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| Herman Otten got into the Bible business with the AAT, or Beck Bible, which has the same errors as the NIV - such as the true ending of Mark being doubted. Like all those who set aside the KJV, Otten promoted Objective Justification - not Justification by Faith, the Chief Article. |
I ignored daily or hourly Christianbook.com emails, and even tried to stop and block them. However, they had a sale on KJVs with a big discount and no shipping. $8 each. With 11 point fonts, they are easy to read. They are not as gigantic as the ones with the Very Large fonts, but also not limited by Lilliputian size and the need for a battery-powered magnifying glass that lights up tiny store and prescription labels.
Notice that the Little Three Bible Paraphrases (ESV, RSV, NIV) are cheaply made and often higher priced. Bibles are business. The new ones have to pay rebates to the store (illegal but made honest with "shelf rental" fees). Your ESV-RSV-NIV Bible may generate higher fees, a great incentive to feature boy, girl, teen, newly-wed, mother, combat soldier versions.
Let me illustrate with one teeny-tiny selling book bought by a writer. He finds out that 250 copies will cost as much from the printer as 500 copies or even 1000 copies. He may order 5,000 copies, as Cascione did, and rue the day. Once free copies are given away, 4,967 copies are left to sell. The individual writer has a big bill and no place left in the house for storage.
But the Bible seller will always have good sales and can remainder the leftovers, like the NIV Las Vegas edition. I should be in marketing.
I look at a Bible at the WM and see a bit of money for paper and ink, everything else in that book as profit. That is also why synods bring out new, worse hymnals - because volume sales cancel the original cost and becomes pure profit. "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow." That is a hymn too - not just a slogan at ELCA-WELS-LCMS publishing headquarters.
Why do they cooperate on everything but hymnals? "Benjies" is the answer. It is all about the Benjamin Franklins.
They Blinded Me with Greenbacks!
Old Man Jeske had to publish an article on the blatant errors in the "classic" NIV. I remember him going over that in his Old Testament class. He also enjoyed his trip to Israel. The students were impressed that he got to help on the NIV, but the list of helpers was longer than Paul Kelm's gimmicks. I wondered if he had any influence, especially when looking those little errors in the old NIV, which only grew worse in the new ones. The NIV has more face-lifts than Celine Dione, and with worse results, too. The same is true for the red National Council of Churches' ESV and RSV.
The ESV is a little more Calvinist than the RSV, though I wonder how much more damage can be done to either paraphrase. The superior attitude broached - "I use the ESV, not the NIV" - is more like comparing road kill for supper. Don't gag - I know a WELS pastor who bragged about saving money that way.
No matter what the Bible bucks do to seduce the synods and pastors, the KJV still has the best text (Majority, Traditional, Byzantine, Stephanus, Ecclesiastical) while the rest keep making changes to call their snip, clip, copy and paste jigsaw puzzles "the earliest, best, most scientific" - so perfect that they change their Greek text annually. And what do they have? The Nestle-Aland-UBS is almost the same as the Westcott-Hort and the fraudulent Westcott-Hort has been exposed as a bunch of text theories easily refuted.
