19. Seventh-day Adventists have their own version of the Bible (The Clear Word), including one that contains Ellen White quotations printed in it.


Answer: The cover and title page of J. J. Blanco's The Clear Word clearly identify his work as "an expanded paraphrase of the Bible." It is published in the author's name, not the name of the church. The first sentence of the preface reads, "This is not a new translation but an interpretive paraphrase of the Scriptures." Seventh-day Adventists have never produced their own version of the Bible. In her lifetime, Ellen White made use of the various translations available.


The Ellen G. White Study Bible brings together relevant statements of commentary from Ellen White while preserving a format that maintains the rightful distinction between her words and the Scriptural text (as do the wide variety of study Bibles prepared by other commentators available in Christian book stores).

First of all, for a book to be a Bible it must be authoritative. Neither Elder Blanco sees his book as authoritive. The church does not build it's theology on the Clear Word. And I am free to dissagree with what the Clear Word says, a freedom that I exercise often.

Bibles such as the KJV, New American Standard, Good News, New International, the Anchor, we do indeed see as authoritive. We can argue over the bias of the translation or the interpatations given to the text, but we can not simply dissagree with something that it says and not be in trouble. These translations and other translations are indeed THE Bible and fully authoritive. As I said, we can not dissagree with the text itself, only the specific way the text was translated or applied. We are not bouned the same way to the clear word.

If someone says "The Bible Says..." and quotes any of these other translations, I do have to take what is said seriously. If someone says "The Clear Word says" I can (and often do) say "So What"

Also, have you ever been to church and the pastor reads some words of scripture, makes some comments on it, moves on to the next text, that is what Blanco does in the clear word (except that he does not even quote a text but paraphrases them). The clear word is no more than a typical sermon that happens to be printed and very long.

Another thing that the critics say about the clear word is that it brings in Mrs. White's ideas to try to make them part of the scripture. Now yes, he does indeed bring in a lot of what Mrs. White wrote (and by the way, using her writings in a way that she told us not to do.) But Mrs. White is only one source of ideas for comment. The comments and expansions also come from his own reaearch, and from comments from his students that he liked. He does not distinquish between Mrs. White's comments, his own research and comments from students, thus he does not give her any other weight in his comments than he does to the ideas of a student. When we read his expansions we have no idea which one of these three sources we are reading.

Some SDAs act like the SDA Chruch has it's own Bible--The Clear Word.

We have discussed this mistake before. The Clear Word Bible - and indeed it was promoted by the SDA church, and is publically advertized TODAY on Amazon.Com under that name -

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/det...=books&n=507846

has been a huge PR disaster for the SDA church. It was printed, endosed, and advertised by the SDA organization with the word BIBLE right on the cover.

http://millennium.fortunecity.com/lincoln/666/clearwordbible/clear-word.htm

http://www.watchman.org/reltop/clearwordbible.htm

The SDA church should publically acknowlege this mistake, not try to pretend it was right all along.

It is not a paraphrase. It is not a translation. It does not make things clear. Instead it takes clear Bible verses and incorrectly states them to support SDA doctrine.

For instance - see the stories of the Egyptian magicians turning rods into snakes, and Saul visiting the witch of Endor.

/Bevin

I few people who do not like it is far from A PR nightmare for the Church. This was published, distributed and promoted by the author until he agree to have the RH distribute it.

Many Adventist have many version of the Bible, and many 'types' of Bibles.

If you think that Dale Ratzlaff is a credible source of truth, then GWB has some weapons of mass destruction in Iraq he will sell you.

hehehe

I think that many of these theological "inconsistencies" do come from individual views of SDA members that are being interpreted as a view of the entire church.

I know many people who take CWB as the best "translation" of the Bible, as for them "it makes things really clear". It does drive me nuts as how much extra Biblical stuff that CWB plugs in to justify a position, so the word Bible IS misleading IMO. Yet, I don't see it being promoted by the church TODAY. And today is what we have to look at when we examine our beliefs.

Since the post in 2005, the Clear Word Bible is now called "The Clear Word" dropping the word "Bible" from the title. You can see this at Amazon:

"The Clear Word" at Amazon

Although Amazon still lists this item as "The Clear Word Bible" in the title of the book even though the cover has the words "The Clear Word" printed on its cover.

That was removed, in my opinion, to appease other jealous theologians.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck... then.....