Possessed

“A man or woman that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death.” Leviticus 20:27

G.W. Balfour, president of the Society for Psychical Research, characterized ‘a spiritualist’ or ‘channel’ as “a plurality of minds associated with a single organism.” 1 Luke 8:30 and Mark 5:9-15 characterize this as possession by a ‘legion’ of devils. Symptoms of possession are shown in the New Testament. These include:

1. Profession (Imitation)
2. Obsession
3. Regression
4. Depression (Deliration)

These four evidences of ‘influence’ by spirits are manifested In the lives of the ‘scribes’ under investigation.

1. Imitation: They may know and proclaim Christian doctrine.

[T]wo possessed with devils…[said,] Jesus, thou Son of God Matthew 8:28,29

[A] certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination… [said,] ‘These men are the servants of the most high God and shew unto us the way of salvation.’ Acts 16:16,17

[A] man with an unclean spirit …ran and worshipped him Mark 5:2-6

This ‘imitation’ profession is tenet number one of the Spiritualist Church. The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained lists their Beliefs as follows: 1. “[T]he redemptive power of Jesus Christ.” (This is true.) 2. “[T]he Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.” (This is false.) 3. “[T]he eternal progress open to every soul.” 2 (This is false.)

New version editor B.F. Westcott, described as a ‘Spiritualist’ by his son, echoes these ‘unclean spirits’ in his books.

1. The redemptive power of Jesus Christ. Historict Faith 2. The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Religious Thought in the West 3. “[T]he reality of the law of progress..and fellowship with the spiritual world.” 3 The Historic Faith “Progress available to souls after death.” Commentary on St. John’s Gospel These books were written before, during and after his tenure on the Bible Revision Committee. His Introduction to the Study of the Gospels was written the year he started the Ghostly Guild. 4 All of his books contain portions in which the language looks rather orthodox. At times it ‘looks’ like a sheep and ‘feels’ like a sheep. This jargon serves as the “sheep’s clothing” of the false prophets described by Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:15:16.

Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

The sheep’s clothing cannot camouflage the cry of the wolf. Acts 20:29 warns that “…grievous wolves enter in among you.” In order to get ‘in’ the sheepfold to attack the sheep, the clothing of ‘righteous” sheep is required to avoid detection.

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. II Corinthians 11:14,15

2. Obsession: A second manifestation of possession is a fixation with the dead. This was manifest in the demoniacs in Matthew 8:28 and Mark 5:2-17.

…there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs

…there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs…

Westcott’s Ghostly Guild and his writing with includes comments referring to “the dominion which the dead have over us,” as well as Phillip’s conversations with C.S. Lewis, “after his death” are symptomatic of an overall spiritual condition.

A peculiar phenomenon kept surfacing during my research into the life of these ‘scribes’. God apparently ‘cut off’ their power to speak.

3. Regression: A third symptom which accompanies spirit possession in the bible is the inability to speak. It is called a ‘dumb spirit’ in Mark 9:17, 25 and Matthew 9:32, 33, 12:22 15:30, 31. Those verses disclose the corresponding “frog” in the throat (Revelation 16:13) that accompanies unclean spirits of this kind.

[H]e was casting out a devil and it was dumb…when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake… Luke 11:14

The Living Bible: Taylor

The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. Psalms 12:3

The popular press has made note of author, Kenneth Taylor’s, loss of ability to talk. Time magazine, July 1972, states:

Mysteriously half way through the paraphrase Taylor lost his voice and still speaks in a hoarse whisper. A psychiatrist who examined him suggested that the voice failure was Taylor’s psychological self-punishment for tampering with what he believed to be the Word of God.

At least thirty million Living Bibles are in print, many now in the hands of children. Even the introduction to the Catholic edition warns: [T]his translation cannot be used as a basis for doctrinal or traditional disputes..People from various doctrinal ] traditions may..be chagrined at the particular translations found within this volume. 5

Even ‘new bible’ protagonist DA. Carson says, “ I distrust its Looseness and dislike its theological slanting of the evidence.” 6

New American Standard Version Let the lying lips be put to silence. Psalm 13:18

Also silenced was Phillip Schaff, collaborator on the ‘New’ Greek Committee and director of the American Standard Version, which formed the foundation of the New American Standard and The Living Bible. Paralleling Taylor’s pathology, Schaff’s son finds the same ‘frog’ in Phillip Schaff’s throat. Evan as early as 1854, the warning was given, “his voice so affected that he could not speak in public so as to be heard.”

Finally by 1892…

The power of articulated speech gone. 7

A friend corresponds to Schaff, “It is with great sorrow that I have learned of the affliction which has befallen you.” This malady hollowed his activity with Westcott and Hort on the RV committee and his American Standard Version. Still in 1893 his pathoses “deprived him of the power of speech.” 8

‘New’ Greek Text: Tregelles

Schaff himself writes of S.P. Tregelles, author of a ‘New’ Greek Text which preceded and strongly influenced the Westcott and Hort revision. Of Tregelles Schaff writes, he was “scarcely able to speak audibly.” 9

Westcott and Hort Greek Text:

(RV, NRSV, NIV, NASB, CEV, New Century Version, Good News for Modern Man, Jehovah’s Witness bible, The Book, The Everyday Bible, All Catholic bibles et al.)

Westcott’s biographer cites that in 1858 “he was quite inaudible” 10 and by 1870 “His voice reached few and was understood by still fewer.” 11

The New Testament in Modern English: J.B. Phillips [T]he forward tongue shall be cut out. Proverbs 10:31

J.B. Phillips tells in his own autobiography, “I was still doing a fair measure of speaking in schools and churches until the late summer of 1961. And then quite suddenly my speaking, writing and communication powers stopped. I was not in a panic but I was certainly alarmed, and when in a few weeks rest brought no improvement I cancelled all speaking engagements for the rest of the year (age 55). The Price of Success, the title of his autobiography, is apropos. 12

The speechless sphinx syndrome can even happen to a believer, as it did to Zacharias, because “…thou believest not my words” (Luke 1:20).

What has thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee. Psalm 50:16-20

4. Deliration: Another symptom of possession or harassment by evil spirits is inanity or mental illness. Matthew 17:15-18 records:

[H]e is a lunatick..And Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him. [Mark 9:17 adds that this was a ‘dumb spirit’ also.]

The ‘dumb spirit’ may plague its host with an accompanying ‘lunacy’. J.B. Phillips’ necromancy and the ‘dumb spirit’ it generated harassed Phillips with life-long bouts of insanity. (Yet author of the NIV Convordance and Interlinear Hebrew Text, John R. Kohlenberger, strongly endorses the J.B. Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English calling it, “Certainly the most respected and arguably the best translation of the New Testament…”13) His mental illness is chronicled in his autobiography, The Price of Success.

Is it scriptural to believe God took men like Westcott, Hort, Lightfoot and Phillips and catapulted them to the position of greatest influence over the body of Christ, that of Bible correctors? Scripture identifies them as God’s rejected, not as God’s chosen.

And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul and will CUT HIM OFF from among his people. Lev 20:6

The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and THE SCHOLAR. Mal. 2:12

***************************************************************** Footnotes

1 Society for Psychical Research, p. 38. 2 The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained, ed. Richard Cavendish(New York: McGraw Hill, 1974), p.48. 3 The Historic Faith, p. 96. 4 See also Life of Westcott, Vol. II, pp. 18-23, 114. 5 Words About the Word, p. 89. 6 King James Version Debate, p. 84. 7 David S. Schaff, The Life of Phillip Schaff(New York: Charles Scribner’s Son’s, 1987), pp. 171, 446. 8 Ibid., p. 492. 9 Ibid., p. 246. 10 Life of Westcott, Vol.I, p. 198. 11 Ibid., p. 272. 12 J.B. Phillips, The Price of Success(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), see pp. 163-196. 13 Words About the Word, p. 100. This section is not meant to imply that all nutism or mental illness is caused by ‘spirits’; many have a psysiological, biochemical or nutritional base.

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