Son of Deceased Apostate Textual "Scholar" Hails Father as Ecumenical Pioneer Who Greatly Contributed to Worldwide "Church Unity"

In a tribute to his father that appeared in the Volume XXVII Number 1 issue (2007) issue of The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, his son John M. Metzger hailed his father as an ecumenical pioneer. Metzger wrote: "One aspect of Dad’s scholarly work that has sometimes not been sufficiently recognized or appreciated is that his work has brought Christian believers together and has encouraged unity and understanding within the ecumenical church at a fundamental Biblical level…"

"By 1967, however, in a review of the Jerusalem Bible, Dad wrote that ‘during the past generation the differences between the results of Protestant and Roman Catholic Biblical scholarship have been reduced almost to the vanishing point…

Indeed, Dad’s biblical scholarship has significantly advanced the ecumenical movement, for example, in May 1973, when he and several others presented a specially bound copy of the Collins RSV ‘Common’ Bible to Pope Paul VI…When these additional texts were published on May 19, 1977, in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, with the Apocrypha, it could at last be said that ‘Now for the first time since the Reformation, one edition of the Bible had received the blessings of leaders of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches alike.’"

"Dad’s high-level ecumenical contacts continued when, in Advent 1991, he and several others presented a Roman Catholic Edition…of the New Revised Standard Version [NRSV] in white calf to Pope John Paul II, who expressed his appreciation that such an edition was now available. Dad’s efforts in developing a single edition of the scriptures that is acceptable to all major branches of Christianity is truly a major contribution to church unity."

Ed: Despite his supposed evangelical beliefs, Metzger was a blatant apostate. The writer has beside him a copy of The Oxford Annotated Bible, RSV edition of which Metzger was a co-editor. In this volume, Metzger boldly denied the verbal inspiration of Scripture calling the Pentateuch a "matrix of myth, legend and history." (p. xxi) The book of Job was portrayed as an "ancient folktale" (p. 613), while Jonah was declared to a "didactic narrative" that was taken from "popular legend." (p. 1120)

In a chapter at the book’s conclusion entitled "How to Read the Bible with Understanding," Metzger stated on p. 1513: "The opening chapters of the O. T. deal with human origin. They are not to be read as history." Metzger also believed that the KJV had "grave defects" (Preface, p. ix) and that it "was based on a text that was marred by mistakes (Ibid, p. xii)."

Metzger also served as editor of the New Revised Standard Version [NRSV]. Speaking about Christ’s humanity in Luke 2:33, the NRSV blasphemously states that "the child’s [Jesus] father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him." The above article conclusively proves that there is a decisive link between the ecumenical movement and unreliable modern Bible translations!

In the Aug. 2007 issue of the Plains Baptist Challenger, E. L. Bynum penned an incisive article entitled "On the Fence" in which he asserted that middle-of-the road compromisers were straddling the fences on numerous vital religious issues including Biblical preservation.

In his article Bynum vigorously defended God’s preservation of His Holy Scriptures, declaring that in II Peter 1:19-21 "Peter said ‘WE HAVE a more sure word,’ and he did not say ‘we once had.’ He spoke in the present tense, yet much of the Bible was more than 1,500 years old and they did not have the original manuscripts in his day.

In the previous verses Peter is telling us about his wonderful experience on the mount of transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-8). However, he now tells us that the Bible is a more sure word of prophecy. On the mount, Peter had an experience, but in the Bible he had a divinely inspired, God-breathed revelation from God.

Some will say, ‘yes, we believe that, but we don’t have the original manuscripts.’ If that is the test, then no one, living or dead, had on this earth an infallible, inspired Bible. No man ever had all the original manuscripts. According to this theory, they were all polluted and contained errors the first time they were copied or translated.

Why would God give an inspired and infallible book, if it would only be available for the immediate writer and the few that might be able to read it? You may serve that kind of God, but I do not. The proposition is simple, either God gave His perfect word and kept it pure, or we have no Bible today.

If our Bible today is filled with errors as the modern translators tell us [Ed: That’s what Bruce Metzger alleged!], then we have no dependable Bible in the first place. If that be so, we are as bad off as the modernists who believe that a lot of the Bible is the ideas of man. Brother, get off the fence and stand for the total trustworthiness of our KJV Bible." To E. L. Bynum’s statement, the F.D. editor adds a hearty "amen."