BBB:Origen and Bob Jones University  by Peter Ruckman
   
For many, many years Bob Jones University has been recommending the 
New American Standard Version as the most accurate of the modern 
Alexandrian texts, coming from the text of Nestle's 1890 (which now 
contains more than seven hundred reversals of texts).  This New ASV 
(supposedly a very right-wing type of publication) is basically a 
Jehovah's Witnesses Bible which teaches that Jesus Christ was a 
created God (John 1:18).  Notwithstanding this obvious heretical 
reading, Bob Jones published a pamphlet by the head of their Bible 
department, named Stewart Custer, called naively "The Truth about the 
KJV Controversy." In it not only was the NASV text justified by Iying 
about manuscript evidence and family classifications, but Origen was 
put into an Orthodox position where you could hardly question him as 
an heretic.
   
Since the head of the Bible department at Bob Jones doesn't know 
whether he's standing right side up or upside down ever since a 
butterfly kicked him in the head, we thought the 1936 edition of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica might give a little light on the "Bible" at 
Bob Jones they can't get from "the original Greek." In the 
Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol.  XVI, pp.  900-902), we read that Origen 
taught the Lord Jesus Christ was "a created being who did not have 
eternal existence as God." This explains why Origen approved of the 
reading of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the NASV in John 1:18 that says 
Jesus Christ was a "begotten God." That is, he was not the eternal 
God, but a God begotten separately.  If you read John 1:18 in the NASV 
you'll find there are two Gods in the verse; exactly as you'll find 
them in the New World Translation, the official Bible of the Jehovah's 
Witnesses.  This is Origen's "orthodoxy." At no place could you find 
this better represented than in an NASV, unless it would be an old 
ASV.  For in the old ASV in the margin of John 9:38 we find that Jesus 
Christ is presented not as the "begotten God" at all or even "God 
manifest in the flesh," but as a "creature." Look at the marginal note 
on John 9:38 in any edition of an ASV.  This is the Arian heresy of 
Origen, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus as promoted in the translations 
recommended by the Bible department at Bob Jones University.  Don't be 
upset.  Don't be shocked.  Don't worry about Ruckman's "name calling." 
And for goodness sake, don't worry about anybody being "slandered" or 
somebody "misrepresenting their position." Those alibis are used by 
Karl Keating and the Knights of Columbus.  A Fundamentalist has no 
business whining like that just because he has been caught by the 
truth.