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Did vpw claim to write The Scriptures?


WordWolf
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It amazes me that it's actually necessary to say some things that should be really obvious in a "the water was wet!" fashion.

So, we had victor paul wierwille, a plagiarist, a drunkard, a narcissist, a rapist, a simonist, a man who took on the job of "preacher" because it was easier than the other jobs he considered at the time, a man who, by his own admission, kept considering giving it up in his first year as preacher, a man who managed a lot of preaching by plagiarizing the works of other Christians, who "wrote" books composed of their writings and said "I wrote this", a man who found out there were young, impressionable, sincere Christians getting things done in the sexually-permissive Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, and went to recruit them while he tried to find out about orgies and possibly attend one,  a man who put his name on the works of others in twi,  and eventually claimed to have heard from God in 1942 with a Promise that kept changing and was STILL proven a lie even with the changing details. 

When he ripped off BG Leonard's class and JE Stiles' book, vpw taught the class and had others transcribe what he taught. 

It's been claimed that pfal itself was God-breathed-  which was easy to disprove by pfal's standards because pfal gave a standard for whether or not something was God-breathed or not-  and applied that to the Bible, known as "The Scriptures" in certain passages. 

 

Now, then, there was a separate claim as to whether or not vpw wrote The Scriptures.  Well, according to vpw's works, The Scriptures are God-breathed, and vpw's own works fall short of that. So, that shouldn't even be an issue more than 2 decades after that was shown.

A separate claim was whether or not vpw claimed he actually wrote The Scriptures.   Supposedly, this was based on what was written in the Orange Book on page 83.    Now, we all know that vpw's writings were NOT God-breathed- or we should know by now.  But did vpw actually CLAIM they were? 

Let's see what page 83 actually said.

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"The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or ideology.  This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures...." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination.  No, it says "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not all that Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed.

==============================

 

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All right, let's go over what it actually says.

"The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or ideology.  This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures...."

It should surprise nobody that pfal uses certain terms almost interchangeably. Here we see an example-  "The Bible" and "This Word of God" and "The Scriptures" were mentioned, in effect, interchangeably.  it's obvious that all refer to the exact same thing- that "The Scriptures" is the "Word of God" that was mentioned- "THIS" to refer specifically, and that's the same as "The Bible" in the preceding sentence.   That's just reading what's there, and not reading secret, occult messages into what's there.

""Search the scriptures...." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination.  No, it says "Search the scriptures..." "

Here we see "the scriptures" contrasted. On one side we have "the scriptures." On the other side, we have the writings of different people- the writings of "Shakespeare" "Kant" "Plato" "Aristotle"  "V.P. Wierwille"  "a denomination."   So, "the scriptures" are not any of those- not the writings of Kant/Plato/Aristotle/Wierwille/a denomination.    That's just reading what's there, and not reading secret, occult messages into what's there.

 

"No, it says "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. "

 

Again, the Scriptures- in contrast to the writings of Kant/Plato/Aristotle/Wierwille/a denomination-  is God-breathed, and that's ALL Scripture."  Again, just reading what's there.

 

"No, it says "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not all that Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed. "

 

We already knew that all Scripture was God-breathed, and was CONTRASTED with the writings of Kant/Plato/Aristotle/Wierwille/a denomination. Here we see the contrast AGAIN.

"Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not all that Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed."

Mike would have us believe that this sentence means vpw claimed that his own writings were at least PARTLY "God-breathed."  He says this not because vpw actually says "Some of my writings are God-breathed, and here's how you know...."  No. Here, instead, we got another example of what we were already seeing- contrast between God-breathed Scripture, and writings of Wierwille and a number of other sources.

The Scriptures are God-breathed.   That's contrasting with the writings of Wierwille, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Graham and Roberts.  The meaning is very easy to understand.  For people not straining for hidden. occult messages, this is all easy to follow. However, since there are one or two people wondering how that works, I will explain further...

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" The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or ideology.  This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures...." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination.  No, it says "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not all that Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed." 

=========================================

Ok, so we saw that the sensible, obvious understanding of the passage was to contrast The Bible/ Word of God/ Scripture with the writings of any man/Shakespeare/Kant/Plato/Aristotle/Wierwille/Calvin/Luther/Wesley/Graham/Roberts/a denomination,  since the Scriptures/The Bible/Word of God is God-breathed.  That's not difficult.

So, an entire secret message was constructed on the word "necessarily".   For the slow people in the audience, the question still remains- what would it mean for SOMETHING of the writings of Wierwille/Calvin/Luther/Wesley/Graham/Roberts to be God-breathed?

 

John 3:16. " For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." 

I just quoted a verse of Scripture/the Word of God/The Bible.  By vpw's own definition, that verse is God-breathed.  I wrote the verse down.  Not everything that WordWolf posts will necessarily be God-breathed, but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed.

 

It can be argued that quoting Scripture and teaching it correctly (the devil can quote Scripture and teach it deceptively) means that what one writes will be God-breathed.  If one is 100% accurate 100% of the time, than it would appear that almost everything one writes would be God-breathed- but that would still be no GUARANTEE.  There's no guarantee of any of us being 100% sure.  That's in contrast with the more sure words of Scripture.

==============================

A separate question is whether or not vpw was separate from the other authors he mentioned.  In the passage, he was not.  Perhaps in his imagination, he was- he certainly wanted us all to think he was superior to all the Christians he plagiarized while claiming their words were his own, and he may have thought himself superior to all of them,  and other times, he did lie like a rug.   But in this passage, he's not really separated from the others, although the phrasing is interesting for those who wish to track vpw's narcissism.

 

So, did vpw write any level of Scripture?  Not unless you count also Calvin, Luther, Wesley, etc.  Did vpw claim here to write any level of Scripture?  No, he did not- although he left something vague.  As I see it, this is part of his pattern of lying by INSINUATION.  " I didn't actually SAY I was on my college's varsity team- I said I played all through college."  "I didn't actually SAY I played for the Sheboygan Redskins, I said I was involved with them." "I didn't actually SAY I was getting revelation at that moment- I paused at the podium, made a gesture, mumbled an acknowledgement at nobody in particular, and then said something I heard on the John Birch Society hotline this afternoon."  

So, for those still gullible, there's wiggle-room to TRY to believe that SOME of vpw's writings will "necessarily"  be God-breathed.

For the rest of us, there's reality.

So, there you have it. vpw didn't write any Scripture, and didn't say he did, but he left a bit of wiggle-room so that if someone really wanted to believe he did, they couid do so.  That's grossly irresponsible for a minister, but vpw was FAR more concerned with his image and self-image than he was for his congregation.

 

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"No, it says "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not all that Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures- they are God-breathed. "

 

If one is going to find a word and fixate on it, there's more reason to focus on "BUT". Even vpw said that put what was said before and what's said after in direct contradiction.  So, "the Scriptures- they are God-breathed" was contrasted directly with "all that Wierwille writes".

But really, basing one's entire theology on something like this isn't healthy.

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I'm confused, what were we crossing out in the text and scribbling out in the margins?

We were writing The Word!  

New Dynamic, learning with New Reasearch and Present Truth!

You're drinking from old wineskins.

 

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11 hours ago, chockfull said:

No he just “borrowed” them for a while to write the “literal translations according to usage”, which were much better than scripture.

The "literal translations according to usage" were frequently plagiarized as well.

"vpw's" "literal translation according to usage" of Philippians 4:13

"I am ready for anything and equal to anything through him who infuses inner strength into me."  (It was even in an Acts 29 song which was a title cut, and was part of the chorus.)

Here's the Amplified Bible's version of Philippians 4:13.

" I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] "

For those wondering,  the Amplified Bible's New Testament was completed in 1958, and the bound full Bible was in stores as of 1965, published by ZONDERVAN, the same company that sells a bunch of reference books in the twi bookstore.  So, yes, vpw was aware of the thing.  Naturally, I'm expecting someone to claim either that vpw got that by revelation and it was an astonishing coincidence they read the same, or that God told vpw to plagiarize that version and verse and make sure to leave out any reference to the Amplified Bible.

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6 hours ago, WordWolf said:

The "literal translations according to usage" were frequently plagiarized as well.

"vpw's" "literal translation according to usage" of Philippians 4:13

"I am ready for anything and equal to anything through him who infuses inner strength into me."  (It was even in an Acts 29 song which was a title cut, and was part of the chorus.)

Here's the Amplified Bible's version of Philippians 4:13.

" I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] "

For those wondering,  the Amplified Bible's New Testament was completed in 1958, and the bound full Bible was in stores as of 1965, published by ZONDERVAN, the same company that sells a bunch of reference books in the twi bookstore.  So, yes, vpw was aware of the thing.  Naturally, I'm expecting someone to claim either that vpw got that by revelation and it was an astonishing coincidence they read the same, or that God told vpw to plagiarize that version and verse and make sure to leave out any reference to the Amplified Bible.

VPW's dishonesty never ceases to amaze me, especially his audacity with the literals according to usage. I used to think that VPW greek and education must have been the greatest in the world...Im still a little dumbfounded that he copied out the Amplified and said it was his own.....that guy got some splaining to do one day...

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On 2/1/2023 at 9:00 PM, WordWolf said:

For those wondering,  the Amplified Bible's New Testament was completed in 1958, and the bound full Bible was in stores as of 1965, published by ZONDERVAN, the same company that sells a bunch of reference books in the twi bookstore.  So, yes, vpw was aware of the thing.  Naturally, I'm expecting someone to claim either that vpw got that by revelation and it was an astonishing coincidence they read the same, or that God told vpw to plagiarize that version and verse and make sure to leave out any reference to the Amplified Bible.

It amazes me how much speculation and theorizing you all do that is totally off the beam.

VPW cites the Amplified Bible in:

RHST - twice

BTMS - once

TNDC - twice

GMWD - once

69-01 Mag - twice

82-11 Mag - once

I first saw it in the Green Book in 1971, so I went out and bought a copy.

 

 

Edited by Mike
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3 minutes ago, waysider said:

Here's a softball/yes or no question for you, Mike.

When you first heard the "literal according to usage" declarations, were you aware they weren't authored by VPW?

(Don't cop-out by saying they may have been by revelation.)

It was very early in my education that I read the Elena Whiteside book WLIL, and saw that VPW claimed to be more of a collector than an author.

At the time, in the years prior to my first fellowship, I had already arrived at diminished appreciation of “human creativity” and the origin of new thoughts.  It started when I noticed how difficult it was to pin the credit on the right person for coming up with a joke. Creativity in humor vexed me; it seemed that miscommunication and confusion and entropy were often the real author of humor.

Plus, a little later in the very months before I was witnessed to, I had been pondering the concept of human creativity from a massive book by Arthur Koestler, the same polymath  who wrote “The Thirteenth Tribe.” I believe he was a Harvard Psychology Professor at the time of this book “The Act of Creation.”

Koestler handles the patterns of creativity in humor, science, and art. 

https://www.amazon.com/Act-Creation-Arthur-Koestler/dp/1939438985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation

I came to believe from all this that how we regard human creativity was mostly hype, and that it is really a simple mechanical process.  I came to PFAL and the collaterals with this attitude, so hearing VPW say that he mostly just collected stuff and did not originate it was at the foundation of my spiritual learning.

I didn’t even hear about “literals” until at least a year later. I did not care where VPW got the literals from. 

 

 

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wierwille will forever be remembered as an unabashed plagiarist by many ex-TWI followers. 

 

Being a flagrant pirate of intellectual property, wierwille doubled down on his fraudulent claims by saying biblical sounding stuff like “countries without Christ do not invent” and disparaged humankind’s cognitive and creative skills by pushing a rah rah spiritual elitism for Advanced Class grads saying “it’s not because you have such a high IQ - it’s because God has such a high IQ”. That is just a smidgin of the baloney on a Sunday Night Teaching tape “Carnal vs Spiritual “. 

 

It’s obvious wierwille had a low opinion of humankind’s cognitive and creative skills. I wonder what colored his attitude. Was he envious of legitimate scholars and creative people?
 

People tend to be wary or even fearful of what they do not understand. I have a low opinion of wierwille’s cognitive and creative skills - but I will say this ‘creating’ a facade of a biblical research teaching and fellowship ministry has got to be sheer genius in any con artist’s book!

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2 minutes ago, waysider said:

Since Mike appears to be unwilling or unable to answer the question directly, I'll throw this out here informally.

Who here was under the initial impression that Wierwille had authored the "literals"?

I thought he wrote the literals and everything else that has his name on it from his own work and walk with God. That's what wierwille said and the way international still says. It wasn't until I did my own homework and was willing to face the truth that I dropped the way international and their lies.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

It was very early in my education that I read the Elena Whiteside book WLIL, and saw that VPW claimed to be more of a collector than an author.

At the time, in the years prior to my first fellowship, I had already arrived at diminished appreciation of “human creativity” and the origin of new thoughts.  It started when I noticed how difficult it was to pin the credit on the right person for coming up with a joke. Creativity in humor vexed me; it seemed that miscommunication and confusion and entropy were often the real author of humor.

Plus, a little later in the very months before I was witnessed to, I had been pondering the concept of human creativity from a massive book by Arthur Koestler, the same polymath  who wrote “The Thirteenth Tribe.” I believe he was a Harvard Psychology Professor at the time of this book “The Act of Creation.”

Koestler handles the patterns of creativity in humor, science, and art. 

https://www.amazon.com/Act-Creation-Arthur-Koestler/dp/1939438985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation

I came to believe from all this that how we regard human creativity was mostly hype, and that it is really a simple mechanical process.  I came to PFAL and the collaterals with this attitude, so hearing VPW say that he mostly just collected stuff and did not originate it was at the foundation of my spiritual learning.

I didn’t even hear about “literals” until at least a year later. I did not care where VPW got the literals from. 

All of this is playing down human creativity.

 First in the comic field.  Actually IP is very well known and accepted among comics.  Dave Chapelle in a recent appeal to boycott his show repeats talks about a comic when he was young in his career asking to borrow a joke, then later offering to buy the joke.  Comics know when they steal others jokes.  They also know about the edge cases where someone shows similar jokes on stage in different places with no known contact or trace.  So no it is not difficult at all for comics to know about the origin of the joke.  The video I posted was an example of Joe Rogan confronting Carlos Mencia on stage at the comedy store for stealing jokes.  Rogan was banned from the Comedy Store for years for that confrontation.   But it was true.  People stopped working with Mencia and he lost his 15 min of fame quickly.   For plagiarism.

Koestlers big idea that there isn’t anything new but a new combination of old ideas is ridiculous.  He should have traveled to Arizona and taken a ride in a driverless Waymo car.

God can inspire and has inspired great creativity in people throughout so many fields.

Dont put Him in a little GP box.  Dashboard Jesus just wiggles the head.  Real Jesus saves.

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57 minutes ago, waysider said:

Since Mike appears to be unwilling or unable to answer the question directly, I'll throw this out here informally.

Who here was under the initial impression that Wierwille had authored the "literals"?

Me.

While in-residence I think there was an unspoken shared understanding the corps had that wierwille was obviously over the research department - and it was assumed he 'directed' the analysis and 'selected' the findings by his 'great knowledge of the Word' with God's guidance of course. 

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4 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

Me.

While in-residence I think there was an unspoken shared understanding the corps had that wierwille was obviously over the research department - and it was assumed he 'directed' the analysis and 'selected' the findings by his 'great knowledge of the Word' with God's guidance of course. 

Well, give Mike some time to check his notes to see if your experience was REALLY that, or maybe none of us paid attention and forgot what was in the class.

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