IMAGERY IN THE ORIGINAL 1611 HOLY BIBLE...Beauty or Blasphemy? THE HOLY BIBLE'S "replacement killers" have struck again. Led by David Bay of Cutting Edge Ministries, accusations about the KJV pour forth like lava from a live and deadly volcano. Dennis Palmu's new book, Cutting Edge Lodged In The Groves, brings illustrations, rare documents, and the water of life to quench the critic’s eruptions.
If you hold to the King James Bible, as the English scriptures, you will love having this book, with its beautiful reproductions of the original 1611 engravings! The illustrations which decorate the 1611 King James Version act, with a few minor exceptions, as signposts to draw attention to the beauty of the text. In today's image-based culture, this benefit needs to be embraced and appreciated, not falsely attacked.
You will learn little-known information about the godly King, James I and the grasping Sir Francis Bacon.
You will rejoice in the meaning of the 1611 King James Bible's title page images, and in their harmony with the text.
You will explore, from rare books, the origins and meaning of illustrations which appeared in the 1611 KJV.
You will learn about the art of printing at the turn of the 17th century, and the difficulties and pressures faced by the King's printer, Robert Barker, in producing the first folio edition of the 1611 KJV.
Bay’s accusations lean heavily upon undependable occult authors, a dangerous starting point.
Bay’s obsession with occultism and its symbols has totally blinded him to tapestries of truth and beauty ─ painstakingly crafted by skilled artisans throughout early King James Version printings. For example, Bay pretends the husband and wife ‘hand-holding’ on the early KJV genealogy page are Masonic handshakes ─ holy matrimony debased to Masonic pair bonding!
Bay’s ignorance of social history, the printing industry, the English emblem tradition, and early English Bibles has led to his easily proven wrong, bizarre and outlandish claims about Francis Bacon, King James I, and the 1611 King James Bible. Dr. James Sightler’s Endorsement
I am very happy to endorse Dennis Palmu’s new book, Cutting Edge Lodged In The Groves. Mr. Palmu has spent years of time and treasure collecting books and studying the history of attempts to revise the KJV. He has clearly shown the folly of the Calvinist writer David Bay, aided by former Cutting Edge Ministries pastor Ron Riffe, in the five-part series of articles misnamed "Defending the King James Version". These articles, posted on the Cutting Edge website in May 2006, claim that the KJV title page and text are contaminated by Rosicrucian symbolism, supposedly put there by Francis Bacon. This faulty premise has in turn birthed a four-part series of DVDs on the founding of America, supposedly Bacon's New Atlantis. As Mr. Palmu clearly documents, the title page of the 1611 KJV shows not Rosicrucian symbols but Biblical truths grasped by the KJV translators who had been led to that truth by the Holy Ghost, and that there is no proof that Francis Bacon ever had the opportunity to tamper with anything in the KJV.
As an alternative to the KJV, Bay and his followers have put forward the Amplified Bible. After 70 years we have descended from the Amplified Bible to Eugene Peterson’s mistranslation called The Message. Why should we now retrace the same garden path down which we have been led by those who falsely claim to believe plenary verbal inspiration and a literal hermeneutic? Mr. Palmu’s book will clearly show the error of this misinformation from David Bay, misinformation which actually is a deliberate attack on the Scripture we have had in our hands since 1611.
James H. Sightler, M.D. Sightler Publications Greer, SC 3-20-07 FORWARD by Gail Riplinger BECAUSE God’s enemies cannot find real fault with the King James Bible, they have now had to stoop to the ridiculous to try to discredit the Holy Bible. A recent web site is guilty of hard-drive hit and run, swerving recklessly around the truth of history. With a corrupt Amplified Bible on board, David Bay speeds past the facts, with stones cast at the inconsequential art work that was used to decorate a few pages of the original King James Bible in 1611. How is that for straining at a gnat and swallowing an amplified camel, full of hot desert air? Dennis Palmu’s book, Cutting Edge Lodged In The Groves, is the only one with the key information to arrest Mr. Bay’s recklessness. In a day when thousands of researchers grope their microscopes in hope of finding cures for life-threatening diseases or search the skies for another star, few “search the scriptures” and library stacks to defend the book that can give eternal life and a home beyond the stars. Thank God for one such researcher, my friend, Mr. Palmu. He spares no expense, seeks no personal gain, and leaves no book unread in his relentless battle to reveal truth to those who have no time or resources for such an undertaking. He loves the word of God so much that he has purchased thousands and thousands of dollars worth of rare and expensive books to document the facts in his meticulously researched new book. What a gift he has given to the body of Christ! A picture, symbol or emblem says little. Its perceived meaning is subjective and a projection of the thoughts and experiences of the viewer. Mr. Palmu proves, from the Holy Bible and from rare books, that the art work in the early KJV is representative of scriptural symbolism, in the main. Mr. Bay sees filth in these pictures. Hmmmm. “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure…”(Titus 1:15). It seems clear that Mr. Bay is unfamiliar with the Holy Bible, yet all too familiar with occult literature. Observe the following simple examples: - Bible readers know that the Holy Ghost descended “like a dove” over Jesus Christ when he was baptized (John 1:32). Bay charges the King James Bible with having occult pictures, because its title page has a dove descending!
- Had Mr. Bay read the book of Zechariah, he would know that God uses the eye as a metaphor. Bay has only seen the devil’s occult counterfeit use of the eye.
- It gets stranger. Mr. Bay calls the early KJV’s depiction of the Hebrew name of God “pagan.” My new book, In Awe of Thy Word, citing the research John Gill in A Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-Points and Accents (1769) traces the Hebrew name of God, with vowels, back to the original.
- Mr. Bay sees the devil in a picture of a goat. Is he unfamiliar with the sin offering of a goat in Leviticus?
- Bay accuses the King James Bible of changing verse numbers from his beloved Geneva Bible (Calvinist?!). The KJV did not change the verse numbers; the Geneva Bible did. The Bishop’s Bible and other early English Holy Bibles match the KJV. I have all of these old Holy Bibles which I checked. I found him in grave error at every point.
Mr. Bay takes the fine books on symbolism by Texe Marrs and Cathy Burns, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, and turns them upside down. (I feel that I can knowledgeably comment on the topic of symbolism, since I have a Master of Fine Arts degree, a minor in art history (among others things) and was asked to teach a course on the migration of symbols at a large State University.) Bay is forgetting that Lucifer said, “I will be like the most high” (Isa. 14:12). The devil and his occult followers want to copy God and his Bible. Therefore they use some of the symbolism that God has depicted in his word. God had it first. Mr. Bay has shown that he is not a student of the Bible, nor is he an expert on the use of symbolism. He would do well to avoid both topics. Thank God for Dennis Palmu and his expose’ of Bay’s sad diatribe. Palmu’s book will lay to rest just one more of the devil’s weak assaults against the Holy Bible and for this we can all be grateful. Fellowservant, Gail Riplinger 2 Thes. 3:1
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