Author Archives: Dr. Peter Van Kleeck, Sr.

“How one interprets the Bible depends wholly on one’s a priori acceptance of the Scripture as God’s Word” (4). “The ‘house of the Lord’ [Ps. 27:4] has always been the best place to do theology” (26). “Like so many other things God allows in his providence, the ‘industrial grade’ bible exists for the Church to grow strongerContinue reading “Select quotes from the Introduction of “An Exegetical Grounding for a Standard Sacred Text””

That true holiness consists especially in the inward impressions and dispositions, which make a man meet for communion with God, and in the inclinations, and carriages of the soul towards God immediately, such as mere Moralists never knew. There’s a fountain and a root within, from which springs all that honesty, and integrity, and purityContinue reading “Thomas Ford, 1667, on True Holiness and Inspiration, the “finger of God””

The former part, Shewing the Rational Grounds upon which Protestants believe Scripture to be inspired of God, etc. Scripture is (as it calls itself) s Light, and therefore is best seen in ,and by, and of itself, though there be nothing else to show it. Hence it is, that when we have said as muchContinue reading “Thomas Ford, (1667), Scripture’s Self-Evidence: To prove its Excellence, Authority, and Certainty in itself”

Lutheran John Gerhard (1582-1637), regarded as the greatest living theologian of Protestant Germany, writes of the Scriptures, That the word itself has power to convert Gerhard finds an unambiguous doctrine of Scripture, for many texts speak of the word of God as life, light, saving power, and the like (Psalm 119: 109, John 5:39, 6:63,Continue reading “Lutheran John Gerhard (1582-1637) on “the word of God as life, light, saving power, and the like””

(C. G. De la Mothe , a Protestant exile from France, shows that personal utility or ecclesiastical usage was not grounds for Canonicity in the Early Church. The Contemporary Church would do well to follow the truth contained in Lamothe’s writings when approaching the current textual and version debate.) The third proof drawn from theContinue reading “Claude Groteste De la Mothe (1647-1713), 1694, on Inspiration Establishing Canonicity”

I just took David Daniell’s excellent biography of William Tyndale off the shelf. Found on page 316, listen to Tyndale’s words in the prologue of his 1534 English NT: “Here thou hast (most dear reader) the new testament or covenant made with us of God in Christ’s blood.”

The American Protestant Church is conspicuously neither fluent in Old Testament Hebrew or New Testament Greek and the principal reason for unperceived need for trilingualism is the faith and trust placed in the Authorized Version as the word of God in English. Since the Nation’s founding the Authorized Version has been the Bible of theContinue reading “The King James Version in Washington D.C.”

“Muslim scholarly criticism of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament never brought about a corresponding study of the Qur’an. When European biblical criticism was brought to the Muslim East in the nineteenth century, it served only as an additional corroboration of the traditional polemical arguments about the falsification and unreliability of the Hebrew Bible andContinue reading “The Negative Impact of Textual Criticism on the World Stage”

“The most effectual means of producing a uniformity in religion, upon any other plan than that of rational conviction, would be to deprive the common people of the use of the Bible, in their mother tongue; and oblige them to receive their religion from the dictates of their spiritual guides only. It was by thisContinue reading “Daniel Turner, 1793, and Freedom from Ecclesiastical Despotism and Effecting the Protestant Reformation by means of the Reformation Era English Bible in the Tyndale/King James Version tradition.”

The term “dictation” in modern parlance bears a wooden, narrow meaning not applicable to inspiration during the Reformation. Indeed, if ever a word suffered the ignominies of modern theological reconstruction, it is the word “dictation.” The word was in general use among the Reformers as common terminology describing the penmen’s role in writing under immediateContinue reading “Dictation and Inspiration”