: “No, you need a real Bible.” I was offended, ok. I've got a Bible. I'd been making notes. I've been reading it an hour a day, what do you mean? He said: “Well, there is real problems with that one.”

 
Go back ‘Preserve His words’ or ‘Keep us from such people’...?

So, why King James? It's been 37 years now since I became a Christian, you know, studying this topic. Why? Look at Psalms, chapter 12: “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” What does the word ‘them’ refer back to in that verse? “Thou shalt preserve them.” Preserve what? His words. He's promising He's going to preserve His words, right? What does the NIV [New International Version] say there? “And the words of the Lord are flawless: like silver purified in a furnace of clay, purified seven times. O Lord, you will keep us safe and protect us from such people forever.” Is that saying the same thing? I mean I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. It looks to me like somebody is wrong about this one, ok. What does this mean? Keep us from such people? What people is it talking about? There are very serious differences between these Bible versions. We've got a book, I don't know if I have it here, it is in our library. A guy send it to me, it took me six months to figure out what the title said. I read it, and I said: “What...?” I went on to something else, and every time I looked at the book, I'd: “What is this?” The title was Things That Are Different Are Not the Same. I thought: “Well, duh, why would you title a book like that?”Things That Are Different Are Not the Same. And then I thought: “Wow, these Bible versions are definitely different. So you can't say they're the same.”

 
Go back Today: More than 150 English translations; The matter of re-copyrighting involving an at least 10% difference from the original work

There are, as far as I understand it, 151 English translations of the Bible right now, available. The law is you cannot get a copyright, and therefore protect your work, and therefore get more money, unless you have 10% different from the original. Are there a 151 different ways to say each of the different verses in the Bible? At some point, you're going to have to stop saying it the right way and say it a wrong way, just to make it different, just to get your copyright, just to get your money. The love of money, the root of all evil.

 
Go back Historical (1): Scripture preserved

Here's a quick story. We can take an hour on this one. But right after the time of Christ, the disciples were writing their books. And they were being persecuted and spreading out, you know. And people were copying these letters and copying the gospels and spreading them out. Persecution kept hitting the church, and they spread out everywhere. For the next 1,000 years, there was horrible persecution against the church. And if they caught the heretics, the Christians, they would burn them at the stake and burn their Bibles. Well, people were spreading the Word of God around, making all kinds of copies. It takes about 10 months to write out a copy of the Bible, using a pen. But you don't even have a good ink pen. You've got a feather, and you've got to keep dipping it in the ink and keep cutting a new point on it. You don't have a good ink pen nor do you have good paper to write on. You know, lumpy parchment or leather. But, anyway with all the obstacles they had, plus, you know, being persecuted, it took about 10 months to write out, hand write a copy of the Bible. Well, they're making all these copies.

By the time you get to the 1500 and 1600 AD, persecution lets up, and so people decided to collect the Bible copies together from all over the world, and compare them, and put them into English. Now keep in mind some of these copies of the Bible have not seen each other in 1,000 years. There might have been people in France that were copying the Bible, and people in Africa copying the Bible, and people in China copying the Bible. And you can only use a book so long, and it wears out. I've got I don't know how many absolutely worn-out Bibles, ok; I think I have probably five or six, that I have just flat; they're shot, ok. A book that is in active use is going to have a limited life. Let's just pick a number, and say, if you were really careful with your scrolls; I mean treat them very carefully; you might make a scroll last 300 years and still use it every day; just for illustration. So in 300 years, your original is worn out. It's trash. It's junk. You throw it away, because you now have 800 copies of this thing, or certainly a large number of copies. Then you take those copies and make copies. And after maybe a thousand years, you might be on your fourth or fifth generation from the original, but that's perfectly fine. That doesn't matter as long as the copying process was accurate. And a good way to check that copying process and see was it accurate, is; after each of these, you know, the French ones, and the German ones, and the English ones, and the Chinese ones; each go five generations. Now get the fifth generation copies, compare them all and see how accurate they are. And that's what happened in the 1500s and 1600s. They got all these scrolls together. They found 5,000 copies of the Bible that survived the persecution, and they were identical in everything except spelling. People's names, like Peter and Pedro, stuff like that had changed. So they said: “Man, God truly preserved His Word. This is it! This is word for word exactly. He preserved it.”

 
Go back Historical (2): Scripture edited

Alexandrian cult (250 AD):  So, meanwhile, down in Egypt. There was a group of folks, a sort of like Jehovah's Witnesses. I've got the Jehovah's Witness Bible here. They were a cult..., they came to be known as the Alexandrians. The Alexandrians did not believe in the deity of Christ. They didn't believe in the bodily resurrection. They didn't believe in a lot of Christian things; kind of like Jehovah's Witnesses today. So they made their own copy of the Bible, changing things they didn't like. They made about 6,000 changes. The primary guy in this cult was named Origen. He was the leader of this cult in late second and third century. The only mention of Alexandrians in the Bible is when they were disputing with Stephen (Acts 6:9); arguing with the real Christians. If you trust the principle of first-mention, which I think is very important, then that'll be important to you. Wow, the only mention of these folks is bad. And so anything out of Alexandria anything out of Egypt period, in the Bible, seems to be bad, you know. But Origen started this, he was the primary guy in this cult.

Alexandrian Bible, surviving copies (ca. AD 325-400):  They made copies of their Bible also, with their changes in it. And some of them survived. In 350 AD, several copies were made, and three of those still survive today.

  • One was found in the Vatican library and is called Vaticanus.
  • One was found in Alexandria, Egypt, and it's called Alexandrus, in the Latin.
  • And one was found in the Sinai Peninsula in a monastery. There is this old monastery at the foot of this mountain that some princess said that's Mount Sinai. And it's not Mount Sinai by the way. But she said: “Oh, that's Mount Sinai.” - “Ok, yes ma'am.” And so they called it Mount Sinai. They still call it Mount Sinai. There's still a monastery there. It is not in Sinai Peninsula, it is in Arabia. Read Galatians 4 (v. 25). In this trashcan in this old monastery, this guy was visiting and said: “What's this? An old scroll.” They said: “Oh, we don't know, it has been in there for years,” you know. He pulled it out, it was a copy of the Bible; if you can call it that; from 350 AD. And so that one's called Sinaiticus.

Well, these three scrolls do not agree with each other on anything. Nor do they agree with the real Bible, ok. They are all different.

Vulgate translation (4th century):  The Catholic monks translated these three ancient scrolls into Latin, centuries ago and it became known as the Latin Vulgate. Vulgate for vulgar, which means the common language, ok. The Latin Vulgate was a really good translation of a bad book. Then the Catholics came along in 1582 and translated the Latin Vulgate into English with the Duay Confraternity, or the Duay Reams version of the Bible. And that was a really good translation of a bad book.

The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881):  Then two guys called Westcott and Hort came along. I've got their book here some place on the table. Westcott and Hort came along and they were going to make a new..., yeah, here we go: The Westcott & Hort ONLY Controversy. Little bitty booklet about..., if you want to study this, just $2.00 from our ministry. Westcott and Hort were two Greek scholars. I don't know if they were even Christian or not. They probably claimed that they were, like a lot of people do, ok. But they took these three old ancient manuscripts. They didn't agree with each other, but their thinking was, these are older, therefore they are better. Well, I'll go along with the older part. I'll agree there, but that doesn't mean they are better. But they synthesized them into one new Greek manuscript and sold it to the world in 1875 and said: “We have the oldest and best manuscripts available now for you to translate.” Yeah, they got the oldest one's alright. The oldest ones that survived, is all. That doesn't mean, better. Then people started taking that Westcott and Hort version, and translating it into English. The first one, done in 1881, is the Revised Version, then the American Standard, the Revised Standard, then the Jehovah's Witness Bible, the New World Translation, done in 1950. This was a good translation, a fairly good translation of a bad book.

Then came the New American Standard, the NIV, the Good News, the Amplified, and the Living Bible. All of those and I have a lot of them. Here's the New American Standard. I think the guys who are doing this are sincere, dedicated, highly intelligent, godly Christians, who are translating the wrong book. And don't even know it.

 
Go back Just 2 English Bibles: ‘King James’ vs ‘all the rest’

There are basically only two Bibles in the world, in the English. The ones translated from what is called the Majority Text, is the King James, of which there are now 64,000 manuscripts. At the time the King James's guys did it, they only had 5,000. And then there is the whole other family of Bibles, all translated from the Westcott and Hort. So you have two choices. The question is not: “Is it a good translation?” The question is: “What are they translating?,” ok. An excellent book about Westcott and Hort, if you want to read about that.

 
Go back Missing verses (1)

Here's, for instance, NIV Acts, chapter 8. Let's see, Adam, read verse 37 to me... Acts 8:37. You can't do it... It's not there! There is no Acts 8:37. They removed it, and they removed the number, ok. Now the New American Standard they at least put a footnote in. In Acts 8:37 it says: “See footnote.” But the verse is gone. Down at the bottom, it says: “Late manuscripts insert verse 37.” No, no, no, no. Guys, you've got it all wrong. Those supposed early manuscripts you're going on are the ones that took it out. It wasn't that the later guys inserted it, it's that the earlier guys took one out, that's all. There are over 200 verses totally missing from the NIV.

 
Go back Oldest available manuscript does not necessarily have to mean, better

There's a good book Understandable History of the Bible, Sam Gipp, great big book, excellent book. Really good on understanding the history of how we got our Bible. Or Gail Ripplinger's book In Awe of Thy Word. It's about 1200 pages and it's only like $15.00 or $18.00, or something. Really, really good one. There are many, many books that we offer on the King James controversy. If you want one that's toned down and kind of, you know, sweet, gentle and mild, this would be it, by Sam Gipp, The Answer Book. Excellent book on ‘Why King James?’ The Language of the King James; why did they use these old words, ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and stuff like that? Oh, there's a good reason for that. But the whole thinking that older is better is simply wrong. And how is Satan going to use these new versions, toward bringing in his New World Order? Well, this one, The New Age Bible Versions is excellent by Gail Riplinger, PhD in English. So older manuscript does not mean better. I've worn out many Bibles over my 37 years of being a Christian. Older doesn't mean better. So, there are more manuscripts of the Bible than any other old book. Homer's Iliad, for instance, only has about 650 manuscripts. In 1946, they found 24,000 more manuscripts. Then the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered. And now they have 64,000 manuscripts that support the King James. And 3 complete manuscripts and 46 fragments that support the Alexandrian. Then the Isaiah scroll found with the Dead Sea scrolls was actually a 1,000 years older than the other manuscripts. So there are plenty of good books available on that. There are all kinds of things we could talk about on the problems with the other versions.

 
Go back Missing verses (2) and changes in text

Like II Samuel 21. Who killed Goliath? Who killed Goliath? David killed Goliath. II Samuel 21 says: “Elhanan the son of uh... his dad, slew the brother of Goliath.” NIV says: “Elhanan the son of the same guy killed Goliath.” This is an error, ok. It's wrong. They blew it. They left out verses, and we could scan through some of these. All these verses were left out. There's a list on the website www.avpublications.com of verses that are left out. Two hundred verses are simply gone.
[examples of omissions of verses, from seminar slides]

And those that are still in there, many times are changed to something totally different. For instance:
[further examples of changes in text, from seminar slides]

  • Hosea 11: “Judah yet ruleth with God.” NIV: “Judah is unruly against God.” Would you say that is saying the same thing? “Judah is also unruly against God?” That is not saying the same thing.
  • “Thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth,” Genesis 27. That's one of the blessings. “Your dwelling shall be away from earth's richness.” “Away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling.” They're saying the opposite, folks. It's not the same.
 
  • Proverbs 18: “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.” If you want to have a lot of friends, then be friendly. NIV: “A man of many companions may come to ruin.” Are these saying the same thing? Am I missing something here? If you've got a lot of friends, you'll be ruined? That's what it says. That's not at all correct.
  • The Bible says in Matthew 7 that: “...strait is the gate, and narrow the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it.” Revised Standard (RSV) says: “The gate is narrow and the way is hard.” Well, is it hard to go to heaven or just not many do it?
 

 
Go back King James: The ‘thee's’ and the ‘thou's’...

Some complain that the King James uses the ‘thee's’ and the ‘thou's’, and there's a reason for that, and then we'll go on to another subject here. If a word starts with ‘y’, it is plural. ‘Ye’, ‘your’, etc., ok. If it starts with a ‘t’, it is singular. And that is an important reason. Nobody in 1611 was walking down the street and saying: “How art thou today?” They weren't using that. But the King James translators wisely chose to use the ‘thee's’ and the ‘thou's’ because of the distinction.

If I walk into a room and say: “You come with me,” does that mean one of you or all of you. You can't tell. But if you use ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, you can tell. You can see John 3:7, very clearly. Jesus said to Nicodemus (John 3:7): “Marvel not that I said unto thee (singular), Ye must be born again.” He changed it to a plural. I'm telling you that everybody must be born again. That's a really important distinction. Otherwise, He'd be saying: “Nicodemus, I'm telling you that you have got to be born again.” Well, how does that apply to Kent Hovind? It wouldn't apply.

The fact is, it is very precise in the King James. So, we can talk all day about that and we'll cover more about that in our College Class. I think the whole concept you need to get in your head is, God promised He would preserve His Word, so where is it? I would like to hold a copy of it. And after 30 some years, I was slowly dragged, kicking and screaming into the King James camp. God preserved His Word in English, and we've got it.

 
Go back Creation according to King James (1): ‘from the beginning’ or ‘ages past’...?

A couple of verses really attract my attention because of my speaking on creation all the time. Ephesians 3 in verse 9, King James says: “...to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” There are two important phrases here. It says “...from the beginning of the world...” That's a definite time. He “created things by Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1 (v. 15-16) says the same thing. Jesus created all things. Jesus is God in the flesh.
[various more examples of changes relating to the creation, from seminar slides]

Well, a lot of these new Bible versions come from the Alexandrians, and they did not believe Jesus was God in the flesh. And bookstores, of course, want to sell lots of Bibles. The love of money is root of all evil and they don't want to offend anybody. So let's sell a Bible version that doesn't offend people. So look what they did with Ephesians 3:9: “Which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things.” Well, they left off Jesus. You don't want to offend people, and they made it “ages past” instead of from the beginning. Nearly all the new Bible versions have changed it to say ages, ages, ages. And they leave off Jesus in every case, except for the New King James. They left Jesus in there, but they still call it ages past. That's the only one I could find that left Jesus in there. But they all changed it to “ages.” They don't want to get this definite six-day, you know, young earth creationist idea, because they might offend people, and again lose money.

 
Go back Creation according to King James (2): ‘the first day’ or ‘one day’...?

Oh, we could spend hours on the different problems with these verses. The last one that bothers me is; Is it The first day in Genesis 1:5 or is it one day? Every version that I found says “one day” except for King James, which says “the first day.” Why would they change it to “one day”? Well, again they're trying to allow for the long periods of time, and I don't understand how somebody can read Genesis 1:5 and still believe there is a gap between verse one and two of any amount of time; more than an hour. The first day. It couldn't be more clear in my mind.

Go to index

 
Biblical topics

Back to Main Index About Bible codes...

A question that I get asked just about every week as I travel: “Well, what about the Bible codes? Is it true that there is a hidden code in the Bible in the Hebrew?” Well, there are all kinds of books that have been written about the Bible code question, and we'll cover those in a second, but let me give you the basic concept. Grant Jeffries has just a great chapter, just one chapter, in his book called The Signature of God about this topic the Bible codes.

Here's the concept; if you take the Hebrew language and only the Hebrew and only the King James backed Hebrew, by the way. And you put it in the computer with every single letter in a continuous string of letters, you can make like an acrostic. And by skipping letters, you end up with finding other words hidden in there. For instance in every 13 letters in Deuteronomy, chapter 10, spells out ‘In the bitter sea of Auschwitz’, the famous concentration camp for Adolf Hitler. Every 22 letters spelled out ‘Hitler’. Other phrases found in this passage were all kinds of things dealing with Adolf Hitler. How can that be? Not just in the text, but in the skipping of the letters.

Are there hidden messages in the Bible? Well, I'm going to say this, I don't know, but I think so. I wouldn't be dogmatic on this. Chuck Missler, a good friend of mine, has a lot of stuff on this. He's got a great book called The Cosmic Codes, if you want to read about that. You say, who's Chuck Missler? Well, he worked for years as a cryptologist, doing code work for the government, for many years, ok. He's in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. But he's got some good stuff on the Bible codes. You can get his website www.khouse.org, good stuff on Bible codes. These are some of the things found just in Deuteronomy and Numbers about Hitler. In skipping the letters, you find ‘Hitler’, ‘Auschwitz’, ‘Holocaust’, ‘The Holocaust’, ‘Crematorium’, ‘In Poland’, ‘Plagues’, ‘The Fuhrer’, ‘Eichmann’, ‘King of the Nazis’, ‘Genocide’, ‘Auschwitz’, ‘Germany’, ‘Hitler’, ‘Mein Kampf’. I mean, it may be just a little more than coincidence that these things are hidden in there. There must be a reason for that. If you count in Proverbs chapter 30, every 22nd letter spells out Jesus. There must be something to it. Clear back in the 16th century long before they had computers, one rabbi said: “The secrets of the Torah are revealed in the skipping of the letters.”

Here's an example of how it can work. “Rips explained that each code is a case of adding every fourth letter to form a word.” R e a d... “Read the code.” You skip every 4 letters. There's a hidden message inside this sentence. That's what Bible codes is all about. Is there a hidden message inside the Bible in addition to the message you're reading? Is there something else in there? Well, I don't know.

  • But in the Book of Genesis, if you skip every 49 letters, you can spell out ‘Torah’. Interesting, 49, seven sevens.
  • If you go to the book of Exodus and skip every 49 letters, you spell out Torah again. Which is the Hebrew, Old Testament, you know, for God's Word; the Torah, ok. Every 49 letters.
  • If you go to the book of Numbers and skip every 49 letters, you spell out Torah backwards.
  • And if you go to Deuteronomy and skip every 49 letters, you spell out Torah backwards.

Oh, wait a minute, Genesis and Exodus spell it forward. Leviticus doesn't have it. Numbers and Deuteronomy spell it backwards. They're both pointing back to Leviticus. Leviticus, every 7th letter spells ‘YHVH’, Jehovah, Yahweh. Could it be, you know, that Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy are all pointing to the Lord? I mean, maybe that's just a pure coincidence, but I think the mathematical possibility of that is real close to zero. It's almost like there must have been something to it. The Torah always points to God.

 
Back to Main Index About who created God...

Anyway, “Who created God?” Every week I get some atheist or skeptic call in to my radio program or come to my seminar and say: “Hey, Hovind, you said the earth is 6,000 years old, and God created the world. Then who created God?” I say: “Well, your question assumes that God needed to be created. Actually, your question assumes two things. That God needed to be created, and that God is locked in time like we are. Both of those are faulty assumptions.” If God is infinite and outside of time, then He didn't need to be created, He just is. Now the fact that my brain and your brain won't hold that doesn't matter, but it is the way God reveals Himself.

Here's Discover magazine: “What happened, what existed before the Big Bang?” So in Genesis 1 (v. 1), it says: “In the beginning...” Well, what was before that? I'm going to have to say: “Nothing.” There was no time before that. The question of where did God come from, or what did God do before the creation, assumes that God is sitting around locked into time like we are, and He has to wait for things to happen. No, He doesn't. He's not stuck in time. We are stuck in time. But both views, creation and evolution assume a beginning of some kind, ok. You have to have a beginning. Even the evolutionist will say: “Nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear but also space and time.” Now they know full well, and it's exactly correct that you have to have time, space, and matter, come into existence simultaneously. See, if you had matter but had no space, where would you put it? If you had space and matter, but you had no time, then when would you put it? You got to have time, space and matter, a continuum. If you had length and width but no depth, you have nothing. It only exists in the imagination, ok. God says: “He inhabits eternity,” in Isaiah (57:15). Deuteronomy (33:27) says: “He's the eternal God.” Isaiah (45:22) says: “I am God. There is none else,” ok, “I am the almighty God.” (Gen. 17:1) Well, if He is the almighty God, then He is not controlled by time, space or matter. He is right now in tomorrow.

 
Go back Trinities

In Genesis 1 has an amazing trinity of trinities: “In the beginning...,” that's time, which has three dimensions by the way; past, present, future, “...God created the heaven...,” which is space, which has three dimensions; length, breadth, height, “...and the earth,” which is matter, which has three dimensions; solid, liquid, gas. A trinity of trinities in just in 10 words. He says He did it. Ok, all I can do is believe that.

Now Revelation 10 (v. 6) says someday “...there shall be time no longer.” At the end, it's over. There's no more time. And we got some beautiful songs. Amy, your husband plays the guitar and banjo, and we sing all these great songs in church, you know, “When we've been there 10,000 years...” Well, that's a wonderful song, and I love it, but it's not true. We're not going to be there 10,000 years. We are going to be there. Time, space, matter must be created simultaneously. God says: “He did it.”

So the question: “What did God do before the creation?” is an invalid question. He is outside of time, space, matter; totally outside of it. Nearly 200 times in the Bible, God says,“ I am.” He is present. You see, right now it is not 2005, soon to be 2006 in a couple days. In heaven, there is no time there. No time at all. He is outside of time, space, and matter. Jesus said: “I am.” (Ps. 46:10) He is claiming to be God, it's all through the Bible. “Before Abraham was, I am.” They were going to stone him, when He said that one. Because they knew He was claiming to be God. “I am the Door.” “I am the Vine.” “I am the Light of the World.” “I am the Good Shepherd.” Over and over, they knew He was claiming to be God, and they didn't like Him for it. Well, you know why He was claiming to be God? Because He was.

 
Back to Main Index About the authors of Genesis...

Next question: “Who wrote the book of Genesis, anyway?” Here we've got a Bible claiming to be written by God. And we say, well, we know men wrote the Bible. Oh come on, God didn't write the Bible. And who wrote Genesis? Well, this really is a fascinating question. Who wrote that book of Genesis? The skeptics for years, like Dr. Pruet. I've debated him four times now. University US Florida. He's a Genesis scholar. He believes that four different authors wrote Genesis. This is what the Germans, higher critics, started teaching about 160 years ago. They said: “Well, if you read Genesis, there are four different authors. You can tell by the different style of writing.” And they call it J, E, P, D for Yawest, Eloist, Priestly and Deuterist. And they're actually partially correct. There are different styles of writing in Genesis.

If you look at Genesis chapter 1 “God created the heaven and the earth.” “God said...” “God saw...” “God divided...” “God said...” “God called...” 31 times it uses the word ‘God’. When you go to chapter 2, starting with verse 4, there's a change. It says “Lord God...,” “Lord God...,” “Lord God...,” “Lord God...” all through chapter two. It's using a different name for God, a totally different style of writing. People that study Hebrew said: “Wow, it's a new person writing this.” Correct. So, who wrote Genesis anyway?

 
Go back Moses wrote: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy

Well, the book of Mark chapter 12 (v. 26) tells us: “In the book of Moses...,” it talks about, you know, how God said to Abraham certain things. That is obviously referring to Exodus. So here, the New Testament is telling us that Moses wrote Exodus. In Deuteronomy it says, if a man dies and has no children, the brother marries the wife and the first child gets the inheritance of the dead father, to make sure property doesn't get scrambled up. That was the law they had, ok. Well, if you read in Luke (20:28): “Moses wrote ...raise up seed to your brother.” So here Luke is telling us pretty obviously that Moses wrote Deuteronomy. With a little searching through Scripture, you could prove conclusively that Moses wrote these books; Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. No question. It never mentions Moses as the author of Genesis.

 
Go back What about Genesis?

So who wrote Genesis? Actually, Moses was the editor of Genesis. He collected it, but there were 10 different eyewitness accounts in Genesis. Adam actually wrote part of Genesis. The way to tell where it breaks off; 10 different times in the book of Genesis, you will find the phrase: “These are the generations of.” (Gen. 3:4) That's the switching phrase where a new author now is taking over.

  • Apparently God wrote the first chapter. There's no way anybody else would have known those things.
  • But chapter 2, Adam was there for chapter 2. And Adam wrote chapter 2, 3, and 4. In chapter 5, he switches off.

Now keep in mind, Moses edited Genesis from 10 eyewitness accounts. He probably had them written on clay tablets, we would assume, preserved as a pottery record. You write it on the clay, bake it in the sun, and it lasts a lot longer than a book lasts. And Noah would have taken some of these on the Ark with him. The first few chapters in a little box with clay tablets, carried on the Ark. The fact that other people wrote down their accounts, before Moses got around to doing it, does not mean they got it right. And the skeptics will say: “Well, the Sumerian legend was written before Moses even lived,” that's correct. And they'll say: “See, that proves that Moses was copying from them.” No. If you got 10 people or 20 that witness an event, and they all go home and they're gonna write their story about what they saw, the first one to publish his story does not necessarily have it right. The fact that somebody published first does not mean they got it right. Genesis 5 (v. 1) says: “This ...the generations of Adam.” Adam right there is signing off, probably again clay tablets makes a permanent record, lasts for millennia.

  • Chapter 6 (v. 9): “These are the generations of Noah.” Noah is signing off right there. He wrote actually chapter 5 and part of chapter 6.
  • In chapter 10, verse 1: “...these are the generations of the sons of Noah.” Noah's sons wrote part. They wrote some.
  • And then Shem wrote some more after that (Gen. 11:10). Shem apparently was interested in keeping track of where all the grandkids were leaving to. And Genesis chapter 10 is called the ‘Table of Nations’ and it goes through 75 different original nationalities. And he kept track of all of them. “Oh yeah, my Uncle Herman had three kids and these are his kids. And that's where they went.”

My oldest brother is very interested in family trees. He went over to Norway to study the Hovind family tree, you know. And you find all kinds of people hanging from their neck... in the family tree. Some people are just interested in genealogies, alright. There are people that spend their lives trying to trace back, like the movie Roots, you know. “Where did my ancestors come from?” Well, apparently, Shem was the guy of the three sons who was interested or God led him to do it, whatever. But he kept the records in Genesis 10, it's called ‘The Table of Nations’. It's kind of boring to read. But it just tells all of the sons and what happened to them, ok.

  • Chapter 11 (v. 27): “...these are the generations of Terah.”
  • Chapter 25 (v. 12): “...these are the generations of Ishmael.”
  • “...these are the generations of Isaac.” (Gen. 25:19)
  • “Generations of Esau.” (Gen. 36:1) When you read through chapter 36 of Genesis, you read it and say is these dukes of Edom, you know, the dukes of ‘Hazard’, and all these dukes in here, you know. What's all these dukes doing in here in chapter 36. Well, the guy who wrote that chapter was interested in that, and God wanted it preserved in His Word. But it's very interesting no dates were given for these guys and how old they were when their sons were born. The only ones that get the dates mentioned of how old they were when their son was born are those in direct line to the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Nobody else matters apparently, ok. It's true they were there and they were , you know, good people, and they loved the Lord, but they don't matter.
  • Jacob wrote part of it. (Gen. 37:2)

Ten times in Genesis you see the phrase: “These are the generations of...” There is a great footnote in Henry Morris's Defender's Bible. I've got one around here somewhere. When we sell the Defender's Bible, we mentioned that earlier; “this claim is right,” and “here I disagree with some things”; but it's really good. And his article about the ‘Toledoth’ it's called. Toledoth is fascinating about the Genesis authors, you know, 10 different authors of Genesis. So the skeptics are partly right. There are different authors. And it's always wise to listen to your skeptics, you know. If an atheist comes up and tells you have bad breath. Well, they might be right, ok. Now, if they say, you know, you are wrong about the Bible, oh then they're wrong, ok. But Genesis, 10 different authors, fascinating story, all eyewitnesses, which makes it even better. Of course, God could have written it yesterday and gotten it right, ok. He could inspire somebody tomorrow to write it and get it perfectly correct. Not a problem. He can preserve His Word. But the fact that it was done through 10 different eyewitnesses to me kinda adds even more credibility about this.

 
Back to Main Index About the light that was befóre the sun...

A question I get again just about every week is: “How did they have days before the sun?” Guys like Hugh Ross say: “Well, maybe the first three days were different, because they didn't have the sun. So they might be billions of years long,” they think. Well, He made the plants on day three, so I doubt that's billions of years waiting for the sun to come up, ok. But how did they have light before the sun? In Genesis 1:3: “God said, Let there be light.” This is the Hebrew word ‘or’. There are two different words in Hebrew for light. We have one word in English. I would say that is a light, and it produces light. We only have one word, but it means two different things. We know by the context what we're talking about. I'm talking about “turn on the light” or “light up the room.” One is the substance of whatever light is, and the second one is the source of the light. “God called the light day” and it happened “the first day.” (Gen. 1:5) Well apparently, God, in Genesis 1, energized this universe with His voice. He spoke, and the electromagnetic spectrum was created. All the energy waves permeated everything. There's another word used in verse 14 for light giver. It's the Hebrew word ‘maor’. “Let there be lights in the firmament.” The ‘maor’, that's the source of the light as opposed to just the light. So God made them for lights, that's the ‘maor’ to give light upon the earth. The greater light to rule the day, that's the ‘maor’, verse 16. “The Lord is my light..., Psalm 27 (v. 1). That's ‘or’ not ‘maor’, ok. He is the light, not just the source of the light. He is the light itself, ok.

 

In the New Testament, they use the Greek word ‘phos’, like we have the word phosphorous or phosphorescent. “God is light,” radiance, alright. (I John 1:5) “When I consider the heavens... the stars” God made. (Psalm 8:3) The Bible says: “the stars sang together.” (Job 38:7) And there's a long conversation you can get into about the energy from starlight and from sunlight, may be even has music involved with it, besides just light it might also have music. In Revelation 21 it says, they “had no need of the sun..., because God is the light thereof, ...the Lamb is the light thereof.” The first 13 verses of the Bible, there is no sun, but they have light. The last 26 verses of the Bible, there is no sun, but they still have light. (Rev. 22:5)

 

So, it would not be correct to say you have to have the sun in order to have a day. The one spin of the earth in relation to anything is a day. Our earth turns once every 24 hours. And we start our day at midnight when the sun's not even out. If the sun disappeared tomorrow, how long would our days be? 24 hours. But not for long, because we would all die. But they would still be 24 hours; we just wouldn't know about it, ok. We wouldn't be here. I think God created the sun later in the creation week purposefully, so His children would know don't worship it. Worship Him, not the sun. Many ancient cultures worshipped the sun. You can go down to Mexico and see all the little sun symbols every place, in all the gift stores, you know. Some people have it hanging on their wall.

 

Sunday, comes from..., of course all the days of the week have been named after pagan holidays. Saturday for Saturn's-day, Monday for Moon-day, Thursday* for Thor's-day, all of them have pagan origin. The names of the days of our week, ok.
[* Corrected: He says on the seminar actually Tuesday here, Tuesday comes van Tiw's-day deriving from Týr, the Norwegian god of war and law. Wednesday from Wodan's-day. Friday from Freja's-day.]

 
Back to Main Index About the location of the garden of Eden...

“Where was the garden of Eden?” The Bible says: “God put a garden eastward in Eden.” So where was this beautiful garden? It says in Genesis 2 (v. 10): “...a river went out of Eden,” parted into “four heads” and one of them was named “Euphrates.” And people say: “Aha, in Baghdad, there's a river called Euphrates, so that proves the garden of Eden was in Baghdad.” No. Anybody who studies this can tell you the garden of Eden was in Pensacola, Florida... I mean, quite obviously. I don't think there is any possible way to know where it was, ok. The flood ruined everything. There's a city called New York, named after York, England. There's a city in Ontario called London, Ontario. I preached there. Guess what it's named after? London, England. When people came over from Europe to the New World, they said: “Oh, wow, that looks like the old country. Let's call it the same name.” That's all it is. Noah gets off the ark. They have been floating around for a year. They have no clue where they are. Then they see a river. “That reminds me of the river in the garden of Eden. Let's call that one Euphrates,” ok. You have got to pick new names. It's a whole new world. You can pick any name you want. The garden of Eden is probably under 500 feet of mud or sand in Pensacola, Florida... I don't think there is any possible way to tell. Now, Gilbert Vincent, a good friend of mine, he is convinced the garden of Eden is Jerusalem. And he gives some pretty convincing evidence for that, that that's where it was; that's the center of God's attention. I don't know. I don't know how you could know such a thing. But the world was totally destroyed by that flood. Everything was wiped out. No possible way to know where the garden of Eden was.

 
Back to Main Index About dead and living things...

The Bible says, nothing died before Adam sinned. Man brought death into the world. And guys like Hugh Ross will say: “Well hé, Didn't Adam eat plants? Don't plants die?” Well, that assumes plants were alive, ok. Look at Genesis 1:11: “...God said, Let the earth bring forth the grass, the herb ...the fruit trees... And so the earth brought forth grass, herbs, and trees... on the third day.” Plants are made on day three; the sun is made on day four, verse 14. Are the plants alive? Verse 20, and “the moving creature that has life was ...created ...on the fifth day.” Now He just told us that on the third day He made grass, plants and tree. And He made the moving creature that has life on the fifth day. Is that implying that the plants don't have life? If the things that have life are made on day five, then maybe the plants don't have life in the Biblical sense. Living creatures were made on day five. Genesis 1:24: “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.” Living creatures made on days five and six apparently. Genesis 1:29 God said: “I have given you herb bearing seed, every beast of the earth shall eat the green herbs.” He says everything wherein there is life, I have given green herbs. It looks to me like there is a distinction here. Things that are green and herbs and vegetables don't have life, because the living things are supposed to eat them, alright. “Cain brought the fruit of the ground. ...Abel brought the firstlings of his flock. And God did not respect the fruit of the ground.” (Gen. 4:3-5) It doesn't have life. “You can't get blood out of a turnip,” is the expression. It's got to have life, got to have life and blood, and death, to please God. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.

 
Go back The breath of life

Genesis 6 (v. 17) God said: “And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.”“Every living thing of all flesh ...shalt thou take into the ark, ...the fowls, ...the critters, etc... And take unto thee of all food that is eaten.” (v. 19-21) Again, is there a distinction here? Living things get in the ark and the food, which would obviously be the plants. I think there is a distinction, ok. “The beasts ...the cattle ...the creeping thing ...the fowls ...wherein is the breath of life.” (Gen. 7:14-15) The Bible talks about the breath of life in the animals.

 

“All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one of man, one of beasts, and another of birds.” (I Cor. 15:39) Different kinds of flesh. He says in Genesis 9 (v. 1-4): “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb...” In Genesis 9 He says now you can eat things that live and move, whereas before you could eat the green herbs. Again, I see a distinction. Living plants are not alive in the Biblical sense. “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” Leviticus (17:10-12) tells us. “The life of the flesh is the blood thereof.”

He says in Leviticus 17 (v. 15): “Ye shall not eat that which dieth of itself.” Well, if you can't eat that which dieth of itself, don't we wait eat the fruit and nuts until after they fall off of the tree? Would that be a violation? If they are alive, then they died, and fell off the tree, and then you ate it, you would have a problem. You couldn't let them fall off. You would actually have to eat them on the tree. Climb up the tree, try to eat the apple without breaking it loose, you know. Otherwise, you'd violate this Scripture. The Bible talks about the “tree of life, which bare 12 manner of fruits.” (Rev. 22:2) The fruit can give you life, but the fruit itself, I don't think, is alive. The Bible says, leaves fade (Jer. 8:13), they wither (Ps. 1:3, 37:2) over and over in the Bible. It doesn't ever say they die. “The reeds and flags shall wither.” Isaiah 19 (v. 6) “The reeds shall wither.” Isaiah 40 (v. 24): “...and they shall wither.” All through the Bible, you see the leaves wither and they fade, they're not alive. Because they don't have breath; they don't have blood, they don't have a soul; they are not alive. A car can die, but it's not alive. The word ‘die’ is just a word we use. A computer can die. There's this blue screen of death. Paul, you get that once in a while. The computer died, ok. “Oh no, now what do I do?,” right. The wind can die down. A dream can die. But none of those things are alive. It's just an expression. A plant is a complex, self-replicating food source. It has no blood, no breath, no soul. They are not alive in the Biblical sense. So when Adam ate the fruit in the garden, he was not killing anything. Adam brought death into the world, but death did not include plant life.


Continued on Part 7f

   

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