Everybody forgets Fred

Pack, Flurry, Meredith, Thiel, even Weinland. The narcissistic sect leaders we all so love to comment on and critique. If this was a soap opera, these would be the stars. Stringing along would be the leaders on a leash; Kubik and Frank (it's a shorter list) under the "also starring" label. Everyone else is relegated to an occasional "guest appearance". I suspect David Hulme is looking at a complete contract cancellation.

But trotting alongside patiently, often barely noticed, is Fred Coulter. Fred parted ways from the mother-ship shortly after Ted jumped into the shark-infested waters in 1978. Prior to that he was a California-based pastor, produced his own self-published Harmony of the Gospels and occasionally hosted a call-in radio show. Fair to say that, even then, he was a bit outside the usual ministerial stereotype. Perhaps he jumped before he was pushed. Fred established the Biblical Church of God (BCG) and produced a magazine called Bible Answers.

Alas, Fred had a Spanky moment (or more accurately, in later years Spanky was to have a Fred moment). Problems arose. The peasants were revolting. People were getting ideas above their station. Fred relaunched with the Christian Biblical Church of God (CBCG)... leaving the stroppy underlings out of the picture.

While Fred doesn't have a lot of profile, it isn't through lack of effort. In some parts of the world (New Zealand is one of them) the faithful followers of Fred are batting in the big league (the big league here being any COG sect with a mailing address and a minister).

It seems to me that Fred isn't to be counted among the more abusive COG leaders, which may be why he flies under the radar as much as he does. Listening to his sermons is an acquired taste - he makes Rod Meredith sound simply riveting by comparison. Don't believe me? Try his 1 hour 20 minute ramble on Brexit.

CBCG has recently held an Elders' Conference. Counting spouses, kids and curious members, over 150 are said to have turned up at the Hilton Cincinnati Airport Hotel. Actual elders? 17, including Lyall Johnston from New Zealand. Other registered attendees? 7.

(Lyall is an interesting chap. I knew his parents and brother's family in Invercargill many years ago. Genuinely nice people. Lyall returned here several years ago in the wake of WCG's dissolution and - please correct me if I'm wrong - attempted to get credentialed as a mainline minister. He apparently took on the job with Fred after the Stephen Gough fiasco and an initial transfer of leadership to son Chris Gough.)

Being a sprat in the fishpond doesn't stop Fred from thinking big. Some years ago he translated the New Testament into a kind of updated King James Version (A Faithful Version). No mean feat. How many COG translations other than Fred's can you think of? The Old Testament followed, but as I understand it he just bought an existing translation then edited it to fit his agenda, tweaked the proof texts (Hebrew isn't on his CV), then bunged it on the front of his New Testament. Full page ads in the BAR followed lauding the excellencies of this Bible, though he had to scrape pretty deep to find any favourable reviews to quote.

Speaking of the Bible, hallelujah, there's an app. The Fred Bible on your Android or Apple device. I needed to have a lie down and slowly sip a cup of weak tea just to bring my excitement under control. Sadly, I have too many thirsty apps on my phone as it is, so I guess I'll give this one a miss.

Fred apes Greg

Church at home. It reminds me of the cartoon where the kid, about to be dragged off for services, asks "if I can be home schooled, how come I can't be home churched?"

Greg Albrecht has made this a speciality with PTM. Not a particularly successful speciality, judging from the "I'm eating beans" begging letter he sent out last year, but he gets a B minus for effort.

Now along comes dour old Fred Coulter, staring down the barrel of the camera and practising his humorless speech techniques. Yes folks, welcome to churchathome.com. Here you can view the Grate One (nope, that's not a typo) preening for the camera. None of this limp-wristed five minute stuff, Fred certainly couldn't restrict himself to that. Here you get a near thirty-minute monologue, chock full of Fred's rambling, ill-tempered pontifications. British-Israelism, law-keeping, the deception of "born again" and promos for Fred's very own "translation" of the Bible (a mere $119 - quite the bargain!) Are we all excited? Unless I'm much mistaken, Fred has spent a good deal of tithepayer moolah on this one, but making the team at Vild Productions ecstatically happy.

Fred left WCG shortly after Garner Ted Armstrong was booted, circa 1978. He initially founded the Biblical Church of God then, apparently after a spat, walked off to found the Christian Biblical Church of God. Listening to some of his stuff on the new website it's apparent that he hasn't learned much since. Frankly, you're probably better off with Greg.

Fred's Historical Landmark, Part 3

Actually, I don't think the possibilities in Coulter's BAR ad could be exhausted even if this series extended to the lengths of War & Peace, but there certainly would be a danger we'd all end up as bored out of our minds as if we'd had to listen to one of Fred's interminably redundant sermons, so let's try and tie up the loose ends.

(1) The book that inspired it all, Ernie Martin's Restoring the Original Bible, is online. Coulter talks up Martin's reputation:

"Before his death in January 2002, Dr. Ernest L. Martin was recognized as one of the leading scholars and authorities of the canonical study of the Bible."

In reality Martin's doctorate was an unaccredited AC one, with the same validity as Meredith's, Hoeh's or Garner Ted Armstrong's. While a much-liked figure with a strong following among disillusioned WCG members, Martin had little clout in academia.

Martin's arguments on canonical order enabled him to pull this rabbit out of the hat. Impressed?

(2) No mention in the BAR ad of Fred himself, the glorious author/scholar/translator. For all the wide-eyed BAR reader knows, this translation has been prepared by a committee of scholars instead of one guy who pastors a series of living room congregations. Why so coy?

(3) What's the issue with the Stephens Greek text? Stephens (or Stephanus), whose proper name was Robert Estienne, was a printer in Paris. Among his claims to fame was to be the first to break the Bible text into bite-sized chicken McNuggets - the verse system we use today. Stephanus collaborated on the Greek text with the gifted Catholic scholar Erasmus, an achievement which became known (misleadingly) as the Textus Receptus. Erasmus himself recognized that the manuscripts available to him were defective, but he did the best with what he had. Better manuscripts have meant better Greek texts. Fred is nearly 500 years out of date, Masoretic red herrings not withstanding.

(4) As for an inspired or original order for the New Testament, Fred is out on a limb. His arrangement can't be justified chronologically (the first off the block may well have been Paul with 1 Thessalonians), or the earliest list of canonical books (the Muratorian canon.) Fred continues to bravely defend the primacy of Matthew's gospel, but he's spitting into the wind of Markan priority. The general epistles initially appeared together, for example, because they were obviously distinct from Paul's (and others wrongly attributed to Paul.) Anything particularly original and inspired in that?

But there's a more basic point. To restore an original order requires that there be an original order to restore. Sadly for Fred, there is no evidence that the early church produced its own triple-bound codex with handcrafted lambskin cover and gold lettering, or anything remotely resembling it. It isn't till the fourth century that complete NT manuscripts turn up. That's 300 years of Christianity without a New Testament - in any order.

Of course that doesn't stop Fred from arguing long and monotonously for his arrangement. Even if he's not very convincing, it's not a big deal... unless Fred himself makes it a big deal, which he does.

(5) A final aside. Also following Doc Martin's vision is James Tabor. This is a project that possibly predates Fred's efforts, and is still a long way off seeing the light of day. Tabor's Transparent English Bible will pack a lot more credibility than Fred's, assuming it ever gets into print (a PDF sample is available here.) I'm not sure whether Tabor intends to use the same NT arrangement, but if so one can only hope that the publicity doesn't overextend into the kind of wild claims Fred obviously relishes (the name "Original Bible Project" may indicate otherwise.)

Fred's Historical Landmark, Part 2

Fred Coulter's effort at Bible translation is at the very least different from most other offerings. Fred picked up his knowledge of Greek at Ambassador College (under the "private tutelage" of Charles Dorothy), and his views on the canon - in large part - from an AC professor, the larger-than-life figure of Ernest L. Martin. In putting together his New Testament "in its original order" he follows the views of Martin in his book Restoring the Original Bible. Strangely enough, in his bibliography to the New Testament edition (2003), Fred forgets to even mention Restoring the Original Bible, though he refers to it within his lengthy introductory chapters.

Where did Fred learn Hebrew? Well, apparently he didn't. Fred can correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand he bought somebody else's revision of the KJV Old Testament, fiddled around with the text a bit, then bunged it together with his 2003 New Testament to produce a complete 66 book edition.

Around the time Fred left WCG he tried out his translation skills by producing a paraphrased Harmony of the Gospels in modern English. To be honest, it was probably a good deal better than the stilted KJV-like third edition which has replaced it.

So what do the reviewers think? The BAR ad addresses this issue:

Reviewer Dan Becker of Bible Editions and Versions (June 2005) writes of this Faithful Version of the New Testament: "It [is] an excellent translation for those desiring a literal one."

And so he did, but if memory serves me, he also compared it to a telephone directory. In fact, the review as a whole could be said to have damned with faint praise. Has anybody else - a recognized journal in the field of Biblical studies for example (or even the BAR) - positively reviewed Fred's magum opus? Apparently not.

Fred translated the NT from what he regards as the most accurate Greek text, the Stephens of - wait for it - 1550! Fred is entitled to his opinion of course, but he'd be hard pressed to find a genuine scholar to agree with him. Stephens is probably the worst choice imaginable. More on this in part 3.

Then there's the issue of original order. The Old Testament isn't an issue: Fred apparently follows the order of the Hebrew Bible as set out in Jewish translations. That's not only legitimate, but perhaps even commendable, though it's stretching credulity to make the kind of grandiose claims about it that he does. There are two ancient traditions, one of which the church adopted (following the precedent of the Septuagint), the other of which the synagogue adopted, both of which have a respectable pedigree.

But what about the claim regarding the New Testament? Here's Fred's shuffled index:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts (no change, though there probably should be!)
James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude (Fred is kidding, right?)
Romans, 1 Cor., 2 Cor., Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thes., 2 Thes., Hebrews, 1 Tim., 2 Tim., Titus, Philemon (Fred is one of the last translators to imagine that Paul wrote Hebrews)
Revelation

With all due respect to the labors of Doc Martin, this is completely out of kilter with reality. More on this later.

A copy of the Fred Bible could set you back $150, but Fred will sell you a copy direct - a special low price for BAR readers - for $89.95 plus postage and packing.

Funnily enough, you can get the same "low" price from Amazon.

To be continued.

Fred's Historical Landmark, Part 1

I opened the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review to discover that I had missed a "historical landmark in Bible publishing."

According to a full page ad in the Jan/Feb issue, this new Bible is extraordinary and unique... "the only complete Bible ever published - with both Old and New Testaments - that accurately follows the original canonical manuscript order..."

The bold type and hyperbole may give you a clue.

"It is a widely unknown fact that the original manuscript order of both the Old and New Testament books was altered by early church fathers."

A widely unknown fact?

"[The Bible's] books were mysteriously repositioned from their original order by fourth-century "editors." '

Oh really?

If you haven't guessed it already, we're talking about the Fred Coulter Bible which Fred is pitching at the BAR readership. Fred is, in case you've just tuned in to the wacky world of COGdom, a schismatic minister of the Worldwide Church of God who left in the late seventies.

The ad - on page 5, if you want to check it out for yourself - raises a whole truckload of issues. There's the ghost of Ernest L. Martin to contend with, a parallel project by James Tabor to produce a "Transparent English" version, and an awful lot of nonsense that needs shoveling onto the nearest compost heap.

Stay tuned.

A COG Bible?

One of the scariest things I've heard of in recent days is Fred Coulter's plans to produce a “translation” of the whole Bible. Coulter, as you probably know, abandoned the ministry of the WCG in the late 70s to establish the Biblical Church of God which swiftly sank without trace. Fred then founded the Christian Biblical Church of God.

Fred's telephone directory-sized New Testament is already with us, it came out a couple of years ago, built around the text of his revised Harmony of the Gospels (to his credit, Fred at least knows how to read Greek, based on his time at AC.) His “Faithful Version” reads like a slightly updated and rather dull KJV, nothing like the first edition of his Harmony which was then in contemporary English (he's since moved to adopt a severely literal translation approach.) Most notable in his New Testament are the copious and rambling essays and explanations that have blown out the book to 880 pages. By my estimate at least 50% is made up of commentary. A hardback copy of Fred's Faithful New Testament (full title: The New Testament in its Original Order: A Faithful Version with Commentary) will set you back around $50 on Amazon, exclusive of postage.

Individual translators, as opposed to committees, have often produced colorful and stirring versions. James Moffatt, J.B. Phillips, Eugene Peterson (The Message) and John Henson (Good As New) spring to mind (Fred wastes 3 ½ pages attacking Henson in his NT preface, and 2 more attacking Peterson, but Fred simply isn't in this league.) What is remarkable though is his reliance on a corrupt Greek text - “the Stephens text of 1550” (which, of course, he passionately defends at tedious length as the most accurate!) The Stephens in question is “Stephanus” (Robert Etienne), a French printer who produced a revision of Erasmus' Greek text. This is part of the "Textus Receptus" tradition out of which the KJV came. But there are problems.

“No translation can be better than the text on which it is based... those were the days before the art of serious textual criticism had begun. They were able to use only those manuscripts that had been available to Erasmus (which he recognized to be defective) and to the Parisian printer Stephanus... These manuscripts were mostly of the Byzantine (or Koine) family of texts, which subsequent research has demonstrated to be amongst the least trustworthy.” (Robinson, The Thoughtful Guide to the Bible, 2004, p. 269-270.)

“When the AV/KJV was translated, the oldest and best Greek manuscripts had not then been discovered. The earliest used by Erasmus for his 1516 edition of the Greek NT dates back no further than the tenth century.” (Dewey, Which Bible? A Guide to English Translations, 2004, p. 195.)

Now Fred is “doing” the Old Testament. But wait, does Fred actually know any Hebrew? Not that I'm aware of.

The strategy seems to be to revise an already obscure translation called the Modern King James Version to produce an even more obscure one. Fred has paid out $20,000 for this privilege (courtesy, one assumes, of his tithe-paying supporters.) Troublesome verses are being duly “COGified”, so Genesis 1:1-2 will now read “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth became without form and void...” The inspired marginal notations are migrating into the text itself!

In essence this doesn't seem much different from Joseph Smith's rewrite of the KJV to produce the “Inspired Version” (still published, last I heard, by Herald House in Independence, MO.)

Fred has also decided to structure his Bible version “in its original order.” Original order? Certainly there's precedent for reordering the books of the Bible, but this one (which owes a good deal to Ernest Martin) has little to recommend it.

There is the consolation of knowing that the Coulter Bible, when it arrives, will be little noticed, as with his existing – and widely ignored – New Testament. This is largely because no other COG is about to give a rival the satisfaction of citing his Bible version in their own publications. Unless you are a collector of uncommon or abstruse Bibles, you may want to give this one a miss.

In their lifetimes

Fred Coulter certainly has a way with words. For those unfamiliar with the more obscure byways of COG Christianity, Fred is a former WCG minister who went out independently in the late 70s. He is a self-styled scholar, has produced his own New Testament translation, and runs his very own niche COGlet.

Here's a recent slice of Coulter text that took my eye in a full page ad appearing in the latest issue of The Journal: "Did You Know... The Apostles wrote the Gospels in their lifetimes?"

Profound, huh! I mean, if the apostles (was Mark an apostle? was Luke?) indeed wrote the Gospels that bear their names, then they would have to have written in their own lifetimes... wouldn't they? Or have I missed something?

Of course there is always posthumous publication, but I'm guessing that the actual writing usually occurs before the coffin is lowered into the grave... unless Fred is a secret devotee of psychic channelling (but that seems unlikely.)

What Fred seems to be maintaining is that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke... but you get the picture. While that seems logical, there are a few pesky facts to take into account.

The Gospels circulated a long time before agreement was reached on who actually wrote them. Nowhere in these documents is there a direct statement of authorship (Hi, I'm John the apostle), and the titles ("Gospel according to...") were added later. Even the author of Luke, who tells his readers up-front that he's writing to Theophilus, keeps his identity to himself. The ascriptions we have are part tradition and part guesswork. Maybe they got it right, maybe not. For example, many early Christians were convinced that John's Gospel was the work of a heretic called Cerinthus. What is certain is that Paul's letters (the seven genuine ones) predate the Gospels, that Mark is the earliest of the four, and that the author of John was a different person to the disciple of that name (though he may have been used as a source).

In trying to defend the truth of the Bible it's all too easy to think the issue is the truth about the Bible rather than the truth which the Bible points to. To get hung up on the former is bibliolatry, and leads to ridiculous claims which in turn undermine the credibility of the Christian message.

But I'm sure Fred will disagree with that... and probably in his own lifetime.