Would you think that a grandmother with an advanced degree in interior decorating would write a book about biblical textual criticism? The sensational book, New Age Bible Versions, written by Gayle A. Riplinger, is all of that. It promises “an exhaustive documentation exposing the message, men and manuscripts moving mankind to the Antichrist’s one world religion.”
Exhaustive? Yes, in a manner of speaking–all 690 pages of the book. This book was written with the intent of defending the King James Translation of 1611. We enjoy the King James Version, use it in all our publications, read it publicly, study and preach from it, and will continue to do so. But our recommendation to our readers who have questions about Bible translations and manuscripts is to pass up New Age Bible Versions.
These are our reasons:
1. The book is sensationalist.
2. The book is irreverent, denigrating the written Word of God.
3. The book makes slanderous character attacks.
4. The author habitually misquotes her sources.
The Book is Sensational
More than a year ago, advertisements were sent to assembly elders across North America promoting Riplinger’s New Age Bible Versions. We received a gift copy of the black book with the red dragon on the cover, and with it, queries about the book.
In the newsletter, The Berean Call, brothers Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon have, in a gentlemanly way, warned their readers about the book. Other reviews of Riplinger’s book, which come from a more “reformed” persuasion, had their own pointed remarks assessing Riplinger’s conclusion that the five points of Calvinism “form a Satanic pentagram” (p. 231).
Most reviewers have focused on the more bizarre rhetoric, like Riplinger’s warning to “Watch out for the letter ‘s’–sin, Satan, Sodom, Saul (had to be changed to Paul). The added ‘s’ here is the hiss of the serpent” (p. 232). If she believes this, then what does she do with the words scripture, sacrifice, salvation, and servant?
Mrs. Riplinger also predicts when Christ will return. “Is it a coincidence that God closed the Old Testament canon 389 years before Christ’s first coming? And now, He gives us the 1611 KJV in these last days in the world’s universal language, 389 years before His second coming in the 6000th year” (p. 596).
With many of the reviewers, we share the alarm over the sensationalism and tone of the book, but also feel that the underlying theories that the book is based on are more dangerous than Riplinger’s writing style.
The Book Denigrates the Word of God
Gayle Riplinger, and Peter Ruckman before her, teach that other English translations done after the 1611 King James Version cannot be called the Word of God. In fact, these other “versions” are labeled as a Satanic conspiracy. Interestingly, Riplinger and Ruckman also attack the Septuagint in a similar manner. They teach that there was no Greek translation of the Old Testament (called the Septuagint, or LXX) at the time of the writing of the New Testament. On pages 537-8, she basically says that the Septuagint was a latter invention of Origen around the year 200 ad.
It is crucial to their argument that they discredit the Septuagint. Why? Because if it is a translation which is quoted as the Word of God in the New Testament, then this admission destroys their argument. They know that the Septuagint is not a strictly literal translation and, by their standards, could not be the Word of God. They know that the Septuagint contains some serious omissions. Yet the stubborn fact remains that the Septuagint is quoted as the Word of God, even by the Lord Jesus. Ruckman and Riplinger are unable to face the historical fact of the Septuagint.
The Book is Slanderous
Among the many that have reviewed the book, Roger Krynock of South Bend, Indiana, has done the most thorough work. He is concerned enough about the character of the book that he is writing a lengthy response, which is to be available soon in book form. In the first chapter, entitled, Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing? Krynock writes, “One of the ways that she [Mrs. Riplinger] has sought to ruin the trustworthiness of the new versions, particularly the NIV, the NASV, and Westcott’s 1881 Greek Testament (since these new English versions have followed the Westcott-Hort tradition of textual criticism) is to discredit the translators and editors of those versions. Abundant quotations are given throughout New Age Bible Versions in order to try to establish that new version translators and editors are wicked men, approaching their translating work with evil motives, guided by heretical doctrines.”
After rummaging through several seminary libraries, Krynock found many of the documents that Mrs. Riplinger quotes. Many of these volumes were printed before 1900, and are scarce. What he found was that the book, by and large, distorts the truth. In Riplinger’s treatment of B. F. Westcott, R. Laird Harris, Ronald Youngblood, Calvin Linton, Richard N. Longnecker, Herbert M. Wolf, and Edwin F. Palmer, who are new version editors and translators, over and over, carefully crafted quotations use phrases put together from different pages, and sometimes from different books. In this way, she makes these men say the opposite of what they actually said.
The Author Grossly Misquotes Her Sources
In the introduction to her book, Riplinger claims “The Greek text used to translate the NIV, NASB, and others was an edition drastically altered by a Spiritualist (one who seeks contact with the dead through seances), who believed he was in the “new age.” 1
This man is later identified: “New versions (and the ‘new’ church they are producing) owe their occult bend [sic] to their underlying Greek text, a novelty produced in the 1870’s by B.F. Westcott, a London Spiritualist. Secular historians and numerous occult books see him as ‘the Father’ of the current channeling phenomenon, a major source of the “doctrines of devils” driving the New Age movement”.2
Our purpose in the short space of this article is not to vindicate Westcott, or the many others who have been victimized by this book. Krynock’s book deals at length with Riplinger’s accusation that Westcott was a Spiritualist. On that point, Krynock concludes, “Such is a false characterization of the men! They were never ‘spiritualists’ in the sense of being psychics, mediums, or soothsayers. They were interested in spiritual realities. And they did believe in supernatural phenomena. But so should any Christian.”
Krynock concludes, “If Mrs. Riplinger actually read the context of the source that she has quoted to convince the reader that Westcott believed that he was part of the New Age conspiracy, then she is guilty of terrible misrepresentation. Her footnote (#64) refers the reader to Westcott’s book, Historic Faith (pp. 146-7).3 Historic Faith is subtitled Short Lectures on the Apostles’ Creed…In the chapter from which Riplinger quotes, Westcott is dealing in a thoroughly orthodox way with the subject of eternal life.
“Mrs. Riplinger claims to be a defender of the truth, concerned that the pure Word of God be preserved. Then she must know that at the heart of God’s ethical demand upon His people is this requirement: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’ (Ex. 20:16)”…”We are to ‘speak…the truth in love’ (Eph. 4:15), remembering that God’s ‘children of light’ are to walk bearing fruit in ‘all goodness, righteousness, and truth’ (Eph. 5:9), having their ‘loins girt about with truth’ (Eph. 6:14), keeping in mind that love ‘rejoiceth in the truth.’
“Are the charges against the men considered in the pages above in accord with Exodus 20:16 and the New Testament directive to speak the truth? Have their words been reported accurately, honestly? Have their views been represented truthfully? If they have, then Mrs. Riplinger’s case stands. But if not, then her work is discredited. As stated above, these few examples do not stand alone. They are representative of the the documentation all through the book. The errors that Mrs. Riplinger has made are not trivial mistakes. They are the most serious errors that a Christian can make against a fellow believer: to wrongly charge a fellow Christian with heresy and apostasy from the faith!”
–John A. Bjorlie
Endnotes:
1. G.A.Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions, p. 2
2. Ibid., p. 25
3. B.F. Westcott, historic Faith: Short Lectures on the Apostles’ Creed, Macmillan, 1983