The King James Bible - Holy Bible Institute

PB–402The King James Bibleand the Modern Versionsby Vance FerrellPublished by Harvestime BooksBeersheba Springs, TN 37305 USAPrinted in the United States of AmericaCover and Text Copyright © 2003by Harvestime BooksThe starry firmament on high,And all the glories of the sky,Yet shine not to thy praise, O Lord,So brightly as thy written Word.The hopes that holy Word supplies,Its truths divine and precepts wise,In each a heavenly beam I see,And every beam conducts to Thee.Almighty Lord, the sun shall fail,The moon her borrowed glory veil,And deepest reverence hush on highThe joyful chorus of the sky.But fixed for everlasting years,Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,Thy Word shall shine in cloudless day,When heaven and earth have passed away.

Theory 133The Nestle-Aland Greek Text 134The United Bible Societies Greek Text135Joint Protestant-Catholic TranslationTeams 135Kittel’s Greek Dictionary 136The Majority Greek Text 136The Manuscript Codes and AssignedDates 137How Many Changes in a Critical GreekText? 138United Bible Societies Critical GreekText 140Nestle-Aland Critical Greek Text 141Septuagint Critical Greek (OT) Text /Biblia Hebraica Critical Hebrew (OT)Text 142Ellen White and Bible Inerrancy 143Ellen White and the Modern Versions144— 7 —MOST FREQUENTLY USEDMODERN VERSIONSThe Translators Followthe New Greek TextsInferior Translations 150Based on Westcott and Hort 150The Men Appointed to the TranslationCommittees 151The Four Types of Modern Bibles152The English Revised Version (ERV)[RV] (1881, 1885) and AmericanStandard Version (ASV) [ARV] (1901)152Two Modern Versions 153The Conservative Bibles 153Revised Standard Version (RSV) 153Changes in Later RSV Editions 155New American Standard Version(NASV) 155New King James Version (NKJV) 156The Paraphrase Bibles 157Phillips 157The Living Bible (LB) (Taylor) 158New English Bible (NEB) 160New International Version (NIV) 162The Watchtower Bibles 164New World Translation (NWT) 164Bible in Living English (BLE) 167Joint Catholic-Protestant Bibles 168Revised Standard Version: TheApocrypha 168Revised Standard Version: CatholicEdition 168The Common Bible 169The Roman Catholic Bibles 170Knox Bible 170Jerusalem Bible 170New American Bible 171The Present Situation 172— 8 —APPENDIXA Varietyof Additional Information200 Special Errors in the ModernVersions 1741 - Old Testament 1742 - New Testament 175The Truth about Mark 16:9-20 179Doctrinal Factors in the King James183A List of Archaic Words in the KingJames 186The Lord’s Prayer in Three EnglishTranslations 188Adventist Approval of ModernVersions 189The Old Testament Apocrypha 190Special Report on the Apocrypha191From the ERV to the NIV: A List of134 Bible Translations 195SPECIAL— 9 —SUPPLEMENTSScripture Index 201-208Topical Index 209-220Battle Over the KJV (221-232)[WM–1175-1177]NIV vs. KJV (233-240)[WM–1178-119]

8 The King James and the Modern VersionsOur PreciousKing James BibleThe King James Bible is universally ac-knowledged as the most wonderful literarywork and the most life-changing power inthe history of the English-speaking speaking peoples.Here is what others have said about thishallowed book and its influence in history:“For nearly four hundred years and throughoutseveral revisions of its English form [changesin spelling and punctuation], the King JamesBible has been deeply revered among the English-speakingpeople of the world.”—SamuelC. Gipp, The Answer Book, p. 26.“The Elizabethan period—a term looselyapplied to the years between 1558 and 1642—is generally regarded as the most important erain English literature. Shakespeare and his mightycontemporaries brought the drama to the highestpoint in the world’s history; lyrical poetryfound supreme expression; Spencer’s FaerieQueene was an unique performance; Bacon’sEssays have never been surpassed. But thecrowning achievement of those spacious dayswas the Authorized Translation of the Bible,which appeared in 1611.“Three centuries of English literature followed;but, although they have been crowdedwith poets and novelists and essayists, and althoughthe teaching of the English language andliterature now gives employment to many earnestmen and women, the art of English compositionreached its climax in the pages of the Bible.“Now, as the English-speaking people havethe best Bible in the world, and as it is the mostbeautiful monument erected with the English alphabet,we ought to make the most of it, for it isan incomparably rich inheritance, free to all whocan read. This means that we ought invariablyin the church and on public occasions to usethe Authorized Version; all others are inferior.”—Ladies Home Journal, November 1921 [statementmade twenty years after the AmericanStandard Version was published].“Priests, atheists, skeptics, devotees, agnostics,and evangelists, are generally agreed thatthe Authorized Version of the English Bible isthe best example of English literature that theworld has ever seen . .“Every one who has a thorough knowledgeof the Bible may truly be called educated; andno other learning or culture, no matter how extensiveor elegant, can, among Europeans andAmericans, form a proper substitute. Westerncivilization is founded upon the Bible . . I thoroughlybelieve in a university education for bothmen and women; but I believe a knowledge ofthe Bible without a college course is more valuablethan a college course without the Bible.”—Ibid.“The birth of the King James Bible was adeath stroke to the supremacy of Roman Catholicism.The translators little foresaw the wideextent of circulation and the tremendous influenceto be won by their book. They little dreamedthat for three hundred years it would form thebond of English Protestantism in all parts of theworld.”—Benjamin Wilkinson, Our AuthorizedBible Vindicated, p. 88.“Who will say that the uncommon beauty andmarvelous English of the Protestant Bible is notone of the great strongholds of heresy in thiscountry?”—Faber, quoted in Eadie, The EnglishBible, Vol. 2, p. 158. [Faber, of the Church ofEngland, was a secret Catholic who was anxiousto bring England back to subservience toRome.]“The printing of the English Bible has proved

Our Precious King James Bible9to be by far the mightiest barrier ever reared torepel the advance of Popery, and to damage allthe resources of the Papacy.”—McClure, TheTranslators Revived, p. 71.“It [the King James Bible] has not only beenthe stronghold of Protestantism in Great Britain,but it has built a gigantic wall as a barrieragainst the spread of Romanism.”—B.G. Wilkinson,Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, p. 88.“Small wonder then that for three hundredyears incessant warfare has been waged uponthis instrument created by God to mold all constitutionsand laws of the British Empire, and ofthe great American Republic, while at the sametime comforting, blessing, and instructing thelives of the millions who inhabit these territories.“Behold what it has given to the world! Themachinery of the Catholic Church can never beginto compare with the splendid machinery ofProtestantism. The Sabbath School, the Bibleprinting houses, the foreign missionary societies,the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Women’sChristian Temperance Union, the Protestant denominationalorganizations—these all were theoffspring of Protestantism. Their benefits havegone to all lands and been adopted by practicallyall nations. Shall we throw away the Biblefrom which such splendid organizations havesprung?”—Benjamin G. Wilkinson, Our AuthorizedBible Vindicated, pp. 88-89.“For almost three centuries the Authorized,or King James, Version has been the Bible of theEnglish-speaking world. Its simple, majesticAnglo-Saxon tongue, its clear, sparkling style, itsdirectness and force of utterance have made itthe model in language, style, and dignity of someof the choicest writers of the last two centuries.Its phrasing is woven into much of our noblestliterature; and its style, which to an astonishingdegree is merely the style of the original authorsof the Bible, has exerted very great influence inmolding that ideal of simplicity, directness, andclarity which now dominates the writing of English.It has endeared itself to the hearts andlives of millions of Christians and has moldedthe characters of leaders in every walk of life.During all these centuries the King James Versionhas become a vital part of the Englishspeakingworld, socially, morally, religiously, andpolitically.”—Ira Maurice Price, The Ancestry ofOur English Bible, pp. 276-277.“What is needed is a school that teaches thewhole English Bible. What is needed is a schoolthat will take men from the engine cab, frombetween the plowshares and teach them theBible. What is needed is a school that is free frommodernism. What is needed is a school that willteach a man how to go out with the Bible underhis arms, faith in his heart, and in the power ofthe Holy Spirit begin in a vacant lot and build achurch for the glory of God.”—J. Frank Norris.When Sir Walter Scott, the great author andliterary expert, lay dying, he asked his son-inlawto bring him “the Book.” With astonishmentthe young man replied, “Father, your library containsthousands of volumes, including your ownworks. To which book are you referring?” Theveteran author immediately replied, “There isonly one book which we all call ‘the Book.’ Bringme the Bible.”“Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor thepower of God.”—Matthew 22:29“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but ofincorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth andabideth forever.”—1 Peter 1:23

10 The King James and the Modern VersionsHow it All BeganHe sat there in the summer heat, and wasthankful it was not worse. He had heard storiesfrom passing merchant caravans about the chillingcold farther north. Few people were living upthere, north of the headwaters of the Euphrates,not far south of the Ararat Mountains.Besides, down here it was spring and everythingwas greener than usual. His wife was insidethe tent complex, preparing foodstuffs withother women in her parents’ family. His own helperswere out with the sheep today, and he hadtime to get started on what he had been told todo.As he sat there, he thought over the past.It surely had been a disappointment. Hispeople were ground down by an oppressive government,and here he was where he could nothelp them. Oh, it seemed bitter. But he knew itwas his fault. They must continue to suffer becausehe had not clung to God’s hand.As he sat there and thought, he realized henever could have helped them, not the way hewas trying to do it. God needed his help and hehad let Him down, by trusting more to his ownyouthful strength instead of hourly crying to Godfor help and counsel.Yes, he was learning the lesson. Only Godcould do what needed to be done, and He doesit through His earthly children—when they aregenuinely yielded to His will. Only then can Hefully direct their paths.Reviewing the past and thinking upon hispresent situation, how very thankful he was forthe forgiving mercies of God!On his knees now, he prayed once again andrenewed his vows of consecration; and, onceagain, he received the assurance of forgivenessand help. Whatever God wanted him to do, hewas going to do it.The man had learned to pray a lot. Oh, whyhadn’t he done it back then!How he wanted to return and help his people!But here he was, and he must learn the lessonof following God’s leading, right where he was,while he waited for opening providences to takehim further along the path of duty.God had another work for him just now.Gladly would he do anything to please His heavenlyFather, even though it be tedious and slow!His rough, calloused hands were not used towhat he had to do now. But he must carry itthrough to completion, working on it gradually,even though it were to take many years.Reaching over, he took a piece of sheepskinfrom the pile he had been preparing. Laboriouslyhe had spent days scrapping off the remainingwool from each piece. He now had just enoughto get started. If Father told him to do something,he was going to do it; and he was going todo it with Him, praying his way through it ateach step.With the piece of sheepskin now in his lap,once again he sat there for a long moment andlooked out at the horizon beyond. If he couldonly have known that what he was now beginningto do would affect nations and races for thenext four thousand years!Men would toil and struggle, be opposed andslain. Families would flee and fathers would beburned at the stake. Wars would be fought, kingdomswould rise and fall. Men would journeyacross oceans and start settlements. Some wouldbe hunted to the death; others would be trickedinto yielding the faith. All the powers of hellwould be set on their track, determined to destroyor corrupt them and what they had in theirpossession.And all because of what they did with whathe was just now getting started.Well, it was time to forget the horizon andreturn to the present. Dipping the quill into theink twice in order to make every letter legible onthe rough surface of the sheepskin, he beganwriting in proto-sinaitic Hebrew:In the beginning, God created the heaven andthe earth . .

Bible Abbreviations11Bible AbbreviationsHere are the abbreviations used in this book for Bibles. With the exception of the KingJames Bible, none of the Bibles listed below are based on the Majority Text. With the excep-tion of the KJV, , Bibles published prior to 1870 are not listed below, , since we did not abbrevi-ate their names.AV Authorized Version 1611Authorized by King James I of England, itis thus called the King James Version.In this book, we will generally speak of itas the “King James Bible” or “the KingJames.”ARV American Revised Version(See under ASV, American StandardVersion.)ASV American Standard Version 1901From its inception in 1901, down to theearly 1960s, this Bible was called theAmerican Revised Version (ARV). But,since the early 1960s, it has beenreferred to as the American StandardVersion (ASV). In this book, we willgenerally refer to it by its current name.BLE Bible in Living English 1972Translated by Steven Byington, this Bibleis published by the Jehovah’sWitnesses.ERV English Revised Version 1881, 1885This translation was initially called theRevised Version (RV); but, by the 1940s,it came to be known as the EnglishRevised Version (ERV). We will generallyrefer to it by its current name.JB Jerusalem Bible 1966This is a Roman Catholic Bible, but moremoderate than most of them.KJV King James Bible 1611This Bible is also known as the KingJames Version or Authorized Version(AV). We will always refer to it as KJV.LB Living Bible 1971This is the heavily paraphrased Bible byKenneth Taylor. It is even moredoctrinally prejudiced than the Phillips.NAB New American Bible 1970This is a Roman Catholic Bible.NASB New American Standard Bible1971This is sometimes called the NewAmerican Standard Version. We willrefer to it as the NASB.NEB New English Bible 1970This is a partial paraphrase Bible.NIV New International Bible 1973This is the most popular modern Bible.NWT New World Translation 1961This is a Jehovah’s Witness Bible.Phillips Translation 1958-1973This is the heavily paraphrased version byJ.B. Phillips, published under varioustitles.RSV Revised Standard Version 1946,1952RV Revised Version, 1881, 1885(See under ERV, English Revised Version.)TEV Today’s English Version 1966Good News for Modern man. This is theAmerican Bible Society edition.

12 The King James and the Modern VersionsGlossary of TermsTHE MAJORITY TEXT FAMILYThe Greek manuscripts which the KingJames Bible is based have several names, butthey all mean the same thing. Lest there be confusion,here they are:Majority Text— Kurt Aland, the editor ofthe Nestle Greek Text, correctly calls it by thisname.Traditional Text— Dean Burgon, whofound and collated nearly all the manuscriptsand other sources late in the last century, calledit by this name.Received Text— That is English for TextusReceptus. This is the name for the Greek textused by Erasmus and Stephenus. Only the MajorityText witnesses were used. The King JamesBible was translated from this Greek Text.Syrian Text— This is the name given to theMajority Text by Westcott and Hort. They soughtto identify it as merely a local text in Syria andAsia Minor.Antiochan Text— This is another localizedname for the Majority Text, which is assumed tohave come only from Antioch.Byzantine Text— This is the name appliedin the earlier editions of the Nestle Text. It impliesthat the manuscripts in the Majority Familyare all very late in origin and were producedduring the Byzantine Greek period in Asia Minor.Koine Text— Also called the K, , Kappa, orCommon Textext. This is a 20th-century termwhich means that it was the majority text of thecommon people. We agree.In the present book, we shall generally referto the above eight synonyms as the Majority Text.THE MODERN CRITICAL GREEK TEXTSThe Westcott-Hort Text— This text wasprepared by Westcott and Hort. Hort preparedthe explanatory section which discussed thetheory underlying it.The Nestle-Aland Text— This text is verysimilar to the Westcott-Hort Text.The United Bible Societies Text— Alsocalled the UBS Text, this critical text is very similarto the Nestle-Aland Text. The UBS Text wasprepared by the same three-man staff whichupdated the Nestle-Aland Text.There are other critical texts, includingTischendorf, Von Soden, etc.; but we will primarilyrefer to the Nestle-Aland and UBS Texts,which all modern translations are based upon.However, we should also mention the ScrivenerGreek Text, which is in accordance withthe Majority Text (which the KJV is based on).Although excellent, it is never used today andprobably is not obtainable.——————————GLOSARY OF TERMSAlexandrian Text— The corrupt manuscripttradition which can be traced to the Alexandrian“father,” Origen Adamantius (c. 185-254). CodicesVaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (Aleph) are thestandard-bearers for this text type.allegorical — The liberal method of hermeneutics,pioneered by Philo and Origen, whichwould assign a mystical or subjective meaningto Scripture in favor of the normally intendedliteral interpretation.amanuensis — Akin to a scribe, but morespecifically, one who takes dictation, as Tertiusdid in Romans 16:22. Paul had poor eyesightand he dictated most everything he wrote. See“scribe” for broader definitions.anacoluthon — A phenomenon of Greek syntaxwhich allows for a switch from one grammaticalconstruction to another within the samesentence as a rhetorical device.ante-Nicene— The era of church history

Glossary of Termswhich predates the watershed Council of Niceain A.D. 325.Apocrypha — From the Greek apokryphos,meaning “obscure”; those writings of dubiousauthenticity belonging to the pre-Christian era,yet excluded from the Old Testament text. Althoughdeclared inspired and canonical by theRoman Catholic Council of Trent in 1546, theApocrypha has remained unacceptable to BiblebelievingChristians. Significantly, these dozenplus books can be found scattered throughoutthe text of codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus(Aleph).apparatus — This is the technical name,given by scholars, to the extensive footnotes atthe bottom of each page of some critical GreekTexts. Those footnotes show the variants andtell which manuscripts, lectionaries, church “fathers,”and translations support them.autographs — The original manuscripts ofScripture that were produced by either the Divinelyappointed writer himself or his amanuenses.Bible scholars refer to the originals as the“autographs.”canon — The books of the Bible which areofficially accepted as inspired of God.canonicity — The Spirit-led process bywhich God’s people were able to differentiate noninspiredwritings (pseudepigrapha) from thoseof Divine authority.catechetical school of Alexandria — Themysterious “Christian” school of Alexandria,founded by Philo, an apostate Platonic Jew andeventually superintended by the self-emasculatedOrigen Adamantius, who taught, amongother things, that the stars were living creatures.Hailed by modern scholars as the pioneer of textualcriticism, Origen was a rabid allegorist andis credited with the majority of textual corruptionsassociated with the “Alexandrian text type,”specifically codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.chirography — The style of handwriting orpenmanship of an individual scribe or manuscriptera. It is frequently possible to identifywhen a certain scribe copied different manuscripts.codex (majuscule) — A manuscript, in traditionalbook form (as opposed to one composedof cumbersome scrolls), produced by 1st-centurysoul winners to facilitate their Gospel out-13reach.colophon — A collection of scribal notesplaced at the end of a manuscript containingpertinent information regarding the transcription.copyist — A person who makes a copy ofan existing manuscript, whether in the Greek orin another language.cursive manuscript (cursive, or minuscule)— From the Medieval Latin cursiuus, literally“running,” the form of manuscript written (asopposed to printed) in a free or “running handstyle” employing lowercase letters (prompting theadditional designation of minuscule from theLatin minusculus, meaning “small”). Developedby the scribes of Charlemagne, this format wasutilized from the 9th to the 16th century.Dead Sea Scrolls — Manuscripts, mostlyBiblical, discovered in caves near the Dead Sea.diaspora — The dispersion or scattering ofthe Jews, beginning about 300 B.C.Rheims-Douay (Douai) Bible — Jesuittranslation of the Latin Vulgate, constitutingRome’s first official “Bible” for English-speakingCatholics. Unleashed as a major stratagem ofthe Vatican’s Counter Reformation, the New Testamentwas published in Rheims (1582), withthe Old Testament completed in Douay (1610).eclecticism — The liberal method of textualcriticism which enjoins its adherents to selectone manuscript reading over another solely onthe basis of the highly subjective criteria of internalevidence. This unscholarly rejection of themore conclusive body of external evidence— i.e.,multiplied manuscripts, lectionaries, versions,and patristic testimony—was the modis operandibehind the Westcott and Hort Greek NewTestament. The eclectic method is to textual criticismwhat the allegorical school is to hermeneutics.English Revision of the Authorized Ver-sion, 1881-1885 — The project sanctioned bythe Convocation of Canterbury in 1870, to revisethe Authorized Version which produced theRevised New Testament in 1881 with the OldTestament following in 1885. With Drs. Westcottand Hort at the helm, the “esteemed” committeecompletely ignored the convocation’s directive to“introduce as few alterations into the text of theA.V. as possible . .” The result was that the En-

14 The King James and the Modern Versionsglish Revised Version (ERV) had over 30,000changes from the KJV.extant — In a state of current existence asopposed to that which is lost or perished.“fathers” — The venerated leaders of ancientChristendom whose extant writings containingnumerous Scriptural citings provide aninvaluable witness to the prevailing text of theirday.Gunpowder Plot — Jesuit-inspired assassinationattempt against England’s James I. Theplot was foiled by royal agents on November 5,1605, less than 24 hours before the conveningof Parliament, when Guy Fawkes was caughtsuperintending 36 barrels of gunpowder in thatassembly’s basement.Hampton Court Conference — The historicgathering, in 1604, of Puritan and high churchleaders convened by James I; this provided theimpetus for the A.D. 1611 Authorized Version.hermeneutics — From the Greek hermeneuein,“to interpret.” The principles or methodologyone follows when attempting to interpretScripture; the two major schools being theliteral (conservative) and the allegorical (liberal).Hexapla — Origen’s highly overrated manuscriptconsisting of six parallel columns displayingas many Greek and Hebrew translations ofthe Old Testament.higher criticism — Biblical analysis madein an effort to disprove the Bible and its authors.See textual criticism.idiom — From the Latin idioma, for “individualpeculiarity of language”; a phrase that isexclusive either syntactically or in possessing adefinition that cannot be extracted from the combinedmeanings of its word parts.Inspiration — From the Greek, theopneustos,and literally means “God breathed.” Morespecifically with application to the Bible, that supernaturalinfluence upon the sacred writerswhich enabled them to receive and record, withpreciseness, the Divine revelation.Interpolation — An unauthorized insertionof a word or words into the text of any document.Itacism — The misspelling of a word in anancient manuscript, especially by an interchangingof vowels.Italia Bible — A 2nd-century version of theBible in Latin, translated by Waldenses. Thesereadings frequently agree with the King JamesBible against those of the modern versions basedon codices Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (Aleph),which are dated mid-4th century.Italicized words — Those necessary Englishwords (without an equivalent in the Hebrew orGreek manuscripts) inserted by the King Jamestranslators for clarity’s sake (i.e., as in the caseof idioms—“step on the gas,” etc.). Although thispractice is common to all modern translators,the Authorized Version is unique in its usage ofitalics, to indicate the extent of such activity.Jesuits — See Jesus, Society of.Jesus, Society of — The Roman Catholicorder known as the Jesuits, established byIgnatius de Loyola between 1534-1539 for thesole purpose of reintroducing papal authorityand regaining control of Europe for the pope.lectionaries — Books containing selectedpassages of Scripture, employed by the ancientassemblies for congregational reading. Thosewhich provided a weekly lesson were calledSynaxaria while those consisting of readings forspecial days such as Easter, Christmas, etc.,were called Menologion.lithographic errors — Pertaining to printingerrors within the earliest editions of the KingJames Bible.Latin Vulgate— Jerome’s 4th-century “revision”of the Itala Bible (Old Latin) using theVaticanus readings as his standard. Responsiblefor ushering in the Dark Ages, the Latin Vulgatebecame Rome’s official Bible throughout this benightedperiod.Lollards — Followers of John Wycliffe, knownas the “poor priests” who suffered great persecutionfor their Bible distribution and streetpreaching.Lucianic Recension (Antiochian) — Dr.Hort’s desperate conjecture that the TextusReceptus readings received an official, empirewidesanction at two church councils betweenA.D. 250-350 at Antioch. Despite speculationthat one Lucian (d. 312) led in this venture, thetheory remains destitute of any historical corroboration.

Glossary of TermsMajority Text— This the great majority ofGreek manuscripts, variously estimated at 90%-95%, which are read essentially the same way.The Erasmus Greek Text (the Textus Receptus),which the King James Bible was translated from,was based on them. Also see Textus Receptus.manuscript — Any portion of a literary workthat has been handwritten as opposed to a copyprinted from moveable type.manuscript evidences — The true, or conservative,mode of textual criticism which wouldseek to establish the correct text on the basis ofall available data, such as the whole body ofcursive manuscripts, lectionaries, ancient versions,and the writings of the church “fathers.”Mariolatry — An excessive and unnaturalveneration of the Virgin Mary. Drs. Westcott andHort were guilty of this.Massoretic Text— Hebrew text of the OldTestament edited by Jewish scribes of theMiddle Ages, A.D. 775-925. They, for the firsttime, placed vowels in the Hebrew text (but, ofcourse, they did not know the ancient pronunciation).mental reservation — Jesuit doctrine ofdeceit that allows a person to profess one thingwhile secretly believing something different.Millenary Petition — Religious petition containingnearly one thousand ministerial signatureswhich was presented to James I, in 1603,by a Puritan delegation incensed with increasedCatholic-inspired formalism within the Churchof England. It resulted in the translation of theKing James Version of the Bible.Majuscule — Another name for a codex. Itmeans a document with all capital letters.Minuscule — Greek manuscripts of the NewTestament written in the 9th to 15th centuries.Also see cursive manuscript.Nestle-Aland Greek Text— Named afterthe German scholar Eberhard Nestle, this Textrepresents the major adversary of the TextusReceptus in our day, being used in most collegesand seminaries. Despite a periodic fluctuationthroughout its twenty-six editions, the Nestles’Greek Text is basically the Westcott and HortText of 1881. The committee for the 26th editioncomprised several unbelievers, includingRev. Carlo M. Martini, a Roman Catholic cardi-15nal. The UBS Greek Text is similar and underthe primary editorial staff of the same three men.orthographic discrepancies — Pertainingto spelling discrepancies within the various editionsof the 1611 Authorized Version. These areneither conceptual nor doctrinal errors.Oxford Movement — A fruition of the earlierTractarian controversy (1833-1841) whichaimed at restoring subtle Catholic principleswithin the Church of England. Orchestrated bysecret Vatican sympathizers, this effort exertedconsiderable influence on Drs. Westcott andHort.papyrus — A primitive paper fashioned bycross-weaving the dried, flattened stems of thereed-like papyrus plant. This ancient “paper”was used as writing material at the time of Christand for several centuries thereafter. Due to itsdry climate, copies written in Egypt have beenfound.parchment — An ancient writing materialprepared from the skins of sheep or goats.patristic — Of or pertaining to the church“fathers” or their extant writings.Pentateuch — The first five books of theBible, the Mosaic books.Peshitta — This is the Syriac translation,an ancient version of the Scriptures. The translationfrom the Greek to the Syriac was madeabout A.D. 145 (antedating Vaticanus andSinaiticus by over two centuries). Most of its extantreadings agree with the King James Bibleagainst those of the modern versions.plenary Inspiration — The doctrine whichattributes Inspiration to all parts of Scripture,thus holding the Bible’s declarations on scienceas being equally authoritative and infallible withthose of a theological nature.post-Nicene — The period of church historywhich commences with the landmark Councilof Nicea in A.D. 325.probabilism — A Jesuit doctrine that regardsan opinion as probable even if only onetheologian can be found in support of its acceptance.Thus, any single Jesuit allied with thePope can make a majority.pseudopigrapha — From the Greek word,pseudopigraphos, for “falsely ascribed”; the non-

16 The King James and the Modern Versionscanonical books of spurious authorship werecomposed between 200 B.C. to A.D. 200.Whereas the Old Testament Apocrypha gaineda limited acceptance, the pseudopigrapha writingshave been rejected by everyone. Eusebiusspoke of them as “totally absurd and impious.”Puritans — The “purifying” element withinthe Church of England, occasioned by the politicallaxity of Elizabeth I, which committed itselfto restoring an intolerance of Catholic encroachments,particularly in the areas of formalismand ritual.Reading — A specific phrase, verse, or passageof Scripture.Recension — (1) An editorial revision of aliterary work, especially on the basis of criticalexamination of the text and the sources used.(2) A version of a text resulting from such revision.scribe — One who transcribes manuscriptsin a professional or official capacity. A copyistmakes copies of an existing manuscript. A scribemay make copies or he may take dictation inthe preparation of a manuscript with new content.An amanuensis only takes dictation.scriptorium — A special room set aside forscribes to use when copying their manuscripts.Septuagint — The earliest Greek translationof the Old Testament, made about 250-150 B.C.Sinaiticus (or “Aleph”) — The 4th-centurymanuscript rescued by Count Tischendorf fromeventually being burned, at St. Catherine’s monastery(situated at the base of Mt. Sinai). It issecond only to the famed Codex Vaticanus as acited witness against the Authorized Version.This pair of “ancient authorities” disagree witheach other in over 3,000 places in the Gospelsalone. Also see Vaticanus.targums — Aramaic paraphrases of the OldTestament.Text and text — Text is capitalized in thisbook, when referring to (1) a manuscript familyor (2) a prepared Greek Text. Text is not capitalizedwhen referring to a reading; i.e., a specificphrase or verse of Scripture. In this book, wewill generally refer to Text and a reading.textual criticism — Theoretically, the scholasticdiscipline that would employ manuscriptevidences to determine the correct Scripturaltext. But it has degenerated into a method usedby liberals to change the Bible. Also see “highercriticism.” Properly done, textual analysis wouldwork with external evidence (manuscripts, lectionaries,patristic testimony, and ancient versions)to determine the original readings. Instead,we find an emphasis on so-called “internaltestimony,” but which is actually liberal conjectures.Textus Receptus — The predominant Greektradition of the manuscript era and underlyingtext for most of the Authorized Version. The honoreddesignation of Textus Receptus (for “receivedtext”) was first used by the Elzevir brothersin the introduction to their second edition of1633, but it is generally agreed that the thirdedition of Erasmus’ Greek Text is the standardTextus Receptus. Nearly all Reformation-European-ProtestantBibles and all English ProtestantBibles (with the exception of 9th-centuryAlfred’s and 14th-century Wycliffe’s) were translatedfrom the Textus Receptus. Although sometechnical disagreements exist among scholars,other accepted names for this text would includeMajority, Traditional, Byzantine and Antiochian.(It should be mentioned that, not until the mid-20th century was any Catholic translation madefrom anything other than than the Latin Vulgate.)Also see “Elzevir” under Glossary of Names.Tractarianism — See Oxford Movement.translation — The rendering of a literarywork from one language into another; for example,the Peshitta translation from Greek toSyriac or the Rheims-Douai translation of Latininto English. Poor Bible translations result whenthey are not made from Old Testament Hebrewand New Testament Greek. Also see version.transmission — The providentially guardedprocess by which the Scriptures have been reproduceddown through the ages.UBS — The United Bible Societies consistsof all Bible societies in the world (including theAmerican Bible Society). They produce a UBSGreek Text which is essentially the same as theNestle-Aland Text and is produced under thedirection of the same three men. All Bible Societytranslations, including those of the WycliffeBible Translators, use the UBS Text.uncial manuscript (majuscule) — Derivedfrom the Latin uncia, for “twelfth part” (indicatingthat such characters occupied roughly one-

Glossary of Termstwelfth of a line of print). The word, “uncials,”has come to depict the style of ancient printingemploying “inch high” (one twelfth) letters. Majuscule(which means “small major,” from theLatin majusculus, “large”) refers to the exclusiveusage of “uppercase” type. These block capitalletters of such manuscripts as Vaticanus andSinaiticus were positioned together with nobreak between the words. In English, this wouldbe comparable to GODISNOWHERE or perhapsINTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORD.universalism — The theological position,that all men will eventually be saved. Espousedby liberals, such as Origen, Westcott, Peale, etc.,it denies a future punishment of the wicked. Afinal restoration of Lucifer himself is also maintainedby some.17Vaticanus(B) — The 4th-century Greek codexnamed after the library in Rome, where itwas kept for several centuries, down to thepresent time. It is the primary ancient manuscriptused as the basis of the Nestle-Aland andUBS Greek Texts which, in turn, are the basisfor all modern Bible translations. Both theVaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus were producedin Alexandria, Egypt, and contain errors in commonwhich originate in that locality that had themost early Christian heretics. Also see Sinaiticus.vellum — The finest, most expensive parchmentmaterial. It was made from antelope or calfskin.version — Anciently, Bible translations (fromone language to another) were always calledtranslations. Modern Bible translations aresometimes called “translations” and, sometimes,“versions.” We will generally use the terms interchangeablyin this book, when referring to20th-century Bibles. However, among scholars,in regard to modern Bibles there is an actualdifference: A “version” tries to remain closer tothe King James and be more literal (ERV, ASV,and RSV). Producers of a “translation” are verywilling to veer further away and interject paraphrasefar more often (Phillips, LB, NEB, etc.).Also see translation.Vulgate— Latin translation of the Biblemade in the 4th century by Jerome—a Catholicmonk, on assignment by a pope.Uncials — Greek manuscripts of the NewTestament written in the 4th to 9th centuries.Also see codex.“And that from a child thou hast known the holyScriptures, which are able to make thee wise untosalvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”—2 Timothy 3:15“Then opened He their understanding, that theymight understand the Scriptures.”—Luke 24:45

18 The King James and the Modern VersionsGlossary of Proper NamesAndrews, Lancelot (1555-1626) — Chairmanof the Old Testament committee at Westminsterwho was conversant in fifteen languages.It was said that whenever the godly Lancelot wasnear, King James “desisted from mirth and frivolityin his presence.”Astruc, Jean (1684-1766) — Roman Catholicphysician and textual critic who developedthe theory that the Pentateuch was authored byat least two different men, neither of whom wasMoses.Bede, the Venerable(673-735) — Britishscholar known as “The Father of English ChurchHistory,” who crowned his literary career with adeathbed translation of the Gospel of John intoMiddle English.Beza, Theodore (1519-1605) — Swiss Reformer,Greek scholar, and successor to JohnCalvin. He produced ten editions of his pro-Textus Receptus Greek New Testament. He wasalso a major contributor to the translation committeefor the Geneva Bible in 1560.Bois, John (1560-1643) — One of the finaleditors for the King James translation who mayhave been the most accomplished scholar ofthem all. As a child, he was reading Hebrew atage five and writing the same at six. As a student,he corresponded with his teachers inGreek. As a professor, he taught and studied sixteenhours a day. During his career, he masteredsixty Greek grammars.Burgon, Dean John William(1813-1888)— Outstanding conservative scholar of 19th-centuryAnglicanism, whose literary works in defenseof the A.D. 1611 Authorized Version havenever been refuted. They include: The RevisionRevised, The Traditional Text of the Holy GospelsVindicated and Established, The Causesof the Corruption of the Traditional Text of theHoly Gospels, and The Last Twelve Verses ofMark. Burgon’s and Scrivener’s writings providea wealth of data in favor of the Greek manuscriptsunderlying the King James and opposing theGreek Text the modern ones are based on. Alsosee Scrivener and Miller.Caniplon, Priest Edmund (1540-1581) —Former Protestant who turned Jesuit agent; hewas arrested in England for conspiracy and executedin 1581.Chrysostom, John (347-407) — Bishop ofConstantinople recognized as the first historicalpersonality to refer to Scripture as “the Bible.”Name means “golden-mouthed.”Clement of Alexandria (150-215) — Successorto Pantaenus as headmaster of Alexandria’scatechetical school of theology and philosophy.Among his many doctrinal heresies,Clement believed that Plato’s writings were inspiredand that the stars should be worshiped.Origen succeeded him in 202.Coleridge, Samuel Taylor(1772-1834) —Pro-Vatican poet-philosopher who composednumbers of his works under the “inspiration” ofa lingering opium habit. F.J.A. Hort deeply valuedColeridge’s writings.Constantine the Great (d. 337) — First ofthe so-called “Christian” emperors, he commissionedEusebius of Caesarea to transcribe fiftynew Bibles in the aftermath of the Diocletian-Galerius persecution. Most scholars believe codicesVaticanus and Sinaiticus are two of the fiftycopies.Coverdale, Miles (1488-1568) — Cambridgescholar who produced the first complete EnglishBible printed in 1535, called The CoverdaleBible. four years later, he completed the GreatBible (1539). This good man was also a part ofthe translation committee that issued the GenevaBible in 1560.Diocletian, Emperor Valerius(245-313) —Roman emperor who initiated the tenth andworst of the Imperial persecutions against organizedChristianity (303-313). After only two years

Glossary of Proper Names19of bloodletting, Diocletian went insane and abdicatedhis throne. Moving to Dalmatia, heplanted cabbages. The widespread incinerationof Holy Scripture carried on by Diocletian’s successor-nephew,Galerius, prompted Constantineto later procure fifty new Bibles for his realm.Edward VI, King (1537-1553) — Pious sonof England’s Henry VIII (by the Protestant JaneSeymour), whose brief reign of six years wascharacterized by an unprecedented proliferationof Bibles throughout the land.Ellicott, Bishop Charles John (1819-1905) — Chairman of the British New TestamentRevision Committee (1871-1881), he sided withWestcott and Hort in their undermining of theKing James Bible.Elzevir, , Bonaventure (c.1546-1617) —Dutch printer, whose Leiden publishing houseproduced seven editions of the Greek New Testamentbetween 1624-1787. His 1633 secondedition introduced the term, Textus Receptus,in the preface with the words, “Textum Ab Omnibusreceiptum”—meaning “You have thereforethe text now received by all.”Erasmus, Desiderius (1469-1536) — Dutchintellectual known as the “journalist of scholarship”credited with producing the world’s firstprinted Greek New Testament. His decided preferencefor the readings of the Textus Receptusover those of Codex Vaticanus (as supplied tohim by the Catholic Sepúlveda) produced anoutstanding Greek Text. Unfortunately, he laterlater rejected the Reformers and remained withCatholicism.Eusebius of Caesarea (260-340) — Catholicchurchman and close friend of EmperorConstantine, who told him to procure fifty newBibles in the wake of Diocletian’s decade-longpersecution. Many believe codices Vaticanus andSinaiticus are two of these fifty copies.Fawkes, Guy (1570-1606) — Catholic soldierof fortune caught superintending thirty-sixbarrels of gunpowder in the basement of Parliamentonly hours before the convening of thatassembly. Executed in 1606, the would-be assassinof James I continues to be burned in effigyeach Guy Fawkes Day in Britain.Garnet, Priest Henry (1555-1606) — Superiorgeneral of the Jesuit House in Englandwho was hanged, drawn, and quartered for hisrole in the foiled Gunpowder Plot of 1605.Hort, Fenton John Anthony (1828-1892)— Pro-Catholic, pro-atheist, and demon-guidedCambridge professor who joined Brooke Westcottin producing a Greek New Testament builtupon the Codex Vaticanus. During the ensuingRevision Committee of 1871-1881, Dr. Hort tookthe lead in cramming this corrupt text down thethroats of his fellow committee members. Theend result was the Revised Version New Testamentof 1881.Ignatius de Loyola (1491-1556) — Fanaticalfounder of The Society of Jesus (more commonlyknown as the Jesuits) in 1534. Theavowed purpose of his mission was to recaptureEurope for the pope.Irenaeus (130-200) — Bishop of Lyons andone of several Ante-Nicene “fathers” whose extantwritings contain quotations from Mark16:9-20. He cites Mark 16:19 in his polemicaltreatise entitled Irenaeus Against Heresies,penned in approximately A.D. 177. (over a centuryand a half before Vaticanus and Sinaiticus).James I, King (1566-1625) — FormerlyJames VI of Scotland (through the Catholic, Mary,Queen of Scots), his English reign was distinguishedby the authorized translation of theBible which bears his name.Jerome (342-42O) — Catholic scholar whoproduced the Latin Vulgate, by “revising” theItala version (Old Latin) according to the readingsof Codex Vaticanus.Keble, John (1792-1866) — Professor ofPoetry at Oxford and co-laborer with E.B. Puseyin the pro-Vatican Oxford Movement. This pro-Catholic exercised a strong influence on Dr.Westcott.Lucian of Antioch (250-312) — The purportedcatalyst behind Dr. Hort’s unfoundedconjecture regarding an empire-wide sanctionof the Textus Receptus readings at two churchcouncils between A.D. 250-350 at Antioch. Hortcontended that all the Majority Text readingswere merely many copies later made of Lucian’scopy. But there was no evidence of this.Luther, , Martin (1483-1546) — Father of theEuropean Reformation who employed Erasmus’second edition Greek text for his epochal Germantranslation of the Bible (1522-1534). Healso provided the protection and encouragement

20 The King James and the Modern Versionsfor the exiled William Tyndale to print andsmuggle into England his first 3,000 EnglishNew Testaments in 1525.Mabillon, Priest Jean (1632-1707) — Benedictinepriest whose work, Latin Paleographyin Official Documents, helped lay the earliestfoundations of modern textual criticism.Marcion, the Heretic (d. 160) — Ancientenemy of the church known for his repeated verbalattacks on the New Testament Scriptures.Mary, , Queen (1516-1558) — Also knownas Bloody Mary. Fanatical Catholic daughter ofHenry VIII (by Catherine of Aragon), whose fiveyearreign of terror caused the deaths of overthree hundred English Christians—includingJohn Rogers, John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, NicholasRidley, and Thomas Cranmer.Matthew, , Thomas — see Rogers, John.Miller, , Edward (19th century) — Faithfulfriend and editorial assistant to Dean John WilliamBurgon. His own literary works include AGuide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.Also see Burgon.Nestle, Eberhard (1851-1913) — Germanscholar whose initial Greek New Testament of1898 has undergone twenty-six editions to date.Used in the majority of modern Bible collegesand seminaries, the Nestle’s text is basically identicalto the text of Westcott and Hort.Newman, Cardinal John Henry (1801-1890) — Early leader within the Oxford Movementwhose Tract 90 (written in 1841) evokeda major controversy for attempting to interpretthe Church of England’s 39 Articles as consistentwith Catholicism. This apostate Anglicanrevealed his true pro-Vatican sympathies by convertingto Rome in 1845. Seven years later, Dr.Westcott wrote: “and him I all but worship.”Newman was rewarded with a Cardinal’s hat in1879.Origen, Adamantius (185-254) — Onetimeheadmaster of Alexandria’s catechetical schoolof theology and philosophy. Hailed as the church’sfirst textual critic, this apostate denied manyChristian beliefs and believed the stars were livingcreatures in possession of souls for whichChrist died. After his Alexandrian excommunicationfor castrating himself, Origen took hismutilated manuscripts and migrated to Caesarea,where he set up another school. At the timeof his death in A.D. 254, he bequeathed his libraryto his favorite pupil, Pamphilus. Upon hisown death in 309, Pamphilus passed the corruptedreadings of Origen on to Eusebius, a closefriend of Constantine.Pamphilus(240-309) — Little-known personalityrepresenting the central link betweenthe corrupting hand of Origen and modern EnglishBibles. Before his death in 254, Origenpassed his contaminated manuscripts and leadershipof his catechetical school on to his favoredpupil, Pamphilus. Upon his own death in 309,Pamphilus did the same with the church historian,Eusebius. With his charge from Constantineto produce fifty new Bibles, Eusebiuswould have naturally directed his scribes toemploy the readings of Origen as their exemplar.See Origen.Pantaenus (d. 190) — The first supposedlyChristian headmaster of Alexandria’s catecheticalschool of theology and philosophy, referredto by Clement as “the deepest Gnostic.”Philo (20 B.C.-A.D. 50 ) — Apostate Jewishintellectual who founded Alexandria’s infamouscatechetical school of science, theology, and philosophy.He is also credited with pioneering theallegorical mode of hermeneutics.Plato (c. 428-348) — Pagan Greek philosopherwho was revered by Clement of Alexandria,Origin, Westcott, and Hort.Pusey, , Edward Bouverie (1800-1882) —Apostate leader of the pro-Vatican Oxford Movement;he exerted considerable influence overWestcott.Rainolds, John (1549-1607) — Leader ofthe four-man Puritan delegation, at HamptonCourt, who specifically asked King James for anew English Bible. On the translation committee,he died before the project was completed.Rogers, John (1500-1555) — Tyndale’sfaithful assistant who incorporated his master’s“dungeon works” of Joshua through 2 Chronicles(translated while in prison) into his owntranslation under the pseudonym of ThomasMatthew. Rogers was the first of Bloody Mary’svictims, being burned at the stake in the presenceof his wife and eleven children.Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) — Ecumenicalchurch historian and professor at the apostateUnion Theological Seminary, selected by the

Glossary of Proper Names21English Revision Committee to chair their Americanadvisory board.Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson (1843-1921) —Civil War veteran and accomplished attorney ledto Christ by Y.M.C.A. soul winner, ThomasMcPheeters. With the financial backing of JohnT. Pirie, Scofield published his famous referenceBible in 1909, which is heavily slanted towardwrong doctrines. The New Scofield ReferenceBible, released in 1967 while claiming to bebased on the Majority Text, was translated fromthe Nestle-Aland Text.Scrivener, , Prebendary Frederick H.A.(1813-1891) — Conservative Anglican scholarwho continually opposed Hort throughout thedecade of work done by the Revision Committeeof 1871-1881, in preparation for the English RevisedVersion. Scrivener, an earnest Greek scholar,believed only the Textus Receptus readingsshould be used. His literary works include APlain Introduction to the Criticism of the NewTestament for the Use of the Biblical Studentand The Authorized Edition of the Bible (1611):Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives.Also see “Burgon.”Semler, , Johann Salomo (1725-1791) —One of the earliest of the German theologians toapply the liberal critico-historical method of “scientific”Bible study to Scripture.Sepúlveda (16th century) — Catholic scholarcited by Tregelles for his correspondence withErasmus over the purported merits of CodexVaticanus. Erasmus rejected the counsel andonly used the Majority Text, in the preparationof His Greek Text.Simon, Priest Richard (1638-1712) —Catholic priest credited with being the founderof Old Testament criticism. Simon rejected thetraditional Mosaic authorship of Genesis throughDeuteronomy.Smith, Miles (1554-1624) — King Jamestranslator who was selected to be on the finalreview board. He was appointed to write the newBible’s preface, entitled The Translators to theReader.Smith, Vance(19th century) — Pastor ofSt. Saviour’s Gate Unitarian Church. His participationin the Revision Committee of 1871-1881 evoked bitter controversy, especially withregard to the role he played in removing the word,God, from 1 Timothy 3:16. This apostateworked closely with Westcott and Hort, in controllingthe translation of the English RevisedVersion.Stanley, , Dean Arthur Penrhyn(1815-1881) — Ecumenical Dean of Westminster whocreated a stir by inviting the Unitarian VanceSmith to the Revision Committee Communionservice of 1871. He also made an unsuccessfulbid to convert the Abbey into a national shrinefor all faiths. As early as 1848, Westcott wroteadmiringly of him.Stephenus, Robert (1503-1559) — Alsoknown as Robert Estienne or Robert Stephen.French scholar and printer who, after the deathof Erasmus, published four editions of the GreekNew Testament in 1546, 1549, 1550, and 1551.Tertullian(160-225) — Ante-Nicene “father”whose treatise On Persecution Against Heretics(A.D. 208) makes reference to the Apostles’ autographs(original writings) as being extant inhis day.Tischendorf, Count Constantin (1815-1874) — German textual critic who discoveredthe Codex Sinaiticus at St. Catherine’s Monasteryin 1844.Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux (1813-1875)— English scholar who spent forty-two hoursexamining the Codex Vaticanus. His own GreekNew Testament, published in 1870, was decidedlyanti-Receptus.Tyndale, William(1494-1536) — Britishscholar who had a fabulous grasp of foreign languagesand gave his beloved countrymen theirfirst printed English New Testament in 1525.Betrayed by a Catholic agent, named HenryPhillips, Tyndale was thrown into a dungeon andwas strangled and burned at Vilvorde, Belgium.His last words were the prayer, “Open the Kingof England’s eyes.” With 90 percent of theTyndale New Testament preserved in our AuthorizedVersion, the pioneer translator has beenduly honored as the “Father of the EnglishBible.” As this book will reveal, Tyndale was themost important English translator in all history!Westcott, Brooke Foss(1825-1901) — LiberalAnglican scholar who conspired with FentonHort from 1853-1871, to produce a radicalGreek New Testament that is primarily basedon the Codex Vaticanus. Their corrupt Greek

22 The King James and the Modern VersionsText was used by the English Revision Committeeof 1871-1881; this produced the English RevisedVersion New Testament of 1881.Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas PatrickStephen (1802-1865) — Rector of the Vatican’sEnglish College at Rome from 1828-1840. Hereturned to England, to become Archbishop ofWestminster and a cardinal in 1850. Among thehundreds of English Protestants who were secretlyweaned back to Catholicism by this persuasivepapist were Prime Minister WilliamGladstone, Archbishop Richard Chevenix Trench,and John Henry Newman.Wycliffe, John (1330-1384) — English Patriotand Reformer, known as “The Morning Starof the Reformation” for producing the first entireBible in English (although translated fromthe Latin Vulgate, since he had no other sourcesto work from). The one-hour rental fee for ahand-copied Wycliffe Bible was an entire load ofhay. Despised by the Pope, Wycliffe’s body waseventually unearthed and burned.“For whatsoever things were written aforetimewere written for our learning, that we throughpatience and comfort of the Scriptures might havehope.”—Romans 15:4“Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a lightunto my path.”—Psalm 119:105“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets,He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures thethings concerning Himself.”—Luke 24:27“Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy Word istruth.”—John 17:17

The Attack Intensifies23The Attack Intensifies19th-Century Efforts to Destroy the BibleINTRODUCTIONThe 19th century was considered very im-portant by Satan. The impending climax ofthe great controversy in our world, watchedas it is by unfallen beings throughout theuniverse, was about to begin. Knowing this,Satan aroused his angels to still more feverishactivity—to destroy the basis of the Chris-tian’s faith, the holy Bible.“Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and ofthe sea! For the devil is come down unto you,having great wrath, because he knoweth thathe hath but a short time.”—Revelation 12:12.As the century opened, he and his demonsknew that the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 wasslated for its final fulfillment within less then halfa century.Another prophecy, Revelation 11:19, clearlystated that, within a few years, the Ten Commandmentswould once again be discovered.Revelation 14:6-12 disclosed that a worldwidemovement was soon to start, which wouldproclaim the special truth about obedience byfaith in Christ to the law of God.The concluding verse of Revelation 12 clearlystated that, in the final years before Christ’s return,there would be a small group which fearlesslychose to obey God’s commandments—inspite of heavy persecution.Desperate to ward off these closing eventsof human history and, hopefully, , to quenchthem entirely, , Satan began turning loose onthe world a flood of error, , apostasy, , and per-version.Here are a few of these things; each oneeither began or alarmed a resurgent attackon the Bible in the 19th century:• German higher criticism, a basic attack onthe integrity of the Bible.• British textual criticism, a focused attackon the text, especially of the New Testament.• Modern Bible versions, based on a few lowquality—andeven corrupt—Bible manuscripts.All of the above constituted a direct at-tack on the Bible. This present book willconcern itself with each of the above threeitems.Yet, before doing so, let us briefly listsome other aspects of the satanic onslaughtwhich exploded in the 19th century:• Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, althoughextremely defective from a scientificstandpoint, was overwhelmingly received byatheists and skeptics worldwide.• Atheistic totalitarianism, masking as communism,was let loose by Karl Marx and his associates.• False religions and prophets began evangelizingthe Western nations. Satan knew, in advance,that the Spirit of Prophecy would be revived.So Mormonism, Christian Science, andthe Watchtower Society, plus many other strangecults, were initiated.• The theories of sociology and progressiveeducation were founded; both of these had a devastatingeffect on our world.• Sigmund Freud’s theories and modern socalledpsychology were slated to affect great damageon people.• Modern spiritualism experienced a powerfulrevival and continues today in old forms withnew names.• A dramatic increase in modern armamentsand methods of warfare took place.Every one of the above seven things be-gan within decades of 1844, but more was tocome. As the 20th century unrolled before oureyes, the overwhelming intensity of what has developed—clearlyshowed that Satan was determinedto introduce every possible form of delusionin order to so corrupt the planet, its books,

24 The King James and the Modern Versionsentertainment, morals—and even the atmosphereand soil—that few would be able to withstandthe devastating effects.Here is a list of but a few things whichhave exploded onto the stage of action withinjust the last half of the 20th century:• Entertainment craze• Abortion• Euthanasia• Gambling• Major crime• City riots• Organized street gangs• Terrorism• Pornography• Skeptical and agnostic philosophies• Poisonous chemicals• Narcotics• Gigantic corporations• Bribery of public officials• Corrupt courts• Mass migrations• Extermination of large populations• Heavy persecution of Christians• Overpopulation crisis• New forms of disease• Upsurge of old diseases• Sports craze• Massive enlargement of cities• People locked into those cities• Dangerous technologies• Weapons able to destroy all life• Destruction of animals• Deforestation of trees• Elimination of the old-fashioned family• Invasion of Eastern spiritualism• Poisoning of wells and groundwater• Pollution of the air we breathe• Major overextension of credit• Immense financial panicsIf Christ does not return soon, there will befew to return for! We truly are nearing the end.In this present study, , we will only con-sider the attack on the Bible. First, we willbriefly overview German higher criticism; andthen, in far greater depth, we will view theeffort to eradicate that most accurate andreliable English Bible translation ever pro-duced: The King James Version (also knownas the Authorized Version).CONTINENTALHIGHER CRITICISMHigher criticism consists of vicious specu-lative theories by liberals, in an attempt toundermine the authorship of Scripture.Modern theology was seriously affected bythe so-called Enlightenment and its aftereffects,which declared that man and human reasonwere more important than God and divine revelation.18th-century philosophers and theologians,especially in Germany and France, carried thatconcept further. Immanuel Kant stressed theimportance of reason and the rejection of everythingelse. Friedrich Schleiermacher rejectedcreeds and doctrines, declaring that all thatmattered in religion was feeling. Georg Hegelsaw religion as a constant evolution with thesynthesizing of two opposing views. These threemen deeply affected later theological thought,down to our own time.Every theology student today who is trainedin outside universities is subjected to this kindof thinking. Few graduate from those worldly institutionswho do not accept it.In Old Testament criticism, the concept ofdocumentary hypothesis won the thinking ofthe liberals. Regarding the Pentateuch, it taughtthat the first five books of the Bible were a compilationof different documents, written over aspan of five centuries by various authors. AndMoses was not one of them.Jean Astruc (1684-1766) started it off bysuggesting that Moses copied from two differentdocuments. His idea became the foundation ofdocumentary hypothesis. Johann Eichhorn(1752-1827) expanded the concept by dividingup Genesis and part of Exodus. Wilhelm De-Wette(1780-1849) applied it to Deuteronomy.Others made further atheistic contributions;and, then, Julius Wellhausen(1844-1918) putit all together in a unified theory of multiple authorsof the Pentetuch, over several centuries.This higher-critical approach did much todestroy the historically held views concerning theauthorship of the Biblical books. The way wasprepared for dissecting all the books of the Bibleand generally assigning late dates to their writings.In the New Testament, for example, Paulwas rejected as the author of anything.Closer to our own time, Rudolf Bultmann(1884-1976) developed a radical criticism of theBiblical text, known as form criticism. This was

The Attack Intensifiesan attempt to discover the literary forms andsources used by the writer of each book. He concludedthat the Gospel records are nothing morethan a collection of myths “which portrayedtruths about man’s existence rather than tellingabout actual historical events.” In order to understandthe New Testament, according to Bultmann,it is necessary to demythologize them.BRITISH TEXTUAL CRITICISMAs we have observed, continental (Germanand French) higher criticism was pri-marily concerned with destroying the valueof the content of the Bible.In Britain, a different approach was takenby men who also chose to think themselvessmarter than God’s Word. They set to workto switch manuscript sources for the Bible.This is called textual criticism.It is of interest that Richard Simon (1638-1712), a Roman Catholic priest, was the first todelve into Biblical criticism.“A French priest, Richard Simon (1638-1712), was the first who subjected the generalquestions concerning the Bible to a treatmentwhich was at once comprehensive in scope andscientific in method. Simon is the forerunnerof modern Biblical criticism.”—Catholic Encyclopedia,Vol. 4, p. 492.“Biblical scholar. From 1662 to 1678, he wasa member of the French Oratory. His HistoireCriticque du Vieux Testament (1678), arguingfrom the existence of duplicate accounts of thesame incident and variations of style, deniedthat Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.He is generally regarded as the founder of OldTestament criticism.”—Concise Oxford Dictionaryof the Christian Church, p. 476.The Jesuits believed that they could use textualcriticism to help them win Protestants backto the fold, by replacing the King James Bible.During the Oxford Movement, they had their opportunityto lay the groundwork in England.The beginnings of the revision of the KingJames Version occurred at Oxford Universityduring that period, known as the OxfordMovement, which began in 1833. This was adirect attempt to infiltrate Catholicism intothe minds of the intellectual leaders of En-gland.In order to better understand what we arediscussing, a brief overview of the OxfordMovement is in order:25“Despite all the persecution they [the Jesuits]have met with, they have not abandonedEngland, where there are a greater number ofJesuits than in Italy; there are Jesuits in allclasses of society; in parliament, among theEnglish clergy; among the Protestant laity, evenin the higher stations.“I could not comprehend how a Jesuit couldbe a Protestant priest or how a Protestantpriest could be a Jesuit; but my [Catholic] Confessorsilenced my scruples by telling me, omniamunda mundis [when in the world, be ofthe world], and that St. Paul became as a Jewthat he might save the Jews. It was no wonder,therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant,for the conversion of Protestants.”—Dr.Desanctis, Popery and Jesuitism in Rome, pp.128, quoted in Walsh, Secret History of theOxford Movement, p. 33.Desanctis was for many years a priest, workingin the Vatican, who renounced Catholicismand became a Protestant.The Protestant historian, Froude, wrote thisabout what he was taught while attending OxfordUniversity in those days:“In my first term at the University, the controversialfires were beginning to blaze . . I hadlearnt, like other Protestant children, that thePope was the Antichrist, and that Gregory VIIhad been a special revelation of that being.“[But] I was now taught [at Oxford] that GregoryVII was a saint. I had been told to abhorthe Reformers. The Reformation became a greatschism. Cranmer a traitor and Latimer a vulgarranter. Milton was a name of horror.”—J.A.Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, pp.161, 167.Rome had been trying to win over Englandfor centuries; and, in doing so, she was only continuinga penetration—and using methods—which she had been using elsewhere for hundredsof years.“Whoever, therefore, desires to get really tothe bottom of what is commonly called theCatholic revival in England is involved in a deepand far-reaching study of events, a study whichincludes not merely events of ecclesiastical history—someof which must be traced back tosources in the dawn of the Middle Ages.”—F.C.Kempson, The Church in Modern England, p.59.Does all this sound a little creepy to you?It should. Exactly the same procedure is nowoccurring within the Seventh-day Adventistdenomination! No one seems to be in charge;everyone does what he wants; and, as long

26 The King James and the Modern Versionsas leadership in the church is not opposed,the colleges and universities are free tochange the thinking of the denomination!And, if time lasts, within a few decades theywill be able to do it, since they train thefuture leaders of the church.In order to grasp the immensity of what washappening in mid-19th century England, thereader needs to understand that, by the earlypart of that century, the center of the Church ofEngland was Oxford University. Half of the youngclergymen of the nation were instructed in thisinstitution. Catholics on the continent also recognizedthat it was the heart of the AnglicanChurch.In 1832, John Henry Newman (1801-1890),vicar of St. Mary’s at Oxford, went to southernEurope, accompanied by Richard HurrellFroude (1803-1836), another secret Catholic.While there, Newman sought an interviewwith Cardinal Wiseman, who was later to havea telling influence on the 1871-1881 revisionof the King James Bible and the romanizingof the English Church.It is known that, with Froude by his side,Newman asked Wiseman what it would taketo return England to the Roman faith. Theanswer to the two Oxford professors was this:The Church of England must accept the Councilof Trent. Newman’s future was now clearto him. He immediately left the city of Rome,declaring, “I have a work to do in England.”(It was on the return voyage that he wrote thewords for the hymn we so often sing, “Lead kindlyLight, amid the encircling gloom.” He felt Godwas leading him out of Protestantism, back tothe Mother Church.)Upon his return to England, on July 9,1833, the Oxford Movement began. He organizedsecret Catholics (including Jesuit agentsplanted in the church and university) into aworking whole. They were quietly taking ordersfrom the Vatican. In 1841, he wrote this to a RomanCatholic:“Only through the English Church can youact upon the English nation.”—J.H. Newman,Apologia Pro Vita Sue, p. 225 [published yearslater when he openly renounced Protestantismand became a Catholic cardinal].Newman was able to accomplish so much,so rapidly—because he and his associateshad gained control of the teaching faculty atOxford University! This is the reason whythe liberals in our own denomination havebeen able to make such rapid inroads! TheTheological Seminary at Andrews University hasbeen almost entirely composed of new theologyliberals since 1980. Most of our other collegesand universities in North America have, sincethe early 1980s, swung into the orbit.These pro-Catholics at Oxford came to beknown as “tractarians, because of the manysmall leaflets and tracts they published. Thesewere called Tracts for the Times, and were writtenbetween 1833 and 1841. Newman wrote 24of them. Each paper said it was written “againstPopery and Dissent”; yet, without exception,these little sheets explained why Britains neededto return to Rome. —And neither university officialsnor the British government moved a fingerto shut this down!One might wonder how these men could solie through their teeth. But the answer is simpleenough. They were using the Jesuitic methodadapted by Ignatius Loyola from an earlier baptizedpagan, Clement of Alexandria (about A.D.200). The device is known as mental reservationand was used in these tracts.Clement wrote this:“He [the Christian] both thinks and speaksthe truth; except when consideration is necessary,and then, as a physician for the good ofhis patient, he will be false, or utter a falsehood. . He gives himself up for the church.”—Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Newman’sArians, p. 81.The son of Mr. Ward, another prominentleader in the movement, later made this commentabout the activities of those men:“Make yourself clear that you are justified indeception and then lie like a trooper.”—Newman’sletters, Vol. 2, p. 249.It was for such reasons that Newman andhis associates would, at times, vigorously at-tack Rome. This relaxed their critics, so thework of changing the beliefs of the studentsand the English people who read the publi-cations could continue.Nearly a hundred of these tracts were published.In Tract 90 (published in 1841), Newmandeclared that the principles of Roman Catholicismcould be taught in the Church of Englandunder the Thirty-Nine Articles. Release of thattract created a terrific stir in the nation. By 1845,it was obvious that Newman had accomplishedall he could secretly, so he then openly left theChurch of England. Pope Leo XIII later made

The Attack Intensifieshim a cardinal.“One of the better-known Jesuit plants ofthis period was Cardinal John Henry Newman(1801-1990). His followers such as FrederickWilliam Faber (1814-1863) had labeled thepreaching of fellow Englishmen like Booth,Whitefield, and Wesley as ‘detestable and diabolicalheresy.’ Of course, their influence hadalso spread to English politics. The EmancipationAct of 1829 made it legal for Roman Catholicsto become elected to parliament. After yearsof spreading pro-Vatican propaganda within theChurch of England, the Oxford professor [Newman]finally ‘jumped ship’ and returned toRome where he was given a cardinal’s hat in1879. Part of the story is that within one yearof his exodus, over 150 clergy and laymen alsocrossed over to join him.”—W.P. Grady, FinalAuthority, p. 210.From the beginning, Newman saw thevalue of using the university, , where the clergywere trained for service, as the basis of hisattempted takeover of the denomination.Newman had claimed that the foundationcreed of the Anglican Church, the Thirty-NineArticles, was essentially like the decrees of theCouncil of Trent. The two great obstacles whichstood in the way of Catholicism’s invading themental defenses of English Protestantism werethese: The Thirty-Nine Articles and the KingJames Version of the Bible.He also wrote that the King James Biblewas a spurious text, devoid of divine author-ity. . He contrasted it with the Catholic Vulgatewhich, he declared, was “a true comment onthe original text.”Something still had to be done to undercutthe influence of that holy book. The King JamesBible was scornfully referred to by the Catho-lics as the “Protestant’s paper pope.” TheJesuits well-knew that it was that book whichwas the center of the strength and religiouslife of the British people.Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman(1802-1865) was the other leader in the Catholicpenetration of England. In 1850, the popemade a cardinal of Bishop Wiseman, and appointedhim Archbishop of Westminster.Wiseman soon established a chain of twelveCatholic bishoprics throughout England, fromwhich papal teachings could be spread amongthe people.“The Catholic most responsible for directingProtestant aggression against the Autho-27rized Version was Cardinal Nicholas PatrickStephen Wiseman (1802-1865). While rectorof the English College at Rome, he studied underCardinal Angelo Mai (1782-1854), prefectof the Vatican library and celebrated editor ofthe Codex Vaticanus.”—W.P. Grady, Final Authority,p. 211.Wiseman was responsible for the conversionof hundreds of English Protestants, includingPrime Minister William Gladstone (1809-1898),Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886), and John Newman (1801-1890). Trenchand Newman worked closely with him in devisingways to replace the King James Bible withsomething they considered more appropriate.By this time, German higher criticism wasbeginning to invade England, and many Anglicanclergymen were being attracted to it. Thisonly added to the confusion and disintegrationof spirituality in the nation.There were four key resolutions, adoptedat the Council of Trent, which focused onpapal authority as above that of Holy Scrip-ture. They are important:1 - Papal tradition is on a level with Scripture.2 - The Apocryphal books are equal to thecanonical ones.3 - Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible contains noerrors.4 - Only the Roman Catholic clergy have theright to interpret the Scriptures.Thanks to the effects of the Oxford Move-ment, a process was set in motion which, inthe 20th century, , has resulted in the eleva-tion of textual critics and modern criticalGreek Texts above that of the King JamesBible, the crowning achievement (in English)of the Majority Greek Text which God pro-tected down through the centuries.Just as Cardinals Newman and Wiseman(both ex-Anglican priests) laid the ground-work in Oxford for the British takeover, , sothere were two other men who provided thetheory which was used to downgrade the KingJames Version in the eyes of the public.WESTCOTT AND HORTBrooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901) andFenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892) werethe men who devised the basis for the 20th-century attempt to replace the King James

28 The King James and the Modern VersionsBible with inferior translations.The average believer who uses an Englishtranslation of the Bible, different than the KingJames, does not realize the beliefs of the menwho provided the Greek Text for those modernBibles.In order to better understand the objec-tives of these two men who are said to have“laid the basis for modern Biblical knowl-edge”—we need to understand their personalbeliefs.We find much information in two books: TheLife and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, Vols.1-2, by his son Arthur Westcott (1903), and TheLife and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort,Vols. 1-2, by his son Arthur Fenton Hort (1896).It is significant that the name, “Jesus,” wasused only nine times in the 1,800 pages of thesetwo books. Westcott and Hort had a secret lovefor Catholicism and even paganism, but they hadlittle patience for Christianity.At the age of 22, Westcott revealed hisdoubts on the Inspiration of Scripture. Hewanted to have a part in changing the situationin England for something he thought was better.In a letter to his fiancée, dated Advent Sunday,1847, he wrote:“The battle for the inspiration of Scripturehas yet to be fought, and how earnestly I praythat I might aid the truth in that.”—Life of Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 95.That same year, he wrote from France to hisfiancée about his fascination for the Catholicdoctrine of Mariolatry (Mary worship). In the letter,he said that he loved to kneel before animage of Mary.“I could have knelt there for hours.”—Op.cit., Vol. 1, p. 81.Later he wrote:“I wish I could see to what forgotten truthMariolatry bears witness.”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p.251.Westcott and Hort worked well together, forthey had so many interests in common. Hort wasalso a secret Mary worshiper.“I have been persuaded for many years thatMary worship and ‘Jesus’ worship have verymuch in common in their causes and results.”—Lifeof Hort, Vol. 2, p. 49.Hort wished he could have been a Catho-lic priest. In a letter to Dr. Lightfoot, a memberof the Revised Version Committee who believedthe same as Hort, he wrote:“But you know I am a staunch sacerdotalist.”—Op.cit., Vol. 2, p. 86. [“Sacerdotalism”refers to the performing of the Catholic ceremonies.]Frederick Maurice was a close friend of Hort’s,who Hort said “deeply influenced me” (ibid., p.155). Maurice was a dedicated Unitarian ministerwho had been discharged from King’s Collegebecause of his atheistic teachings, yet wasappointed to the Revised Version Committeethrough Hort’s influence.Hort wrote to a friend in 1864:“Christianity with a substantial church isvanity and disillusion. I remember shocking youand Lightfoot not so long ago by expressing abelief that ‘Protestantism’ is only parentheticaland temporary.”—Op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 30.Hort believed that many of the things inthe Bible were myths.“I am inclined to think that no such state as‘Eden’ (I mean the popular notion) ever existed,and that Adam’s fall in no degree differed fromthe fall of each of his descendants.”—Op. cit.,Vol. 1, p. 78.Westcott fully agreed.“No one now, I suppose, holds that the firstthree chapters of Genesis, for example, give aliteral history.”—Life of Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 69.Although both men were salaried by the AnglicanChurch, Hort wrote this:“With that world Anglicanism, though by nomeans without a sound standing, seems a poorand maimed thing besides the great Rome.”—Life of Hort, Vol. 2, p. 30.Here are a few additional quotations by, orabout, Wescott:“He took a strange interest . . not very longafter that time, especially in Mormonism . . Irecollect his procuring and studying the Bookof Mormon about 1840.”—Comment by ArthurWestcott, in Life and Letters of John Westcott,pp. 19-20.“Oh, the weakness of my faith compared withthat of others! So wild, so skeptical am I. I cannotyield.”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 52 (August 31,1847).“I dare not communicate to you my own wilddoubts at times . . which I should tempt noone to share.”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 94 (November11, 1847).“I cannot help asking what I am? Can I claimthe name of a believer?”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 92(November 7, 1847).“What a wild storm of unbelief seems to haveseized my whole system.”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p.

30 The King James and the Modern Versions111 (May 13, 1849).Over a period of time, the present writerhas discovered that a number of founders ofnew, , devilish organizations were receivingcommunications with demons!The founder of Jesuitism, Ignatius Loyola,regularly held séances with a spirit which wouldcome to him in the woods, in the form of a beingclothed in shining light and speak to him as heworked on his rule books for the Society of Jesus.The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith,also held regular communication with a demonpresence who spoke to him.The founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, C.T.Russell, was guided by spiritualist séances inthe development of his teachings.We know that Sigmund Freudheld regularcontact with spirits.We know that Adolf Hitler was personallyguided by demons.It is very likely that Charles Darwin was also,but I found no definite information on that.All of those men started major new organizationswhich had an important influence on thelives of many in our century.You will recall that Buddha is supposed tohave received enlightenment—guidance—as hesat under a tree one day. Buddhism was the result.It is a known fact that Muhammad regularlyconsulted with a special demon who guided himin his writing of the Koran.In the process of devising their Bible-shat-tering theory, , both Westcott and Hort (bothof whom were Cambridge professors) alsodabbled in the occult!I would not want anything to do with atheory which demons helped develop! Wouldyou? Yet the theory which modern Bibletranslations are founded on was developedby those two men. Here is the story. The sonsof the two men documented it well.In the year 1851, Dr. . Hort founded a so-ciety for the investigation and classificationof ghosts and psychic phenomena. Westcott’sown son described such practices as “spiritualism”(op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 119).Westcott and Hort called their club, whichhad a number of members, the Ghostly Guild.They continued its weekly meetings for decadesand were receiving guidance through-out the 1871-1881 Revision Committee.In one issue of their publication, the GhostlyCircular, Westcott wrote about the wonderfulknowledge which could be gained by con-tact with spirits:“The interest and importance of a seriousand earnest inquiry into the nature of the phenomenawhich are vaguely called ‘supernatural’will scarcely be questioned. Many personsbelieve that all such apparently mysterious occurrencesare due either to purely naturalcauses, or to delusions of the mind or senses,or to willful deception. But there are many otherswho believe it possible that the beings ofthe unseen world may manifest themselves tous in extraordinary ways, and also are unableotherwise to explain many facts the evidencefor which cannot [be] impeached . . [by suchcontacts]. Some progress would be made towardsascertaining the laws which regulate ourbeing, and thus adding to our scanty knowledgeof an obscure but important province ofscience.”—Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 118.Westcott wrote as one who had been successfullymaking frequent contacts with the spiritworld. What were the demons teaching him? Wewill learn that Westcott and Hort were taughtwhat was needed to be done to change 20thcenturyBible translations! They had master instructorsto guide them.“The very name of witchcraft is now held incontempt. The claim that men can hold intercoursewith evil spirits is regarded as a fable ofthe Dark Ages. But spiritualism, which numbersits converts by hundreds of thousands,yea, by millions, which has made its way intoscientific circles, which has invaded churchesand has found favor in legislative bodies, andeven in the courts of kings—this mammoth deceptionis but a revival in a new disguise of thewitchcraft condemned and prohibited of old.“Satan beguiles men now, as he beguiled Evein Eden, by exciting a desire to obtain forbiddenknowledge. ‘Ye shall be as gods,’ he declares,‘knowing good and evil.’ Gen. 3:5. But the wisdomwhich spiritualism imparts is that describedby the apostle James, which ‘descendethnot from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.’James 3:15.“The prince of darkness has a masterly mind,and he skillfully adapts his temptations to menof every variety of condition and culture. Heworks ‘with all deceivableness of unrighteousness’to gain control of the children of men, buthe can accomplish his object only as they voluntarilyyield to his temptations. Those whoplace themselves in his power by indulging theirevil traits of character, little realize where their

The Attack Intensifiescourse will end. The tempter accomplishes theirruin, and then employs them to ruin others.”—Story of Redemption, pp. 395-396.Hort “came under the spell of Coleridge,”the poet and opium addict who worked to bringa wider knowledge of German higher criticismto England.Hort also read avidly in the writings ofJohn Keble, the Oxford professor who Newmanlater said was “the true and primary author ofthe Oxford Movement” (Lee and Stephen, NationalBiography, Vol. 10, p. 1180).In addition, Westcott liked to study an-cient pagan writers.“I can never look back on my Cambridge lifewith sufficient thankfulness. Above all, thosehours which were spent over Plato and Aristotlehave wrought in me which I pray may never bedone away.”—Life and Letters of Westcott, Vol.1, pp. 175-176.Hort highly valued what he learned fromancient pagans. In one letter, he mentioned thatit was his atheist friend, Maurice, who urged himin that direction.“He urged me to give the grandest attentionto Plato and Aristotle, and to make them thecentral points of my reading, and other bookssubsidiary.”—Life and Letters of Hort, Vol. 2,p. 202.In 1865, only five years before he began workas a member of the Revised Version committee,Westcott visited the Shrine of the Virgin Maryat LaSalette, France. LaSalette was one of themore famous shrines of France, where the Catholicsclaim that the Virgin Mary works miracles.Westcott wrote that a miracle took place while hewas there.“An age of faith was restored before our sightin its ancient guise . . In this lay the real significanceand power of the place.”—Life and Lettersof Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 254.When he wrote up a paper which he wantedto publish on the thrilling experience he hadobserved at the feet of Mary, Dr. . Lightfoot per-suaded him not to release it, because it wouldhinder Westcottestcott’s efforts to ultimately usetheir critical Greek Text to change the Bible.Lightfoot was far more influential in the An-glican Church than either Westcott and Hort,and it was he who got them into the committeeand helped get the others to vote in fa-vor of their daily textual recommendations.In July 1970, Pope Leo XIII declared himselfinfallible! This shocked many people through-31out the world, but not Hort. He wrote his daughter,that he was so thankful that his motherhad sent him a photograph of the pope toplace on his wall and treasure (Life and Lettersof Hort, Vol. 2, p. 227)!Six weeks after Hort hung the picture on hiswall, Leo XIII issued his encyclical, Inscrutabili,in which he declared:“The Church . . is in very truth the glory ofthe Supreme Pontiffs that they steadfastly setthemselves as a wall and bulwark to save humansociety from falling back into its formersuperstition and barbarism.”—Leo XIII, quotedin Avro Manhatten, The Vatican-Moscow Alliance,p. 67.Ten years later, Hort sent a letter fromRome and excitedly told his daughter thathe had purchased a ticket to take part in aPontifical Mass; he hoped to be able to kissthe pope’s foot (Life and Letters of Hort, Vol.2, p. 393).Hort wrote to Lightfoot in 1880, that he ut-terly rejected the infallibility of Scripture.He considered the Bible to be just anotherbook, less interesting than Plato.“The more I learn, the more I am convincedthat fresh doubts come from my own ignorance,and that at present I find the presumption infavour of the absolute truth—I reject the wordinfallibility—of the Holy Scripture overwhelmingly.”—Op.cit., Vol. 1, p. 420.Anything savoring of unbelief caught theirattention.“Have you read Darwin? I should like a talkwith you about it! In spite of difficulties, I aminclined to think it unanswerable. In any caseit is a treat to read such a book.”—Op. cit.,Vol. 1, p. 414.Hort did not believe in the existence ofSatan or the atonement (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 120).He believed that a person could repent ofsin after he died (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 275) andthat there was a purgatory (op. cit., Vol. 2, 336).Westcott believed he could efficaciouslypray for the dead (Life and Letters of Westcott,Vol. 2, p. 349).Neither one liked to preach from the pulpit,for they really had little interest in Chris-tianity. A personal experience with Christ wassomething neither ever had.Unbelief, spiritualism, Catholicism, highercriticism, and pagan lore were the deep lovesof Westcott and Hort. And his satanic high-ness used them both as polished instruments

32 The King James and the Modern Versionsto tear down confidence in the King JamesBible and the manuscripts on which it wasbased.It is important that we spend time on theabove, discovering the beliefs of those twomen—for much that followed in 20th-cen-tury Protestant Bible history has been basedon a theory they devised.Prior to Westcott and Hort, all transla-tions of the Bible had been made from theMajority Text (the Received Text, or TextusReceptus, family of manuscripts). Becauseof their influence, all translations since then(from 1881 onward) have been based on theSinaiticus / Vaticanus family.Their theory is essentially this: The very smallSinaiticus / Vaticanus manuscript family shouldbe preferred in all instances in which it conflictswith the very large Majority Text family. It is saidthat the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus family waswritten before the others; therefore it is moreaccurate.But we will find that this is not true.In this book, we are going to learn thatthe Sinaiticus / Vaticanus family is not ear-lier; and, because that family is smaller, , itsexcessive, mutually exclusive variants are notas trustworthy.In order to properly understand the West-cott-Hort theory, , we need to go back to thefirst centuries after Christ’s time, when theearly manuscripts were produced.Hort himself grudgingly conceded, “A theoreticalpresumption indeed remains that a majorityof extant documents is more likely to representa majority of ancestral documents at eachstage of transmission than vice versa.”—B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort,The New Testament in the Original Greek,Vol. 2, p. 45

The Early Centuries33The Early CenturiesThe Best Manuscripts Support the KJVTHE WARNING WAS GIVENThe Apostle Paul warned the early churchagainst heresy—and it was quick to assertitself. In an effort to destroy the youngchurch, Satan caused men to arise with ev-ery kind of error.Paul declared that there would come “a fallingaway” (2 Thessalonians 2:3) and that “themystery of iniquity doth already work” (verse7). He warned the Thessalonians not to be soonshaken or troubled in spirit “by letter as fromus” (2 Thessalonians 2:2).Later, on his last journey to Jerusalem, hewarned the men from Ephesus:“Of your own selves shall men arise, speakingperverse things, to draw away disciples afterthem. Therefore watch, and remember, thatby the space of three years I ceased not to warnevery one night and day with tears.”—Acts20:30-31).From prison, he wrote Timothy:“Keep that which is committed to thy trust,avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositionsof science falsely so-called.”—1 Timothy6:20).The Greek word, in that verse, which is translated“science” is gnosis. Gnosis means “knowledge.”The apostle was condemning the falseknowledge and theories which were alreadybeginning to arise.“The later Gnostics were bolder, but moreconsistent innovators on the simple scheme ofChristianity . . In all the great cities of the Eastin which Christianity had established its mostflourishing communities, sprang up this revivalwhich aspired to a still higher degree of knowledgethan was revealed in the Gospel, andboasted that it soared almost as much abovethe vulgar Christianity as it did above the vulgarpaganism.”—Henry H. Milman, History ofChristianity, Vol. 2, p. 107.There were no Gnostic sects after the 5thcentury; for, by that time, as with all other paganand heathen religions, their concepts hadbeen absorbed into the Roman system. —Thatis why Scripture declares it to be “Babylon”! It isa confusing hodgepodge of pagan error.Yet, even though gnosticism and the Mys-tery Religions had penetrated the Catholicsystem, God preserved the Bible manu-scripts—so that the errors had not filteredinto, what came to be known as, the “Major-ity Text,” the great majority of manuscripts.One reason this is so is because it was faith-ful Christians who were preparing those Biblecopies. The worldlings, modernists, atheists,cultists, and Catholics were not interestedin doing this.We can know that this is true, not be-cause we were there but, because the Biblestranslated into English were translated fromthe Majority Text; they do not have Gnostic,atheistic, or Catholic teachings.That statement does not include the CatholicBibles, all of which are based on the LatinVulgate and do have Catholic concepts interwoveninto it. In the course of writing the book,The Magnificat, for Roman Catholics, the writerhad to read somewhat widely in the Rheims-Douai (Douay), since all Bible quotations hadto be from that book or other Vatican-approvedbooks. The Rheims-Douai definitely containsCatholic error. More on this later.THE EARLYMANUSCRIPT EVIDENCEThe earliest copies of Bible portions wereeither written on papyrus (also called parch-ment) ) or on vellum.Papyrus was made from the inner bark ofthe reed-like papyrus plant found along riverbanks and marshes in Italy and elsewhere inthe warmer climates. After drying, these stripsof bark were laid side by side in a row with asecond layer positioned above in a crisscross

34 The King James and the Modern Versionsmanner. The two layers were then gummed together,to create a primitive form of paper.Vellumwas the shaved and scraped skinsof sheep, goats, and similar animals. It was moredurable and costly. Calf and antelope skin wasthe most expensive. An entire antelope wouldonly provide about two leaves (four pages) of alarge Bible manuscript.In Bible times, these pages were connectedinto long strips, called scrolls. The average papyrusscroll (about the size of the book of Luke)was 10 inches in height and about 30 feet inlength.In the 2nd century, a little after the time ofthe apostles, codices began to be used. Thesewere pages bound on one side, somewhat likeour modern books.There were four types of early copies ofNew Testament portions: Greek manuscripts,quotations and comments by early Christianwriters (called the “early church fathers”),lectionaries, and early translations. Let usconsider each of these:1 - MANUSCRIPTSThese were papyrus or vellum copies ofsmaller or larger portions of the Bible.Just as our Bibles wear out from use, so didthose of ancient times. Fortunately, we have somany of those old copies, some partly worn out,that we can compare them and tell when copyists’mistakes occurred.At the present time, there are over 5,000surviving manuscripts of the Bible! Most are onlya portion of it; some were made within a couplecenturies after the time of the apostles while mostwere produced later. We have far more copies ofthe Bible than of any other ancient writings. TheNew Testament manuscripts are in Greek andthe Old Testament is in Hebrew.Copies of portions of the Bible were made tobe read, to be shared with others, to be placedin churches, or sent with missionaries to foreignlands.There were two types of Greek Biblemanuscripts: the uncials and cursive manu-scripts.(1) THE UNCIALS (MAJUSCULES)The uncials (also called majuscules) werewritten on papyrus or vellum about quarto(roughly 9 by 11 inches high) or folio size (doublethat size), usually with two and occasionallythree or four columns on each page.Unlike the later cursive manuscripts, uncialswere written in capital letters without anyspaces or punctuation. Here is an example ofan early uncial (John 1:1-4):INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWASWITHGDANDTHEWORDWASGDTHESAMEWASINTHEBEGINNINGWITHGDALLTHINGSWEREMADEBYHIMANDWITHOUTHIMWASNOTANYTHINGMADETHATWASMADEINHIMWASLIFEANDTHELIFEWASTHELIGHTOFMENThe wording, of course, was in Greek not English.There was a horizontal line just above theword, “GD” (“God”; in the Greek, “THS” for“Theos”). Certain words, known as the nominasacra (sacred names), were abbreviated and asmall line was placed over the letters. One ofthese was the word, “God.” In the above uncial,it would be written “GD” and have a small horizontalline just above the GD.(2) THE CURSIVES (MINUSCULES)The second type of Greek manuscripts werethe cursives, also known as minuscules. Thesewere written in a lower-case running hand andlook like the Greek letters in all printed New TestamentGreek Texts, since the time of Erasmusin the 16th century.(3) THE PAPYRIThe papyri were portions of the New Testamentwhich were written on paper (papyrus).We can also find it in Egypt, since it has a climatedry enough to preserve this ancient paper.2 - QUOTATIONSFROM THE “FATHERS”The earliest Christian writers (the early “fa-thers”) quoted extensively from the Bible. Thisis fortunate; for their statements help us determinethe original wording of the Bible. It hasbeen said that most of the New Testament, alone,is found in the writings of these so-called church“fathers!” And many of them pre-date the Sinaiticusand Vaticanus by many years.3 - LECTIONARIESThese are also important witnesses to the

36 The King James and the Modern Versionsoriginal text of the Bible. Of the more than 5,000extant manuscripts, 2,143 are lectionaries.A compilation of many important portionsof the Bible, the lectionary was important in eachlocal church for use in public readings duringchurch services. The ones containing a daily selectionwere called Synaxarion while those usedfor special days (such as Easter and Christmas)were named Menologion.4 - TRANSLATIONSThe missionary-minded believers wereanxious to carry the message of salvation inChrist to all the world. To do so required trans-lations of the Bible into other languages. Anumber of such translations were made. Thesetranslations also help us know the meaning ofthe original text of the Bible. We will later discussa number of those early Bible translations.All of the above four types of early manu-script evidence are very important in estab-lishing the basic Bible Text we should usetoday! Modern Bible translations are basedon the wrong one.Later in this study, , we shall return tothis evidence—and show how it supports thetype of text which forms the basis of theKing James Bible.THE WESTCOTT-HORT THEORYWestcott and Hort conjectured that, ofthe 5,000 Bible manuscripts, only two shouldbe given the preference: the Sinaiticus andthe Vaticanus! They said these were olderand therefore more reliable than any of theothers. It was assumed that, since it was con-jectured that they were without error, , all vari-ations in the other 5,000 manuscripts mustbe copyist errors of one kind or another.That is the basic theory. But we are going tolearn it is totally wrong in a number of ways.Let us now examine both of these manu-scripts:THE SINAITICUSThe Codex Sinaiticus is designated by thefirst letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which isaleph (}).(All codices, cursive manuscripts, lectionaries,translations, etc., have scholarly code lettersor numbers. But, throughout this presentbook, we will generally not use them. When theyare used in a quotation, we will follow it in bracketswith the name. A major purpose of this bookis to simplify the entire subject rather than addingto the confusion.)In April 1844, a young German scholar,Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874), sailedto Egypt, in search of Bible manuscripts. He hadjust completed a two-year study of ancient manuscriptsin Paris. In May, he arrived at the Monasteryof St. Catharine, at the foot of Mount Sinai.He later wrote:“In visiting the library of the monastery . . Iperceived in the middle of the great hall a largeand wide basket full of old parchments; andthe librarian, who was a man of information,told me that the two heaps of papers like these,mouldered by time, had been already committedto the flames.”—I.M. Price, Ancestry of OurEnglish BibleAmong these sheets, he saw a number ofpages of a very old Greek uncial manuscript ofthe Bible. The monks, perceiving that thesesheets might be important, only let him take afew. Returning to Paris, he published them. Theywere parts of several Old Testament books.Tischendorf returned to St. Catherine’s in1853, but only found a fragment with elevenverses of Genesis. Certain that the rest had beendestroyed, he left once again.Yet he could not but wonder if more mightbe available. So he went to Moscow and personallyappealed to the Russian emperor, to providefunds for him to purchase whatever manuscriptshe might be able to locate. After somedelay, funds were made available for this purpose.Toward the end of January 1859, he re-turned to St. Catherine’s Monastery. . How-ever, , several days search among manuscriptsfailed to reveal that which he most sought.Then, on the afternoon of February 4, thishappened:“I was taking a walk with the steward of theconvent in the neighborhood, and as we returned,towards sunset, he begged me to takesome refreshment with him in his cell. Scarcelyhad he entered the room, when resuming ourformer subject of conversation, he said, ‘And I,too, have read a Septuagint [called the LXX, anancient Greek translation of the Old Testament].’“And so saying he took down from the cornerof the room a bulky kind of volume, wrapped

The Early Centuries37in a red cloth, and laid it before me. I unrolledthe cover and discovered to my great surprise,not only those fragments which fifteen yearsbefore I had taken out of the basket, but alsoother parts of the Old Testament, the New Testamentcomplete, and in addition, the Epistleof Barnabus and a part of the Pastor [Shepherd]of Hermas. [The latter two were New Testamentpseudopigraphal books.]“Full of joy, which this time I had the selfcommandto conceal from the steward and therest of the community, I asked, as in a carelessway, for permission to take the manuscript intomy sleeping chamber to look over it more atleisure. There, by myself, I could give way tothe transport of joy which I felt.”—Tischendorf,Autobiography.Tischendorf would never forget that night.“This was the most exciting moment inTischendorf’s entire life; he stayed up all night,fathoming his newly found treasure. In his diary,the scholar writes, ‘Quippe dormire nefasvidebatur.’ (‘It really seemed a sacrilege tosleep.’)”—David Beale, A Pictoral History ofOur English Bible, p. 54.That night, Tischendorf copied part of thecodex, and the next morning he requested permissionto take the scroll to Cairo to have it completelycopied. But the prior, who alone had theauthority to make this decision, had left forCairo two days earlier.Tischendorf quickly went to Cairo and talkedto the prior of the Greek Orthodox monastery.The Greek Orthodox are no more willing toshare Bibles with the world than are theirseparated brethren in Rome. But Tischendorfhinted that a sizeable amount of money mightbe paid.The young scholar was then given per-mission to take the codex to Cairo, where hemade a copy of the entire manuscript.It is doubtful whether the reader can graspthe amount of work required to do that! Howwould you like to copy part of the Old Testamentand all of the New—not in English, but inancient Greek capital letters without punctuationor spaces between letters! The task tookabout eight months.On September 24, 1859, he returned to themonastery and was given permission to take thecodex to Moscow, where it could be copied moreaccurately. On November 19, he presented hismanuscript finds, including the Sinaiticus, to theemperor at his winter palace.The emperor purchased it from the monasteryfor 9,000 rubles. The manuscript remainedin St. Petersburg until 1933, when the Soviets,who had no need of extra Bibles around, sold itto the British Museum for 100,000 pounds.The Sinaiticus has 346½ leaves of vellum,made from the finest quality antelope skins. Ifthe entire Old Testament had been included, thecodex would have required the skins of a couplethousand animals! The leaves are 15 by 13½inches in size. Each page has four columns,except in the poetical books, which have two.It is written in large uncials with 12 to 14letters to a line.This codex is thought by the experts tohave been written about A.D. 340. There aredefinite reasons for dating it to that time;and we will learn that the Majority Text (thebasis for the King James Bible) goes back toan earlier date.Of the Old Testament, only fragments re-main from the earlier parts, but completebooks from the later part. The entire NewTestament is included.The entire document includes fragments ofGenesis 23 and 24, Numbers 5-7, 1 Chronicles9:27 to 19:17, Ezra 9:9 to 10:44, but also Nehemiah,Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 4Maccabees, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations1:1 to 2:20, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum toMalachi, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songof Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of benSira (Ecclesiasticus), and Job. Note that six ofthese were from the Old Testament Apocrypha.In addition to the complete New Testament, theShepherd of Hermas was at the end. That is aNew Testament pseudopigraphal book, the firsttime any Westerner had ever seen it.Tischendorf later went on to discover otherBible manuscripts, and eventually prepared aGreek text with his findings.“From 1859 he was professor of theology atLeipzig. Between 1840 and 1860 he visitiedmany libraries in Europe and the Near East insearch of manuscripts, the most famous of hisfinds being his dramatic discovery of the CodexSinaiticus. Besides careful editions of severalimportant Biblical manuscripts (e.g., CodexEphraemi, 1843-1845; Codex Amiatinus,1850; Codex Claromontanus, 1852), he publishedbetween 1841 and 1869 eight editionsof the Greek text of the New Testament with afull critical apparatus of the variant readings.”—Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p.

38 The King James and the Modern Versions1380.Not all Greek Texts include apparati. Theapparatus is the technical name given, byscholars, to the extensive footnotes at thebottom of each page of some critical GreekTexts.Those footnotes show the variants andtell which manuscripts, lectionaries, church “fathers,”and translations support them. They arevery helpful. We will personally examine this later.Frederick Scrivener, a firm believer in the trustworthinessof the Majority Greek Text uponwhich the King James Version was translated,later examined the Sinaiticus carefully. Scrivenerconcluded that it had been corrected repeat-edly, , because of copyist errors and that itwas not of an early, , but late, date.“Since this document was first inscribed, ithas been made the subject of no less than tendifferent attempts of revision and correction [bylater scribes]. The number of these attemptsis witnessed by the different chirographies[handwriting styles] of the revisers, and the centuriesin which they were respectively made canbe approximated by the character of the differenthandwritings by which the several sets ofcorrections were carried out . . Many of thesecorrections were contemporaneous with thefirst writer [copyist], but far the greater partbelonging to the 6th or 7th century.”—ScrivenerPlain Introduction, p. 267.Based on Scrivener’s findings, Philip Maurodiscusses how deeply flawed the Sinaiticuswas:“Here is a document which the [1870-1881]revisers have esteemed (and that solely becauseof its antiquity [said to be in the 4th century])to be so pure that it should be taken as a standardwhereby all other copies of the Scripturesare to be tested and corrected. Such is the estimateof certain scholars of the 19th century.“But it bears upon its face the proof thatthose in whose possession it had been, fromthe very first, and for some hundreds of yearsthereafter, esteemed it to be so impure [so fullof copyist errors] as to require correction inevery part . . Considering the great value to itsowner of such a manuscript (since it is on vellumof the finest quality) and that he would bemost reluctant to consent to alterations in itexcept the need was clearly apparent, it is plainthat this much admired codex bears upon itsface the most incontestable proof of its defectivecharacter.“But, more than that, Dr. Scrivener tells usthat the evident purpose of the thorough-goingrevision which he places in the 6th or 7th centurywas to make the manuscript conform tomanuscripts in vogue at that time which were‘far nearer to our modern Textus Receptus.’ ”—Mauro, quoted in D.O. Fuller, True or False?p. 75.Textus Receptus is the name given to thethird edition of Erasmus’ Greek Text, from whichnearly all European Reformation-era Bibles weretranslated from—and all English Bibles. Theexceptions were the 9th-century Alfred’s, the14th-century Wycliffe’s translation, and theCatholic Rheims-Douai (Douay). The TextusReceptus (the “Received Textext”) is the Ma-jority Text which has been rejected by 20th-century Bible translators.(As we will learn later, it was not until themid-20th century that a Catholic Bible, in anylanguage, was translated from something otherthan the Vulgate.)Dr. Scrivener concluded his denunciation ofthe quality of the Sinaiticus with these words:“It must be confessed, indeed, that the CodexSinaiticus abounds with similar errors ofthe eye and pen, to an extent unparalled, butrather unusual in documents of first rate importance;so that Tregelles has freely pronouncedthat ‘the state of the text, as proceedingfrom the first scribe, may be regarded asvery rough.’ ”—Scrivener, Plain Introduction,p. 267.—Yet this is the manuscript, along withthe Vaticanus, which, according to Westcottand Hort’s theory, , has become the basis forall 20th-century Bible translations!Dean Burgon, another brilliant Greek scholarwho also carefully examined the Sinaiticus,wrote about the utter carelessness of theSinaiticus’ copyists:“On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 wordsare dropped through very carelessness. Lettersand words, even whole sentences, are frequentlywritten twice over, or begun and immediatelycancelled; while that gross blunder, whereby aclause is omitted because it happens to end inthe same words as the clause preceding, occursno less than 115 times in the New Testament.”—DeanBurgon, Causes and Corruptionof the Traditional Text, p. 128.Scrivener shows in some detail how the Sinai-ticus disagrees so frequently with all the othercodices.“The relation in which Cod. 2 [Codex 2, nowcalled Codex Aleph, is the Sinaiticus] standsto the other four chief manuscripts of the Gospelsmay be roughly estimated from analyzing

The Early Centuriesthe transcript of four pages first published byTischendorf, as well as in any other way. Of the312 variations from the common text thereinnoted, forty-five stand alone, and eight agreeswith ABCD united (much of C, however, is lostin these passages), with ABC together thirtyonetimes, with ABD fourteen, with AB thirteen,with D alone ten, with B alone but once(Mark 1:27), with C alone once: with severalauthorities against AB thirty-nine times, withA against B fifty-two, with B against A ninetyeight.”—Scrivener,Plain Introduction, Vol. 2.,pp. 267-268.The above four codex designations areAlexandrinus (A); Sinaiticus (Aleph or });Vaticanus (B); Ephraemi (C); Bezae (D).Why was the Sinaiticus so sloppily pro-duced? We e earlier said that God protectedthe text as faithful Christians made copies.Those thousands of copies became the Ma-jority Text which so wonderfully agrees withitself.But the Sinaiticus and (we will learn be-low) the Vaticanus were both sloppily prepared.This was due to the fact that the copy-ists were men paid, by Constantine, to dothe job. These men had been hired throughEusebius, a favorite of the emperor and con-fidant of Pope Sylvester. . The scribes carednot for quality of their workmanship; and itshows in the finished product.THE VATICANUSThe Codex Vaticanus (B) is the most com-plete known manuscript of the Greek Bible;it includes much of the Old Testament andall of the New Testament while breaking offat Hebrews 9:14.It was brought to the Vatican Library by PopeNicholas V, who heard about it in 1448; and itwas listed in the first catalog of the library in1475. Its earlier history is not known. But ev-erything about it—the age of the vellum skin,the lettering, the type of ink, etc.—identi-fies it as having been written at about thesame time as the Sinaiticus.It has been said that the Vatican secretlywrote it. It is more likely that it was an ancientcopy of the Bible. Rome did not want the worldto know about it—and did everything possibleto keep scholars from reading it. They did notlike Bibles being made available to people. If theReformation had not occurred, the people stillwould have no Bibles!41This codex was first made known in 1533,when Sepúlveda called the attention of Erasmusto it. But Sepúlveda was not permitted near it;and Erasmus did not want to bother with it. Hepreferred the Majority Text of the Greek. No Prot-estant was permitted to study the book untilthe middle of the 19th century.In 1669, Bartolocci, librarian of the Vatican,made a collection of some of its variant readings,but nothing was published.When Napoleon invaded Italy, he took it toParis, where Hug carefully examined it in 1809.For the first time, the world learned of its existence.In 1815, after Waterloo, it was restored toRome, where it was once again hidden. Noscholar could go near it. The Catholic Churchtoday claims to be the one that gave the Bible tothe world, yet history reveals that, for centuries,it tried to destroy every copy of the book it couldfind. Those it did not burn, it chained to wallsin dark corners of monasteries.In 1843, after several months delay, , Tisch-endorf was permitted to look at it for sixhours. How kind they were! The next year,DeMuralt was allowed nine hours to read in it.In 1845, the English scholar Tregelles—even though he had an introduction fromCardinal Wiseman of England—was not allowedto copy a word. If he looked too in-tently at any passage, the two attendantswhich stood next to him, would snatch thevolume from him and turn the page! When heleft the room where it was kept, his pockets weresearched and all writing material was taken fromhim. When it comes to keeping the Scripturesfrom the public, Rome has had years of experience.“They would not let me open it withoutsearching my pocket, and depriving me of pen,ink and paper . . If I looked at a passage toolong the two prelati (prelates) would snatchthe book out from my hand.”—Tregelles,quoted in Frederick Scrivener, A Plain Introductionto the Criticism of the New Testament,Vol. 1, p. 112.Other scholars who traveled to Italy fromdistant lands to see the codex were, if anything,treated worse.We might wonder why the Vatican sofeared to have any scholar look at this co-dex. The answer probably is that they werefrightened at what anyone might find in it!The ancient codex was written in capital let-

42 The King James and the Modern Versionsters, without spaces or periods; and, verylikely, , no Catholic scholars could read it! Allthey knew was their precious dead language,Latin.Rome’s refusal to let anyone see the codexcreated such a stir in the scholarly world; somuch so that, in order to avoid the scandalouslabel that it was trying to keep the Scripturesfrom the people, the Vatican hired some folk tomake a copy for publication. But, since no onein Italy cared much about Bibles, the work wasvery sloppy and full of errors. Under the auspicesof Cardinal Angelo Mai, the work was donebetween 1828 and 1838. Nineteen years later,someone got around to hauling it over to a printshop. In 1857 it was published in five volumes.From the few glimpses they had been able toobtain of the original, scholars throughout Europeimmediately recognized it to be an inferiorproduction of the original. Rome never was verygood at publishing Bibles.In 1866, Tischendorf made a third attemptto see the codex. This time he asked for permissionto edit the text; that is, to identify errors inthe published copy. So, centuries after the Vaticanacquired the manuscript, Tischendorf was permitted,under the supervision of a prelate, C.Vercellone, to look at it for three hours a day.Recalling the fabulous amount he was ableto accomplish at St. Catherine’s, by the end ofthe eighth day he had managed, contrary to directions,to actually copy 20 pages from the original!Vatican officials were incensed and almostthrew him out of town. But, because of what hehad done seven years earlier in bringing theSinaiticus to the world in 1859, Tischendorf hadbecome world famous. It would not look right tokick him out; so, Vatican officials grudgingly lethim have six more days to read in it. Because hehad a near photographic memory, when Tischendorfleft, he was able, in 1867, to publish thebest edition of the text up to that time.Seeing the cat was out of the bag, and ashamedthat other people were publishing their book,Vercellone and his successors at the Vaticanpublished a very complete edition in six fo-lio volumes in 1868-1881. The Westcott-HortText was based on that edition. But it was notuntil 1889-1890, that a photographic facsimileedition of the entire codex was prepared by AbbateCozza-Luzi and issued.Codex Vaticanus (B) is written in uncialson 759 folios of fine vellum, three columns(of about 42 lines each) to a page, 10 incheswide by 10½ inches high. Because of the vel-lum and the type of print, it is dated in thefirst half of the 4th century, , to about theyear A.D. 340—the same time that the Sinai-ticus was copied.It contains solid capital letters, with nospaces between words, no punctuation, and nodivisions into chapters or sections. It is all justone solid paragraph, from start to finish!Tischendorf was certain that the scribe ofthe New Testament portion was the same onewho prepared a part of Codex Sinaiticus. We willlearn later that this helps explain why the endingof Mark is gone from both codices.The codex originally contained the entireGreek Bible. In its present state, after the ravagesof going from place to place for centuries, itlacks Genesis 1:1 to 46:28; Psalms 106-138;and everything after Hebrews 9:14.A PROBLEM DEEPER THANSINAITICUS AND VATICANUSWe e have discussed these two books indetail, since they lie at the heart of the con-troversy.The truth is that it is not the Sinaiticusand Vaticanus which are the problem. Theyare just Bible manuscripts, howbeit, with se-rious flaws.The problem is this: (1) The Westcott-Horttheory claims that those two manuscripts shouldhave superiority over 5,000 other manuscripts.(2) All 20th-century scholars prepare Bibles inaccordance with that theory. For this purpose,modern translators use the Nestle-Aland or UBS(United Bible Societies) Greek Text, both of whichfavor the readings of those two manuscripts, overand above all others.It is not the Sinaiticus and Vaticanuswhich are the problem, it is the adulationthat translators give to them by preferringthem above the Majority Text.The greatstrength of the Majority Text (used to translatethe King James Version) is that it was a combinationof many manuscripts. As a result, theMajority Text tended to be much more free fromthe copyist errors to be found in one or a fewmanuscripts.Yes, es, there are some copyist errors in allmanuscripts, but relatively few in those whichcomprise the Majority Text.“Some look to us gravely and say, ‘Don’t youthink there might have been some mistake in

The Early Centuriesthe copyist or in the translators?’ This is allprobable, and the mind that is so narrow thatit will hesitate and stumble over this possibilityor probability would be just as ready tostumble over the mysteries of the InspiredWord, because their feeble minds cannot seethrough the purposes of God . .“I take the Bible just as it is, as the InspiredWord. I believe its utterances in an entireBible.”—1 Selected Messages, 16-17 [Manuscript16, 1888; written at Minneapolis, Minnesota,autumn 1888].Copyist errors did, indeed, occur fromtime to time in the copying of manuscripts;but the Majority Texttended to eliminatethem for two reasons: (1) Those manuscriptswere prepared by faithful, prayerful follow-ers of Christ and God blessed their efforts tobe accurate. (2) As scholars compared manu-script with manuscript of the many in theMajority Text, they could the more easilyweed out the errors.SINAITICUS AND VATICANUSBOTH SERIOUSLY FLAWEDRegarding the quality of the transcrip-tion in the Vaticanus, upon very careful ex-amination of it, Dr. . Scrivener found that itwas not much better than the Sinaiticus:“That no small proportion of these are mereoversights of the scribe seems evident from thecircumstance that this same scribe has repeatedlywritten words and clauses twice over.”—Philip Scrivener, Plain Introduction, Vol. 1, p.120.If I repeated or miswrote the same thing samethang, you would consder me me an incompetentwriter. (as demonstrated in this paragraph.)Yet those two codices made such mistakes repeatedly.John W. Burgon gives an example from theVaticanus:“Matthew 21:4, five words written twice over;Matthew 26:56-57, six words; Luke 1:37, threewords or one line; John 17:18, six words. Thesehowever, are but a few of many . .“The impurity of the text exhibited by thesecodices is not a question of opinion but of fact. . In the Gospels . . Codex B [Vaticanus] leavesout words or clauses . . It bears traces of carelesstranscription on every page.”—Burgon,quoted in Scrivener, Vol. 1, p. 120.Citing a comtemporary scholar, Dr. Dobbin,Scrivener mentions still more omissions of thesacred Scriptures in the Vaticanus:43“One marked feature, characteristic of thiscopy, is the great number of its omissions, whichhas induced Dr. Dobbin to speak of it as presenting‘an abbreviated text of the New Testament’. . and certainly the facts he states onthis point are startling enough. He calculatesthat Codex B [Vaticanus] leaves out words orwhole clauses no less than 330 times in Matthew,365 in Mark, 439 in Luke, 357 in John,384 in the Acts, 681 in the surviving Epistles;or 2,556 times in all.”—Scrivener, Plain Introduction,Vol. 1, p. 120.Such ommissions were very serious. Theproblem is intensified, since the omitted wordsor phrases occur at times in unison.“By what possible hypothesis will such acorrespondence of the copies be accounted forif these words, clauses, and sentences are indeed,as is pretended, nothing else but spuriousaccretions to the text?”—Ibid.Burgon recognized a common flow of er-rors, in the two codices, that pointed to anunderlying attempt to insert errors.“Between the first two [Sinaiticus and Vaticanus]there subsists an amount of sinisterresemblance, which proves that they must havebeen derived at no very remote period from thesame corrupt original. Tischendorf insists thatthey were partly written by the same scribe.Yet they vary repeatedly from one another onevery page; as well as differing widely from thecommonly Received [Majority] Text, with whichthey have been carefully collated. On being referredto this standard, in the Gospels alone,B is found to omit at least 2,877 words: toadd, 536: to substitute, 935: to transpose,2,098: to modify, 1,132 (in all 7,578)—the correspondingfigures for being severally 3,455,839, 1,114, 2,299, 1,265 (in all 8,972). Andbe it remembered that the omissions, additions,substitutions, transpositions, and modifications,are by no means the same in both. Itis in fact easier to find two consecutive versesin which these two manuscripts differ the onefrom the other than two consecutive verses inwhich they entirely agree.”—Burgon, RevisionRevised, p. 12.ORIGIN OF THE SINAITICUSAND VATICANUSThe Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are not asold as the Majority Text. They originated inAlexandria, Egypt, a continual breeding groundfor paganizing Christian error. . They were in-fluenced by the Alexandrian heretic, Origen.These two codices were extremely expensive.

44 The King James and the Modern VersionsThey required the sacrifice of well-over a thousandantelopes (since each adult antelope couldonly provide skin for two leaves—four pages—ofa codex).Only an extremely wealthy person could affordto commission the preparation of such abook; yet both books are very similar in anumber of ways. The style and handwritingis quite similar; the remarkable number ofcopyist errors are also! In addition, Tischen-dorf declared that part of the Vaticanus waswritten by the same scribe which producedall of the Sinaiticus. There is no reason to considerhim wrong in that conclusion.It is believed that both codices were com-missioned by Constantine I, as part of anorder for fifty copies. It is also believed thatthey were transcribed in Alexandria, Egypt.“Constantine applied to Eusebius for fiftyhandsome copies, amongst which it is not improbablethat the manuscripts . . B and Alephwere to be actually found.”—Burgon, TraditionalText, p. 163.In order to do this, Constantine asked Eu-sebius, bishop of Caesarea, to arrange forthe copying of the fifty new Bibles. Eusebiuswent to the memorial library of Pamphilus,where he led a team of copyists to carry outthis request.“Most scholars believe that, like the Vaticanus,it [the Sinaiticus] was written in Alexandria,Egypt . . The New Testament text of thecodex is closely allied to that of the Vaticanus,together with which it is the chief witness tothe ‘Neutral Text.’ ”—Oxford Dictionary of theChristian Church, 310.Tischendorf also believed that this was howthe Sinaiticus originated.“Is it possible that this Bible, Aleph, couldbe one of the 50 copies which Emperor Constantineordered Eusebius to place in Constantinople,his new capital.”—Tischendorf, quotedin Beale, Pictoral History, p. 54.It is very significant that there is such decidedevidence that these two codices were producedin Alexandria, the capital at that time ofEgypt. Not only was 4th-century Alexandrianoted for its mixture of pagan philosophywith Christianity, , but it had a reputation forvery early “textual criticism”:i.e., , trying tochange the Word of God.In addition, Origen, the worst Christianapostate alive, was there. It was also the centerof the blasphemous, Christ-denying her-esy of Arianism (the teaching that Christ wasa created being). In referring to this error,Burgon writes:“It is a circumstance that cannot fail to giverise to suspicion that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticmanuscripts had their origin under a predominantinfluence of such evil fame. At thevery least, careful investigation is necessary tosee whether these copies were in fact free fromthat influence which has met with universal condemnation.”—Burgon,Traditional Text, p. 161.This Alexandrian connection is highly significant.It explains the numerous errors in the Sinaiticusand Vaticanus, both typographically anddoctrinally, as revealed in their 3,000 plus disagreementswith one another in only four books.When we recall that Constantine andEusebius leaned toward Arianism, the po-tential for treachery increases.1 Timothy 3:16 is a shocking example ofwhat happens when modern translators taketwo manuscripts (the Sinaiticus and Vatiatica-nus)—and ignore all the rest.Under the urging of Westcott and Hort,the Revision Committee of 1871-1881 vi-ciously attacked the Deity of Christ in 1Timothy 3:16. They altered the traditional,“God was manifest in the flesh,” to the cor-rupt, “he who was manifest in the flesh.”They had the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus assupport for this change.In response to this, Burgon wrote a letter,pleading with the committee’s chairman, BishopEllicott, not to permit that to be put in the newBible.“Behold then the provision which the Authorof Scripture has made for the effectual conservationin its integrity of this portion of His writtenWord! Upwards of 1,800 years have runtheir course since the Holy Ghost, by His servantPaul, rehearsed ‘the Mystery of Godliness,’declaring this to be the great foundation fact,namely, that ‘God was manifest in the flesh.’And lo! out of 254 copies of St. Paul’s Epistles,no less than 252 are discovered to have preservedthat expression. The copies whereof wespeak were procured in every part of Christendom,being derived in every instance from copiesolder than themselves; which again weretranscripts of copies older still. They have sincefound their way, without design or contrivance,into the libraries of every country in Europe,where they are jealously guarded . . We submit,as a proper and just conclusion from thesefacts, that men who, in view of the evidence

The Early Centuriesbefore them, would cast out of the Scripture atthis vital point, the word ‘God’ and replace itby ‘he who’ have thereby demonstrated theirunfitness for the work of revising the Greek textof the New Testament.”—Burgon, quoted inFuller, True or False? p. 98.It is truly astounding that Westcott and Hortwould base their entire theory on those two inferiormanuscripts! They maintained that theSinaiticus and Vaticanus were “pure texts” andthat all others were partly corrupt—especiallythe ones used in the preparation of the KingJames Bible.The liberal scholars themselves recognizethat those two codices were produced in Alexandria;but it bothered them not that this citywas the polluted spring, from whence came thedeepest heresies in early Christianity. In separatestudies (Beyond Pitcairn, for example) thepresent writer has shown that Sunday sacred-ness was first philosophized into the churchat Alexandria and, then, commanded into thelocal churches by the bishop of Rome. Reli-gious leaders at the new Christian centersworked hand in hand to introduce raw pa-ganism into the Christian church.(It is of interest that Constantine’s orthodoxson, Constans, sent a similar request for Bibles;but to the anti-Arian Athanasius. Burgon, TraditionalText, p. 163.)In the following statement, Dean Burgonsummarizes the evidence, from the Sinaiticusand Vaticanus, which marks them as producedin Alexandria:“Yet I venture also to think that it was in agreat measure at Alexandria that the text inquestion was fabricated. My chief reasons forthinking so are the following: (1) There is amarked resemblance between the peculiar readingsof Vaticanus / Sinaiticus and the two Egyptianversions—the Bohairic or Version of LowerEgypt especially. (2) No one can fail to have beenstruck by the evident sympathy between Origen,—whoat all events had passed more thanhalf his life at Alexandria,—and the text in question.(3) I notice that Nonnus also, who lived inthe Thebaid, exhibits considerable sympathywith the text which I deem so corrupt.“(4) I cannot overlook the fact the CodexSinaiticus was discovered in a monastery underthe sway of the patriarch of Alexandria,though how it got there no evidence remains topoint out. (5) The licentious handling so characteristicof the Septuagint Version of the OldTestament,—the work of Alexandrian Jews,—45points in the same direction, and leads me tosuspect that Alexandria was the final source ofthe text of Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. (6) I furtherobserve that the sacred Text . . in Cyril’sHomiles on St. John is often similar to B-Aleph;and this, I take for granted, was the effect ofthe school of Alexandria,—not of the patriarchhimself. (7) Dionysius of Alexandria complainsbitterly of the corrupt codexes of his day: andcertainly (8) Clement habitually employed copiesof a similar kind. He too was of Alexandria.”—Burgon,Traditional Text, pp. 234-235.There is also a linkage between the Sinai-ticus / Vaticanus—and Jerome’s Catholictranslation into the Latin Vulgate.Another factor, , linking the Sinaiticus andVaticanus to Origen through the traceablesimilarities with Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, isJerome’s choice of Pamphilus’ library as hisprimary source of translation labors. This li-brary was the chief depository of Origen’s’swritings, including his famed Hexapla (a manuscriptof the Old Testament with six translationsin Hebrew and Greek arranged in parallel columnsfor comparative study).Dr. . Frederick Nolan, a careful Greek andLatin scholar, , found that the Vaticanus andthe Vulgate have a number of remarkablesimilarities!“The striking coincidence of the Greek of theVatican manuscript with the Latin of the Vulgateleads to the establishment of the same conclusion.This version received the corrections ofSt. Jerome during his abode in Palestine; it isthus only probable that the Greek copies, afterwhich he modeled it, were those, which far frombeing current in Palestine, were used in themonastery into which he had retired: but thesehe assures us were of the edition of Eusebius.For this edition he had imbibed an early partiality,through Gregory of Nazianzum, who firstput the Scriptures into his hands, who hadbeen educated at Caesarea in Palestine.”—Frederick Nolan, An Inquiry into the Integrityof the Greek Vulgate, or Received Text of theNew Testament, pp. 83-84.Jerome (who translated the Catholic LatinVulgate from a Greek manuscript) mentions hisfamiliarity with the manuscripts of Pamphilusand Origen, particularly that of the original ofthe latter’s Hexapla. Jerome said that he re-lied on those documents as his unquestionedmodel (see Scrivener, Plain Introduction, Vol.2, p. 226).Burgon angrily declares that the modern

46 The King James and the Modern Versionsrevisers have removed the words, “that yeshould not obey the truth,” from Galatians3:1—solely on the basis of seven manuscripts(Codices A, , B, , Aleph, D, , F, , G, , and Papyrus17), and says that Jerome earlier led out indoing the same. Then Burgon adds:“But when he comes to the place in Galatians,he is observed, first to admit that theclause ‘is found in some copies,’ and straightwayto add that ‘inasmuch as it is not found inthe copies of Adamantius, he omits it.’ The clueto his omission is supplied by his own statementthat in writing on the Galatians he hadmade Origen his guide.”—Burgon, TraditionalText, p. 167.It has been said that Erasmus’ Greek Text,the basis of the King James Bible, is inferiorbecause he only had access to the MajorityText and not to the superior Vaticanus. Thetruth is that he was the first to reject theVaticanus as a source.Without taking the space to elaborate onthis, there is evidence that Erasmus was toldabout many variant readings in the Vaticanus,by Sepúlveda, and from the papal librarian, PaulBombasius, as early as 1521 (see Wetstein’sProlegomena to the New Testament, Vol. 1, p.23). But, with four editions of the Greek NewTestament already completed, the 67-year-oldaccomplished scholar was not impressed withthat inferior document at the Vatican. He wantednothing to do with papal documents. Two yearslater, Erasmus published his fifth and final edition(a year before his death).In spite of these facts, liberals defend theirerrant manuscripts, by declaring the Erasmusonly had access to “later” manuscripts.Before concluding this comparision of theSinaiticus and Vaticanus with Alexandria andOrigen’sHexapla (the basic source Jeromeused in preparing his Vulgatetranslation), itshould be noted that, not only is the style ofthose two codices like that of Origen’s writ-ings, but the content also agree with them.“The points in which we are specially entitledto look for innovations are: (1) curious and ingeniousreadings, such, for instance, as thosewhich we have noticed in St. Mark and St. Luke;(2) the removal of words, clauses, or entire sentenceswhich a man of fastidious taste mightregard as superfluities or repetitions; (3) a fearlessand highly speculative mode of dealing withportions of the New Testament which might containstatements opposed to his prepossessionsor present difficulties which even his ingenuitymight be unable to solve.”—Herman C. Hoskier,Codex B and its Allies, p. 10.We will learn later that, at the time thatthe apostate Constantine had those large cod-ices made, faithful Waldensians in the hillsof northern Italy protested this corruption ofthe text!THE LUCIAN RECENSION THEORYThis is a second part of the Westcott andHort theory. . Those two men and their associateswere embarrassed by the truly vast num-ber of manuscripts and other materials whichsupport the King James Bible and disagreewith the Westcott-Hort theory, that their belovedSinaiticus / Vaticanus are the most importantmanuscripts in the Biblical world.So they invented the “Lucian RecensionTheory.” (A recension is either an editorial revisionof a literary work, especially done on thebasis of critical examination of the text and thesources used, or a version of a text resulting fromsuch revision.) Their theory is keyed to the factthat Lucian, a Christian of Samosata in AsiaMinor, , tried to produce a unified text, in-cluding all the Old Testament and New Teses-tament. He gathered this from a variety ofsources. Lucian had earlier studied in a Christianschool at Edessa in Mesopotamia and, bythe time he arrived in Antioch, had gained a reputationfor scholarship. He worked with a Hebrewscholar in a revision of the Septuagint (the Greektranslation of the Old Testament, prepared overa span of 150 years and completed about 100B.C.) that was more thorough than that done byEusebius of Caesarea.Lucian, who only had a friend or two tohelp him, worked faithfully on his little proj-ect. Later, , he was martyred under the perse-cution of Emperor Maximus in 312.Westcott and Hort expanded that historicalfact into a fabulous tale, that the em-peror commanded that Lucian do his workand that it must be made the standard NewTestament text of the Roman Empire!“The Syrian text must in fact be the result ofa ‘recension’ in the proper sense of the word, awork of attempted criticism, performed deliberatelyby editors and not merely by [scattered]scribes.”—Hort, quoted in Wilbur, Pickering,Identity of the New Testament, p. 37.This is an entirely imaginative theory;yet, mysteriously, , these ideas that Westcottand Hort secretly learned, at their séances

The Early Centurieswith the devil, were eagerly accepted byworldly scholars as truth.“An authoritative revision at Antioch . . wasitself subjected to a second authoritative revisioncarrying out more completely the purposesof the first. At what date between A.D. 250 and350 the first process took place, it is impossibleto say with confidence. The final processwas apparently completed by A.D. 350 or thereabouts.”—Ibid.According to the theory, , this is the reasonthere are so many thousands of manu-scripts in the Majority Text.Westcott and Hort developed this theory inorder to refute the fact that those thousands ofmanuscripts all came in separate streams fromthe originals. They contended that this was nottrue; but that Lucian made a collated text, andthat was used almost universally. It is theorizedthat some official church leader may have mandatedthat his text be copied and used by all thechurches, but that is a convenient conjecture.The entire “Lucian Recension Theory” is erroneous;and here is the evidence:First, there is no evidence that any suchedict, commanding that Lucian’s ’s text be theonly one to be copied and used, was everissued. Indeed, it is speculative as to who mighthave issued such a requirement.Second, a significant number of the manu-scripts, lectionaries, early church “father”quotations, and foreign translations—most ofwhich support the Majority Text—date asearly or earlier than Lucian’s ’s research project.Westcott and Hort were dreaming up theirtheories under the tutelage of demons who weretalking to them during their “Ghostly Club” meetingsat Oxford.“In order to prop up his contention, Dr. Hortis obliged to conjure up the shadows of two orthree ‘phantom revisions’ of which no recordedevidence exists. But Dr. Hort, as soon as hefound that he could not maintain his groundwith history as it was, instead of taking backhis theory and altering it to square with facts,tampered with historical facts in order to makethem agree with his theory.”—D.J.W. Burgon,Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 93.“Not the slightest confirmation is given toDr. Hort’s notion that a revision or recensionwas definitely accomplished at Antioch in themiddle of the 4th century. There was a gradualimprovement as the traditional text graduallyestablished itself against the forward and persistentintrusion of corruption.”—D.J.W.47Burgon, Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels,p. 121.Bruce Metzger has assigned the origin of theMajority Text to Lucian of Antioch (d. 312).“As has been indicated in the previous pages,his [Lucian’s] recension of the New Testamentwas adopted at Constantinople and from thereit spread widely throughout Greek speakinglands.”—Bruce M. Metzger, “The Lucianic Recensionof the Greek Bible,” Chapter in his Historyof New Testament Textual Criticism, p.27.Bruce Metzger is one of the three editors whodecided which readings would be accepted orrejected in the Nestle-Aland and UBS GreekTexts, used by all translators of 20th-centuryBibles. When he bought the Westcott-Hort theoryabout the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus, he also boughtthe Lucian theory.A leading American textual critic, Ernest C.Colwell, wrote that the Majority Text “had, inits origin, no such single focus as the Latinhad in Jerome” (E.C. Colwell, What is the BestNew Testament?). Many scholars recognize thatthe Majority Text, as well as the other majorfamilies of the Greek text, are the result of aprocess rather than a single event in textualhistory.Another scholar, Jacob Geerlings, who hasdone extensive work on certain “family”branches of the Majority Text, has stated that“its origins go back to the autographs [theoriginals]” (J. Geerlings, Family E and itsAllies in Mark).Historical records reveal that the EasternChurch never officially adopted or recognizeda received or authorized text. The WesternChurch, at Rome, adopted the Latin Vulgate.Oddly enough, even if the theory were cor-rect—the theory would date the Majority Textas having originated at an earlier date thanthe Sinaiticus / Vaticanus.Lucian of Antioch,who is supposed to have prepared the “LucianRecension” which all the “late” Majority Textmanuscripts all based on, died in A.D. 312.According to the Westcott-Hort “LucianRecension theory,” the basis of the MajorityText was prepared at Antioch between A.D.D.250 and 350. Since the Sinaiticus and Vati-canus are dated at approximately 340, thatwould make the Majority Text earlier thanthem!THE MANUSCRIPT FAMILY THEORY

54 The King James and the Modern VersionsIn attempting to compare the 5,000 manu-scripts, scholars have found tendencies forcertain ones to be somewhat similar to cer-tain others. The word, “somewhat,” is used becausethere are so many variables that it is impossibleto say, “This manuscript is exactly likethat one.” That never happens. Yet, in an at-tempt to arrive at some semblance of order,five primary manuscript ““families”have beenaccepted by modern scholars.(These “families” are also spoken of as“Texts,”with a capital “T.” Scholars use theterms interchangeably.)An attempt has been made to locate each ofthese five families to certain regions where thecopyists supposedly worked.J.A. Bengel (about 1734) suggested that themanuscripts might be divided into Asiatic andAfrican.J.S. Semler (about 1767) prepared a threefoldclassification: Oriental, Western, andAlexandrian. He was the first to call these families,“recensions.”J.J. Griesbach, a pupil of Semler’s (1774-1776, 1805), introduced the names, Constantinopolitanor Byzantine.J.L. Hug said the Western text was based onan earlier one, and was itself split into three, thePalestinian by Origen, the Egyptian by Hesychius,and the Syrian by Lucian.Carolus Lachmann suggested the terms,Oriental and Occidental.The above, very brief description hardly describesall the speculation, squabbling, andchanges in the various theories which occurred.Then came the F.J.J.A.A. . Hort and B.F.F.Westcott theory. . They used the terms, West-ern and Syrian (Antiochian), for two of thegroups and divided the third into Alexandrianand Neutral. Hort was the principal member ofthe team which devised and wrote down theirtheory of families.This “family” theory of manuscripts is important,since the two 20th-century criticalGreek Texts (the Nestle-Aland and the UBS)are almost entirely based on the Westcott-Hort theory. . Nearly all 20th-century transla-tions into English and other languages aremade from one or the other of those criticalGreek Texts.(More on these later in this book.)Neutral family. Hort considered this thepurest extant form. It was thought to be en-tirely free from corruption and mixture withother families, and to represent the nearest approachto the New Testament originals.Its best representative, according to Hort,was the Vaticanus, with the Sinaiticus sec-ond best. Both were thought to be derived independentlyfrom a common original, at no greatdistance from the originals. Therefore, they werecalled “neutral” or pure. (Some editors call themthe Hesychian family, on the theory that theywere produced under the direction of Hesychius,a scribe in Alexandria, Egypt.)Here is how the Westcott-Hort theory isapplied:1 - When Sinaiticus and Vaticanus read-ings (they are the Neutral family) agree, no con-tradictory readings from other manuscriptsare accepted, unless internal evidence contradictsthis.2 - Readings not found in the Neutral,Alexandrian, or Western Texts(or families)are to be rejected as “Syrian.”3 - No reading from the Western or Alexan-drian is to be admitted without some sup-port from the Neutral.Now, let us look at these other families:The Alexandrian Familyamily. This consists ofmanuscripts conjectured as having originatedat Alexandria. Hort’s purpose in splitting the twoapart was to seperate his so-called Neutral familyfrom Origen and Alexandria. (But Hort freelyadmitted that his Neutral Text also came fromEgypt.)The Western Familyamily. Included here areGreek manuscripts which originated in centralItaly. Do not confuse these with Old Latin, whichwas an ancient (4th century) translation. A pureand earlier Latin dialect was the WaldensianItalia of northern Italy, translated into Latin bythe Waldenses about A.D. 157. The Italia belongsto the Majority Text.The Syrian Familyamily. This is that other textfamily which Hort considered to be so utterlyworthless. Yes, you guessed it. This is the Ma-jority Text which the King James and theother Reformation Bibles were translatedfrom. Listening to the devils at their GhostlyClub, Westcott and Hort figured out a cleverscheme to get rid of the purest, largest, and earliestmanuscript source.The Syrian Textis also called the Byzantineor Antiochian family. It is also referred to as theTraditional Textext, since it was used in preparingthe earlier English and European Bibles. Another

The Early Centuriesname for it is the Received Textor TextusReceptus (which is actually the name of thethird edition of Erasmus’ Greek Text, based entirelyon this family of manuscripts). However,throughout this book, we will call it by the mostdescriptive name: the Majority Textext.In Hort’s opinion, Greek and Syrian church“fathers” produced this as a revision of existingmanuscripts in the vicinity of Antioch in the late4th century. Hort declared it to be later than theother families and, therefore, essentially worthless.Yet the Majority Text includes most of theuncials (which Hort arbitrarily decided musthave been produced in later centuries) and nearlyall the thousands of cursive manuscripts.It is of interest that even Dr. . Hort admittedthat the Syrian Family (Majority Text) wasas old as his so-called Neutral family.“The fundamental text of late extant Greekmanuscripts, generally is beyond all questionidentical with the dominant Antiochian orGraeco-Syrian text of the second half of thefourth century.”—F.J.A. Hort, quoted in J.W.Burgon, The Revision Revised, p. 257.According to that admission, the MajorityText was at least as old as the Sinaiticus andVaticanus! Yet, according to the Westcott-Horttheory, the two codices were supposed to be“purer” because they were said to be older! Thereis something wrong here in someone’s thinking.Add to this the point that, according to their“Lucian Recension theory,” the basic MajorityText was prepared at Antioch between A.D. 250and 350. Since the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus aredated at approximately 340, that would make itolder than them!Very small “families,” each with only a veryfew manuscripts in them, have since been added:the “Ferrar” manuscripts (or Family 1) which includes1, 13, 124, 346, and 69; and the CodexTheta. These manuscripts would receive butlittle notice, except that they exhibit some of thestrange peculiarities of the Sinaiticus andVaticanus.Now we are ready to track down stillmore evidence that the Majority Textis thepurest, earliest, and best.MOST SOURCES SUPPORT THE KJVYou will recall that we earlier mentioned fourearly Bible text sources. These were (1) Greekmanuscripts, (2) lectionaries (Bible compilationsread in churches which could not afford alarger manuscript of a Bible portion), (3) quota-55tions by the early church “fathers,” and (4) trans-lations into other languages. We have nowlearned enough to return to them.We are now going to discover that thegreat majority of those four sources, whenthey are very early, , support the Majority Textext,which, as you know, is the basis of the KingJames Bible! They also disprove the “LucianicRecension theory,” since they existed priorto the time that Lucian could have preparedhis recension.1 - Greek manuscripts. As mentioned earlier,there are 5,000 of these! These includethe following: (1) Over 200 uncials (all capitalletters), counting all fragments, which range indate from the 2nd to the 9th century. (2) About100 papyri and ostraca (ostraca are writtenon clay tablets). These are mainly uncial. (3)Approximately 3,000 cursives, dating from the9th to the 15th centuries. There are also lec-tionaries.Comparatively few of these materials containthe complete New Testament and many are veryfragmentary, especially those among the uncialsand papyri. Yet, as far as the quality and quan-tity of the evidence, the New Testament isby far the best-preserved ancient documentin the world.The entire New Testament is substantiallycontained in only two uncials (Sinaiticus andAlexandrinus; most of Matthew being missingin the latter) and in about 50 cursive manuscripts.Approximately 120 other manuscriptscontain all but the Revelation; and about 50contain all but the Gospels.The most abundant single group is the fourGospels, with some 1,500 documents; and thenext, in order, would be combinations of theother groups (Acts and the General Epistles,Pauline Epistles, and Revelation).About 30 manuscripts contain the Acts andGeneral Epistles alone. (The General Epistles areall those not written by Paul). About 35 have thePauline Epistles alone. Another 45 only haveRevelation alone.The remainder of the 5,000 manuscripts aretoo fragmentary to classify.Why so many fragments? —They are mutetestimony to the work of Satan, down throughthe centuries, to destroy Christians, their homes,their churches, and their Bible portions!—But we find that nearly all of the abovelisted manuscripts support the Majority Text!

56 The King James and the Modern VersionsThe Greek papyri should also be men-tioned here. They are among the very oldestmanuscripts of the New Testament. Becausethey were written in Egypt, they frequentlyhave some corrupt Alexandrian readings; yet,much of the time, they agree with MajorityText readings. It is possible to find papyri inEgypt, since it has a climate dry enough to preservethem. That is where these were written andpreserved.2 - Lectionaries. The second of the fourwitnesses to the original text of the Bible are thelectionaries. As mentioned earlier, copyists wouldassemble many choice passages into books, anduse them in church readings. Each one wouldcontain selected portions of Scripture, arrangedin a particular schedule for congregational reading.Each of the lectionaries is called a lection.There are about 2,143 of these lectionaries.Many of these date very early, , and theyfrequently favor the text upon which the KingJames Version is based.Here is the comment of one scholar, that thelectionary evidence does not support the conjecturethat Lucian’s text was required of all thechurches:“The Lectionaries also indicate that the Tra-ditional [Majority] Textcould not have beenimposed on the church by the ecclesiastical authorities.These, as has been stated, are manuscriptscontaining the New Testament Scripturelessons appointed to be read at the variousworship services of the ecclesiastical year.According to the researches of E. Colwell (1933)and his associates, the oldest of these lessonsare not Traditional but ‘mixed’ in text. Westcottand Hort’s theory was that the Traditional textfrom its very beginning had never enjoyed officialstatus.”—Edward Hills, Believing BibleStudy, p. 100.3 - Quotations by early church “fathers.”The writings of early Christians (called “fathers”)are also referred to as patristic (“fatherly”) testimony.This is the correspondence and miscellaneousworks of the church’s earliest writers,theologians, and bishops.Although some of these men believed hereticalnotions—when they quote the New Testa-ment, they tend to quote it accurately, , inaccordance with the manuscripts they hadavailable to them. These quotations provideus with a valuable witness as to what theBible text was in their day and are invaluableevidence.“Besides establishing the antiquity of the Tra-ditional [Majority] Text,the quotations in theearly “fathers” reveal the streams of corruptionwhich prevailed in the first ages, till they werewashed away by the vast current of the transmissionof the text of the Gospels.”—D.J.W.Burgon, Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels,p. 117.“The original predominance of the Traditional[Majority] Text is shown in the list given of theearliest “fathers.” Their record proves that intheir writings, and so in the church generally,corruption had made itself felt in the earliesttimes, but that the pure waters generally prevailed.”—D.J.W.Burgon, Traditional Text of theHoly Gospels, p. 121.Hort’s entire security is based on the theorythat the manuscripts did not exist before hispreferred family of texts or before any of theother families.“The text, found in the mass [Majority] ofexisting manuscripts, does not date furtherback than the middle of the fourth century.Before that text was made up [when the socalledLucian recension was supposedly requiredto be distributed], other forms of textwere in vogue, which may be termed respectivelyNeutral, Western and Alexandrian.”—Hort, quoted in Dean Burgan, TraditionalText, p. 91.But the quoted Scriptures, found in theearly Christian writers, disprove the West-cott-Hort theory!The writings of just five early writers (Ter-tullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, and Cle-ment of Alexandria) have provided us with30,147 Scripture citations alone! —Yet thegreat majority of their quotations agree withthe Majority Text!And consider this: All five of those mendied between 20 and 150 years before theapproximate dates when the Sinaiticus andVaticanus were copied; many of them diedbefore the conjectured Lucian recensioncould have been made!“It has been pointed out elsewhere that, inand by itself, the testimony of any first-rate ‘father,’where it can be had, must be held to outweighthe solitary testimony of any single codexwhich can be named . . For instance theorigin and history of Codices A, B, Aleph, andC [Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, andEphraemi] is wholly unknown: their dates andthe places of their several production are mattersof conjecture only. But when we are listeningto the articulate utterance of any of the an-

The Early Centuriescient ‘fathers,’ we not only know with more orless of precision the actual date of the testimonybefore us, but we even know the very dioceseof Christendom in which we are standing.To such a deponent we can assign a definiteamount of credibility, whereas in the estimateof the former class of evidence [the Greek manuscripts]we have only inferences to guide us.Individually, therefore, a ‘father’s’ evidencewhere it can be certainly obtained—caeteriusparibus [Latin: other things being equal] is considerablygreater than that of any single knowncodex.”—Edward Miller, quoted in Dean Burgon,Traditional Text, 57.Just how “early” did these “fathers” ac-tually live? Here are the facts:“With the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) actingas their chronological watershed, church historianswill generally arrange the ‘fathers’ bythe era in which they lived; Apostolic (A.D. 75-150); Ante-Nicene (A.D. 150-325); and Post-Nicene (A.D. 325-500).“However, an even more significant designationwould be by geographical area; Western,Alexandrian and Antiochian. The relevance ofthis regional triad to the study of manuscriptevidences should be apparent by now. Therefore,the following breakdown of the most pertinent‘fathers’ is listed according to both criterion.“For the Apostolic Age, we have: the Western—Clementof Rome (A.D. 30-100); theAntiochian—Ignatius (A.D. 35-107) and Polycarp(A.D. 69-155); and no major Alexandrian ‘fathers.’In the Ante-Nicene Period: the Western—Irenaeus (A.D. 120-192), Hippolytus (A.D. 170-235), Tertullian (A.D. 160-225), and Cyprian(A.D. 200-258); the Alexandrian—Justin Martyr(A.D. 100-165), Clement (A.D. 150-215),Origen (A.D. 185-254), and Didymus (A.D.313-398); and the Antiochian—Lucian (A.D.250-312).“The Post-Nicene Fathers are: In the West—Augustine (A.D. 354-430); in Alexandria—Athanasius (A.D. 293-373) and Cyril (A.D. 315-386); and finally, the Antiochian—Diodorus (d.394), Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), Theodoret(A.D. 393-458), Basil (A.D. 329-379), GregoryNazianzen (AD. 329-390), and Gregory of Nyssa(A.D. 330-395).”—W.P. Grady, Final Authority,pp. 37-38.As stated earlier, , the majority of the “fa-thers,” including the earliest of them, quotedfrom the Majority Text!4 - Papyri.Consisting of Greek New Testamentfragments written on ancient paper, called57papyrus (singular form), these are the veryearliest Greek manuscript fragments of theNew Testament that we have. Papyri have onlybeen recovered in Egypt because the climatethere was consistently dry enough to preservethem.There are very few of these earliest manuscriptsources; but, although they demonstratesome Alexandrian errors (since they were cop-ied in Egypt), they also quite consistentlysupport Majority Text readings whichSinaiticus and Vaticanus reject.“In Hort’s day . . the early papyri were notextant [available]. Had they been, the Westcott-Hort theory could scarcely have appeared . .Each of the early papyri (A.D. 300 or earlier)vindicates some Byzantine [Majority Text] reading. . Bodmer II shows some Syrian readingsto be anterior to [earlier than] correspondingAleph and B readings . . The early papyri vindicateByzantine readings in 660 (or 885) placeswhere there is a significant variation.”—Pickering, Identity of the New Testament Texts,p. 224.H.A. Sturz carried out a careful analysis ofthe papyri, and wrote his findings down in hisbook, Byzantine Text-Type and New TestamentTextual Criticism. His research studies showedthat the Majority Text was quoted more frequentlyby the papyri than any other manu-script family.“H.A. Sturz . . surveyed all the available papyri. . Each new manuscript discovered vindicatedByzantine [Majority Text] readings . .“The magnitude of this vindication can bemore fully appreciated by recalling that onlyabout 30% of the New Testament has early papyriattestation . . If we had at least three papyricovering all parts of the New Testament,all of the 5,000, plus, Byzantine [Majority Text]readings rejected by the critical, eclectic textswould be vindicated by early papyri . .“Henceforth, no one may reasonably or responsiblycharacterize the Byzantine [Majority]text-type as being late . . Although modern editorscontinue to reject these readings, it can nolonger be argued that they are late.”—Op. cit.,pp. 77, 184, 202.Klijn compared Aleph and B (both are4th century) with the papyri (2nd century)and found that the papyri were closer to theMajority Text(A.F.J. Klijn, Survey of the Researchesinto the Western Text of the Gospels).Here are the statements of five additionalBiblical scholars, that the papyri do not sup-

58 The King James and the Modern Versionsport the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus text; but, in-stead, they support the Majority Textext, thebasis of our King James Bible:“[Majority Text-type] readings previously discardedas late are in Papyrus 46 . . Are all Byzantinereadings ancient? . . G. Pasquali answersin the affirmative . . Papyrus 46 and 45 supportthe Majority Text readings.”—G. Zuntz,Texts of the Epistles, p. 55.“Papyrus 75 supports the Majority Text dozensof times. In relation to the [Majority] text,Papyrus 46 (about A.D. 200), shows that somereadings . . go back to a very early period . .Papyrus 66 [has] readings that agree with the[Majority] . . text type.”—Bruce Metzger, Manuscriptsof the Greek Bible, pp. 64, 108.“Byzantine readings which most critics haveregarded as late, have now been proved by PapyrusBodmer II to be early readings.”—Hills,quoted in Dean Burgon, The Last TwelveVerses of Mark, p. 54.“Papyrus 66 supports the reading of the MajorityText.”—Journal of Theological Studies,Vol. 2, p. 381.“Some of the New Testament papyri that havebeen discovered show remarkable similaritywith later manuscripts. In fact, several of theextant early papyri are related to many latermanuscripts (fourth century and beyond) or atleast share a common ancestor.”—Philip W.Comfort, Early Manuscripts and ModernTranslations of the Bible, p. 11.From the collected research of these scholars,listed below, are some sample papyrus manuscripts.In each instance, they supported theMajority Text more than the Sinaiticus andVaticanus.PAPYRUS ALEPH B MAJ TEXTP 4 5 1 9 24 3 2P 6 6 1 4 29 3 3P 7 5 9 33 2 9Colwell made an interesting discovery. Hefound that, as early as A.D. 200 (which isvery early!) there was already evidence oftampering with the manuscripts! Men werealready trying to change the Majority Textinto something else!Of course, when this is done, the text is eitherpoorly erased and something new is written in ora variant reading is written above or in the marginbeside the original reading.“The Bodmer John (P 66 ) is also a witness tothe early existence of many of the readings foundin the Majority Text. Strangely enough, the contemporarycorrections in that papyrus fre-quently change a Majority Text reading tosomething different. This indicates that at thisearly period, variant readings were supplantingthe Majority Text.”—E.C. Colwell, “Originof Text types of New Testament Manuscripts,”in Allen Wikgren, Early Christian Origins, ed.,pp. 128-138.Do you see it? Satan was intent on destroyingthe basis of the Majority Text as early as A.D.200! That is only a hundred years after the deathof the Apostle John!5 - Translations into other languages.Faithful Christians were so anxious to share thegood news of salvation in Jesus Christ, thatrather early they began translating the New Testamentinto other languages.(1) Syrian translations. Translations weremade for the Syrian people, dwelling northeastof Palestine. There were at least four major versions:the Peshitta (A.D. 145); the Old Syriac(A.D. 400), the Palestinian Syriac (A.D. 450), andthe Philoxenian (A.D. 508). The last one was revisedby Thomas of Harkel, in A.D. 616, and isknown as the Harclean Syriac.The earliest of these was the Peshitta—translated only about 50 years after the lastbook in the Bible was written! The name,“Peshitta,” means “straight” or “rule,” and that iswhat it is. The Peshitta set the standard forexcellence and purity of text, due to its earlytranslation. It closely agrees with the Major-ity Text! This is a most powerful evidencethat the Majority Text is the most accuratetext.Because of the obvious embarrassmentcaused by this document, which is two centuriesearlier than the Sinaiticus and Vaticanuscodices, modern liberal scholars went againstthe known facts of nearly two millennia andupped the translation date of the Peshitta to A.D.415.(2) Gothic Translation. This was the firsttranslation into a purely European language. Itwas prepared in A.D. 330 by Ulfilas, an earnestsoul-winning evangelist. (His name means “littlewolf.”) This translation was prepared about10 years before the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus,and it agrees closely with the Majority Text.“The type of text represented in it is for themost part that which is found in the majorityof Greek manuscripts.”—Frederick G. Kenyon,Critical Text of the New Testament, 1912 edition.So Ulfilas had access to King James Version

64 The King James and the Modern Versionsreadings before the Sinaiticus or Vaticanus werecopied! For example, his translation has the traditionalending on Matthew 6:13, which theSinaiticus and Vaticanus and the modern versionsomit:“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power,and the glory, for ever. Amen.”We are fortunate to know the readings in theGothic translation; for there are only eight copiesstill in existence.Interestingly enough, since that ancient northernlanguage is related to our modern English,we can see traces of our language in it. Here isthe first sentence of the Lord’s Prayer in Englishand in ancient Gothic:Our Father which art in heaven.Atta unsar thu in himinam.hallowed be Thy name.Weihnai name thein.(3) Armenian Translation. Scholars callthis the “Queen of the Versions,” because thereare so many copies still in existence (1,244).Mesrob, an evangelist, and Sahak translatedit about A.D. 400; and it closely matches thereadings in the Majority Text.(4) Georgian Translation. Even the liberalsrecognize the early date of this translation,which was prepared for the people dwelling betweenthe Black and Caspian Seas of southernRussia. It also supports the Majority Text.“The Georgian Version . . arose in the fifthcentury on the outskirts of Christianity. Armeniantradition ascribes it to the work of Mesrob,who is said to have invented the Georgian alphabet.”—Ancestryof Our English Bible, IraMaurice Price, pp. 117-118.(5) Coptic Translations. The Egyptiantranslations are called “Coptic,” and divided intotwo main versions, based on dialect and locality.Since these are Egyptian, we find thatthey do not agree with the Majority Text.Remember, , Egypt is where the Sinaiticus andVaticanus came from.[1] The Sahidic Translation was used inthe southern part of Egypt (called “Upper Egypt,”meaning “up the Nile River”), and is dated fromabout the beginning of the 3rd century.[2] The Bohairic Translation is northern(“Lower Egypt”), and is as late as the 6th century(about a hundred years after the Sinaiticusand Vaticanus).Both of these Coptic translations are fre-quently different from the Majority Text. Thereason for this is their proximity to Alexan-dria, where Clement of Alexandria, Origen,and their many liberal and heretic friendswere located. The Sinaiticus and Vaticanus wereproduced in Alexandria. We would today call Alexandriaa “university town”; it would be comparableto Berkeley, California, with its rampantliberalism. The university at Alexandria was, atthat time, the largest in the world and containedthe most paganizing Christians.(6) Ethiopian Translation. Prepared in thenation closest to Egypt, this translation is cor-rupt just like the Coptic translations. It alsoincludes 14 non-canonical books.(7) Latin Translations.[1] The Italia (Old Latin) Translation.The first of these was made no later than A.D.157, about 60 years after the last book ofthe Bible was finished. It is called the Old LatinTranslation or Italia. This translation was madefor the young churches established in the ItalianAlps (the far northern part of Italy). It is anexcellent translation and agrees closely withthe Majority Text. Yet it occurs a full cen-tury before the theorized “Lucian Recension”is supposed to have been made, and two fullcenturies before the Sinaiticus and Vaticanuswere produced.The Waldensian Bible was either producedfrom this Italia translation or from the MajorityText Greek manuscripts.It is highly significant that, in spite of theRomish apostasy, the faithful Latin-speakingbelievers in the hills of northern Italy continuedto use their beloved Italia down through the centuries.They ignored the Vulgate and remainedwith the Italia and its successor, , the Walden-sian Bible.“The old Italic version into the rude Low Latinof the second century held its own as long asLatin continued to be the language of the people.The critical version of Jerome [the Vulgate] neverdisplaced it, and only replaced it when the Latinceased to be a living language, but became thelanguage of the learned.“The Gothic version of Ulfilas, in the sameway, held its own until the tongue in which itwas written ceased to exist . . The reason forthese facts seems to be this: that the languagesinto which these versions were made were almostperfectly adapted to express the broad,generic simplicity of the original text . . It was

The Early Centuriespartly because the Low Latin of the second century,and the Gothic of Ulfilas, and the rude,strong German of Luther had that character ina remarkable degree, that they were capabile ofrendering the Scriptures with a faithfulnesswhich guaranteed their permanance.”—Fulton,The Forum, June 1887; quoted in Wilkinson,Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, pp. 27-28.The Old Latin translation held its own for900 years after the Vulgate appeared (Jacobus,Catholic and Protestant Bibles Compared). Thecommon people wanted the Old Latin, notthe pope’s Vulgate.Since the Vulgate was issuedabout A.D. 397, nine hundred years bringsus to about A.D. 1280. It is known that, in 1229,the pope issued orders to begin a most terriblecrusade against the Albigenses of southernFrance and the Waldenses of northern Italy.The Italia manuscripts were brought tothe Island of Iona where Columba, Patrick,and their faithful helpers made copies andsent out missionaries throughout Europe.“When the Saxons invaded Britain, heathenismgained control. The conquerors disdainedto be instructed by their slaves, and the Christianswere forced to retreat to the mountainsand the wild moors. Yet the light, hidden for atime, continued to burn. In Scotland, a centurylater, it shone out with a brightness that extendedto far-distant lands. From Ireland camethe pious Columba and his colaborers, who,gathering about them the scattered believerson the lonely island of Iona, made this the centerof their missionary labors. Among theseevangelists was an observer of the Bible Sabbath,and thus this truth was introduced amongthe people. A school was established at Iona,from which missionaries went out, not only toScotland and England, but to Germany, Switzerland,and even Italy.”—Great Controversy,p. 62.The “church in the wilderness,” in ruralareas hidden from the despotism of Rome,the faithful continued to use the basic Ma-jority Text, even though it may have beentranslated into Syrian, Gothic, Armenian, orOld Latin.“The old Latin versions were used longestby the Eastern Christians who would not bowto the authority of Rome—e.g., the Donatists;the Irish in Ireland, Britain, and the Continent;the Albigenses; etc.”—Jacobus, Catholic andProtestant Bibles Compared, p. 200.There are thousands of Old Latin and Vulgatemanuscripts in the public and private librariesof Europe (some estimate it at 8,000).65There are more than 800 in the libraries of Parisalone.“Now among translations themselves, theItalia is to be preferred to the others, for it keepscloser to the words without prejudice to clearnessof expression.”—Nicene and Post-NiceneFathers, Vol. 2, p. 542.More on the Waldensian translation later.[2] The Latin Vulgate.In A.D. 382, BishopDamascus of Rome (they were not yet called“popes”) commissioned Jerome to make a new,“improved” edition of the Old Latin. That whichhe produced was the infamous Latin Vulgate.Jerome was born about A.D. 341-342 ofwealthy parents who gave him the best educationavailable. He spent five years (374-379) inthe desert in a hermit-like “self-discipline,” andthen began studying Hebrew and Greek.Jerome became a close friend of Pope Damasus;and, after living for several years in Antiochand Constantinople where he learned the latestphilosophies, he went to Rome in A.D. 382,“where he spent more than two years in closeassociation with Pope Damasus” (Ira M. Price,Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 86).At the request of the pope, he began workon a “modern” ” Latin Bible. First he translateda revision of the Gospels which appeared in A.D.383. This was followed soon by Acts and therest of the New Testament. His work on the OldTestament began with a revision of the Old LatinPsalter, done on the basis of the Septuagint (aGreek translation of the Old Testament completedabout 150 B.C.).When Pope Damasus died about A.D. 384,Jerome left Rome the next year and eventuallysettled in Bethlehem in Palestine, where hefounded two religious houses. One was a monasterywhich he managed for the next 15 years.The other was a nearby nunnery, which a nunwas in charge of.From A.D. 390 to 404, he translated the restof the Old Testament (including part of the Apocrypha).So the entire Vulgate Bible was trans-lated between A.D. 382 and 397.In A.D. 580, Pope Gregory praised this wonderfultranslation, the Vulgate. It was a book verydear to the heart of the pontiffs.The Vulgate is still the official Psalter in St.Peter’s, in Rome. Jerome’s translation was alwaysappreciated by the popes.Later in this book, we will encounter theVulgate again; for it was used by Rome towithstand Protestant Bibles. It was first used

66 The King James and the Modern Versionsto destroy the effect of the Waldensian Bible. Afterthe Reformation began, translations of it intoEnglish and other languages were used to withstandthe Protestant European and EnglishBibles. The Rheims-Douai was specificallytranslated from the Vulgate, in order to overcomethe King James Bibles.“In the fourth century, Helvidius, a greatscholar of northern Italy [where the Waldenseslived], accused Jerome, whom the pope hadempowered to form a Bible in Latin for Catholicism,using corrupt Greek manuscripts (Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6, p. 338).“How could Helvidius have accused Jeromeof employing corrupt Greek manuscripts, ifHelvidius had not had the pure Greek manuscripts?“And so learned and so powerful in writingand teaching was Jovinian, the pupil of Helvidius,that it demanded three of Rome’s mostfamous ‘fathers’—Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose—tounite in opposing Jovinian’s influence.Even then, it needed the condemnation ofthe pope and the banishment of the emperor toprevail.“But Jovinian’s followers [the Waldenses]lived on and made the way easier for Luther.”—Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated,p. 33.We will later return to the Rheims-Douai translationand its strange readings.THE MAJORITY TEXT IS THE EARLIESTThe most reliable copies became the Majority;for they were copied by faithful Chris-tians, scattered throughout the Near East andEurope.We might ask why, if God protected the copiesback then, a corrupt text is being used today?Back then, faithful Christians did the copying—buttoday worldlings, trained in secular universities,have substituted a greatly inferiorGreek text.Yet do not forget that, in the providence ofGod, He has provided us with the King JamesVersion! In spite of the efforts of men to overthrowit, we still have that wonderful book!Not only were the best copies the Major-ity ones; but, as you would expect, they werealso the earliest! —If they were not the earli-est, then they would have had to have beencopied from the corrupt copies which West-cott and Hort said were the earliest!The Bible writers themselves told us that,very early, copies of God’s Word were made andcirculated everywhere.“And the Word of God increased.”—Acts 6:7.“But the Word of God grew and multiplied.”—Acts 12:24.“The Word of the Lord was published throughoutall the region.”—Acts 13:49.“So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.”—Acts19:20.Here is a remarkable collection of statementsby scholars, in support of the fact that the MajorityText—the basis of the King James Bible—comes from manuscripts which are the earliest:“As far as the “fathers” who died before A.D.400 are concerned, the question may now beput and answered. Do they witness to the traditionaltext as existing from the first or dothey not? The results of the evidence, both asregards the quantity and the quality of the testimony,enable us to reply not only that the traditionaltext was in existence, but that it waspredominant during the period under review.”—D.J.W. Burgon, Traditional Text of the HolyGospels, p. 116.Pickering explains the multiplication of theoriginals throughout history.“We may reasonably assume that in the earliestperiod of the transmission of the text, themost reliable copies of the autographs [the originals]would be circulating in the region thatheld the autographs. With an ever-increasingdemand and consequent proliferation of copiesthroughout the Graeco Roman world andwith the potential for verifying copies by havingrecourse to the centers still possessing the autographs,the early textual situation was highlyfavorable to the wide dissemination of manuscriptsin close agreement with the original text. .“It follows that within a relatively few yearsafter the writing of the New Testament books,there came rapidly into existence a ‘MajorityText,’ whose form was essentially that of theautographs . . the science of statistical probabilitydemonstrates that a text form in suchcircumstances could scarcely be dislodged fromits dominant position . .“In every age, from the apostolic to the nineteenthcentury, the text form in question . . wasthe one that the church in general recognized,used, and transmitted.”—Pickering, The Identityof the New Testament Text, pp. 116-120,237.Simple arithmetic confirms that thenearer a particular reading is to the original,the longer the time span will be for descen-

The Early Centuriesdants to follow and multiply! The larger thefamily is, the older the original source mustbe.Leading scholars of the world agree onthe overwhelming dominance of this type ofNew Testament text in the early church andthroughout history.E.C. Colwell called it “the uncontrolled popularedition of the 2nd century” (Colwell, Studiesin Methodology in Textual Criticism, p. 53).Philip Comfort wrote this:“It became the most prevailing type of textthroughout the Greek speaking world . . It wasnearly standardized. From then on, almost allmanuscripts follow the Byzantine [Majority]text, including those manuscripts used byErasmus in compiling the text that eventuallywould become the Textus Receptus [the GreekText type underlying the King James Bible].”—Philip W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts andModern Translations of the New Testament,pp. 13-14.Regarding the Majority Text, Geerlings affirmed:“Its origins . . go back to the autographs.”—J. Geerlings, Family E and Its Allies in Mark, p.1.Hodges wrote this:“The Majority Text, it must be remembered,is relatively uniform in its general character withcomparatively low amounts of variation betweenits major representatives . . The majority ofmanuscripts in the transmission of any bookwill, a priori [when reasoning from cause toeffect] preserve the best text. Thus the MajorityText, upon which the King James Version isbased, has in reality the strongest claim possibleto be regarded as an authentic representationof the original text . . based on its dominancesin the transmissional history of the NewTestament text.”—Hodges, Which Bible? p. 37.The Harvard Theological Review cited KirsoppLake’s exhaustive examination of manuscriptswhich revealed, “the uniformity of the textexhibited by the vast majority of the New Testamentmanuscripts.”The Theological Review also pointed out thatVon Soden, who made the most extensive reviewof the text yet accomplished, called it the Common(Kappa) text, showing that it was the Greektext type most commonly used throughout history.Bruce Metzger, a leading Greek scholar in themid-20th century, agreed with this verdict of history.He spoke of the “the great majority of the67minuscule manuscripts on which the TextusReceptus rests” (Bruce Metzger, Manuscripts ofthe Greek Bible, p. 86).Hills, another New Testament scholar, wrotethis:“The vast majority of these extant Greek NewTestament manuscripts agree together veryclosely, so closely indeed that they may fairlybe said to contain the same New Testament.This Majority Text is usually called the ByzantineText by modern textual critics. This is becauseall modern critics acknowledge that thiswas the Greek New Testament text in generaluse throughout the greater part of the ByzantinePeriod (A.D. 312-1453). For many centuries,before the Protestant Reformation, thisByzantine text was the text of the entire GreekChurch, and for more then three centuries afterthe Reformation, it was the text of the entireProtestant church . . [It is] found in thevast majority of the Greek New Testamentmanuscripts. . . The Traditional Text . . is thetrue text because it is that form of the GreekNew Testament which is known to have beenused in the church of Christ in unbroken succession. .“Thus the evidence which has accumulated. . is amply sufficient to justify the view . . thattherefore the Byzantine Text found in the vastmajority of the Greek New Testament manuscriptsis that true text.”—Dr. Edward F. Hills,quoted in Which Bible? pp. 104, 89, 90.90% OF THE MANUSCRIPTSSUPPORT THE KING JAMES BIBLEIt is a remarkable fact that, not only thegreat majority of the ancient Biblical manu-scripts are the basis of our King James Bible—but at least 90% of them are.Kurt Aland’s collation of 1000 minusculesin 1000 different passages shows that 90% containthe Traditional Text. (He is the current editor-in-chiefof the Nestle Text.)Work done at The Institut fur NeutestamentlicheTexzforschung [Institute for New TestamentStudies] in Munster, Germany, confirms thissame 90%. When they include papyrus anduncials together with cursive manuscripts, thenumber remains above 80% (Pickering, Identityof the New Testament Text, p. 160).“The outstanding feature of the Received [Majority]Text is its high percentage of agreementamong so many thousands of independent witnesses.This agreement is often placed at about90 percent; in other words, 90 percent of all

68 The King James and the Modern Versionsexisting manuscripts agree with one anotherso miraculously that they are able to form theirown unique text. In contradistinction to suchunity, the remaining 10 percent comprises aselection of manuscripts that will both agreewith the Majority Text in many particularswhile disagreeing wildly in others. Again, let itbe stated that many of these variant readingsare also unique to the individual manuscriptcontaining it; where the 10 percent disagreefrom the majority, these departures also disagreewith each other!”—W.P. Grady, FinalAuthority, p. 28.Pickering, a careful researcher into the NewTestament manuscripts, explains in detail thesepercentages. Here is an excellent breakdownof the percentages:“A better, though more cumbersome, way todescribe the situation would be something likethis: 100% of the manuscripts agree as to, say,80% of the text; 99% agree as to another 10%;over 95% agree as to another 4%; over 90%agree as to another 3%; only for 3% (or less) ofthe Text do less than 90% of the manuscriptsagree.”—Wilbur Pickering, Identity of the NewTestament Text, p. 118.Here is another manuscript analysis, preparedby Dr. Hodges:“A very large number of Greek manuscriptsof the New Testament survive today. A recentlist gives these figures: papyrus manuscripts,81; majuscules (manuscripts written in capitalletters), 267; minuscules (manuscriptswritten in smaller script), 2,764. Of course,many of these are fragmentary and most of themdo not contain the entire New Testament. Nevertheless,for an ancient book the available materialsare massive and more than adequatefor our needs, providing they are properlyhandled by scholars.“It is also well known among students of textualcriticism that a large majority of this hugemass of manuscripts—somewhere between80%-90%—contain a Greek text which, in mostrespects, closely resembles the kind of textwhich was the basis of our King James Version.This piece of information, however, maycome as a surprise to many ordinary Christianswho have gained the impression that theAuthorized Version is supported chiefly by ‘inferiormanuscripts.’ ”—Zane C. Hodges, inWhich Bible? p. 26.“95%of the manuscripts belong to the Byzantinetradition . . [That is] the textual traditionwhich in large measure stands behind theKJV. There are far more manuscripts extant inthis tradition than in the other three combined[Caesarian, Western, and Alexandrian].”—D.A.Carson, quoted in G.A. Riplinger, New AgeBible Versions, p. 478.Kurt Aland is the scholar to whom textualcritics have committed the task of assigning officialnumbers to Greek manuscripts as they arefound. He is the one who has compiled the figuresin the above list. In addition to the totalsgiven above, Aland also lists 2,143 lectionaries(manuscripts containing the Scripture lessonswhich were read publicly in the churches); sothat the grand total of all these types of texts is5,255 (Kurt Aland, “The Greek New Testament:Its Present and Future Editions,” Journal of BiblicalLiterature, LXXXVII, June, 1968, p. 184).Aland explains that the percentage of minusculesbelonging to this type of text is about 90%(say, 2,400 out of 2,700) while its representativesare found also among the codices (majuscules)and later papyri.Among 44 significant codices described inMetzger’s handbook, at least half either belongto or have affinities with this text form (Bruce M.Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: ItsTransmission, Corruption, and Restoration, pp.42-61).The low figure of 90% is, therefore, anoverly safe estimate of the percentage of witnessesto this text from among papyri, ma-juscules, and minuscules taken together,which support the Majority Text. But a num-ber of other scholars figure the percentageto be 95%. The present writer has worked withthe apparatus of the Nestle Text (which Alandnow edits), and he finds that relatively few manuscriptsare consistently cited in favor of theWestcott-Hort type of readings. The great majorityof witnesses opposing them are listed as“Byzantine” (Majority Text).ONLY A 1% MINORITYSUPPORTS THE MODERN VERSIONSThe Bible says, “A false balance is abominationto the Lord” (Prov. 11:1). That is what themodern versions are based on.The textual variations among the MajorityText are minor. On the other hand, the remaininghandful of manuscripts are frequently extremelydivergent from one another in their readings.This handful not only disagrees with ‘theMajority,’ as to what the New Testament says,but disagree among themselves! These includesuch manuscripts as Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus

The Early Centuries(Aleph), Bezae (D), Papyrus 75 and a smatteringof versions. Of the four uncials, Aleph, B, C,and D, Burgon said this:“All four are discovered on careful scrutinyto differ essentially, not only from the 99 out of100 of the whole body of extant manuscripts,but even from one another.”—John Burgon, TheRevisions Revised, p. 12.Astoundingly, , in the year 1881, this 1%minority text type supplanted the MajorityText with its almost two thousand years asthe leading manuscript source. A ‘New’ GreekText, based on the Vaticanus manuscript wasintroduced by Westcott and Hort. It has beenused as the Greek Text for all subsequentversions. It seems that no 20th-centuryscholar or Bible translator dares oppose thewill of Dr. . Westcott and Dr. . Hort.Frederic Kenyon, the late Director of the BritishMuseum and author of the most widely usedtextbooks on textual criticism, wrote this aboutthe Majority Text:“This is the text found in the great majorityof manuscripts, entrenched in print byErasmus and Stephenus and known as theTextus Receptus or Received Text . . Until 1881. . it held the field as the text in practically universaluse and when its position was then decisivelychallenged, a stiff fight was made in itsdefence by advocates such as Burgon.“[This New Minority-type Greek text] predominantlyused . . Aleph and B [Sinaiticusand Vaticanus] type readings . . [The changes]amount to an extensive modification of the text.It has been the dominating influence in all moderncritical editions.“It is clear that . . deliberate alteration . .has been at work on a large scale in one text orthe other . . The Textus Receptus [Majority Text]being habitually the longer and fuller of thetwo.”—Frederick Kenyon, Text of the GreekNew Testament, pp. 197-204, 224, 231.Did you catch that point? Kenyon, a worldrecognizedscholar of his day, said it was obvi-ous that either Sinaiticus and Vaticanus hadbeen deliberately altered or the Majority Texthad. Then he pointed out that the fault couldnot lie with the Majority Text; for there weretoo many manuscripts containing its read-ings!Wilbur Pickering deplores the fact that allmodern Bible translators continue to rely onthis inferior 1%-2% of the manuscripts, inpreparing their new Bible versions. Here is a mostexcellent analysis of the situation:69“[The new versions] ignore the over 5,000Greek manuscripts now extant . . The evidencecited does prove that aberrant forms of the NewTestament text were produced. Naturally someof those text forms may have acquired a localand temporary currency. Recall that the possibilityof checking with the autographs must haveserved to inhibit the spread of such forms. Wehave what Aland calls the Majority Text (whichBurgon calls the Traditional Text), dominatingthe stream of transmission with a few individualwitnesses going their idiosyncratic ways . . Onemay reasonably speak of 90% of the extantmanuscripts belonging to the Majority Text type. . The remaining 10% do not represent a singlecompeting form.“The minority manuscripts disagree as much(or more) among themselves as they do withthe majority. We are not judging between twotext forms, one representing 90% of the manuscriptsand the other 10%. Rather we have tojudge between 90% and a fraction of 1% (comparingthe Majority Text with P75 and B textform for example). Or to take a specific case, in1 Timothy 3:16, over 300 Greek manuscriptsread ‘God’ [KJV] . . Greek manuscripts read‘who’ [NIV, NASV, etc.] So we have to judge between97% and 2% . .“It really does seem that those scholars whoreject the Majority Text are faced with as seriousproblem . . They are remnants reflectingancient aberrant forms. It is a dependence onsuch aberrant forms that distinguishes contemporarycritical editions of the New Testament. . I submit that due process requires usto receive as original that form of the text whichis supported by the majority of witnesses. Toreject their testimony in favour of our ownimagination as to what a reading ought to be ismanifestly untenable.”—Wilbur Pickering, TheIdentity of the New Testament Text, pp. 114-120, 25, 149, 150, 237.In the above statement, Pickering says thatit is not 90% of the manuscripts saying this,as opposed to 10% which say that; but it is90% which stand solidly in mutual agree-ment while 10% disagree fiercely among them-selves. Therefore, on any given passage, it is90% against 1% or 2%, not 90% vs. 10%.Then there is Hodges; he says that moderntextual critics do the opposite of scientistsin other fields: Everyone else goes by whatmajority research proves, not that which theminority presents.“Modern criticism repeatedly and systematicallyrejects Majority readings on a large scale. . [This is] monstrously unscientific . . If mod-

70 The King James and the Modern Versionsern criticism continues its trend toward moregenuinely scientific procedures, this questionwill once again become a central consideration. . The Textus Receptus was too hastily abandoned.”—ZaneC. Hodges, quoted in op. cit.,pp. 159-179.THIS 1% REPRESENTSONLY ONE SMALL, AND MOSTCORRUPT, LOCALITYNot only are these manuscripts a minor-ity of witnesses, but they represent only onegeographical area: Alexandria, Egypt. The Ma-jority Text, on the other hand, come frommanuscripts from Greece, Constantinople,Asia Minor, , Syria, Africa, Gaul, South Italy,Sicily, , England, and Ireland.Pickering wrote this:“A reading found in only one limited area cannotbe original . . if a reading died out in thefourth century, we have the verdict of historyagainst it.”—Op. cit., pp. 143-144.And that is what happened. The great ma-jority of the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus scribalchanges in the text were not copied byscribes! They recognized that those two cod-ices were flawed.Hodges maintained that, because most of thenon-Byzantine type of manuscripts have comefrom Egypt, therefore they probably represent atextual tradition pertaining only to that geographicalarea (Hodges, The King James VersionDebate, p. 49).Another textual scholar, Zuntz, was carefulto note that the agreement between our moderneditions does not mean that we have recoveredthe original text. Indeed, all that has been doneis that modern editors have followed one narrowsection of the evidence, namely the non-Westernold uncials (G. Zuntz, The Text of theEpistles, p. 8).Regarding those two codices, which form thebasis of all modern Bible translations, K.W. Clarksaid it well: “All are found on the same Egyptianrecension” (K.W. Clark, “Today’s Problems withthe Critical Text of the New Testament,” in Transitionsin Biblical Scholarship, ed. by J.C.R.Rylaarsdam, p. 166).What is a “recension”? According to Webster,it is a “revision.” The NASV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament refers to its “Greek text”as a “recension” (Alfred Marshall, The NASVInterlinear Greek-English New Testament, p.vi). Wouldn’t you really rather have “the original”?That is what you get in the Bible translatedfrom the Majority Text.ERRORS WERE INTRODUCED EARLYIt is said that the King James-based man-uscripts are late and practically worthless,and the Sinaiticus / Vaticanus manuscripts(which were also comparatively early) are verypure because they are early.We have found that the first part of thatsentence is untrue; now we will learn thatthe last part is equally false.“It is no less true to fact than paradoxical insound, that the worst corruptions to which theNew Testament has ever been subjected, originatedwithin a hundred years after it was composed;that Irenaeus [A.D. 130-200] and theAfrican ‘fathers’ and the whole Western, with aportion of the Syrian Church, used far inferiormanuscripts to those employed by Stunica, orErasmus, or Stephenus thirteen centuries later,when moulding the Textus Receptus.”—FrederickH.A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction tothe Criticism of the New Testament for the Useof the Biblical Student, Vol. 2, pp. 264-265.Even Hort admitted that his beloved Alexandrianmanuscripts were not very good. In a letterto Westcott, he wrote:“Inaccuracy may in certain men or at certainperiods run into a laxity which is careless aboutwords though supposing itself faithful to sense,and which draws no sharp line between transcribingand editing, i.e. mending or completing.This last characteristic naturally belongsto the early period.”—A.F. Hort, Life and Lettersof F.J.A. Hort, Vol. 2., p. 228.While some of these flaws were of an un-intentional nature (human error or scribalcarelessness, etc.), many others resultedfrom deliberate interference. Sometimes thetampering was heretical; at other times it waspious but misguided.There are four basic types of corruptionswhich can occur in a text. Here they are:omissions, additions (interpolations),changes (substitutions), and transpositions(reversing word order). Omissions constitutethe largest number while additions are thesmallest.Upon examining the very earliest manu-scripts, the papyri, we find they had sucherrors:The Chester Beatty and Bodmer papyri, twoof the oldest manuscripts (but both from Egypt)

The Early Centurieshad almost total disagreement with one another.Out of 70 extant verses, they disagreed with oneanother in 73 places, apart from mistakes.When the nearly 100 extant papyrus fragmentsare carefully examined, we find that corruptionis the rule and not the exception.One of the oldest papyrus manuscripts inexistence is P 66 (Bodmer Collection); dated atabout A.D. 200, P 66 contains 104 leaves of John1:1 to 6:11; 6:35b to 14:15, and fragments offorty other pages from John 14 to 21.Wilbur Pickering has cited the results of E.C.Colwell’s collation of P 66 along with P 45 (c. 250)and P 75 (c. 225):“The nearly 200 nonsense readings and 400itacistic (vowel interchange) spellings in P 45 areevidence of something less than disciplined attentionto the basic task. To this evidence ofcarelessness must be added those singularreadings whose origin baffles speculation, readingsthat can be given no more exact label thancarelessness leading to assorted variant readings.A hurried count shows P 45 with 20, P 75with 57, and P 66 with 216 purely careless readings.”—W.Pickering, The Identity of the NewTestament Text, p. 123.Commenting on this, Pickering said this:“Colwell’s study took into account only singular[unique] readings—readings which noother manuscript supports. He found P 66 to have400 itacisms plus 482 other singular readings,40 percent of which are nonsensical. ‘P 66 editorializesas he does everything else—in a sloppyfashion.’ In short, P 66 is a very poor copy—andyet it is one of the earliest!“P 75 is placed close to P 66 in date. Though notas bad as P 66 , it is scarcely a good copy. Colwellfound P 75 to have about 145 itacisms plus 257other singular readings, 25 percent of whichare nonsensical. Although Colwell gives thescribe of P 75 credit for having tried to produce agood copy, P 75 looks good only by comparisonwith P 66 . (If you were asked to write out theGospel of John by hand, would you make over400 mistakes? Try it and see.”—Op. cit., p.125.Here we have manuscripts dated very early;yet they are full of mistakes! P 66 is dated at A.D.200. Another papyrus, P 46 , is one of three manuscriptsin the famed Chester Beatty collection.Consisting of 86 mutilated leaves, this fragmentcomprises eight of the Pauline epistles. GuntherZuntz says this about it:“In spite of its neat appearance (it was writtenby a professional scribe and corrected—but very imperfectly—by an expert). P 46 is by71no means a good manuscript. The scribe committedvery many blunders . . My impressionis that he was liable to fits of exhaustion.”—Op. cit., p. 125.Farther down on the same page, Zuntz addsthis:“The scribe who wrote the papyrus did hiswork very badly. Of his innumerable faults, onlya fraction (less than one in ten) have been correctedand even that fraction—as often happensin manuscripts—grows smaller and smaller towardsthe end of the book. Whole pages havebeen left without any correction, however greatlythey were in need of it.”—Ibid.Later in time, we come to the ancientuncials, but we find them to also be in poorshape. Dean Burgon did an analysis of Luke’saccount of the Lord’s Prayer in “the five olduncials.” These five are the Sinaiticus (aleph),Vaticanus (B), Alexandrinus (A), Ephraemi (C),and Bezae (D). The Bezae is also called theCantabridgiensis.This is what he discovered:“The five old uncials (Alpha, A, B, C, D) falsifythe Lord’s Prayer as given by St. Luke inno less than forty-five words. But so little dothey agree among themselves, that they throwthemselves into six different combinations intheir departures from the Traditional Text [theMajority Text]; and yet they are never able toagree among themselves as to one single variousreading: while only once are more than twoof them observed to stand together, and theirgrand point of union is no less than an omissionof the article. Such is their eccentric tendency,that in respect of thirty-two out of thewhole forty-five words they bear in turn solitaryevidence.”—D.J.W. Burgon, TraditionalText, p. 84.Burgon provides another example of this lackof agreement among the ancient codices with hiscomments on Mark 2:1-12:“In the course of those 12 verses . . therewill be found to be 60 variations of reading . .Now, in the present instance, the ‘five olduncials’ cannot be the depositories of a tradition,—whetherWestern or Eastern,—becausethey render inconsistent testimony in everyverse. It must further be admitted (for this isreally not a question of opinion, but a plainmatter of fact) that it is unreasonable to placeconfidence in such documents. What would bethought in a Court of Law of five witnesses,called up 47 times for examination, who shouldbe observed to bear contradictory testimonyevery time?”—Burgon, The Revision Revised,

72 The King James and the Modern Versionspp. 30-31.Kurt Aland, the man most responsible todayfor promoting the papyrus manuscripts andthe five ancient uncials (since he is the editorin-chiefof the Nestle and UBS Texts which allmodern versions are translated from) said this:“We need not mention the fact that the oldestmanuscript does not necessarily have thebest text. P 47 is, for example, by far the oldestof the manuscripts containing the full or almostfull text of the Apocalypse, but it is certainlynot the best.”—Kurt Aland, quoted inPickering, Identity of the New Testament Text,pp. 125-126.Hort himself conceded this:“The confusion of attestation introduced bythese several cross currents of change is so greatthat of the seven principal manuscripts (Aleph,A, B, C, D, L, and Delta), no two have the sametext in all four places.”—Hort, quoted in Fuller,True or False? p. 71 [L stands for Codex Regius;and Delta stands for Codex Sangallensis.]If both Aland and Hort admit the truth,why does anyone still believe the lie?In view of what we have so far read in thissection, on what basis can it be said that anymanuscript can be any good, if some of theearly ones had so many errors?The answer is quite obvious. (1) The 10%of the manuscripts with all those errors,whether copied early or later, , were eithermade in Egypt where there was little respectfor Biblical accuracy or they were made bymajor codex copyists who were paid by kingsand popes to do the job and cared little forthe quality of their work.But (2) God cared for the manuscriptscopied by the faithful who, with little fan-fare, produced thousands of copies. Thosecopies agreed almost perfectly and were rev-erently prepared by humble folk who lovedGod’s Word.Taught by devils, Westcott and Hort maintainedthat the readings, which the largest numberof manuscripts had in common, would bethe most corrupt. But Hodges explained why theywould, instead, be the most accurate:“The manuscript tradition of an ancient bookwill, under any but the most exceptional conditions,multiply in a reasonably regular fashionwith the result that the copies nearest the autographwill normally have the largest numberof descendants. The further removed in the historyof transmission a text becomes from itssource, the less time it has to leave behind alarge family of offspring. Hence, in a large traditionwhere a pronounced unity is observedbetween, let us say, eighty per cent of the evidence,a very strong presumption is raised thatthis numerical preponderance is due to directderivation from the very oldest sources. In theabsence of any convincing contrary explanation,this presumption is raised to a very high levelof probability indeed.”—Hodges, quoted inFuller, Which Bible? p. 37.Even Hort admitted the fact:“A theoretical presumption indeed remainsthat a majority of extant documents is morelikely to represent a majority of ancestral documentsat each stage of transmission than viceversa.”—Hort, quoted in ibid.Church history confirms that the initial cop-ies of Scripture were blessed with an unprece-dented proliferation. For instance, Clement ofRome refers to at least eight New Testamentbooks in his epistle to the Corinthians, datedabout A.D. 96. Many such similar referencesconfirm the early existence of a burden to bothpropagate and receive the precious words of God.Although the dedicated early Christianseagerly made copies of the Scriptures, theywere concerned about doing it very carefully.Such caution was a natural reaction to thevicious onslaught of heretical corruptionwhich quickly began. Having copied the veryprophecies of the enemy’s approach, theywere suddenly confronted by their ominousfulfillment—as they learned of the heresiesand poorly made copies produced down inthe university town of Alexandria.The early true Christian leaders worked vigorouslyto resist the apostasy. This is mentionedin Scripture:“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thypatience, and how thou canst not bear themwhich are evil: and thou hast tried them whichsay they are apostles, and are not, and hastfound them liars.”—Revelation 2:2.Polycarp, bishop in Smyrna (A.D. 69-155)had been a personal disciple of John. He continuedhis teacher’s concern, to safeguard theWord of God. He wrote: “Whosoever perverts theoracles of the Lord . . he is the first-born of Satan.”Irenaeus, at the end of his manuscript letter,On the Ogdoad, included this note:“I adjure you who shall copy out this book,by our Lord Jesus Christ and by His gloriousadvent when He comes to judge the living and

The Early Centuriesthe dead, that you compare what you transcribe,and correct it carefully against this manuscriptfrom which you copy; and also that you transcribethis adjuration and insert it in thecopy.”—Irenaeus, quoted in Pickering, Identity,p. 108.As Adam, Methuselah, and Noah preservedthe entire preflood oral tradition, the church’saccessibility to New Testament autographs offereda similar security for the written record.That the originals were used in this very manneris confirmed by the written testimony ofTertullian as late as the year A.D. 208. In hisdefensive work, entitled On Persecution againstHeretics, he rebuked the skeptics of his age withthe challenge that the “authentic writings” ofthe apostles were still possessed by Chris-tians in his day:“Come now, you who would indulge a bettercuriosity, if you would apply it to the businessof your salvation, run over [to] the apostolicchurches, in which the very thrones of theapostles are still pre-eminent in their places,in which their own authentic writings areread, uttering the voice and representing theface of each of them severally. Achaia is verynear you, [in which] you find Corinth. Since youare not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi;(and there too) you have the Thessalonians.Since you are able to cross to Asia, you getEphesus. Since, moreover, you are close uponItaly, you have Rome, from which there comeseven into our own hands the very authority (ofapostles themselves). How happy is its church,on which apostles poured forth all their doctrinealong with their blood!”—Tertullian,quoted in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, p. 260.Satan was trying, in a thousand ways, to corruptthe faith of the saints.THE PSEUDOPIGRAPHAThe pseudopigrapha should be mentionedhere. These were apocryphal books whichclaimed to have been written by the apostlesor their helpers, yet which taught variouserrors.Alluded to by Luke (Luke 1:1-2), these noninspiredbooks were among the earliest irritationsto the young churches. Eusebius said thisabout them:“Among the spurious must be numbered,both the books called The Acts of Paul, andthat called Pastor, and The Revelation of Peter.Beside these, the books called The Epistle ofBarnabas, and what are called The Institutions73of the Apostles.”—Eusebius, quoted in Pamphilus,Ecclesiastical History, pp. 215-216.Photius, a Christian writer in the 9th-cen-tury, , listed over 280 of these fake New Teses-tament books. These included the Gospels ofThomas, Peter, Nicodemus, Barnabas, Andrew,Philip, and Thaddeus; as well as numerousmissing “epistles” of Paul; along with the Apocalypseof Peter, Paul, Thomas, and Stephen (N.L.Geisler and W.E. Nix, General Introduction tothe Bible, pp. 200-201).The pope told Jerome to include the OldTestament Apocrypha in his Latin Vulgate,which he did (although he commented that hedid not believe they were inspired). At the Councilof Trent, Rome decided to keep most of theOld Testament apocryphal books, since theyhelped prove pergatory and some other Catholicinventions.But not even Rome accepted any of the NewTestament pseudopigraphal books.THE TRUE CHURCHFLEES WITH THE MANUSCRIPTSINTO THE WILDERNESSUltimately, with the passing of the centuries,the Roman apostasy grew to the point that thebishop of Rome demanded that all the localchurches bow in submission to him. This onlyaccelerated the scattering of the faithful, asthey fulfilled the prophecy of Revelation 12and fled into the wilderness. And what didthey take with them?—those pure Biblicalmanuscripts! The corrupt ones, from Alex-andria, they left behind for the pope and hishenchmen to work with. Wilkerson said it well:“But soon the scene changed; the fury of Satan,robbed of further opportunity to harassthe Son of God, turned upon the written Word.Heretical sects, warring for supremacy, corruptedthe manuscripts in order to further theirends. ‘Epiphanius, in his polemic treatise thePanarion, describes not less than eighty hereticalparties.’ The Roman Catholics won. The truechurch fled into the wilderness, taking pure manuscriptswith her.”—Benjamin G. Wilkinson, OurAuthorized Bible Vindicated, p. 7.GOD’S GUIDANCEIN THE SELECTION OFTHE MAJORITY TEXTIn view of such desperate efforts by Satan tocorrupt the faith of the people of God, it is a greatmarvel that we have a holy Bible at all!

74 The King James and the Modern VersionsBut the God of heaven, who inspired theSacred Writings, was also protecting it.The Lord guided His true church to pre-pare careful copies, reject false readings, andonly accept the good ones. Just as surely asHe guided in the selection of which booksshould be in the inspired canon of Scrip-ture, so He guided in the preparation ofmanuscript copies. Hills explains what happened:“No sooner had the New Testament booksbeen given to the church through the Inspirationof the Holy Spirit than the spirit of darknessbegan his endeavors to corrupt their textsand render them useless, but in these effortsalso the evil one failed to attain his objective. Inregard to the New Testament text as well as inregard to the New Testament canon God bestowedupon His church sufficient grace to enableher to overcome all the wiles of the devil.“Just as God guided the church to reject, aftera period of doubt and conflict, all non-canonicalNew Testament books, so God guidedthe church during this same period of doubtand conflict, to reject false readings and to receiveinto common usage the true New Testamenttext.“For an orthodox Christian, Burgon’s viewis the only reasonable one. If we believe thatGod gave the church guidance in regard to theNew Testament books, then surely it is logicalto believe that God gave the church similar guidancein regard to the text which these books contained.Surely it is very inconsistent to believethat God guided the church in regard to theNew Testament canon but gave the church noguidance in regard to the New Testament text.”—Edward F. Hills, quoted in D.O. Fuller, WhichBible? p. 99.According to the liberal view, all the Biblemanuscripts are worthless, except for two especially,plus a few others. Hills powerfully repliesto that error:“I am utterly disinclined to believe, so grosslyimprobable does it seem—that at the end of1,800 years 995 copies out of every thousand,supposedly prove untrustworthy; and that theone, two, three, four or five which remain, whosecontents were till yesterday as good as unknown,will be found to have retained the secret of whatthe Holy Spirit originally inspired.“I am utterly unable to believe, in short, thatGod’s promise has so entirely failed, that atthe end of 1,800 years, much of the text of theGospel had in point of fact to be picked by aGerman critic out of a wastepaper basket inthe convent of St. Catherine; and that the entiretext had to be remodeled after the patternset by a couple of copies which had remainedin neglect during fifteen centuries, and hadprobably owed their survival to that neglect;whilst hundreds of others had been thumbedto pieces and had bequeathed their witness tocopies made from them.”—Op. cit., p. 92.Oh, that all the Bible translators in the worldcould read the above statements by EdwardHills!The Presbyterian theologian, B.B. Warfield,theorized that God had worked providentiallythrough Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott, and Hortto preserve the New Testament text, by their inclusionof the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in aprominent roll in critical Greek Texts! To this,in a different book, Hills gave this forceful reply:“But this suggestion leads to conclusionswhich are extremely bizarre and inconsistent. Itwould have us believe that during the manuscriptperiod orthodox Christians corrupted theNew Testament text, that the text used by theProtestant Reformers was the worst of all, andthat the true text was not restored until thenineteenth century, when Tregelles brought itforth out of the Pope’s library, when Tischendorfrescued it from a wastebasket on Mt. Sinai, andwhen Westcott and Hort were providentiallyguided to construct a theory of it which ignoresGod’s special providence and treats the text ofthe New Testament like the text of any otherancient book.“But if the true New Testament text was lostfor 1,500 years, how can we be sure that it hasever been found again?”—Edward F. Hills, TheKing James Version Defended, pp. 110-111.ADDITIONAL STATEMENTSON THIS CONTROVERSYWe have found that the Greek manuscriptsclearly favor the Majority Text, which is thebasis of the King James Version—eventhough,as we shall learn later, , that Majority Texthas been rejected by all 20th-century Bibletranslations, without exception!The Majority Text(also called the Re-ceived Text, the Textus Receptus, Syrian Text,Antiochian Text, and—slurringly by the lib-erals—the Byzantine Text) contains the purest,most accurate, and earliest Greek manu-scripts.How thankful we can be to our kind heavenlyFather, that He has protected His holy Wordthrough all past ages. But now, , in the end time,

The Early Centuries75the warning of Revelation 12:17 is being ful-filled. The dragon is desperately at work todestroy the faith of the remnant, keeping indelusion all those who might be attracted tothe final truths for our generation. May webe faithful in defending God’s Word. For whenwe do, we defend God Himself. And what anhonor it is to be able to do that!In concluding this section, we will cite a fewadditional quotations by Bible scholars.Wilbur Pickering, author of the scholarlybook, Identity of the New Testament Text, andrecipient of a TH.M in Greek Exegesis from DallasTheological Seminary, with an M.A. and Ph.D.in Linguistics, from the University of Toronto,wrote this:“The distressing realization is forced uponus that the ‘progress’ of the past hundred yearshas been precisely in—the wrong direction—our modern versions and critical texts are foundto differ from the Original in some six thousandplaces, many of them being serious differences. . [They] are several times farther removedfrom the originals than are the A.V. andTR [King James Version and its foundation,the Greek Textus Receptus]. How could such acalamity have come upon us? . . Much of thework that has been done is flawed.”—Pickering,The Identity of the New Testament Text, pp.149-150, 237.Dean John Burgon, the scholar who collatedthe earliest New Testament documents—includingcodices, cursive Manuscripts, papyri, lectionaries,quotations by early “fathers” (87,000 inall)—wrote this about the changes the liberalswere making in Greek texts and Bible translations:“Ordinary readers . . will of course assumethat the changes result from the reviser’s skillin translating—advances which have been madein the study of Greek. It was found that theyhad erred through defective scholarship to anextent and with a frequency, which to me issimply inexplicable . . Anything more unscientific. . can scarcely be conceived, but it hasprevailed for fifty years. We regret to discoverthat . . their work is disfigured throughout bychanges which convict a majority of their bodyalike of an imperfect acquaintance with theGreek language.”—Burgon, The Revision Revised,pp. 54, xi, 270, 277.Edward F. Hills, author of The King JamesVersion Defended, and graduate of Yale University,Westminster Theological Seminary, recipientof the Ph.D. from Harvard, and the TH.Mfrom Columbia University, declared that “modernspeech Bibles are unscholarly” (Hills, KingJames Version Defended, p. 219).Dr. E.C. Colwell, past president of the Universityof Chicago and a leading North AmericanNew Testament Greek scholar, authored scoresof books, including Studies in Methodology inTextual Criticism of the New Testament. Ultimately,he recognized that the liberal positionwas totally wrong—and he returned to fullestconfidence in the Majority Text.“Scholars now believe that most errors weremade deliberately . . the variant readings in theNew Testament were created for theological ordogmatic reasons. Most of the manuals now inprint (including mine!) will tell you that thesevariations were the fruit of careless treatment. . The reverse is the case.”—Colwell, What isthe Best New Testament? pp. 53, 49.Zane Hodges, professor of New TestamentLiterature and Exegesis at Dallas TheologicalSeminary and co-editor of a Greek New Testament,made this comment about the new versions:“Monstrously unscientific, if not dangerouslyobscurantist. The average well-taught Bible-believingChristian has often heard the error thatthe King James Version is corrected on the basisof better manuscripts or older authorities.”—Hodges, quoted in Pickering, Identity of theNew Testament Text, p. 160.“Lacking any kind of technical training in thisarea, the average believer probably has acceptedsuch explanations from individuals he regardsas qualified to give them.”—Hodges, quoted inD.O. Fuller, Which Bible? p. 25.William Palmer, scholar and author of Narrativeof Events on the Tracts for the Times,made this comment:“Ordinary Christians have little idea [concerningthe new Greek text] . . it rests in manycases on quotations which are not genuine . .on passages which when collated with the original,are proved to be wholly inefficacious asproofs.”—Palmer, quoted in op. cit., p. 265.WALDENSIAN BIBLEThe Waldenses, in the Italian Alps of north-ern Italy, , maintained a pure faith for centu-ries. According to the following statement,those believers in the Piedmont valleys heldto the pure Apostolic faith to as far back asthe 4th century A.D.D. . and earlier.

76 The King James and the Modern Versions“The method which Allix has pursued, in hisHistory of the Churches of Piedmont [the Waldensianchurches], is to show that in the ecclesiasticalhistory of every century, from thefourth century, which he considers a period earlyenough for the inquirer after apostolical purityof doctrine, there are clear proofs that doctrines,unlike those which the Romish Churchholds, and conformable to the belief of theWaldensian and Reformed churches, were maintainedby believers of the north of Italy down tothe period, when the Waldenses first came intonotice.“Consequently, the opinions of the Waldenseswere not new to Europe in the eleventh or twelfthcenturies, and there is nothing improbable inthe tradition that the Subalpine Church perseveredin its integrity in an uninterrupted coursefrom the first preaching of the Gospel in thevalleys.”—Gilly, Waldensian Researches, p.113.It was because the Waldenses had the Wordof God in their own language, that they wereable to maintain their faith through all thosecenturies. They first had the Italia manuscriptswhich, as we earlier learned, were faithful tothe Majority Text. Later they prepared theWaldensian Bible.The Waldensians, also known as the Vaudois[pronounced “VAW-doh”], were a distinct groupof earnest Christians with their own Bibles, asearly as the early part of the 4th century, in thetime of Constantine.“There are modern writers who attempt tofix the beginning of the Waldenses from PeterWaldo, who began his work about 1175. Thisis a mistake. The historical name of this peopleas properly derived from the valleys where theylived, is Vaudois. Their enemies, however, eversought to date their origin from Waldo . .“There remains to us in the ancient Waldensianlanguage, The Noble Lesson (La NoblaLeycon), written about the year A.D. 1100,which assigns the first opposition of the Waldensesto the Church of Rome to the days ofConstantine the Great, when Sylvester waspope . . Thus, when Christianity, emerging fromthe long persecutions of pagan Rome, was raisedto imperial favor by the Emperor Constantine,the Italic church in northern Italy—later [called]the Waldenses—is seen standing in oppositionto papal Rome.“Their Bible was of the family of the renownedItalia. It was that translation into Latin whichrepresents the Received Text. Its very name,‘Italia,’ is derived from the Italic district, theregions 0of the Vaudois.“Of the purity and reliability of this version,“The multiplication of witnesses [Biblicalmanuscripts] and variants [differences betweenthem] attests the tremendous importance of the NewTestament in the early centuries and reallyguarantees the general integrity of the text [becausethere are so many manuscripts].“Only 400 or so of the 150,000 variants [in thethose manuscripts] materially affect the sense, and ofthese perhaps 50 are of real significance. But noessential teaching of the New Testament is greatlyaffected by them.”—Ira Maurice Price, The Ancestry of OurEnglish Bible, p. 222

The Centuries Between77The Centuries BetweenPre-King James Bibles Are MadeAugustine, speaking of different Latin Bibles(about A.D. 400) said:“ ‘Now among translations themselves theItalian (Italia) is to be preferred to the others,for it keeps closer to the words without prejudiceto clearness of expression.’“The old Waldensian liturgy which they usedin their services down through the centuriescontained ‘texts of Scripture of the ancient versioncalled the Italick.’ ”—Wilkinson, Our AuthorizedBible Vindicated, pp. 34-35.The Waldensians existed from the earliesttimes in the territory now known as north-ern Italy. . But we are told that, when intensepersecution came to them, some apostatized,others moved farther into the Italian Alps,while still others carried the faith to foreignlands.“But of those who resisted the encroachmentsof the papal power, the Waldenses stoodforemost. In the very land where popery hadfixed its seat, there its falsehood and corruptionwere most steadfastly resisted. For centuriesthe churches of Piedmont maintained theirindependence; but the time came at last whenRome insisted upon their submission. After ineffectualstruggles against her tyranny, the leadersof these churches reluctantly acknowledgedthe supremacy of the power to which the wholeworld seemed to pay homage.“There were some, however, who refused toyield to the authority of pope or prelate. Theywere determined to maintain their allegianceto God and to preserve the purity and simplicityof their faith. A separation took place. Thosewho adhered to the ancient faith now withdrew;some, forsaking their native Alps, raised thebanner of truth in foreign lands; others retreatedto the secluded glens and rocky fastnesses ofthe mountains, and there preserved their freedomto worship God.”—Great Controversy, 64.It was the Waldensians which were the truechurch, not the proud church down in Rome.“But those humble peasants, in their obscureretreats, shut away from the world, andbound to daily toil among their flocks and theirvineyards, had not by themselves arrived at thetruth in opposition to the dogmas and heresiesof the apostate church. Theirs was not a faithnewly received. Their religious belief was theirinheritance from their fathers. They contendedfor the faith of the apostolic church,—‘the faithwhich was once delivered unto the saints.’ Jude3. ‘The church in the wilderness,’ and not theproud hierarchy enthroned in the world’s greatcapital, was the true church of Christ, the guardianof the treasures of truth which God hascommitted to His people to be given to theworld.”—Great Controversy, 64.It was because they had the pure text ofthe Bible in their own language, that theywere especially hated by Rome—for only theclear teachings of Scripture could unveil the hideousdeceptions of the papacy.“The Waldenses were among the first of thepeoples of Europe to obtain a translation ofthe Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years beforethe Reformation they possessed the Bible inmanuscript in their native tongue. They hadthe truth unadulterated, and this rendered themthe special objects of hatred and persecution.They declared the Church of Rome to be theapostate Babylon of the Apocalypse, and at theperil of their lives they stood up to resist hercorruptions.“While, under the pressure of long-continuedpersecution, some compromised their faith,little by little yielding its distinctive principles,others held fast the truth. Through ages of darknessand apostasy there were Waldenses whodenied the supremacy of Rome, who rejectedimage worship as idolatry, and who kept thetrue Sabbath. Under the fiercest tempests ofopposition they maintained their faith. Thoughgashed by the Savoyard spear, and scorched bythe Romish fagot, they stood unflinchingly forGod’s Word and His honor.”—Great Controversy,p. 65.Notice that they had the Bible “hundreds of

78 The King James and the Modern Versionsyears” before the Reformation.” Peter Waldo didnot start the Vaudois, as though they origi-nated with him. He was a wealthy Christian businessmanin Lyons, France.What Bible was this that they had? What wasthe Waldensian Bible? It was the Italia, the ancienttranslation their forefathers had made frommanuscripts very close in time to the originals.How powerful was that Bible? So powerful that,in spite of continued persecution, they kept thetrue faith for centuries.The secret of success was the fact thatthe Bible was the primary textbook in theirschools. Parents maintained home schoolsand diligently taught the pure Word to theirchildren.“Pure, simple, and fervent was the piety ofthese followers of Christ. The principles of truththey valued above houses and lands, friends,kindred, even life itself. These principles theyearnestly sought to impress upon the hearts ofthe young.“From earliest childhood the youth were instructedin the Scriptures and taught to regardsacredly the claims of the law of God. Copies ofthe Bible were rare; therefore its precious wordswere committed to memory. Many were able torepeat large portions of both the Old and theNew Testaments. Thoughts of God were associatedalike with the sublime scenery of natureand with the humble blessings of daily life. Littlechildren learned to look with gratitude to Godas the giver of every favor and every comfort.”—Great Controversy, p. 67.Another important strength of this peoplewas that their pastors only preached fromthe Inspired Writings. They did not refer tothe works of uninspired commentaries andphilosophers.“The Vaudois churches, in their purity andsimplicity, resembled the church of apostolictimes. Rejecting the supremacy of the pope andprelate, they held the Bible as the only supreme,infallible authority. Their pastors, unlike thelordly priests of Rome, followed the example oftheir Master, who ‘came not to be ministeredunto, but to minister.’“They fed the flock of God, leading them tothe green pastures and living fountains of Hisholy Word. Far from the monuments of humanpomp and pride the people assembled, not inmagnificent churches or grand cathedrals, butbeneath the shadow of the mountains, in theAlpine valleys, or, in time of danger, in somerocky stronghold, to listen to the words of truthfrom the servants of Christ.”—Great Controversy,p. 68.In addition to their parents, godly pastors,with the Word of God in their hands, taught theyouth.“From their pastors the youth received instruction.While attention was given to branchesof general learning, the Bible was made the chiefstudy. The Gospels of Matthew and John werecommitted to memory, with many of the Epistles.They were employed also in copying theScriptures. Some manuscripts contained thewhole Bible, others only brief selections, towhich some simple explanations of the textwere added by those who were able to expoundthe Scriptures. Thus were brought forth thetreasures of truth so long concealed by thosewho sought to exalt themselves above God.”—Great Controversy, pp. 68-69.In addition to their duties in the home, onthe farm, and in the orchard, these godly youngpeople also worked at making copies of the preciousBible manuscripts.“By patient, untiring labor, sometimes in thedeep, dark caverns of the earth, by the light oftorches, the Sacred Scriptures were written out,verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Thus thework went on, the revealed will of God shiningout like pure gold; how much brighter, clearer,and more powerful because of the trials undergonefor its sake only those could realize whowere engaged in the work. Angels from heavensurrounded these faithful workers.”—GreatControversy, p. 69.This preservation of the pure manuscriptsin the Italia had gone on for centuries. Becausethe people were conscientious and dedicated,the angels could guide their hands so they werenot likely to make copyist errors.The agents of Satan were enraged. Theywanted to corrupt and destroy the Word ofGod; yet here was a people who were pre-serving it in its pure form!“Satan had urged on the papal priests andprelates to bury the Word of truth beneath therubbish of error, heresy, and superstition; butin a most wonderful manner it was preserveduncorrupted through all the ages of darkness.It bore not the stamp of man, but the impressof God. Men have been unwearied in their effortsto obscure the plain, simple meaning ofthe Scriptures, and to make them contradicttheir own testimony; but like the ark upon thebillowy deep, the Word of God outrides thestorms that threaten it with destruction.”—Great Controversy, p. 69.These divinely inspired statements are

The Centuries Betweenhighly significant. Liberals today declare thatonly the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, and relatedmanuscripts, have the original text. But it isclear that the Waldenses had it!“The Waldenses were among the first of thepeoples of Europe to obtain a translation ofthe Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years beforethe Reformation they possessed the Bible inmanuscript in their native tongue. They hadthe truth unadulterated, and this rendered themthe special objects of hatred and persecution.”—Great Controversy, p. 65.“Satan had urged on the papal priests andprelates to bury the Word of truth beneath therubbish of error, heresy, and superstition; butin a most wonderful manner it was preserveduncorrupted through all the ages of darkness.It bore not the stamp of man, but the impressof God.”—Great Controversy, p. 69.As the youth became older, they were sentout as missionaries, secretly carrying portionsof Scripture with them to be shared with others.This was the basis of their evangelistic work.(See Great Controversy, pp. 70-76.)The evangelistic work of laymen todayshould also be based on sharing the InspiredWritings: the Bible and Spirit of Prophecywith so many out there who know them not.As in all ages, those who have the Wordof God and who share the Word of God arepersecuted.“The Waldensian missionaries were invadingthe kingdom of Satan, and the powers ofdarkness aroused to greater vigilance. Everyeffort to advance the truth was watched by theprince of evil, and he excited the fears of hisagents. The papal leaders saw a portent of dangerto their cause from the labors of thesehumble itinerants. If the light of truth were allowedto shine unobstructed, it would sweepaway the heavy clouds of error that envelopedthe people. It would direct the minds of men toGod alone and would eventually destroy thesupremacy of Rome.“The very existence of this people, holdingthe faith of the ancient church, was a constanttestimony to Rome’s apostasy, and thereforeexcited the most bitter hatred and persecution.Their refusal to surrender the Scriptures wasalso an offense that Rome could not tolerate.She determined to blot them from the earth.Now began the most terrible crusades againstGod’s people in their mountain homes. Inquisitorswere put upon their track, and the sceneof innocent Abel falling before the murderousCain was often repeated.”—Great Controversy,79p. 76.Why is it that those who claim to be God’s“remnant” in these last days are not beingpersecuted? The answer is obvious: They arenot earnestly, , urgently sharing the Wordord, andits end-time teachings.“There is another and more important questionthat should engage the attention of thechurches of today. The apostle Paul declaresthat ‘all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shallsuffer persecution,’ 2 Timothy 3:12. Why is it,then, that persecution seems in a great degreeto slumber? The only reason is that the churchhas conformed to the world’s standard andtherefore awakens no opposition.“The religion which is current in our day isnot of the pure and holy character that markedthe Christian faith in the days of Christ andHis apostles. It is only because of the spirit ofcompromise with sin, because the great truthsof the Word of God are so indifferently regarded,because there is so little vital godliness in thechurch, that Christianity is apparently so popularwith the world.“Let there be a revival of the faith and powerof the early church, and the spirit of persecutionwill be revived, and the fires of persecutionwill be rekindled.”—Great Controversy,p. 48.Leger, a noble scholar of Waldensian ancestrytried to save their records in the terrible massacresof 1655. His book, General History ofthe Evangelical Churches of the VaudoisChurches, published in French in 1669, revealedtheir history.It was the Waldensian faith and their Biblewhich laid the foundation for the later ProtestantFrench Bible. Leger said that Olivetan’sFrench Bible of 1537 was “entire and pure,”because its ancestry was not the papal productions,but the Waldensian Bible.“I say ‘pure’ because all the ancient exemplars,which formerly were found among thepapists, were full of falsifications, which causedBeza to say in his book on Illustrious Men, inthe chapter on the Vaudois [the French wordfor ‘Waldenses’], that one must confess it wasby means of the Vaudois of the Valleys thatFrance today has the Bible in her own language.“This godly man, Olivetan, in the preface ofhis Bible, recognizes with thanks to God, thatsince the time of the apostles, or their immediatesuccessors, the torch of the Gospel has beenlit among the Vaudois, and has never since beenextinguished.”—Leger, General History of theVaudois Churches, p. 165.

80 The King James and the Modern VersionsTHE WYCLIFFE BIBLE (1384)John Wycliffe (1330-1384) is generallyconsidered as the first English Reformer. . Hegave to England its first Bible.John Wycliffe (also written Wycliff) was bornin Yorkshire, about 1330, and completed his educationat Oxford. In 1361, he resigned his positionas Master of Balliol College and settled atFillingham, Lincolnshire; so he could write tractsand pamphlets about current religious problems.From 1366 to 1378, he wrote semi-politicaland anti-papal papers. From 1378 to 1384, hecarried on open war against Rome. It was duringthis latter period that he translated the Bible.Wycliffe’s translation was made from theLatin Vulgate and, for that reason, contained significanterrors.“Wycliffe’s Bible had been translated fromthe Latin text, which contained many errors.”—Great Controversy, p. 245.It should be kept in mind that Wycliffe onlyhad access to the Latin Vulgate; he did nothave a copy of the Italia (the Waldensian Bible).It is for this reason that we are told that theLatin text he worked from had “many er-rors.”Wycliffe did the best he could; he did not haveany other translation sources available to him.The Greek texts, which Tyndale and later Englishtranslators used, had not yet been collatedfrom the Majority Text manuscripts. Most ancientBible manuscripts were hidden away in libraries;and Wycliffe was not in contact with theWaldenses.“The time had come for the Scriptures to betranslated and given to the people of differentlands in their native tongue. The world hadpassed its midnight. The hours of darknesswere wearing away, and in many lands appearedtokens of the coming dawn.“In the fourteenth century arose in Englandthe ‘morning star of the Reformation.’ JohnWycliffe was the herald of reform, not for Englandalone, but for all Christendom. He wasthe progenitor of the Puritans; his era was anoasis in the desert . .“The greatest work of his life was the translationof the Scriptures into the English language.This was the first complete Englishtranslation ever made. The art of printing beingstill unknown, it was only by slow and wearisomelabor that copies of the work could bemultiplied; yet this was done, and the peopleof England received the Bible in their owntongue. Thus the light of God’s Word began toshed its bright beams athwart the darkness. Adivine hand was preparing the way for the GreatReformation.”—Story of Redemption, pp. 336-337.“Before the Reformation there were at timesbut very few copies of the Bible in existence,but God had not suffered His Word to be whollydestroyed. Its truths were not to be forever hidden.He could as easily unchain the words oflife as He could open prison doors and unboltiron gates to set His servants free.“In the different countries of Europe menwere moved by the Spirit of God to search forthe truth as for hid treasures. Providentiallyguided to the Holy Scriptures, they studied thesacred pages with intense interest. They werewilling to accept the light at any cost to themselves.Though they did not see all things clearly,they were enabled to perceive many long-buriedtruths. As Heaven-sent messengers they wentforth, rending asunder the chains of error andsuperstition, and calling upon those who hadbeen so long enslaved, to arise and assert theirliberty.“Except among the Waldenses, the Word ofGod had for ages been locked up in languagesknown only to the learned; but the time hadcome for the Scriptures to be translated andgiven to the people of different lands in theirnative tongue. The world had passed its midnight.The hours of darkness were wearing away,and in many lands appeared tokens of the comingdawn.“In the fourteenth century arose in Englandthe ‘morning star of the Reformation.’ JohnWycliffe was the herald of reform, not for Englandalone, but for all Christendom. The greatprotest against Rome which it was permittedhim to utter was never to be silenced. That protestopened the struggle which was to result inthe emancipation of individuals, of churches,and of nations . .“While Wycliffe was still at college, he enteredupon the study of the Scriptures. In those earlytimes, when the Bible existed only in the ancientlanguages, scholars were enabled to findtheir way to the fountain of truth, which wasclosed to the uneducated classes. Thus alreadythe way had been prepared for Wycliffe’s futurework as a Reformer. Men of learning had studiedthe Word of God and had found the greattruth of His free grace there revealed. In theirteachings they had spread a knowledge of thistruth, and had led others to turn to the livingoracles.“When Wycliffe’s attention was directed to

The Centuries Betweenthe Scriptures, he entered upon their investigationwith the same thoroughness which hadenabled him to master the learning of theschools. Heretofore he had felt a great want,which neither his scholastic studies nor theteaching of the church could satisfy. In the Wordof God he found that which he had before soughtin vain. Here he saw the plan of salvation revealedand Christ set forth as the only advocatefor man. He gave himself to the service ofChrist and determined to proclaim the truthshe had discovered.”—Great Controversy, pp.79-81.When he was old and broken in health,Wycliffe finally entered upon the translationof the Bible into English.“The greatest work of his life was to be thetranslation of the Scriptures into the Englishlanguage. In a work, On the Truth and Meaningof Scripture, he expressed his intention totranslate the Bible, so that every man in Englandmight read, in the language in which hewas born, the wonderful works of God.“But suddenly his labors were stopped.Though not yet sixty years of age, unceasingtoil, study, and the assaults of his enemies hadtold upon his strength and made him prematurelyold. He was attacked by a dangerous illness.The tidings brought great joy to the friars.Now they thought he would bitterly repentthe evil he had done the church, and they hurriedto his chamber to listen to his confession.Representatives from the four religious orders,with four civil officers, gathered about the supposeddying man. ‘You have death on your lips,’they said; ‘be touched by your faults, and retractin our presence all that you have said toour injury.’ The Reformer listened in silence;then he bade his attendant raise him in hisbed, and, gazing steadily upon them as theystood waiting for his recantation, he said, inthe firm, strong voice which had so often causedthem to tremble: ‘I shall not die, but live; andagain declare the evil deeds of the friars.’ ”—J.H. Merle D’Aubigne, b. 17, ch. 7.Astonished and abashed, the monks hurriedfrom the room.“Wycliffe’s words were fulfilled. He lived toplace in the hands of his countrymen the mostpowerful of all weapons against Rome—to givethem the Bible, the Heaven-appointed agent toliberate, enlighten, and evangelize the people.There were many and great obstacles to surmountin the accomplishment of this work.Wycliffe was weighed down with infirmities; heknew that only a few years for labor remainedfor him; he saw the opposition which he must81meet; but, encouraged by the promises of God’sWord, he went forward nothing daunted. In thefull vigor of his intellectual powers, rich in experience,he had been preserved and preparedby God’s special providence for this, the greatestof his labors. While all Christendom wasfilled with tumult, the Reformer in his rectoryat Lutterworth, unheeding the storm that ragedwithout, applied himself to his chosen task.”—Great Controversy, p. 88.In the year 1384, John Wycliffe completedhis translation of the Bible.“At last the work was completed—the firstEnglish translation of the Bible ever made. TheWord of God was opened to England. The Reformerfeared not now the prison or the stake.He had placed in the hands of the English peoplea light which should never be extinguished. Ingiving the Bible to his countrymen, he had donemore to break the fetters of ignorance and vice,more to liberate and elevate his country, thanwas ever achieved by the most brilliant victorieson fields of battle.”—Great Controversy,p. 88.But it was with great difficulty that cop-ies were made of Wycliffe’s Bible.“The art of printing being still unknown, itwas only by slow and wearisome labor that copiesof the Bible could be multiplied. So greatwas the interest to obtain the book, that manywillingly engaged in the work of transcribing it,but it was with difficulty that the copyists couldsupply the demand. Some of the more wealthypurchasers desired the whole Bible. Othersbought only a portion. In many cases, severalfamilies united to purchase a copy. Thus Wycliffe’sBible soon found its way to the homesof the people.“The appeal to men’s reason aroused themfrom their passive submission to papal dogmas.Wycliffe now taught the distinctive doctrinesof Protestantism—salvation through faithin Christ, and the sole infallibility of the Scriptures.The preachers whom he had sent outcirculated the Bible, together with the Reformer’swritings, and with such success that thenew faith was accepted by nearly one half of thepeople of England.”—Great Controversy, pp.88-89.This was the one weapon, against Rome,which the authorities feared most.“The appearance of the Scriptures broughtdismay to the authorities of the church. Theyhad now to meet an agency more powerful thanWycliffe—an agency against which their weaponswould avail little. There was at this timeno law in England prohibiting the Bible, for it

84 The King James and the Modern Versionshad never before been published in the languageof the people. Such laws were afterward enactedand rigorously enforced. Meanwhile, notwithstandingthe efforts of the priests, there wasfor a season opportunity for the circulation ofthe Word of God.”—Great Controversy, p. 89.The common folk labored diligently tomake and spread copies of portions of Wy-cliffe’s Bible. Are we as diligent today to sharethe Inspired Writings?“So scanty was the supply of Bibles at thistime, that but few of those who craved its teachingcould hope to possess the sacred volume.But this lack was partly made up by the earnestnessof those whose interest was awakenedin the Bible. If only a single copy was owned ina neighborhood, these hard-working laborersand artisans would be found together, after aweary day of toil, reading in turn, and listeningto the Words of life; and so sweet was the refreshmentto their spirits, that sometimes themorning light surprised them with its call to anew day of labor, before they thought of sleep.”—John Foxe, Foxes’ Martyrs of the World, p. 346.Here is John 17:13 in Wycliffe’s Bible:“These thingis Jesus spak; and whanne hehadde cast up hise eyen into thi hevene, he seide:‘Fadir, the our cometh; clarifie thi sone, thatthi sone clarifie thee; as thou hast yovun to hympower on ech fleische, that al thing that thouhast yovun to hym, he yyve to hem everlastyngelilf. And this is everlastynge lilf, that thei knowethee very God aloone and whom thou hast sent,Jesu Christ.”—Quoted in Dowley, Handbookto Christianity, p. 339.Understandably, , the Catholic reaction wassheer panic! One priest lamented, “The jewel ofthe clergy has become the toy of the laity.” Henryde Knyghton nearly wept over the great tragedy:“This Master John Wiclif hath translated theGospel out of Latin into English, which Christhad intrusted with the clergy and doctors ofthe Church, that they might minister it to thelaity and weaker sort, according to the state ofthe times and wants of men. So that, by thismeans, the Gospel is made vulgar and mademore open to the laity . . than it used to be tothe most learned of the clergy and those of thebest understanding! And what was before thechief gift of the clergy and doctors of the Church,is made for ever common to the laity.”—Quotedin McClure, Translators Revived, pp. 15-16.They were elated when “wicked Wycliffe”died! Walsingham, a leading British prelate, exclaimed:“On the feast of the passion of St. Thomasof Canterbury, John Wicklif—that organ of thedevil, that enemy of the Church, that author ofconfusion to the common people, that idol ofheretics, that image of hypocrites, that restorerof schism, that storehouse of lies, that sink offlattery—being struck by the horrible judgmentof God, was struck with palsy, and continuedto live in that condition until St. Sylvester’sDay, on which he breathed out his maliciousspirit into the abodes of darkness.”—Watkinson,John Wicklif, pp. 195-196.Edicts were immediately issued, banning theWycliffe Bibles. The godly laymen, which Wycliffehad trained to go out and preach (called “Lollards”),were hunted to the death. Local prosecutors’records tell of groups meeting here andthere—to read “in a great book of heresy all inone night certain chapters of the evangelists inEnglish” (J.R. Green, English People, p. 357).“The Lollards were tracked to the lonely, unfrequentedplaces where they met, often undershadow of night, to worship God. Neighbor wasmade to spy upon neighbor; husbands andwives, parents and children, brothers and sisters,were beguiled or forced to bear witnessagainst each other. The Lollards’ prison againechoed with the clanking of chains; the rackand the stake once more claimed their victims.”—Foxe,Christian Martyrs, p. 345.THE 15TH-CENTURY GREEK TEXTSBut, a little over a century after Wycliffe’sBible was completed, the champions of Romereally had something to wring their handsover. . A Greek Text, based on manuscripts com-prising the Majority Text, had been produced.The situation was getting serious!“They have found a language called Greek, atwhich we must be careful to be on our guard. Itis the mother of all heresies. In the hands ofmany persons I see a book, which they call theNew Testament. It is a book full of thorns andpoison. As for Hebrew, my brethren, it is certainthat those who learn it will sooner or laterturn Jews!”—Early 16th-century Catholicwriter, quoted in Philip Schaff, History of theChristian Church, Vol. 6, p. 722.Until the Greek texts were prepared, the onlyway to translated the Bible into the language ofthe people was to translate it from the Italia (theWaldensian Bible) or from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate.Translations were not made from the Greektexts, since they were hidden away in libraries.But, at the beginning of the Reformation,Greek texts began to be prepared. Each one wasa collation of a number of Greek manuscripts.

The Centuries BetweenSince the Majority Text was 90%-95% of themanuscripts, it was not difficult to develop anexcellent Greek text.Because no single Greek manuscript con-tained all of the New Testament, it was nec-essary to gather together a sizeable quantityof them; and, from them, prepare what be-came known as a “Greek Text.”The first scholar to prepare a Greek Textwas Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536). It is atragedy that he timidly refused to unite with theReformers, since it was His Greek Text whichlaid the foundations of the Reformation throughoutEurope. This is because all Reformationtranslations (with the exception of the Frenchtranslation, based on the Waldensian Bible)were translated from Erasmus’ Greek Text.Erasmus’ Greek text was published in1516, just one year before Martin Lutherpounded nails into the thesis on the churchdoor at Wittenberg and began the Reforma-tion.This was also the first printed edition of theGreek New Testament. As we will learn below,the third of his five editions became the standardfor the follow-up Greek texts of Steph-enus, Beza, and Elzevir.The Greek text of Robert Stephenus (alsocalled “Stephen,” 1550) came next. After that,Beza (1598) and Elzevir (1624) produced theirs.All three were dedicated Protestant scholars. Alltheir Greek texts were based on the Majority Text,and were decidedly anti-Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.The third edition of Erasmus’ Greek textbecame the basis of the Stephenus text. It isconsidered the standard and was called the“Textus Receptus.” Because it made use ofthe greatest number of Majority Text Greekmanuscripts, it was considered the most ac-curate of the Greek Texts.This was the Greek text used to translatethe King James Bible (1611).The King James Bible was the last trulyProtestant Bible produced in England. Afterthat came the English Revised Version of1881, which was based on the Westcott-Hortcritical Greek Text.Although they rejected his Greek Text, modernscholars recognize that it was a very goodone.“The Unitarian scholar who sat on the EnglishNew Testament Revision Committee [in851890] acknowledged that the Greek New Testamentof Erasmus (1516) is as good as any(G.V. Smith, Nineteenth Century, July1881).”—Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated,p. 73.A.T. Robertson is considered the leadingGreek scholar of the first half of the 20th century.He wrote this:“It should be stated at once that the TextusReceptus is not a bad text. It is not an hereticaltext. It is substantially correct.”—A.T. Robertson,Introduction, The Greek Text of the NewTestament, p. 21.“Erasmus seemed to feel that he had publishedthe original Greek New Testament as it waswritten . . The third edition of Erasmus (1522)became the foundation of the Textus Receptusfor Britain since it was followed by Stephenus.There were 3,300 copies of the first two editionsof the Greek New Testament of Erasmuscirculated. His work became the standard forthree hundred years.”—Op. cit., pp. 18-19.The Erasmus Greek Text which formedthe basis of every English Bible translationfrom Tyndale to the King James’ was greatlysuperior to the Westcott-Hort Text, which wasbased on just two Greek manuscripts.Because it was essentially identical to “thebulk of the cursive manuscripts” (i.e., the MajorityText), and because those manuscriptsreached all the way back to earliest times, Erasmus’text was an excellent one.Two of the members of the committee whichproduced the English Revised Version (1881,1885), wrote a booklet in which they mentionedthat Erasmus’ text was outstanding:“The manuscripts which Erasmus used, differ,for the most part, only in small and insignificantdetails from the bulk of the cursivemanuscripts,—that is to say, the manuscriptswhich are written in running hand and not incapital or (as they are technically called) uncialletters. The general character of their text isthe same.“By this observation, the pedigree of the ReceivedText is carried up beyond the individualmanuscripts used by Erasmus to a great bodyof manuscripts of which the earliest are assignedto the ninth century.”—Two Membersof the New Testament Company on the Revisersand the Greek Text, pp. 11-12.Then, after quoting Hort about the goodquality of the Erasmus text, they made this comment:“This remarkable statement completes thepedigree of the Received Text. That pedigree [an-

86 The King James and the Modern Versionscestry] stretches back to a remote antiquity.The first ancestor of the Received Text was, asDr. Hort is careful to remind us, at least contemporarywith the oldest of our extant manuscripts,if not older than any one of them.”—Ibid.The Majority Text in Greek, having throughErasmus reassumed its ascendancy in the westof Europe as it had maintained it in the east inearlier centuries, bequeathed its indispensableheritage to all but one of the Reformation Bibletranslations, including those in English.THE REFORMATION TRANSLATIONSAccording to Wilkinson, the Waldenses,through their Bible, helped get the Reforma-tion started!“Four Bibles produced under Waldensian influencetouched the history of Calvin: namely, aGreek [Text], a Waldensian vernacular, a French,and an Italian.“Calvin himself was led to his great work byOlivetan, a Waldensian. Thus was the Reformationbrought to Calvin, that brilliant studentof the Paris University.“Farel, also a Waldensian, besought him tocome to Geneva and open up a work there . .According to Leger, Calvin recognized a relationshipto the Calvins of the valley of St. Martin,one of the Waldensian Valleys.“Finally, persecution at Paris and the solicitationof Farel caused Calvin to settle at Geneva,where, with Beza, he brought out an edition ofthe Textus Receptus [Received Text] . . Of Beza,Dr. Edgar says that he ‘astonished and confoundedthe world’ with the Greek manuscriptshe unearthed. This later edition of the ReceivedText is in reality a Greek New Testament broughtout under Waldensian influence.“Unquestionably, the leaders of the Reformation,German, French, and English, were convincedthat the Received Text was the genuineNew Testament, not only by its own irresistiblehistory and internal evidence, but also becauseit matched the Received Text which inWaldensian form came down from the days ofthe apostles.“The other three Bibles of Waldensian connectionwere due to three men who were atGeneva with Calvin, or, when he died, with Beza,his successor, namely, Olivetan, Leger, andDiodati. How readily the two streams of descentof the Received Text—through the Greek Eastand the Waldensian West—ran together, is illustratedby the meeting of the Olivetan Bible[based on the Waldensian Italia] and the ReceivedText [based on the Greek manuscripts].”—Wilkinson, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated,pp. 37-38.Both the Waldensian Bible (from the Italia)and the great majority of Greek manuscriptswere from the same source. We call it theMajority Text.Before turning our attention to the En-glish translations, we will briefly overviewfour European translations of the Bible:The Bohemian Bible was an early trans-lation.“The Gospel had been planted in Bohemiaas early as the ninth century. The Bible wastranslated, and public worship was conducted,in the language of the people. But as the powerof the pope increased, so the Word of God wasobscured. Gregory VII, who had taken it uponhimself to humble the pride of kings, was noless intent upon enslaving the people, and accordinglya bull was issued forbidding publicworship to be conducted in the Bohemiantongue. The pope declared that ‘it was pleasingto the Omnipotent that His worship should becelebrated in an unknown language, and thatmany evils and heresies had arisen from notobserving this rule’ (Wylie, b. 3, ch. 1).“Thus Rome decreed that the light of God’sWord should be extinguished and the peopleshould be shut up in darkness. But Heavenhad provided other agencies for the preservationof the church. Many of the Waldenses andAlbigenses, driven by persecution from theirhomes in France and Italy, came to Bohemia.Though they dared not teach openly, they laboredzealously in secret. Thus the true faithwas preserved from century to century.”—GreatControversy, p. 97.Persecution immediately began, as soonas the Bible was translated into French.“The bishop of Meaux labored zealously inhis own diocese to instruct both the clergy andthe people. Ignorant and immoral priests wereremoved, and, so far as possible, replaced bymen of learning and piety. The bishop greatlydesired that his people might have access tothe Word of God for themselves, and this wassoon accomplished. Lefevre undertook thetranslation of the New Testament; and at thevery time when Luther’s German Bible was issuingfrom the press in Wittenberg, the FrenchNew Testament was published at Meaux. Thebishop spared no labor or expense to circulateit in his parishes, and soon the peasants ofMeaux were in possession of the Holy Scriptures.“As travelers perishing from thirst welcome

The Centuries Betweenwith joy a living water spring, so did these soulsreceive the message of heaven. The laborers inthe field, the artisans in the workshop, cheeredtheir daily toil by talking of the precious truthsof the Bible. At evening, instead of resorting tothe wine-shops, they assembled in one another’shomes to read God’s Word and join in prayerand praise. A great change was soon manifestin these communities. Though belonging to thehumblest class, an unlearned and hard-workingpeasantry, the reforming, uplifting power ofdivine grace was seen in their lives. Humble,loving, and holy, they stood as witnesses towhat the Gospel will accomplish for those whoreceive it in sincerity.“The light kindled at Meaux shed its beamsafar. Every day the number of converts was increasing.The rage of the hierarchy was for atime held in check by the king, who despisedthe narrow bigotry of the monks; but the papalleaders finally prevailed. Now the stake was setup.”—Great Controversy, pp. 214-215.The French Bible was made available tocolporteurs at low cost, so they could scat-ter it everywhere.“Long before the persecution excited by theplacards, the bold and ardent Farel had beenforced to flee from the land of his birth. He repairedto Switzerland, and by his labors, secondingthe work of Zwingli, he helped to turnthe scale in favor of the Reformation. His lateryears were to be spent here, yet he continued toexert a decided influence upon the reform inFrance.“During the first years of his exile [in Switzerland],his efforts were especially directed tospreading the Gospel in his native country. Hespent considerable time in preaching among hiscountrymen near the frontier, where with tirelessvigilance he watched the conflict and aidedby his words of encouragement and counsel.“With the assistance of other exiles, the writingsof the German Reformers were translatedinto the French language and, together with theFrench Bible, were printed in large quantities.By colporteurs these works were sold extensivelyin France. They were furnished to thecolporteurs at a low price, and thus the profitsof the work enabled them to continue it.”—Great Controversy, p. 231.Luther’s German Bible profoundly influ-enced his nation. It was the basis for theGerman Reformation.“True Christianity receives the Word of Godas the great treasure house of inspired truthand the test of all Inspiration. Upon his returnfrom the Wartburg, Luther completed his trans-87lation of the New Testament, and the Gospelwas soon after given to the people of Germanyin their own language. This translation wasreceived with great joy by all who loved the truth;but it was scornfully rejected by those who chosehuman traditions and the commandments ofmen.“The priests were alarmed at the thoughtthat the common people would now be able todiscuss with them the precepts of God’s Word,and that their own ignorance would thus beexposed. The weapons of their carnal reasoningwere powerless against the sword of theSpirit. Rome summoned all her authority toprevent the circulation of the Scriptures; butdecrees, anathemas, and tortures were alike invain. The more she condemned and prohibitedthe Bible, the greater was the anxiety of thepeople to know what it really taught.“All who could read were eager to study theWord of God for themselves. They carried itabout with them, and read and reread, andcould not be satisfied until they had committedlarge portions to memory. Seeing the favorwith which the New Testament was received,Luther immediately began the translation of theOld, and published it in parts as fast as completed.”—GreatControversy, pp. 193-194.The Bible was translated into Danish; andit affected the whole nation.“Tausen began to preach. The churches wereopened to him, and the people thronged to listen.Others also were preaching the Word ofGod. The New Testament, translated into theDanish tongue, was widely circulated. The effortsmade by the papists to overthrow the workresulted in extending it, and erelong Denmarkdeclared its acceptance of the reformed faith.”—Great Controversy, 242.Olaf Petri translated the Bible into Swed-ish. The king declared it to be the book whichthe entire nation should read.“As the result of this disputation the king ofSweden accepted the Protestant faith, and notlong afterward the national assembly declaredin its favor. The New Testament had been translatedby Olaf Petri into the Swedish language,and at the desire of the king the two brothersundertook the translation of the whole Bible.Thus for the first time the people of Swedenreceived the Word of God in their native tongue.It was ordered by the Diet that throughout thekingdom, ministers should explain the Scripturesand that the children in the schoolsshould be taught to read the Bible“Steadily and surely the darkness of ignoranceand superstition was dispelled by the

88 The King James and the Modern Versionsblessed light of the Gospel. Freed from Romishoppression, the nation attained to a strengthand greatness it had never before reached. Swedenbecame one of the bulwarks of Protestantism.”—GreatControversy, p. 244.Waldensian traveling teachers helped bringthe Bible truth to Holland.“Those early teachers who, traversing differentlands and known by various names, borethe character of the Vaudois missionaries, andspread everywhere the knowledge of the Gospel,penetrated to the Netherlands. Their doctrinesspread rapidly. The Waldensian Biblethey translated in verse into the Dutch language.They declared ‘that there was great advantagein it; no jests, no fables, no trifles, no deceits,but the words of truth; that indeed there washere and there a hard crust, but that the marrowand sweetness of what was good and holymight be easily discovered in it’ (Gerard Brandt,History of the Reformation in and about theLow Countries, Book 1, p. 14). Thus wrote thefriends of the ancient faith, in the twelfth century.”—GreatControversy, p. 238.TRANSLATIONS FROM THE VULGATETO COUNTERPROTESTANT BIBLESThere were just too many Bibles to de-stroy! What should be done? Rome decidedto produce Bible translations which couldinclude some of their errors.“The Reformers . . welcomed the rising spiritof intelligence which shone forth in the newlearning.“But the priests loudly denounced it. [Erasmusnoted that] they said the study of Greekwas of the devil and [they] prepared to destroyall who promoted it.”—Wilkinson, p. 51.Once again we return to the Latin Vulgate,the monastic Jerome’s Latin translation (A.D.382-384) which the Vatican so valued. In 1452to 1456, Johann Gutenberg produced the firstprinted Bible in the world. It was a Vulgate.Rome would have preferred to keep theBible hidden, even its Vulgate editions; but,first the Waldenses and, then, the Protestant Reformerswere bringing the Bible to the people.So Rome decided that their own translations,based on the Vulgate, must be used in the battleagainst Protestantism.Down through the centuries, all RomanCatholic translations have been based on theVulgate, until the Jerusalem Bible was pub-lished in 1966. (But it included lots of notes tokeep it doctrinally correct.)The primary Catholic English translationfrom the Vulgate is the Rheims-Douai(whichwe will later discuss in more detail).The preface to the Rheims New Testamentmentions an earlier Catholic translation in French,also based on the Vulgate, which was producedin the hope that it would eliminate theWaldenses.“More than two hundred years ago, in thedays of Charles V the French king, was it [theVulgate] put forth faithfully in French, thesooner to shake out of the deceived people’shands, the false heretical translations of a sectcalled Waldenses.”—Preface, Rheims New Testament,1582. [This preface was written byJesuits.]“The Vulgate was the chief weapon reliedupon to combat and destroy the Bible of theWaldenses.”—Benjamin G. Wilkinson, Our AuthorizedVersion Vindicated, p. 51.Seventy-three years after Luther’s theses werenailed to the church door at Wittenberg, and onlya few years after the Council of Trent completedits work, in 1590, Pope Sixtus V com-missioned the Vatican Press to publish anedition of the Vulgate. Pope Clement VIII is-sued another one in 1592, and it becamethe standard Vulgate used for Catholic Bibletranslations down to the present day.Protestants recognized that, because ofits many errors, the Vulgate was a danger-ous translation. Cartwright, the well-knownPuritan scholar, wrote this:“All the soap and nitre they could collect wouldbe insufficient to cleanse the Vulgate from thefilth in which it was originally conceived andhad since collected in passing so long throughthe hands of unlearned monks, from which theGreek copies had altogether escaped.”—Brook’sMemoir of Life of Cartwright, p. 276.THE TYNDALE BIBLE (1525-1526)In the history of the English Bible, WilliamTyndale’s (1494-1536) is the most im-portant of the Bible translators.In a sense, Tyndale’s Bible towers over allthe others. There are two reasons for this:• It was the first English translation tobe translated from the Greek Text.Tyndaleused Erasmus’ text.• It was such a good translation that allthe later ones, up to and including the King

The Centuries BetweenJames, were almost identical to it. It appearsthat those later translators relied heavily onwhat Tyndale had accomplished. They werenot lazy, , but found they could hardly im-prove on it.After studying at Oxford, William Tyndalewent to Cambridge to study Greek under Erasmus,who was teaching there from 1510 to1514. After Erasmus returned to the continent,Tyndale continued studying.John Tyndale was an absolute genius inhis ability with foreign languages. HermanBuschius, a scholarly friend of Erasmus, saidthis:“Tyndale was so skilled in seven languages,Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English,French, that, whichever he spoke, you wouldsuppose it his native tongue.”—Buschius,quoted in Demaus, Life of Tyndale, p. 130.It was this powerful aptitude in languagestudies which enabled Tyndale to so accu-rately render the Majority Text into English.Those who followed him recognized his ge-nius and tended to remain in his tracks. Thatis why the King James Bible is basically Tyn-dale’s.As Luther took Erasmus’ Greek Text andproduced the magnificent German Bible, soTyndale took the same text and produced theEnglish Bible—almost the same Bible which wehave today (except with modern spelling).“While Luther was opening a closed Bible tothe people of Germany, Tyndale was impelledby the Spirit of God to do the same for England.Wycliffe’s Bible had been translated fromthe Latin text, which contained many errors. Ithad never been printed, and the cost of manuscriptcopies was so great that few but wealthymen or nobles could procure it; and, furthermore,being strictly proscribed by the church,it had had a comparatively narrow circulation.“In 1516, a year before the appearance of Luther’stheses, Erasmus had published hisGreek and Latin version of the New Testament.Now for the first time the Word of God wasprinted in the original tongue. In this work manyerrors of former versions were corrected, andthe sense was more clearly rendered. It led manyamong the educated classes to a better knowledgeof the truth, and gave a new impetus tothe work of reform. But the common peoplewere still, to a great extent, debarred from God’sWord. Tyndale was to complete the work of Wycliffein giving the Bible to his countrymen.”—Great Controversy, p. 245.89It was while reading in Erasmus’ GreekText that Tyndale found Christ and was con-verted.“A diligent student and an earnest seeker fortruth, he had received the Gospel from the GreekTestament of Erasmus.”—Great Controversy,p. 245.When he left Cambridge, Tyndale accepted aposition as a tutor in the home of a private landowner.This gave him opportunity for study,preaching, and writing. It was while he was therethat he began writing tracts against the papacy.Here is a sample of his earnest preaching.He could not be frightened into silence.“He fearlessly preached his convictions, urgingthat all doctrines be tested by the Scriptures.To the papist claim that the church hadgiven the Bible, and the church alone could explainit, Tyndale responded: ‘Do you know whotaught the eagles to find their prey? Well, thatsame God teaches His hungry children to findtheir Father in His Word. Far from having givenus the Scriptures, it is you who have hiddenthem from us; it is you who burn those whoteach them, and if you could, you would burnthe Scriptures themselves’ (D’Aubigne, Historyof the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,bk. 18, ch. 4).”—Great Controversy, pp. 245-246.But Tyndale found he was only one man.Somehow he must multiply his message. Thenhe realized God wanted him to multiply God’sWord!“Tyndale’s preaching excited great interest;many accepted the truth. But the priests wereon the alert, and no sooner had he left the fieldthen they by their threats and misrepresentationsendeavored to destroy his work. Too oftenthey succeeded. ‘What is to be done?’ heexclaimed. ‘While I am sowing in one place, theenemy ravages the field I have just left. I cannotbe everywhere. Oh! if Christians possessed theHoly Scriptures in their own tongue, they couldof themselves withstand these sophists. Withoutthe Bible it is impossible to establish thelaity in the truth.’ ”—Ibid.His mission in life was now clear to him.He must dedicate his life to producing anoutstanding English translation of the HolyBible.“A new purpose now took possession of hismind. ‘It was in the language of Israel,’ said he,‘that the psalms were sung in the temple ofJehovah; and shall not the Gospel speak thelanguage of England among us? . . Ought thechurch to have less light at noonday than at

92 The King James and the Modern Versionsthe dawn? . . Christians must read the NewTestament in their mother tongue.’ The doctorsand teachers of the church disagreedamong themselves. Only by the Bible could menarrive at the truth. One holdeth this doctor,another that . . Now each of these authors contradictsthe other. How then can we distinguishhim who says right from him who says wrong?. . How? . . Verily by God’s Word.”—Ibid.Notice the above words about using ournative language to read and share God’s Word.We, who speak English, should speak aboutGod’s Word in our language, not in a foreignlanguage. The tongues error, , of the Charis-matics, and the “sacred name” error, , of manyProtestants, teach that we must use anotherlanguage in order to be accepted by God.One day, , while disputing with a learnedman who said the pope’s laws were aboveGod’s laws, Tyndale uttered his famous vow:“I defy the pope and all his laws; and if Godspare my life, ere many years I will cause aboy that driveth the plow to know more ofthe Scripture than you do!”“It was not long after that a learned Catholicdoctor, engaging in controversy with him, exclaimed:‘We were better to be without God’slaws than the pope’s.’ Tyndale replied: ‘I defythe pope and all his laws; and if God spare mylife, ere many years I will cause a boy thatdriveth the plow to know more of the Scripturethan you do’ (Anderson, Annals of the EnglishBible, page 19).”—Great Controversy, p. 246.In order to carry on his translation work,Tyndale went to London and, later, , to Ger-many.“A London alderman gave him bed and boardfor six months, while the youth labored on thetask. In 1524 Tyndale went to Wittenberg, andcontinued the work under Luther’s guidance.At Cologne he began to print his version of theNew Testament from the Greek text as editedby Erasmus. An English agent roused the authoritiesagainst him; Tyndale fled from CatholicCologne to Protestant Worms, and thereprinted 6,000 copies.”—Will Durant, The Storyof Civilization, Vol. 6, p. 533.“The purpose which he had begun to cherish,of giving to the people the New TestamentScriptures in their own language, was now confirmed,and he immediately applied himself tothe work. Driven from his home by persecution,he went to London, and there for a timepursued his labors undisturbed. But again theviolence of the papists forced him to flee. AllEngland seemed closed against him, and he resolvedto seek shelter in Germany. Here he beganthe printing of the English New Testament.Twice the work was stopped; but when forbiddento print in one city, he went to another. Atlast he made his way to Worms, where, a fewyears before, Luther had defended the Gospelbefore the Diet. In that ancient city were manyfriends of the Reformation, and Tyndale thereprosecuted his work without further hindrance.Three thousand copies of the New Testamentwere soon finished, and another edition followedin the same year.”—Great Controversy, pp.246-247.But then Tyndale was captured by papalagents.“[English Cardinal] Wolsey sent orders to arrestTyndale, but Philip, Landgrave of Hesse,protected the author, and he proceeded, atMarburg, with his translation of the Pentateuch(1530). Slowly, by his own labor or under hissupervision, most of the Old Testament wasrendered into English. But in a careless momenthe fell into the hands of Imperial officials.”—WillDurant, The Story of Civilization,Vol. 6, p. 533.The book, Great Controversy, does not provideus with details about Tyndale’s betrayal andimprisonment. Here are two quotations whichprovide more information about this tragicevent; truly, a day of infamy in the history of theRoman Catholic Church.“Early in 1535, a trusting Tyndale was betrayedby an undercover Catholic agent, HenryPhillips, who had gained the Reformer’s confidence.Following Phillips’ last-minute borrowingof forty shillings from his generous victim,the pair departed Tyndale’s boardinghouse fordinner. The treacherous Phillips pretentiouslyinsisted on his ‘friend’ going before him. Onceoutside the door, Phillips, in the spirit of JudasIscariot, pointed at him from behind hisback, as the prearranged sign for waiting officials.The aged saint was promptly committedto the dungeon of the nearby fortress of Vilvorde,eighteen miles north of Antwerp.”—W.P.Grady, Final Authority, p. 136.“Throughout his eighteen-month imprisonment,Tyndale suffered accordingly. One of thesaddest extant documents in all of church history(taken from the archives of the Council ofBrabant) is a letter written in Latin and in theReformer’s own hand to the governor of Vilvorde,perhaps the Marquis of Bergon:“ ‘I believe, dear sir, that you are not unawareof what may have been determined concerningme. Wherefore I beg your lordship, and that bythe Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here

The Centuries Betweenthrough the winter, you will request the commissaryto have the kindness to send me, fromthe goods of mine which he has, a warmer cap,for I suffer greatly from cold in the head, andam afflicted by a perpetual catarrh, which ismuch increased in this cell; a warmer coat also,for this which I have is very thin; a piece ofcloth, too, to patch my leggings. My overcoat isworn out; my shirts also are worn out. He hasa woollen shirt, if he will be good enough tosend it. I have also with him leggings of thickercloth to put on above; he has also warmer nightcaps.“ ‘And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp inthe evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alonein the dark. But most of all I beg and beseechyour clemency to be urgent with the commissary,that he will kindly permit me to have theHebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar and Hebrewdictionary, that I may pass the time in thatstudy. In return may you obtain what you mostdesire, so only that it be for the salvation ofyour soul. But if any other decision has beentaken concerning me, to be carried out beforewinter, I will be patient, abiding the will of God,to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ;whose Spirit (I pray) may ever direct your heart.Amen.’ ”—Op. cit., pp. 136-137.As he died at the stake, Tyndale cried out,“Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!” Considerthe amazing way that prayer was an-swered:“What is strangest of all, and is unexplainedto this day, at the very time when Tyndale bythe procurement of English ecclesiastics, andby the sufferance of the English king, wasburned at Vilvorde, a folio-edition of his translationwas printed at London, with his nameon the title-page, and by Thomas Berthelet, theking’s own patent printer. This was the firstcopy of the Scriptures ever printed on Englishground.”—McClure, Translators Revived, p. 32.Even more amazing, Henry VIII, king of England,officially sanctioned the printing of twoEnglish Bibles within a year after Tyndale hadbeen martyred in October 1536!Here is a brief summary of these sixBibles, from Tyndale’s to the King James:After the Tyndale Bible (1526), came fiveother English Bibles: the Coverdale Bible(1535), the Great Bible (1539), the GenevaBible (1560), the Bishops’ Bible (1568), andthe Authorized (King James) Bible (1611).Consider the first part of the Lord’s Prayer,as it is given in each of those Bibles, and you93can see how closely they all stayed with Tyndale’soutstanding translation:Tyndale (1526) “O oure father which arte inheven halowed be thy name. Let thy kyngdomcome. Thy wyll be fulfilled as well in erth as itys in heven.”Coverdale (1535) “O oure father which artin heaven, halowed be thy name. Let thykyndome come. Thy wyll be fulfilled upon earthas it is in heaven.”Great Bible (1539) “Oure father which artin heaven, haiowed be thy name. Let thykingdome come. Thy will be fulfilled, as well inerth, as it is in heaven.”Geneva Bible (1560) “Our father which artin heaven, halowed be thy Name. Thy kingdomecome. Thy will be done even in earth, as it is inheaven.”Bishops’ Bible (1568) “O our father, whichart in heaven, halowed be thy name. Let thykyngdome come. Thy wyll be done, as well inearth, as it is in heaven.”Authorized (King James) Bible (1611) “OurFather, which art in Heaven, hallowed by Thyname” [using our modern spelling].It is because of the powerful influence ofhis translation on the five subsequent Bibles,that William Tyndale has been justly desig-nated the “Father of the English Bible.”“Tyndale was a master of a simple and forcefulliterary style. This, combined with exactnessand breadth of scholarship, led him so totranslate the Greek New Testament into Englishas largely to determine the character, form,and style of the Authorized [King James] Version.“There have been some painstaking calculationsto determine just how large a part Tyndalemay have had in the production of the versionof 1611. A comparison of Tyndale’s version of1 John and that of the Authorized Versionshows that nine-tenths of the latter is retainedfrom the martyred translator’s work. Paul’sEpistle to the Ephesians retains five-sixths ofTyndale’s translation. These proportions aremaintained throughout the entire New Testament.Such an influence as that upon the EnglishBible cannot be attributed to any otherman in all the past.”—Ira Maurice Price, Ancestryof Our English Bible, p. 251.It should be noted that William Tyndale didnot complete all of his Old Testament translationof the Bible prior to his arrest. The portionwhich he did not translate was the historicalbooks (Joshua to 2 Chronicles), poetical books,and prophetical books.

94 The King James and the Modern VersionsTyndale was burned at the stake in Oc-tober 1536.ROME RUINED BY PRINTED BIBLESTyndale’s Bible (1526) was a special threatto the Catholics, since it was the first EnglishBible to be printed from the Greek text. Thismeant that it could be distributed in large quantities.“Clergymen had discouraged the reading ofthe Bible in any form, arguing that specialknowledge was necessary to a right interpretation,and that Scriptural excerpts were beingused to foment sedition. The church had raisedno official objection to pre-Wycliffe translations,but this tacit permission had been of no moment,since all English versions before 1526were manuscript.“Hence the epochal importance of the EnglishNew Testament printed by Tyndale in 1525-1526.”—Will Durant, The Story of Civilization,Vol. 6, p. 533.A primary weapon of Rome, and of all despots,was to keep the people in ignorance. Butthe invention of printing by Johann Gutenbergwas a deathblow to that effort. It is well-known,by historians, that it was Gutenberg’s inventionwhich not only gave the Reformation its power,but also started all modern research and scientificendeavor.HENRY VIII BREAKS WITH ROMEThe present writer has in his library a lengthybook on the history of King Henry VIII ofEngland—which presents a surprising new understandingof the background of what actuallytook place.We had always been taught that Henry justwanted to get rid of wives and marry new ones,and it was the pope’s opposition to the schemewhich led to Henry’s break with Rome.That is true, but the new light is that it wasthe Catholics which got the break started!Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, althougha Spanish princess, was being influenced byassociates in the royal palace toward Protestantism.Fearing that this could lead to problems,Henry anxiously prodded toward a divorce withher. That started a chain of divorces which ultimatelyresulted in Henry’s total break withVatican authority.Henry VIII separated from Rome on No-vember 11, 1534, at which time the Act ofSupremacy was approved by Parliament. Althoughhe did not renounce Catholic doc-trine, the break with Rome was definite.The result, over the next century, , was adeluge of new English Bibles.THE COVERDALE BIBLE (1535)Miles (Myles) Coverdale (1488-1568) hadbeen Tyndale’s faithful proofreader at Ant-werp. Although not an accomplished Greek andHebrew scholar, he continued the work laiddown by Tyndale when, after 18 months inprison, Tyndale was martyred.To accomplish this task, Coverdale basedhis Bible on Tyndale’s translation. In the sec-tions Tyndale had left undone, Coverdaleused Zwingli’s Zürich Bible (1529) while re-ferring to Luther’s German Bible (1522-1534).Although Coverdale was forced to publish hisfirst edition in Cologne (1535), he very prudentlydedicated it to the King of England. He was alsocareful to omit the controversial side notes whichwere in Tyndale’s Bible.Henry VIII was happy with the book, andissued a license, permitting publication ofCoverdale’s second edition (1537). The coverpage showed Henry seated and crowned, with adrawn sword and a dedicatory page, creditinghim as “defender of the faith.”“It is apparent that Coverdale was essentiallyan editor, who gathered together the best materialswithin reach, and so selected and modifiedthem as to construct a Bible that wouldmeet both the demands of the public and thoseof the ecclesiastical authorities. His great goodsense, as shown in the use of language to securebeauty, harmony, and melody, made him awise editor.“His essentially peaceful nature led him torestore many beloved ecclesiastical terms thatTyndale had thrown out for new and more exacttranslations of the original Greek and Hebrewtexts. Indeed, so helpful are some of thetranslations of Coverdale that they were perpetuatedin the King James Bible.”—I.M. Price,Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 253.In 1537, only one year after Tyndale’sdeath, two revised Coverdale editions wereprinted, each carrying this statement: “set forthwith the king’s most gracious license.”Coverdale’s Bibles were the first printedcomplete Bibles in the English language.Thus, less than one year after Tyndale’sdeath, the entire Bible had been translated,

The Centuries Betweenprinted, and distributed in England—withthe full permission of its monarch.THE MATTHEW BIBLE (1537)Although known as the Matthew Bible, thistranslation was actually made by John Ro-gers (c. 1500-1555), an Oxford graduate, whoused the pseudonym, Thomas Matthew, becauseof Roger’s well-known association with Tyndale.Rogers went to Antwerp and worked closelywith Tyndale (and, of course, knew Coverdale,his editor). When Tyndale was inprisoned inVilvorde Castle, he turned over to John Ro-gers his unpublished work, , which he had pre-pared in prison—his translation of Joshua to2 Chronicles.Rogers then published a new Bible which,for the first time, had Tyndale’s final translationmaterial. The rest of the Old Testament wasfrom the Tyndale and Coverdale Bibles. TheBible was initially published in Antwerp. It wasdedicated to“The moost noble and gracyous Prynce KyngHenry the Eyght and Queen Jane,”and signed “Thomas Matthew.” This delightedthe king and he gave the Bible his approval.Common folk sometimes gave special namesto the Bibles. The Matthew Bible was spoken ofas the “Wife-Beater’s Bible,” because of an addednote at 1 Peter 3, which read:“If she be not obedient and healpfull untohym [he] endeavoureth to beate the feare of Godinto her heade, that therby she maye be compelledto learne her dutie, and to do it.”—Quoted in Beale, Pictoral History of the Bible,p. 25.Another one of these Bibles was called “theWicked Bible,” because a typesetter left the “not”out of the seventh commandment of a singleedition. However, in preparing this book, I couldnot locate that data again.THE GREAT BIBLE (1539)Because it was such a large book, commonfolk called this the “Great Bible.” Because ArchbishopCranmer wrote an introduction at thefront, it was also sometimes called the “CranmerBible.”Being a compilation of Tyndale and Coverdale,the Matthew Bible was the best EnglishBible in print. But Thomas Cromwell (a leadingofficial in Henry’s court, not the Oliver Cromwell97of later English history) wanted a complete translation,not a tossed-together edition, as theCoverdale and Matthew Bibles were.So, with the permission of the king, he securedthe services of Coverdale to prepare a revisedBible. Because he was not an accomplishedGreek and Hebrew scholar, Coverdaleused scholars who were.When the task was done (there was no printingfacility large enough in London to producethese large Bibles), Coverdale went to Paris inthe spring of 1538. With Regnault, the Frenchprinter, and under royal license, the printingbegan. But the Inquisition uttered its voice, andordered the work to be confiscated. Rome didnot want more Bibles! With trickery equal to thatof the Jesuits, Coverdale managed to transferprinted sheets, printers, presses, type, and otherequipment and supplies to London! Coverdalewas a very capable man, and the Lord used him.In April 1539, the new Bible was fullyprinted. Because of its large size, it wascalled “The Great Bible.” It was in large fo-lio; that is, each page was 16½ x 11 inchesin size!Everyone was anxious to please the king, soan artistic frontispiece portrayed Henry in royaldress, handing the Bible down to Cranmer andCromwell, who in turn distribute it to the peopleamid their shouts of “Vivat Rex!” (“Long live theking!”)This Bible was basically a revised edi-tion of John Rogers’ “Matthew” Bible, whichwas the most complete presentation of thework of Tyndale, whose martyrdom had oc-curred only three years earlier (October 1536).The announcement went out to the peoplefrom the king, “In God’s name, let it go abroadamong our people!” In 1526, Tyndale’s NewTestament was publicly burned at St. Paul’sCathedral in London. In 1538, the samebook, under another cover and name, wasordered by sanction of royal authority, , if notdecree, to be placed in public places, whereall could read it.A paper dating from 1539 declared:“Englishmen have now in hand, in everychurch and place, the Holy Bible in their mothertongue, instead of the old fabulous and fantasticalbooks of the ‘Table Round.’ ”—Quotedby the church historian Collier, in H.W. Hoare,Evolution of the English Bible, p. 194.Bishop Tunstall, good politician that he was,

98 The King James and the Modern Versionshad earlier bought up Tyndale’s books so hecould burn them (called “the bishop of Durham”in Great Controversy, p. 247). But, now thatthe situation had changed, he had his nameplaced on the title page of two of the 1840 editionsof the Great Bible as officially endorsing itspublication. Due to immense public popularityand demand for the book, within two years seveneditions of the Great Bible were printed. It becamethe basis of the English Prayer Book.THE TAVERNER BIBLE (1539)This Bible was prepared by Richard Taverner,by direction of the King’s printer, ThomasBarthlet. Taverner was a good Greek scholar butnot well-acquainted with Hebrew.The Old Testament was like the Matthewrevision, with only slight changes (made bycomparing it with the Vulgate). The New Teses-tament was solely from the Greek and addeda few items which later went into the KingJames text. This was the first Bible to becompletely printed in England, but it tendedto be superceded by the Great Bible.THE CATHOLIC REACTIONOF 1543-1547Thomas Cromwell had led out in gettingBibles printed and widely circulated. Althoughhe was very highly placed in the English gov-ernment, he fell into disfavor because of hisefforts to destroy Catholic shrines and images,as well as taking over abbeys and monasteries.He even destroyed a few Catholicchurches. He had made the same mistake asthe French Protestants who wanted to producestrong public protests against Catholics, andonly brought death to themselves amid a Catholicuprising (Great Controversy, 217:2; 224:3-227:1). We have been warned elsewhere in theSpirit of Prophecy that we, today, should notmake direct attacks on the Catholics (9 Testimonies,240-241, 243; Evangelism, 573-574,576; Counsels to Writers and Editors, 45-46,64-65). We should instead give the final messageabout obedience to the Law of God and, inthe context of the change of the Sabbath, tellnecessary historical facts.This crisis led to an uprising of Catholicsin the nation (of which there were very many;some say a majority), and Henry VIII fearedfor his throne. So, in reaction, Cromwell wasexecuted and Bibles were publicly burnedby the hundreds. Only the Great Bible wasspared; and it was only to be read by theupper classes. The decree read in part:“No laboring men or women should read tothemselves or to others, publicly or privately,any part of the Bible, under pain of imprisonment.”As might be expected, Bishop Tunstall immediatelyretracted his name from the front ofthe Great Bible. He was once again the Catholiche had always been.At the climax of this reaction, Henry VIIIdied on January 28, 1547. Surely, , it wasthought that there would never again be aBible in England.EDWARD VI (1547-1553)This young king was always frail andsickly; yet he was devoted to the Bible, re-quiring that it be carried before him duringhis coronation. During his brief six-and--and-oneone-half years reign, the English Bible was re-printed many times and in many editions,totaling 35 editions of the New Testamentand 13 of the Old!Edward began his reign by immediately decreeingthat Bibles be made available in everychurch for people to read. Reformers who hadfled to England returned. Very likely, BishopTunstall expressed a renewed devotion to theBible.BLOODY MARY (1553-1559)“And I saw the woman drunken with theblood of the saints, and with the blood of themartyrs of Jesus.”—Revelation 17:6.On the death of Edward, Mary Tudor cameto the throne. The daughter of Henry’s wife,Catherine, Mary was a fanatical papist. Sheimmediately inaugurated a reign of terror bylighting the fires of Smithfield. ArchbishopCranmer and John Rogers, along with hundredsof others, were burned at the stake—for thecrime of loving the Bible. Miles Coverdale, nowBishop of Exeter, barely managed to escape tothe continent. Scores of other Reformers also fled.“On the fourth of February, in the year 1555,in the morning, the prisoner [John Rogers, whoproduced the Matthew Bible] was warned suddenlyby the keeper’s wife, to prepare himselffor the fire. Being sound asleep, he could scarcelybe awakened. At length being roused, and told

The Centuries Betweento make haste, he said, ‘Is then this the day? Ifit be so, I need not be careful of my dressing.’“Now when the time had come, the prisonerwas brought from Newgate to Smithfield, theplace of his execution. Here Woodroofe, one ofthe sheriffs, asked him if he would change hisreligion to save his life; but Rogers answered,‘That which I have preached I will seal with myblood.’“It is related that ‘Rogers’ wife and elevenchildren, ten of whom were able to walk andone was at the breast, met him by the way ashe went toward Smithfield, repeating the 51stPsalm. This sorrowful sight of his own fleshand blood did not move him; but he constantlyand cheerfully took his death with wonderfulpatience in the defence of Christ’s Gospel.”—Foxe, Book of Martyrs, pp. 422-423.Green adds:“He died bathing his hands in the flames asif it had been in cold water.”—J.R. Green, AShort History of the English People, p. 372.These people laid down their lives for theBible. Do we value it as much today?Over 300 Christians were burned at the stakein Smithfield, near London.But a powerful reaction set in. So hor-rible was the reign of “Bloody Mary,” thateveryone—even Catholics—hated her. . Afterfive years of a living horror, , Mary died a mis-erable death on the morning of November17, 1558.The murders of so many Christians—includingRidley, Latimer, and Cranmer—had left hernearly insane.But her efforts to rid the land of Chris-tians and the Holy Bible backfired, as weshall soon learn.THE GENEVA BIBLE (1560)A number of the Christian scholars whohad fled from Mary’s wrath, gathered in Geneva,Switzerland. There they formed a com-mittee to prepare a new translation of theBible.Theodore Beza, the most noted Biblical scholar,lived there. Working with him, such men as JohnKnox, William Whittingham, and Miles Coverdalelabored six years to produce the Geneva Bible.There were no political or religious re-strictions in Geneva and these men had timeto produce an outstanding Bible.Whittingham (a brother-in-law of JohnCalvin) supervised the work of publication. For99the first time, the English Bible was dividedinto verses (using the ones first marked in themargins of Stephenus’ Greek Text of 1551). Inaddition, Whittingham added words in ital-ics, to complete the sense when words werenot in the Greek. Both practices were latercarried over in the King James Bible.Another outstanding achievement was thefact that this was the first English Bible tohave Ezra through Malachi translated fromthe Hebrew. . This was the most accurate En-glish Bible yet to appear. . The New Testa-ment was basically identical to Tyndale’s.Another advantage was the abandonmentof the black letter for the plain, simple ro-man type (such as you find in the book youare now reading.) The book of Revelation carriedstrong anti-Catholic notes. Those in Romanswere somewhat Calvinistic.Queen Elizabeth I was crowned two yearsbefore this Bible was finished; so, when itwas completed, it was dedicated to her. Thecost of printing was subsidized by the people ofGeneva. Queen Elizabeth never promoted theGeneva Bible, but did nothing to oppose it; andit was widely sold for decades. But the GreatBible continued to be the Bible read fromthe pulpit in the churches and cathedrals.The Geneva Bible was also known as “TheBreeches Bible” because of its rendering of Genesis3:7, “They sewed figge tree leaves together,and made themselves breeches.” The Genevatranslation enjoyed a circulation from Shakespeare’sdesk to the Mayflower’s deck.The first complete English Bible to use versedivisions was the Geneva Bible of 1560. RabbiNathan is credited with devising the present versenumbers for the Old Testament in 1448. Theverse divisions for the New Testament were madeby the scholar-printer, Robert Stephenus, for hisGreek-Latin New Testament of 1551. They constitutea useful reference tool and are essentialfor a concordance.QUEEN ELIZABETH I (1533-1603)Henry VIII only had three children who outlivedinfancy: Edward VI, who was sickly anddied at fifteen, Mary who was barren in marriage,and Elizabeth who never married. In herreign, the proverb was fulfilled:“Take away the wicked from before the king,and his throne shall be established in righteousness.”—Proverbs25:5.

100 The King James and the Modern VersionsIn November 1558, the 25-year-old Elizabethcame to the throne, and immediately Protestantismwas once again in favor. Elizabeth wascareful not to disturb any religious group, butshe clearly promoted the Protestant cause.“This persecution [by Bloody Mary] arouseda mighty reaction that made England foreverProtestant. It has well been said that ‘the excessesof this bloody reaction accomplishedmore for the Protestantization of England thanall the efforts put forth under Edward’s reign.”—Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of ChurchHistory, Vol. 2, pp. 266-267.Elizabeth ruled for 41 years; and Bibleswere published in profusion during that time.THE BISHOPS’ BIBLE (1568)For some reason, the ever-increasing popularityof the Geneva Bible disturbed the religiousauthorities of England. They wanted to use theirown approved Bible. By this time, 140 editionsof the Geneva Bible had been printed and it wasin demand everywhere.In 1563, Archbishop Parker called for a committeeto be formed, to produce a new Bible.Because nine of the revisers were bishops, theresultant Bible came to be called the Bishops’Bible.The only improvements in this Bible werelots of pictures, thicker, , and more expensivepaper, , and little else. But it did include theverse divisions of the Geneva Bible. A portraitof Queen Elizabeth was on the title page.Although highly promoted, this Bible, whichwas produced during Elizabeth’s reign, nevergained the favor of the people. They werethoroughly content with the Geneva Bible.An added advantage of the Geneva Bible wasthat it was relatively small. This made iteasier to carry and store. The Coverdale,Matthew, , and Great Bibles were all twice thepage size of the Geneva Bible.The last edition of the Bishop’ ’ Bible wasin 1606. Another Bible was soon to gain theascendency in England—and be retained forhundreds of years.

The King James Bible101The King James BibleThe Crowning Result of Tyndale’s SacrificeJAMES I (1566-1625)Elizabeth I, who had never married, left noheir. James was the son of another infamousMary: the Catholic “Mary, Queen of Scots” (1542-1587). You can read about her in Great Controversy,pp 250-251. Although she feared JohnKnox, she would have liked nothing more thanto strike him dead.After his mother was imprisoned in Londonfor sedition against her half-sister, Elizabeth,Queen of England, James came to the throneand was crowned James VI of Scotland (1567-1603).The date was July 29, 1567, and James wasrather young—only 13 months old. (Five monthsearlier, his father, Henry Stuart, Mary’s secondhusband, had been killed by a bomb blast inhis home.)Twenty years later, his mother, Mary, wasbeheaded at the age of 44.On the death of Elizabeth in 1603, Jamescame to the throne of England, and wascrowned James I (1603-1625).The present writer has read historical stud-ies, that James was a secret Catholic who,unable to openly slay Protestants, contentedhimself with harassing Christian minorities.Other writers say he was a solid Protes-tant.“James I came to the throne in 1603. Hisearly life and training had made him a studentof the Bible. He had even tried his hand at authorship,having written a paraphrase of thebook of Revelation and translated some of thePsalms.”—I.M. Price, Ancestry of Our EnglishBible, p. 468.It is true that James did not provide apleasant home for the most dedicated be-lievers in Christ. It was for this reason thatthe Mayflower sailed to America in 1621,just ten years after the King James Biblewas published.But, if there was any doubt, one eventsurely helped James choose to unite withthe Protestant side! It was a cheerful littleattempt by the Catholics to blow him topieces.Here is the story of what happened:Two years after James ascended the Englishthrone, on October 26, 1605, an unsignedletter was delivered to the Lord Cham-berlain, Monteagle, warning him to stay awayfrom the much-delayed opening session ofParliament on November 5.Puzzled, he wondered what this was allabout. It was planned that the King, his entireroyal family, and all the members of Parliamentwould be in Westminster Palace that day.Monteagle took the brief note to the King’schief minister, Robert Cecil (first Earl of Salisbury),who woke James out of bed and showedit to him.It so happened that four dedicated RomanCatholics (Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy, JohnWright, and Guy Fawkes) led by another papist(Robert Catesby) had taken an oath to assassinateKing James and everyone else in that immensebuilding. Their pledge was sealed at asolemn communion service, served by the Jesuitpriest, John Gerard.The plan was simple enough: Blow up thebuilding while the people were in it and, then,start an insurrection outside with arms smuggledin from Flanders. It was hoped that an openrevolt would follow and all the Protestants wouldbe slain.But, somehow, the opening of Parliamentkept being postponed. This worried the conspirators,and they counseled with two other Catholicpriests.One was Oswald Greenway, who they spokewith during confessional. The other was HenryGarnet, Provincial of the English Jesuits.

102 The King James and the Modern VersionsIn the providence of God, it was only becauseof the repeated delays that they decided to warna few pro-Catholic members of Parliament to stayaway from the opening of Parliament on November5, 1605.Monteagle’s note was one of them, sent tohim by his Catholic relative, Francis Tresham.The date of the note was October 26. Theopening of Parliament was set for November5. The government had only eight days inwhich to solve this mystery.As soon as King James learned of the crisis,he immediately launched a major investigation.Day after day passed, and still no results.Finallyinally, , on the evening of November 4,investigators were still at work. Parliamentwas scheduled to open the next morning,amid special ceremonies. Then, on the strokeof midnight, British security agents discoveredthe suspicious presence of Guy Fawkes standingoutside the cellar door of Westminster Palace.Who was this man? Why was he standingthere at midnight?Men had earlier looked through the cellarand found nothing. Now they searched it thoroughly—anddiscovered, hidden beneath a largepile of faggots and coal, and positioned beneaththe very spot where James would be stand-ing in only few hours—THIRTYTHIRTY-SIXbarrels ofgunpowder. When they searched Fawkes, theyfound in his pockets a tinder box and matches.At 1 a.m., Fawkes was summoned to facethe hurriedly awakened council in the king’sbedchamber at Whitehall Palace.Fawkes was emotionally unmoved, onlyexpressing his regret that he had failed toblow the king and his Protestant followersall the way to the infernal place.When the authorities went after Catesby,Percy, and Wright, they were met with gunfire,and the three fellow conspirators were slain.This left Fawkes and three other collaboratorsto stand trial on January 27, 1606, and behanged the same week in St. Paul’s churchyard.It was learned that the conspirators had secureda nearby house and spent 16 hours a day,for nearly a year, digging a tunnel from their basementto that of the Palace. But, arriving there,they found the foundation walls were nine feetthick.So they went to another adjacent propertyand managed to gain access to the basement.To this day, Britishers celebrate “Guy FawkesDay,” as a day they slew the Catholics whowanted to kill their king.Why was Satan so anxious to destroy theking and Parliament? There was a specialreason. On January 16-18, 1604, the sover-eign had decided to have a large group ofscholars begin work on a new translation ofthe Bible.That project was just getting startedwhen the Gunpowder Plot was discovered onthe evening of November 4, 1605.If the plot to kill all the Protestant lead-ers of the nation had succeeded, Satan wouldhave succeeded in destroying the Authorized(King James) Bible.AUTHORIZATION OFTHE KING JAMES BIBLEFour days after Elizabeth’s death, the newking departed for London. The date was April5, 1603.Before arriving at his destination, he wasmet by a delegation of Puritan ministers whopresented him with a statement of grievancesagainst the Church of England. What came tobe known as the Millenary Petition was signedby nearly a thousand English clergymen, about10 percent of the ministers in the nation.Considering the matter carefully, King Jamesissued a proclamation, “touching a meeting forthe hearing and for the determining; things pretendedto be amiss in the church.”The conference was held on January 14,16, and 18 of the year 1604. The meetingplace was Hampton Court. The largest of theroyal palaces, it contained a thousand rooms.The black plague was killing people in London(for Europeans still did not know the causeof the bubonic plague; it was caused by the droppingsof the common [Norway] rat in the foodstuffs);so Hampton Court, located 15 milessouthwest of London on the north bank of theThames River, was considered a safe distancefrom the plague-ridden capital. Before the yearwas over, over 30,000 Englishmen would die.But James did not like the Puritans. Theydid not believe in having bishops rule thechurch, and James considered church de-mocracy a threat to his throne.The four Puritans who came to the gath-ering were excluded on the opening day. . Then,on January 16, they were led in to face over

The King James Biblefifty high church officials (including the Archbishopof Canterbury) led by Richard Bancroft,Bishop of London.The chairman’s convictions were easily detectablefrom his invitation to discuss “thingspretended to be amiss in the church.” AlthoughJames appreciated the Puritans’ anti-Catholicposition, he strongly disapproved of their Presbyterianform of government as a threat to hisroyal absolutism. On one occasion, he statedthat “presbytery and monarchy agreed togetheras well as God and the devil.” The king’s bestrememberedwords expressing his fears of aPuritan-sponsored ouster of his politically supportivebishops was his cliché, “No bishops—No king.” It was for such reasons that the Mayflowersailed to America in 1621.As the meeting progressed, subjects of lesserimportance began causing even more dissension.After having one request after another de-nied, the leader of the Puritan delegation,Dr. . Rainolds (also spelled “Reynolds” attimes) made the request that changed Biblehistory.“ ‘May your Majesty be pleased,’ said Dr.John Rainolds in his address to the king, ‘todirect that the Bible be now translated, suchversions as are extant not answering to the original.’“Rainolds was a Puritan, and the Bishop ofLondon felt it his duty to disagree. ‘If every man’shumor might be followed,’ His Grace, ‘therewould be no end to translating.’“King James was quick to put both factionsdown. ‘I profess,’ he said, ‘I could never yet seea Bible well translated in English, but I thinkthat of Geneva is the worst.’ These few dissidentwords started the greatest writing projectthe world has ever known.”—G.S. Paine, Menbehind the King James Version, p. 1.God works in mysterious ways, His purposesto perform. At the time of James’ coronation, anunfortunate spirit of rivalry existed between theGeneva Bible and the Bishops’ Bible. The GenevaBible was, by far, the more popular of thetwo among the common people. But church officialspreferred the Bishops’ Bible. The King didnot like the fact that the Geneva Bible had notbeen prepared and printed in England. In addition,it had some Calvinistic notes in it and theKing remembered how John Knox, in his homelandof Scotland, had spoken to his mother.The King was only too aware that his prosperoussubjects owed a “national debt” to the103liberating doctrines of Holy Scripture. Havingabandoned the Catholicism of his own mother,James had observed firsthand that, “The entranceof thy words giveth light” (Psalm 119:130).In order to see what the Bible had accomplishedfor England, all James had to do was tolook at what had happened to England duringthe reign of Queen Elizabeth, when everybodyhad access to the Bible:“No greater moral change ever passed over anation than passed over England during theyears which parted the middle of the reign ofElizabeth from the meeting of the Long Parliament.England became the people of a book,and that book was the Bible. It was as yet theone English book which was familiar to everyEnglishman; it was read at churches and readat home, and everywhere its words, as they fellon ears which custom had not deadened to theirforce and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. .“The popularity of the Bible was owing toother causes besides that of religion. The wholeprose literature of England, save the forgottentracts of Wycliffe, has grown up since the translationof the Scriptures by Tyndale and Coverdale.No history, no romance, no poetry, savethe little-known verse of Chaucer, existed forany practical purpose in the English tongue whenthe Bible was ordered to be set up in churches. .“As a mere literary monument, the Englishversion of the Bible remains the noblest exampleof the English tongue. Its perpetual usemade it from the instant of its appearance thestandard of our language. But for the momentits literary effect was less than its social. Thepower of the book over the mass of Englishmenshowed itself in a thousand superficialways, and in none more conspicuously than inthe influence it exerted on ordinary speech. Itformed, we must repeat, the whole literaturewhich was practically accessible to ordinaryEnglishmen; and when we recall the number ofcommon phrases which we owe to great authors,the bits of Shakespeare, or Milton, orDickens, or Thackeray, which unconsciouslyinterweave themselves in our ordinary talk, weshall better understand the strange mosaic ofBiblical words and phrases which colored Englishtalk two hundred years ago. The mass ofpicturesque allusion and illustration which weborrow from a thousand books, our fatherswere forced to borrow from one . .“But far greater than its effect on literatureor social phrase was the effect of the Bible onthe character of the people at large. Elizabeth

104 The King James and the Modern Versionsmight silence or tune the pulpits; but it wasimpossible for her to silence or tune the greatpreachers of justice, and mercy, and truth, whospoke from the book which she had againopened for the people.“The whole moral effect which is producednowadays by the religious newspaper, the tract,the essay, the lecture, the missionary report,the sermon, was then produced by the Biblealone. And its effect in this way, however dispassionatelywe examine it, was simply amazing.The whole temper of the nation waschanged. A new conception of life and of mansuperseded the old. A new moral and religiousimpulse spread through every class . . the wholenation became, in fact, a church.”—J.R. Green,A Short History of the English People, pp. 455-457.James did not like the fact that the GenevaBible, which was so extremely popular with theEnglish people, had been translated and printedin a foreign country.He saw that he now had an excellent opportunityto provide his subjects with a Bible thatwould be truly English, totally translated andprinted on English soil. The prestige gained fromsuccessful completion of the project could onlyenhance his fledgling reign. So King James or-dered the translation to be made.“That a translation be made of the wholeBible, as consonant as can be to the originalHebrew and Greek; and this to be set out andprinted, without any marginal notes, and onlyto be used in all churches of England, in timeof Divine service.”—Decree of King James,quoted in McClure, Translators Revised, p. 59.Interestingly enough, every possible excuseis today made to downgrade the King JamesBible. One is that James never authorized itstranslation. But that is not true.Writing at the time the project began, BishopBancroft wrote this to an assistant:“I move you in his majesty’s name that, agreeablyto the charge and trust committed untoyou, no time may be overstepped by you for thebetter furtherance of this holy work. You willscarcely conceive how earnest his majesty is tohave this work begun!”—Quoted in G.S. Paine,Men behind the King James Version, p. 11.In the Preface to the Authorized (King James)Bible, we are told:“Hereupon did his Majesty begin to bethinkhimself of the good that might ensue by a newtranslation, and presently after gave order forthis translation which is now presented untothee.”PREPARATION OFTHE KING JAMES BIBLEAs mentioned earlier, the recommendationfor a new revision had been made by Dr. JohnRainolds (also written Reynolds by others in histime), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford,and a leading Puritan.Rainolds cited as the reason for a new translationwas that the official Prayer Book, basedon the Great Bible and Bishops’ Bible, had translationerrors in it. This charge was, by itself, asignificant reason for a new translation. A betterPrayer Book could be prepared from the newBible.After the January 14-18, 1604, HamptonCourt conference ended, a diligent searchwas made for scholars “who had taken painsin their private study of the Scriptures” (G.S.Paine, pp. 12-13). The king requested the aidof “all our principal learned men within thekingdom” (op. cit., p. 13).By July, , James publicly announced hisselection of 54 of the nation’s best scholarsto work on the project. The project formallybegan in 1607.The revisers were divided into six com-panies, each assigned to work on a specificsection of the Bible. The Old Testament groupstranslated from the Hebrew while the New Testamentgroups translated from the Greek:1 - In the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminister,ten men under the direction of Lancelot Barlowtranslated Genesis through 2 Kings.2 - Also working at Westminster, WilliamBarlow chaired a group of seven which workedon Romans through Jude.3 - At Oxford, John Harding led seven menin their work on Isaiah through Malachi.4 - Also at Oxford, Thomas Ravis oversawthe work of eight men working on the Gospels,Acts, and Revelation.5 - At Cambridge, Edward Lively’s group translated1 Chronicles through Song of Solomon.6 - Also at Cambridge, John Bois’ team translatedthe Apocrypha.When the group work was completed, twomembers of each of the three companies werechosen to check over the final revision, prior tosending it to a London printing house.In summary, The entire work was divided inthis manner: The first three years (1604-1607) were occupied in finalizing and perfectingthe preliminary arrangements. Dur-

106 The King James and the Modern Versionsing this time, some of the translators care-fully worked over the material they wouldsoon be translating.The next two to three years were occu-pied in the individual and cooperative laborof the six groups of revisers. The translationwas completed during this time.After this, in London nine months weredevoted to working on the final revision.THE COMPLETED BOOKThe Bible was printed by Robert Barker in alarge folio edition that, in appearance, was verymuch like the Bishops’ Bible.A flattering dedication to King James was atthe front. A longer Preface was also at thefront of the Bible. Unfortunately, this Preface,written by Miles Smith, one of the translators, isno longer included. But it was very worthwhileand replied to the charge of the Catholics, thatno English Bible was needed.It is only available today in a booklet publishedby Edgar J. Goodspeed (who himselftranslated an early 20th-century Bible translation),entitled, The Translators to the Reader.Miles Smith’s Preface was excellent!“But it is high time to leave them [the critics],and to show in brief what we proposed toourselves, and what course we held in this ourperusal and survey of the Bible. Truly, goodChristian Reader, we never thought from thebeginning that we should need to make a newTranslation, nor yet to make of a bad one agood one . . but to make a good one better, orout of many good ones, one principal one, notjustly to be excepted against; that hath beenour endeavor, that our mark. To that purposethere were many chosen [to work on the project]. . If you ask what they had before them, truly itwas the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, theGreek of the New. These are the two goldenpipes, or rather conduits where-through theolive branches empty themselves into thegold.”—Miles Smith, part of the Preface, Authorized(King James) Bible.For the New Testament, the King Jamestranslators used the Erasmus, Stephenus, andBeza Greek Texts.Theodore Beza, a faithfulProtestant had gathered additional manuscripts,which he placed in a text. But his text was essentiallythe same as that of Erasmus, exceptthat it had a broader number of Majority Textmanuscripts in it.For the Old Testament, they produced atranslation from the Hebrew manuscriptswhich far surpassed any English translationin its faithful representation of the Hebrewtext, yet did it in a simplicity admirably representativeof the Elizabethan age.It has been said that the New Testamentis so expressive in language and form, thatit even surpasses the original Greek as lit-erature.When all the intellectual attainments of thescholars, their careful work, and the careful ruleswere established in order to produce the mostcareful, accurate text—the fact remains that,according to a consensus of authorities, ap-proximately 90 percent of Tyndale’s wordswere left intact by the King James transla-tors.John Foxe wrote this:“Before Tyndale’s day, the English versionsof the Bible had been but translations of a translation,being derived from the Vulgate or olderLatin versions. Tyndale, for the first time, wentback to the original Hebrew and Greek. Andnot only did he go back to the original languagesseeking for the truth, but he embodied thattruth when found in so noble a translation thatit has ever since been deemed wise by scholarsand revisers to make but few changes in it; consequentlyevery succeeding version is in realitylittle more than a revision of Tyndale’s. It hasbeen truly said that the peculiar genius whichbreathes through the English Bible, the mingledtenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity,the grandeur—unequalled, unapproached in theattempted improvements of modern scholars—all are here, and bear the impress of the mindof one man, and that man William Tyndale.”—John Foxe, Foxes’ Christian Martyrs of theWorld, p. 362.Tyndale has justly been called “the father ofthe English Bible” (Dowley, Handbook to Christianity,p. 370).But not everyone liked the King JamesBible. A marginal note in the Catholic Rheims-Douai Bible, produced later specifically to introduceCatholic errors and take the place of theKing James Bible, said this: The men who madethe King James Bible “would be abhorred in thedepths of hell” (quoted in McClure, TranslatorsRevised, p. 88).As soon as the King James Bible came offthe press, it met opposition from some groups.Everything good is always opposed by someone.But it soon outran in popularity the Bishops’Bible, which had not been reprinted since 1606.

The King James BibleWith the Geneva Bible, it waged a run-ning fight for a full half century. But characterand merit won the contest, and the KingJames Bible completely took the field.LATER REVISIONSIn later years, several revisions weremade, which consisted solely of efforts toeliminate earlier printer’s errors.The most important changes occurred in the18th century. In 1762, Dr. Thomas Paris publisheda revision at Cambridge; and in 1769 Dr.Benjamin Blayney, after about four years’ work,brought out another at Oxford.Blayney’s revision was especially valuable forthe modernization of spelling, punctuation, expression,and elimination of printer’s errors.The 1769 Blayney revision is the KingJames Bible we use today.Over the years, various helpful marginal noteswere added. Bishop Lloyd’s Bible in 1701 wasthe first to include the Biblical chronology,worked out by Archbishop Ussher and publishedin 1650-1654. As you know, it placed thedate for Creation at 4004 B.C., a date which weknow, from the Spirit of Prophecy, cannot be faroff. The present author’s in-depth analysis of thedate of Creation, based on a variety of scientificdata, also places the creation of our world ashaving occurred at an extremely recent date, andrecommends a working date of 4000 B.C. (Seechapters 5 and 6, of Origin of the Universe,which is Vol. 1 of the 3-volume Evolution DisprovedSeries.)It is extremely important that the readerunderstand that the King James Bible wasthe LAST English Bible translation based onthe Majority Text! Never since 1611, has an-other one been made!All modern English translations are primarilyor wholly based on the Westcott-Hort / NestleText which, in turn, is based on a few variantmanuscripts! We have discussed this earlier andwill return to it later in this study. Even the socalledNew King James Version, published byThomas Nelson and Co., actually includes a fairamount of Nestle-Aland Text tossed in!107ANSWERINGTHE CRITICS’ COMPLAINTSABOUT THE KING JAMES BIBLEIn spite of the carping complaints of the criticsthat the King James Bible is the result of onlyfour years effort, the truth is that, during thosefour years, 54 of the best scholars in En-gland worked on the project.But there is more: The King James Bibleis not the work of a four-year project, but ofan 86-year project of scrutinizing revision—beginning with William Tyndale.In a Moody Monthly article, Leslie Keylockwrote the typical slur we find in the 20th century,about the magnificent King James Version:“Because of the limitations of seventeenthcenturyscholarship, the KJV has major weaknesses.”—LeslieR. Keylock, “The Bible thatBears His Name,” in Moody Monthly, July-August,1985.A major objection is that there are so-calledarchaic words in the Authorized Version. Keylockwrote:“Many sentences in the KJV cannot be understoodtoday unless the reader consults agood Bible commentary.”—Ibid.The highly regarded Norton Anthology ofWorld Masterpieces would disagree with Keylock’scontention. From the information contained onthe inside jacket cover, we understand that thepurpose of this work is to recommend, to thestudent, the most readable text of any numberof literary works:“Every selection, every text, every translationhas been reexamined to ensure that the studentsof the 1980s have the fewest obstaclesbetween them and the great masterpieces of theWestern tradition.”—Norton Anthology ofWorld Masterpieces, 5th edition.The Norton editors selected the 1611 Authoutho-rized Version as the best they could find,when they printed their “masterworks edi-tion” of the Old and New Testaments of theHoly Bible!Although the critics may carp, actually, the“archaic” words of the King James Bible havealready been “updated” more than 100 timesin as many years for an average of one modernversion per year. The truth is that the KingJames Bible is an outstanding version forour time in history.It is also said that the King James trans-lators used incorrect grammar. It is true thatoccasionally the King James uses the grammaticalstructure known as anacoluthon (“a changefrom one grammatical construction to anotherwithin the same sentence, sometimes as a rhetoricaldevice,” such as Webster’s New World Dic-

108 The King James and the Modern Versionstionary). But the fact is that while the critics declareit has wrong tenses, improper treatment ofthe article, “the,” and a refusal to translate literally—theydo it themselves in their own moderntranslations.Modern revisions, such as the New AmericanStandard Version (NASV) and others, frequentlyrefuse to translate their own Greek articles.And they insert the English article in numerousverses without the “authoritative” goaheadof the corresponding Greek article.It is said that the King James Bible addswords which are not in the Greek text. Thatis true, but it places them in italics. In contrast,the modern versions do the same, but they donot place the added words in italics.But there are other modernists who say thatabsolutely no words must ever be added, not inthe Greek or Hebrew—and that the shamefulKing James Bible does just that.Here is an instance when the King Jamesdoes this—and notice that the added words arealways placed in italic (something the modernversions do not do when they add words):“And there was again a battle in Gob withthe Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim,a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliahthe Gittite, the staff of whose spear waslike a weaver’s beam.”—2 Samuel 21:19.Here is what happens when a modern translatortries to take out every italicized word:“In another battle with the Philistines at Gob,Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemitekilled Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear witha shaft like a weaver’s rod.”—2 Samuel 21:19,NIV.According to this, after David slew Goliath,someone else killed him a second time!“First, take a Bible (King James, of course)and read Psalm 16:8. ‘I have set the LORD alwaysbefore me: because He is at my right hand,I shall not be moved.’ You will notice that thetwo words ‘He is’ are in italics.“Yet when we find the Apostle Peter quotingthis verse in the New Testament in Acts 2:25we find it says: ‘For David speaketh concerningHim, I foresaw the Lord always before my face,for He is on my right hand, that I should not bemoved.’ So here we find the Apostle Peter quotingPsalm 16:8, italicized words and all! Youwould almost believe that God wanted them inthere wouldn’t you?”—Samuel C. Gipp, TheAnswer Book, p. 54.Another “error” in the King James is thefact that it does not split the book of Isaiahat the end of chapter 39, into two books.Well, neither did the Hebrew Old Testament!And neither does Christ Himself! He attributesboth halves of the book of Isaiah to the sameauthor (Matthew 12:17 and 13:14)!There are the critics who tell you thereare thousands and thousands of errors in theKing James Version.“Few people realize, for example, that thousandsof errors have been found in the KJV.”—Leslie R. Keylock, “The Bible that Bears HisName,” in Moody Monthly, July-August, 1985.These are reckless statements and not true.They refer to the lithographical (printer’s)errors which have been corrected, since thefirst edition in 1611, and the many orthographical(spelling and punctuation) updateswhich have been made since then. With everycharacter set by hand, a multitude of typographicalmistakes could be made. (The lead type wasalso set in place backward, so it would printcorrectly on paper.) Each new edition of the KingJames Bible corrected some of these while introducingothers. Sometimes words were inverted.Other times, a plural was written as asingular or vice versa.Another type of “printing mistakes” con-sisted of nothing more than changes in typestyles.In the original 1611 edition, the Gothic “v”looked like a Roman “u” while the Gothic “u”looked like a Roman “v.” The Gothic “j” resembledthe Roman “i.” The lower-case “s”looked like an “f.” Such “changes” account fora significant percentage of the “tens of thou-sands” of changes and errors in the King JamesBible.By the way, , there was no uniform spell-ing when the King James was first printed.Spelling did not begin to be standardized untilthe 18th century, and the King James was notstandardized until the last half of that century.“Darke” was changed to “dark,” and “rann” to“ran.” So, over the centuries, a lot of changeshad to be made. We are thankful they were.Most historians do not date the beginning ofmodern English until the 1500s. Franklyrankly, , it wasthe King James which helped set our basicEnglish in concrete. But the spelling andpunctuation still kept changing down to ourown time.Corrected editions of the King James appearedin 1629, 1638, 1644, 1676, 1680, 1701,

The King James Bible1762, 1769, 1806, 1813, 1850, and 1852; this,of course, changed typographical errors.Dr. Frederick Scrivener, in one of his booksdefending the King James Version, prepared alist of corrections. In his Appendix A (list of wrongreadings of the Bible of 1611, amended in latereditions) of his informative work, The AuthorizedEdition of the English Bible (1611), Its SubsequentReprints and Modern Representatives,Scrivener cataloged but a fraction of the “tensof thousands of errors” that modernists claimare in the King James. Instead, the actualnumber of “errors” are in the hundreds, notin the thousands. And even this figure is misleading,when you consider that many of the instanceswere repetitious in nature. (Six suchchanges involve the corrected spelling of “Nathanael”from the 1611’s Nathaneel in John1:45-49 and 21:2).“Whereas Geisler and Nix cited Goodspeed’sdenouncing of Dr. Blayney’s 1769 Oxford edition[of the King James Bible] for deviating fromthe [original] Authorized Version in ‘at least75,000 details,’ Scrivener alludes to less thantwo hundred as noteworthy of mention.”—W.P.Grady, Final Authority, p. 170 (cf. FrederickH.A. Scrivener, The Authorized Edition of theBible (1611), Its Subsequent Reprints andModern Representatives).Here is a sample list of the type of alter-ations which were made in the King JamesBible down through the years. The samplesgive the first textual correction on consecutiveleft-hand pages of Scrivener’s book. First, the1611 reading is given. It is then followed by thepresent reading and the date when the changewas made:1. this thing—this thing also (1638)2. shalt have remained—ye shall have remained(1762)3. Achzib, nor Helbath, nor Aphik—of Achzib, nor ofHelbath, nor of Aphik (1762)4. requite good—requite me good (1629)5. this book of the Covenant—the book of thiscovenant (1629)6. chief rulers—chief ruler (1629)7. And Parbar—At Parbar (1638)8. For this cause—And for this cause (1638)9. For the king had appointed—for so the king hadappointed (1629)10. Seek good—Seek God (1617)11. The cormorant—But the cormorant (1629)12. returned—turned (1769)13. a fiery furnace—a burning fiery furnace (1638)14. The crowned—Thy crowned (1629)15. thy right doeth—thy right hand doeth (1613)16. the wayes side—the way side (1743)17. which was a Jew—which was a Jewess (1629)10918. the city—the city of the Damascenes (1629)19. now and ever—both now and ever (1638)20. which was of our father’s—which was of ourfathers (1616)Such alterations are purely of a correc-tional nature. There are no doctrinal errorshere!It is clear that the true text of the A.V.V.1611 remained unaffected throughout thesecorrective stages. This was confirmed in aspecial report to the Board of Managers ofthe American Bible Society in 1852. The officialfindings of this committee of seven, chairedby Dr. James W. McLane, were as follows:“The English Bible as left by the translatorshas come down to us unaltered in respect toits text . . With the exception of typographicalerrors and changes required by the progress oforthography in the English language, the textof our present Bibles remains unchanged, andwithout variations from the original copy as leftby the translators.”—Report of the Committeeon versions to the Board of Managers of theAmerican Bible Society, James W. McLane,Chairman, pp. 7, 11.According to the critics, another “prob-lem” with the King James is the fact that ithad the Apocrypha in it.“It is also interesting—and perhaps you arenot aware of it—that the early editions of theAuthorized Version contained the Apocrypha.Horrors!”—Robert L. Sumner, Bible Translations,p. 9.Why was the Apocrypha included in this Bible?It has been suggested that the translators believedthe Apocrypha were inspired books. That is nottrue. They did not want it in the King JamesBible, but the king asked that it be included.So, instead of scattering the Apocryphalbooks all through the Old Testament (as you willfind if you look in a Rheims-Douai—or any otherRoman Catholic—Bible), they placed all theApocryphal books by themselves between theTestaments.The King James translators were not confusedover this matter. They listed seven rea-sons why the apocryphal books were to becategorically rejected as part of the Inspiredcanon.Later in this book, when we discuss themodern translations, we will discuss the Apocrypha,its history and problems, in some detail.

110 The King James and the Modern VersionsEFFECTS OFTHE KING JAMES BIBLEOne of the great results of the King JamesVersion was not only that it became the Bibleof England—but it also became the Bible ofAmerica! Think of all the great evangelistic workwhich has been done, using that book! Howmany evangelists do you find today who arewinning souls with the modern versions? Forsome reason, by the time they turn to the modernversions, so many frequently stop trying tolabor as earnestly for the lost.It was only 27 years after the King JamesBible was printed that Roger Williams founded“Providence.” His Rhode Island settlement,founded in 1638, became the first governmentin history based on total religious freedom.We originally intended to include many quotationhere, showing the importance of the Authorized(King James) Bible down through thecenturies. But we instead placed them in theIntroduction at the front of this book.Three agencies were employed in an effortto destroy the Reformation, its follow-ers, and its Bibles:• The Jesuits• The decisions of the Council of Trent• The production of Catholic Bibles withtheir various mistranslations and errorsAnd that brings us to the Counter Reformation.Last eve I paused beside the blacksmith’s doorAnd heard the anvil ring the vesper chimes;Then looking in, I saw upon the floorOld hammers worn-out with beating years of time.“How many anvils have you had,” said I,“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”“Just one,” said he and then with twinking eye,“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”And so I thought, the anvil of God’s WordFor ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon,Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,The anvil is unharmed, the hammers are gone.

The Counter Reformation111The Counter ReformationThe Threefold Effort to Destroy Protestant BiblesTHE JESUITS (1534)First, we will consider the Jesuits:“Throughout Christendom, Protestantismwas menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphsof the Reformation past, Rome summonednew forces, hoping to accomplish itsdestruction. At this time, the order of the Jesuitswas created, the most cruel, unscrupulous,and powerful of all the champions of Popery. .“To combat these forces, Jesuitism inspiredits followers with a fanaticism that enabled themto endure like dangers, and to oppose to thepower of truth all the weapons of deception.There was no crime too great for them to commit,no deception too base for them to practice,no disguise too difficult for them to assume.Vowed to perpetual poverty and humility,it was their studied aim to secure wealthand power, to be devoted to the overthrow ofProtestantism, and the reestablishment of thepapal supremacy.“When appearing as members of their order,they wore a garb of sanctity, visiting prisonsand hospitals, ministering to the sick and thepoor, professing to have renounced the world,and bearing the sacred name of Jesus, whowent about doing good. But under this blamelessexterior the most criminal and deadly purposeswere often concealed. It was a fundamentalprinciple of the order that the end justifiesthe means. By this code, lying, theft, perjury,assassination, were not only pardonable butcommendable, when they served the interestsof the church.“Under various disguises the Jesuits workedtheir way into offices of state, climbing up to bethe counselors of kings, and shaping the policyof nations. They became servants, to act as spiesupon their masters. They established collegesfor the sons of princes and nobles, and schoolsfor the common people; and the children of Protestantparents were drawn into an observanceof popish rites.”—Great Controversy, pp. 234-235.Ignatius Loyola was totally dedicated tothe Church of Rome. He had a fanatical driveto aid the pope and destroy Protestantism.“Ignatus Loyola came forward and must havesaid in substance to the Pope: ‘Let the Augustinianscontinue to provide monasteries of retreatfor contemplative minds; let the Benedictinesgive themselves up to the field of literary endeavor;let the Dominicans retain their responsibilityfor maintaining the Inquisition; but we,the Jesuits, will capture the colleges and theuniversities.“We will gain control of instruction in law,medicine, science, education, and so weed outfrom all books of instruction, anything injuriousto Roman Catholicism. We will mould thethoughts and ideas of the youth. We will enrollourselves as Protestant preachers and collegeprofessors in the different Protestant faiths.Sooner or later, we will undermine the authorityof the Greek New Testament of Erasmus,and also of those Old Testament productionswhich have dared to raise their heads againstthe Old Testament of the Vulgate and againsttradition. And thus will we undermine the ProtestantReformation.”—B.G. Wilkinson, OurAuthorized Bible Vindicated, pp. 59-60.Ignatius Loyola was guided by demons. Hehad a favorite place in the woods near Rome,where he would go for private séances. As hesat there with his writing materials, an angelicbeing in glowing light would appear and instructhim how to train his workers and clarify the workhe was to do.Wilkinson explains the training programfor Jesuit agents:“Their complete system of education and ofdrilling was likened, in the constitution of theorder itself, to the reducing of all its membersto the placidity of a corpse, whereby the wholecould be turned and returned at the will of thesuperior. We quote from their constitution:“ ‘As for holy obedience, this virtue must beperfect in every point—in execution, in will, inintellect—doing what is enjoined with all celerity,spiritual joy, and perseverance; persuadingourselves that everything is just; suppressingevery repugnant thought and judgment of one’sown, in a certain obedience . . and let every onepersuade himself that he who lives under obedienceshould be moved and directed, under

112 The King James and the Modern VersionsDivine Providence, by his superior, just as if hewere a corpse (perinde ac si cadaver esset)which allows itself to be moved and led in anydirection’ (R.W. Thompson, Ex-Secretary ofNavy. U.S.A., The Footprints of the Jesuits, p.51).“That which put an edge on the newly forgedmentality was the unparalleled system of educationimpressed upon the pick of Catholicyouth. The Pope, perforce, virtually threw openthe ranks of the many millions of Catholic youngmen and told the Jesuits to go in and select themost intelligent.“The initiation rites were such as to make alifelong impression on the candidate for admission.He never would forget the first trial of hisfaith. Thus the youth are admitted under a testwhich virtually binds forever the will, if it hasnot already been enslaved. What matters tohim? Eternal life is secure, and all is for thegreater glory of God.“Then follow the long years of intense mentaltraining, interspersed with periods of practice.They undergo the severest methods ofquick and accurate learning. They will be, letus say, shut up in a room with a heavy Latinlesson, and expected to learn it in a given periodof hours.”—Op. cit., pp. 61-62.It is well to understand how Jesuit teach-ers operate; for they are scattered throughoutoutsecular, , Catholic, and Protestant universities:“They early realized the vast importance ofdirecting higher education as a means of gainingcontrol of the lives of the ablest and bestconnectedyoung men and making trained intellectsubservient to their purposes . . Themarked ability of the Jesuit teachers, their unsurpassedknowledge of human nature, theiraffability of manners, and their remarkableadaptability to the idiosyncrasies and circumstancesof each individual, made them practicallyirresistible when once they came into closerelations with susceptible youth.”—Albert HenryNewman, Manual of Church History, Vol.2, pp. 374, 383.Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was deeplyimpressed with Jesuit schools, and wrote, “Suchas they are, would that they were ours” (quotedin Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol. 6, p.915). Once a Jesuit professor gained thefriendship of a student, he would graduallywork to win him fully over.“It is probable that more time was employedin molding their religious and moral charactersinto complete harmony with the ideals ofthe [Jesuit] Society than in securing a masteryof the studies of the course . . Large numbersof the most desirable young men who enteredtheir schools, with no intention of becomingmembers of the Society, were won by the patientefforts of those in charge.”—Op. cit., Vol.2, p. 374.The Jesuits have a special dispensationfrom the pope, that they do not have to wearany special religious clothing or sleep in amonastery at night. This makes it possiblefor them to enter many different walks oflife and carry on their work for the pope.“It is the same today. The 33,000 officialmembers of the Society operate all over theworld in the capacity of her personnel, officersof a truly secret army containing in its ranksheads of political parties, high ranking officials,generals, magistrates, physicians, faculty professors,etc.; all of them striving to bring about,in their own sphere God’s work—in reality, theplans of the papacy.”—Edmond Paris, SecretHistory of the Jesuits, p. 30.Their reputation for subterfuge—lying,espionage, subversion, and worse—is well-known to the student of history.“It is permitted to an individual to kill a tyrantin virtue of the right of self-defense; forthough the community does not command it, itis always to be understood that it wishes to bedefended by every one of its citizens individually,and even by a stranger . . Thus, after hehas been declared to be deprived of his kingdom,it becomes legal to treat him as a realtyrant; and consequently any man has a rightto kill him.”—Suerez, a later high-rankingJesuit leader, quoted in Newman, Manual ofChurch History, Vol. 2, p. 380.Thomas B. Macaulay, a well-known 19thcenturythinker and writer, said this:“It was in the ears of the Jesuit that the powerful,the noble, and the beautiful, breathed thesecret history of their lives. It was at the feet ofthe Jesuit that the youth of the higher andmiddle classes were brought up from childhoodto manhood, from the first rudiments to thecourses of rhetoric and philosophy. Literatureand science, lately associated with infidelity orwith heresy, now became the allies of orthodoxy.Dominant in the south of Europe, thegreat order soon went forth conquering and toconquer. In spite of oceans and deserts, of hungerand pestilence, of spies and penal laws, ofdungeons and racks, of gibbets and quartering-blocks,“Jesuits were to be found under every disguise,and in every country; scholars, physicians,merchants, serving men; in the hostile court ofSweden, in the old manor-house of Cheshire,

The Counter Reformationamong the hovels of Connaught; arguing, instructing,consoling, stealing away the heartsof the young, animating the courage of the timid,holding up the crucifix before the eyes of thedying. Nor was it less their office to plot againstthe thrones and lives of the apostate kings, tospread evil rumors, to raise tumults, to inflamecivil wars, to arm the hand of the assassin.“Inflexible in nothing but in their fidelity tothe church, they were equally ready to appealin her cause to the spirit of loyalty and to thespirit of freedom. Extreme doctrines of obedienceand extreme doctrines of liberty, the rightof rulers to misgovern the people, the right ofevery one of the people to plunge his knife inthe heart of a bad ruler, were inculcated by thesame man, according as he addressed himselfto the subject of Philip or to the subject of Elizabeth.”—Macaulay,Essays, pp. 480-481.“If Protestantism, or the semblance of Protestantism,showed itself in any quarter, it wasinstantly met, not by petty, teasing persecution,but by persecution of that sort which bowsdown and crushes all but a very few select spirits.Whoever was suspected of heresy, whateverhis rank, his learning, or his reputation, knewthat he must purge himself to the satisfactionof a severe and vigilant tribunal, or die by fire.Heretical books were sought out and destroyedwith similar rigor.”—Op. cit., pp. 482-483.John Adams wrote this to Thomas Jefferson:“I am not happy about the rebirth of the Jesuits.Swarms of them will present themselvesunder more disguises ever taken by even a chiefof the bohemians, as printers, writers, publishers,school teachers, etc. If ever an associationof people deserved eternal damnation, onthis earth or in hell, it is this Society ofLoyola.”—John Adams, Letter to ThomasJefferson, quoted in Edmund Paris, Secret Historyof the Jesuits, p. 75.We will return to the Jesuits later, , as weview more of their effort to take over En-gland and destroy its precious heritage: theKing James Bible.THE COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545-1563)It is a remarkable fact that the Roman Cath-olic Church remained in such disorder forcenturies, that it never got around to codify-ing its doctrines. This was due to the fact thatthe prelates, bishops, and priests were sensualand pleasure-loving while engaged in continualrivalries as each group struggled for power.In such a state of affairs, it was little wonder113that papal leadership had never gotten aroundto defining their beliefs. They were too busy withwine, women, and politicking.But the 16th-century Reformation fright-ened Rome to its core. Something had to bedone to stop this. Part of the solution was toconvene a church council to define their doc-trines, so they would be in a better position toattack the Protestants.The Council of Trent (1545-1563) washeld off and on over a period of years andgradually muddled its way through a num-ber of enactments.Here are several statements about the workof this council:The pope wisely set the Jesuits in chargeof infusing the council with their strange lo-gic, which could prove black to be white, andwhite black.“The Society came to exercise a marked influenceto which their presence in the Councilof Trent, as the Pope’s theologians, gave signaltestimony. It was a wise stroke of policy for thePapacy to entrust its cause in the Council solargely to the Jesuits.”—Hulme, Renaissanceand Reformation, p. 428.Popes always fear church councils—becausethey sometimes put popes to death! But Paul IIIwisely sent the Jesuits to be his agents, to makesure everything went well during the sessions.“The Council of Trent was dominated by theJesuits. This we must bear in mind as we studythat Council. It is the leading characteristic ofthat assembly. ‘The great Convention dreadedby every Pope’ was called by Paul III when hesaw that such a council was imperative if theReformation was to be checked. And when itdid assemble, he so contrived the manipulationof the program and the attendance of thedelegates, that the Jesuitical conception of atheocratic Papacy should be incorporated intothe canons of the church.”—Wilkinson, Our AuthorizedBible Vindicated, p. 63.Throughout the Council of Trent, the single,most important, most basic dogma could not besettled. It was this: What was the basis of Ro-man Catholic authority? It could not be saidthat it was the Bible; for then the power wouldbe taken out of the hands of the papacy, andthey could not let that happen!Some type of reasoning had to be workedout, on which the supremacy of the popeand the councils could be firmly planted.In the present author’s book, Beyond Pit-

The Counter Reformationcairn, pp. 132-134, how that was done is carefullyexplained. You will want to read it carefully.Astoundingly, the reasoning went like this:centuries before, the papacy changed theBible Sabbath to Sunday; therefore it hadthe authority to command all other things—above Scripture!That is surely Jesuitical thinking! Since wegot away with earlier having changed the Law ofGod, without being struck dead by Heaven forso doing, it must mean we have the authority todo anything we want to do! Apparently, not evenGod dares to oppose us.THE RHEIMS-DOUAI (DOUAY) BIBLE(1582-1610)Because of Tyndale and those who followedlowedhim, every plowboy now had a Bible, and Romeneeded a Bible of their own. This was difficult,since they knew nothing about the book.“The Catholics in England were placed atgreat disadvantage when the Protestant Biblewas translated. Armed with the Bible in English,the Protestants could quickly turn to itin a dispute and simply read the passage. Theunfortunate Catholic had no English Bible andhad to translate [from the Vulgate] on the spot.Even in teaching their own parishioners, theCatholic priests were handicapped.”—S. Kuboand W. Specht, So Many Versions? p. 53.In previous centuries, the priests merely recountedthe legends and fables of the church forthe hearing of the ignorant. But, now that the Biblewas available in the language of the people—theextent of their ignorance was becoming embarrassing.Something had to be done.William Allen, a leading English Catho-lic, well-aware of the problem, appealed tothe pope for permission, to produce a newtranslation, in English, which the priests coulduse to oppose the Protestants. He wrote this:“Catholics educated in the academies andschools have hardly any knowledge of the Scripturesexcept in Latin. When they are preachingto the unlearned and are obliged on the spur ofthe moment to translate some passage into thevernacular they often do it inaccurately and withunpleasant hesitation because either there isno vernacular version of the words, or it doesnot occur to them at the moment.“Our adversaries, however, have at their fingertips from some heretical version all thosepassages of Scripture which seem to make forthem, and by a certain deceptive adaptation andalteration of the sacred words produce, the ef-115fect of appearing to say nothing but what comesfrom the Bible. This evil might be remedied ifwe too had some Catholic version of the Bible,for all the English versions are most corrupt . .If His Holiness shall judge it expedient, we ourselveswill endeavor to have the Bible faithfully,purely, and genuinely translated according tothe edition approved by the church [Jerome’sVulgate], for we already have men most fittedfor the work.”—William Allen, letter to the pope,quoted in Letters and Memorials of CardinalAllen, pp. 64-65, as quoted in Hugh Pope, EnglishVersions of the Bible, p. 250.There was an urgent need for an Englishtranslation which could twist the Scripturesand add notes which could twist those diffi-cult to change in the text.For example, the Bible speaks of “repentance.”But Catholics do not repent; they only do penance.So Catholic translations were neededwhich carefully make this switch to “penance”in every verse in which “repent” or “repen-tance” would otherwise appear. Very clever?Yes, very clever.In 1568, the same year that the Bishops’Bible came off the press, the Jesuits worked withsome English Catholics who had fled from England—andstarted a English college at Douai,in Flanders. This French city was the seat of auniversity, founded by Philip II of Spain in 1562;and the English college, now part of it, becamethe continental center for the training of Englishagents, spies, teachers, and translators.The founder of this college, William Allen, hadtaught at Oxford and been a canon [high-placedchurch official] under Bloody Queen Mary.Working with the Jesuits, Allen conceivedthe idea of producing an English Bible atDouai, France, which would contain RomanCatholic teachings.The actual translation of the work was carriedon by Gregory Martin, another Oxford graduate.In 1578, warfare erupted partway throughthe New Testament translation, and the en-tire project had to be moved to the city ofRheims, where the New Testament was pub-lished in 1582. It included controversial pro-Catholic and anti-Protestant notes in the margins.In 1593, more political problems causedthe college to move out of Rheims and backto Douai again—where the Old Testament waspublished in 1609-1610.

116 The King James and the Modern VersionsThis is why it is called the Rheims-DouaiBible. (Douai is also spelled “Douay.”)This Bible never sold as well as the Jesuitsplanned, so only three editions of the New Testamentwere printed between 1582 and 1750,and the Old Testament only once.The title page of this Bible said this:“The Holie Bible, Faithfully Translated IntoEnglish Out of the Authentical Latin.”That Latin was, of course, Jerome’s Vulgate.A relatively long Preface at the front apologizedfor the issuing of the Bible, declaring thatit was only being done because there were somany heretical and false versions. To counteractthese menaces to the Church of Rome andto vindicate the good name of Roman Catholicscholarship was given as the reason for the floodof controversial notes throughout the book.The translation is extremely literal, evenwhere the Latin is obscure and confused.The confusion is faithfully carried over into English.This stiff, formal, wooden style was excusedin the Preface:“We presume not in hard places to nullifythe speeches or phrases, but religiously keepthem word for word, and point for point, forfear of missing, or restraining the sense of theHoly Ghost to our fantasy.”This Catholic Bible was heavily worked overabout a century later.“The Rheims-Douai Version was subjectedto notable revision in the eighteenth century byBishop Challoner of London and ArchbishopTroy of Dublin. This and subsequent work wasso far-reaching that it has been at times remarkedwith exaggeration that scarcely a wordof the original translation remains.”—I.M.Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 301.If that is so, as it surely must be, the originalRheims-Douai must have, indeed, been terrible.In order to write the missionary book, The Magnificat,for Roman Catholics, the author foundit necessary to use the Rheims-Douai for thebook’s many Scripture quotations. The currentRheims-Douai is extremely difficult to readand understand, and it surely does containRoman Catholic errors, as the examples be-low will demonstrate:According to the Rheims-Douai, we need toconfess our sins to fellow human beings:“Confess therefore your sins to one another:and pray one for another, that you may besaved.”—James 5:16, Rheims-Douai.All Roman Catholic Bible translations havebeen altered doctrinally. If you are giving Biblestudies to a Catholic, you will need to use one ofthese Bibles. But they are somewhat difficult towork with and are based on a Latin translation(Jerome’s Latin Vulgate), which itself had seriousflaws.One small example is the omission of theending of the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:13.In the margin of older editions of the Rheims-Douai is found a note that the number, , 666,refers to Martin Luther and also to the antichrist,of whom he is the forerunner.Did you know that Catholic teaching aboutMary destroying Satan is written right into theirBible? According to their translation of Genesis3:15, it is Mary who destroys the serpent;she, in turn, is unable to do even the slightestdamage to her immaculate body:“I will put enmities between thee and thewomen, and thy seed and her seed: she shallcrush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait forher heel.”—Genesis 3:15, Rheims-Douai.Consider this strange translation:“Let us all hear together the conclusion ofthe discourse. Fear God, and keep His commandments:for this is all man.”—Ecclesiastes12:13, Rheims-Douai.The following example totally ruins the onlyverse in the Bible which defines sin (GC 493:0)!“Whosoever committeth sin commiteth alsoiniquity; and sin is iniquity.”—1 John 3:4,Rheims-Douai.The translators garbled that wonderful verseinto a tautology: The definition of sin is said tobe sin! I checked on this in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate,and found exactly the same as in the Rheims-Douai.It should be mentioned that, if you will readin the author’s book, The Magnificat, you willoccasionally find the RSV quoted. If you look upeach verse quoted from the RSV in the Rheims-Douai, you will find a problem. At times wequoted the Revised Standard Version because,in the early 1970s, it was officially accepted bythe Vatican as a Bible which faithful Catholicscould read. From what we understand, theyhardly do read it; but the commonality of a singletranslation has simplified post-1965 efforts, byCatholic and Protestant officials, in their ongoingmeetings at Geneva (WCC headquarters), todraw closer together. Much more on joint Catholic-ProtestantBibles later.The book, The Magnificat, deserves wide distributionamong faithful Catholic believers.

The Counter ReformationAll faithful Roman Catholics are required toswear allegience to the pope and the TridentineProfession of Faith (1564) which says, in part:“I acknowlege the sacred Scripture accordingto that sense which Holy Mother Churchhas held and holds, to whom it belongs to decideupon the true sense and interpretation ofthe holy Scriptures, nor will I ever receive andinterpret the Scripture except according to theunanimous consent of the fathers”—quoted inHenry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the ChristianChurch, 2nd ed., p. 375.Yet Roman Catholics are carefully taught toavoid the Bible. It is Mary, the Rosary, the Confessional,and the Mass that are important.Rarely does a Catholic read in any Bible.Those people need our help.About 1582, when this Jesuit New Testamentwas launched to destroy Tyndale’s English Version,the Jesuits dominated 287 colleges anduniversities in Europe.Later in this book we will learn that RomanCatholic Bibles continued to be trans-lated from Jerome’s inferior Latin Vulgate—until the mid-20th century, , when, for the firsttime, one was translated from somethingelse. And what was it translated from? Amodern critical Greek Text. No Catholic Biblehas ever been translated from the MajorityText!We earlier said that three agencies wereused to destroy the Reformation and its fol-lowers: The Jesuits, the decisions of the Councilof Trent, and the production of Catholic Bibleswith their various mistranslations and errors.However, , three centuries after the Refor-mation began, a fourth agency would bestarted: a direct attack on the integrity ofthe text and transmission of the Bible. Atthe beginning of this book, we read aboutthis attack. Then we read about events ofearlier centuries.We will now move past the earlier Refor-mation centuries,—and into centuries closerto our own time.THE JESUIT EFFORTTO REGAIN ENGLANDLet us now turn our attention to the ef-forts of the Jesuits to take over England. Weviewed some of those effects at the beginning ofthis book. It is clear that there was a master-117mind agency behind, what culminated in, theOxford Movement and the work of Westcott andHort. That agency was the Jesuits.We already noted how, just six years after theend of the Council of Trent—in 1569—theVatican agent, William Allen established a collegein Douai (at that time in the Spanish Netherlands).A second school was established inRome ten years later (1579); this one wasfor the training of Jesuit missionaries to Brit-ain.During these training sessions, the agentswere not only taught every lying, diabolical methodwhich the Jesuits could invent, but they werestirred to a heat of anger against the Protestants.Allen speaks:“We make it our first and foremost study . .to stir up in the minds of Catholics . . zeal andjust indignation against the heretics. This wedo by setting before the eyes of the studentsthe exceeding majesty of the ceremonial of theCatholic Church in the place where we live . .“At the same time, we recall the mournfulcontrasts that obtains at home [in England];the utter desolation of all things sacred whichthere exists . . Our friends and kinsfolk, allour dear ones, and countless souls besides, perishingin schism and godlessness; every jail anddungeon filled to overflowing, not with thievesand villains but with Christ’s priests and servants,nay, with our parents and kinsmen.There is nothing, then, that we ought not tosuffer, rather than to look on at the ills thataffect our nation.”—William Allen, quoted inWill Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol. 7, p.20.Temporary confusion reigned when Calvinisttroops besieged and took the town of Douaiin 1578. The Jesuit college managed to carry allits translation work in Rheims until 1593, whena military reversal permitted the school to returnto Douai.By the year 1585, a total of 268 graduateshad secretly infiltrated England (Manschreck,History of Christianity, p. 114).The two leading Jesuit agents were RobertParsons and Edmund Campion who entered Englandin 1580, disguised as English military officers.Their assigned objective was the overthrowof Queen Elizabeth.“Under diverse disguises, they spread fromcounty to county, from country house to castle.In the evening, they would hear confession, inthe morning, they would preach and give communion;then they would disappear as myste-

118 The King James and the Modern Versionsriously as they had arrived.”—Edmund Paris,Secret History of the Jesuits, p. 43.These agents appeared to be working menor tradesmen, anything to hide their iden-tity. . Their many disguises included “the cas-sock of the English clergy” (Green, EnglishPeople, p. 412).A favorite method was this: Bright youngmen, after learning spy methods at a Jesuittraining school, were sent to Oxford or Cambridge,where they graduated into the min-istry or government positions.This method is still used today, throughoutthe Protestant denominations. You can alwaystell when a denomination has been successfullyinfiltrated, and the agents have attained importantpositions: That denomination no longerspeaks negatively about Rome! Even more sinisteris the fact that once Jesuit agents havepenetrated high positions in the colleges andexecutive positions of a church, they are ableto make sure that incoming agents are hiredand rapidly advanced.It has been estimated that Jesuit agentswon over 20,000 converts, within a year af-ter their arrival in England (Durant, Story ofCivilization, Vol. 7, p. 21).Soon the English authorities came upon literatureeverywhere, inciting the people to assassinatethe queen. An intense investigation followed.While Parsons managed to escape to theContinent, Campion was captured and torturedin the Tower in order to obtain names of fellowconspirators. But, good Jesuit that he was, Campiondid not relent. On December 1, 1581, he and14 others were publicly hanged.Desperately determined to reconquer En-gland and return it to the darkness of theDark Ages, Pope Gregory XIII in 1583 andhis counselors devised a plan to invade fromthree sides at once: Ireland, France, and Spain.But British agents discovered the plot andcounter-measures were so well put in place, thatthe scheme was abandoned.The next scheme was under the direc-tion of John Ballard, another Jesuit agent.In 1586 he was arrested for plotting to causea general uprising of England’s Catholics,which would overthrow Queen Elizabeth andbring Mary Stewart of Scotland to the throne.He and 13 others were hanged.Over the next 15 years, 61 priests and 49laymen were hanged for conspiracy against thethrone.When Mary Stuart (Elizabeth’s half-sister)was implicated in the plots in 1587, she wasbeheaded.In the estimation of Pope Sixtus V, that wasthe final straw. Within weeks after Mary’s ex-ecution, he pledged 600,000 gold crowns toPhilip II, if he would invade England with amighty convoy of ships.By this time, William Allen (the one whostarted Douai College) was a cardinal, and hewas ecstatic at the news. Surely, in his words,England’s “usurping heretic” queen would bedeposed and slain.We will not take the space here to describethe preparations, sailing, and battles of the Armada.It is a remarkable story.On the morning of May 29, 1588, over 27,050sailors and soldiers set sail from Lisbon aboardabout 130 ships; each vessel had an averageweight of 445 tons. This was the largest fleet inmaritime history.Before the Armada arrived off the coast ofEngland, Sir Francis Drake assured the queen:“God increase your most excellent Majesty’sforces both by sea and land daily . . for this Isurely think; three was never any force so strongas there is now ready or making ready againstyour Majesty and true religion. But . . the Lordof all strengths is stronger and will defend thetruth of His Word.”—Munro, Fleets Threatening,p. 31.English losses from the sea battle totaled 60men and no ships. Not a single ship received ahole below the waterline.God used the winds to destroy the Spanishfleet; and only 51 ships with 10,000 sur-vivors limped back into Lisbon.By this time, Philip’s kingdom was near bankruptcyand he appealed to the pope to send thepromised 600,000 gold crowns. But the popereplied that he did not need to, since Philip hadnot taken England. Not one gold crown was sentto Philip.With the Armada lost, the Jesuits returnedto their standard methods of takeover: infil-tration of agents. To this, they decided toadd a new feature: Somehow devise a way todestroy the English Bible. Was it not the basisof the hated Protestant faith, the earthly sourceof all their strength?

The Counter Reformation119“It is the same today. The 33,000 official membersof the Society operate all over the world in the capacityof her personnel, officers of a truly secret armycontaining in its ranks heads of political parties, highranking officials, generals, magistrates, physicians,faculty professors, etc.; all of them striving to bringabout, in their own sphere God’s work—in reality, theplans of the papacy.”—Edmond Paris,Secret History of the Jesuits, p. 30

120 The King James and the Modern VersionsTextual Criticism BeginsThe Manuscript Sources Are AttackedTEXTUAL CRITICISMIt is an intriguing fact that textual criti-cism began just before the Armada failed inits mission, to retake England and drive outthe Protestants. Simon’s books came off the pressin 1689 and 1695.When the battered ships returned, the Jesuitsgave even more attention to this new wayto destroy the Book which linked the Englishspeakingworld to heaven.As mentioned near the beginning of this book,the first scholar to apply so-called “scien-tific methods” to the text of the Bible was aCatholic priest, Richard Simon.“Biblical scholar. From 1662 to 1678, he wasa member of the French Oratory . . his HistoireCriticque du Vieux Testament (1678), arguingfrom the existence of duplicate accounts of thesame incident and variations of style, deniedthat Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.He is generally regarded as the founder of OldTestament criticism.”—Concise Oxford Dictionaryof the Christian Church, p. 1277.One of the Catholics who helped get textualcriticism started was Jean Mabillon (1632-1707), which the Oxford Dictionary calls, “themost erudite and discerning of all Maurists” (OxfordDictionary of the Christian Church, p. 853).The Maurists were a Benedictine order.Another Benedictine priest, Bernard de Mont-faucon (1655-1741) published a book, PaleographicGraeca in Paris in 1708, which appliedMabillon’s critical rules in such a way as to downgradeErasmus’ Textus Receptus (the MajorityText in Greek).Jean Astruc (1684-1766) was a Catholic physicianand theologian who decided that two differentmen wrote the Mosaic books. He said thePentateuch had been pieced together from earlierdocuments.The Jesuits were thrilled when a pro-Catholic ascended the English throne in 1642.The flagrant Catholic policies of Charles I(1600-1649) led to a civil war. . On January 30,1649, he was beheaded, and Oliver Cromwelltook control of the government for a numberof years. (Later when another Catholic, CharlesII ascended the throne in 1660, he had OliverCromwell’s body dug up and decapitated.)Having set the science of textual criti-cism upon a solid footing, the Jesuits gainedGerman helpers who carried on the work.The Jesuits had taken time to prepare for this,having early founded the Collegium Germanicumin Rome, to train secret agents who wouldenter Germany and labor there for the pope.Johann Adam Mohler (1796-1838), a Catholicpriest who was professor of history and theologyat Tübingen; and, at Munich, he helped coordinatethe attack on the Bible. (Munich, at thattime, was called the “German Rome.”)We earlier mentioned Semler’s threefoldclassification(1767) of manuscript “families”into Oriental, Western, and Alexandrian; he wasthe first to call these “recensions.”Griesbach, a pupil of Semler’s, continued onwith those theories. He changed the name of theMajority Text readings from “Oriental” to “Constantinopolitan”or “Byzantine.” Griesback suggestedthat the Byzantine [Majority] Text evolvedfrom the other two (Western and Alexandrian).As you will recall, we have already learnedthat the Western text had some strange readingsand came from central Italy; whereas theAlexandrian Text came from Alexandria, Egypt—and represented the type of textual errors foundin the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.You may also recall that Constantine commissionedthe preparation of 50 large Bibles;and they were prepared in Alexandria. It is generallyagreed that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticuswere two of those 50 Bibles. We also discoveredthat, although copied onto very expensive antelopeskin pages, the copyists were remarkably

Textual Criticism Beginscareless in their work. It is believed that a numberof their errors were purposely introduced byOrigen and his associates.(See the earlier chapters for the Sinaiticus,Vaticanus, and the Manuscript Families, for moreon this.)19th-CENTURYCATHOLIC BRITISH PENETRATIONWe essentially covered this earlier, under thesection on the Oxford Movement. But the bareoutlines should be noted once again, since thatwhich happened was so crucial.Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) andFrederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), alongwith John Kebleeble, spearheaded the pro-CatholicOxford Movement (also known as tractarianism,because of the many pro-Catholic tractswritten at the time)—which resulted in a powerfulpenetration of secret Catholic agents into theChurch of England and Oxford and Cambridge,the two leading universities of the nation.Even though he taught auricular confessionand transubstantiation, Pusey, a leading professorat Oxford, was highly regarded by the universityadministration.Why were such men permitted to stay inoffice? The answer is simple: Jesuit penetra-tion had been carried on so successfully forover a century—that there were enough agents,working in key offices, to protect the others!Decades of infiltration were bringing a vic-tory which the pope could not earlier winwith the battleships of Philip II.John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Fred-erich William Faber(1814-1863) greatly aidedthe movement to return England’s leaders toRome.In addition to most of those listed below,all of the above secret Catholics were friendsof Westcott and Hort.Here are seven secret Catholic-English churchmenand / or university professors who helped,through textual criticism theories, to pave theway for a fuller attack on the King James Bible:Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseise-man (1802-1865). He coordinated the variousactivities of the secret pro-Catholics in the Churchof England and in Oxford and Cambridge Universities.Wiseman, himself, was fully dedicatedto the cause of textual criticism.John W. . Colenso (1814-1883). As Bishop of121Natal, he openly questioned the authorship ofthe Pentateuch and Joshua.Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893). A highplacedadministrator at Oxford who, in his article,spiritualized away the Inspiration of Scripture,angered many; but he was not fired. In1871, he also translated the writings of the ancientpagan, Plato.Rowland Williams(1817-1870). This highplacedchurchman was suspended from theministry for a year, because of his articles on Biblicalcriticism. But the pro-Jesuit Committee ofthe Privy Council annulled the sentence in 1864.Henry P. . Liddon (1829-1890). This Oxfordprofessor was a staunch supporter of the menwho were writing the pro-Catholic tracts. Hespent a quarter of a century promoting Catholicdogma in the Church of England.Samuel R. Driver (1846-1914). A leadingBible scholar at Oxford, he was influential in questioningthe Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy.William R. Smith (1846-1894). When he wasfired by a college in Aberdeen, Scotland for denyingthe Inspiration of Scripture, he was immediatelyhired by Cambridge. Smith also advocatedWellhausen’s dangerous theories on thePentateuch.As mentioned earlier, English leaders whowere won to Rome by these men included PrimeMinister William Gladstone (1809-1898), JohnNewman (1801-1890), and Archbishop Rich-ard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886).THE SECRET LIVESOF WESTCOTT AND HORTNear the beginning of this book, we discussedthe terrific impact that Brooke Foss Westcott(1825-1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort(1828-1892) made on all modern Bible translations(English and otherwise).We also discovered that they favored paganwriters (especially Plato), Mormon writings, Catholicism,atheism, and the practice of the cults.They started spiritualist séances at Oxford, whichthey conducted weekly meetings and encouragedstudents and professors to attend.Here is a brief chronological overview of events.Anyone reading it can see that Satan guided inthe preparation of their Greek Text—which hasbecome the basis for the Nestle Text and allmodern Bible translations.(“Wescott” stands for the book, Life and Lettersof B.F. Westcott, edited by his son, 2 vols.,

122 The King James and the Modern Versions1903. “Hort” stands for Life and Letters of F.J.A.Hort, edited by his son (Arthur F. Hort), 2 vols.,1896.)1840 “He took a strange interest in Mormonism. . procuring and studying the Book of Mormon.”—Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 19.1842 “In the evening I go with Tom to thewizard; but he does not dare perform beforeus.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 9.1845 Westcott, Hort, and Benson started theHermes Club on the campus of Oxford University.1846 “His diary tells of a walk to Girton withC.B. Scott, in which metaphysics was discussed.”—Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 42.Refers to missionary-minded Christians as“dangerous” and “unsound” (Westcott, Vol. 1,pp. 44-45).“New doubts and old superstitions and rationalismall trouble me . . I cannot determinehow much we must believe, how much in factis necessarily required of a member of thechurch.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, pp. 46-47.1847 “So wild, so skeptical am I; I cannotyield.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 52.“Referring to heretic Dr. Hampden, he says,If he be condemned, what will become of me?”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 52.1848 Hort mentions the “fanaticism of bibliolaters.”“The pure Romish view seems to me nearerand more likely to lead to truth than the Evangelical.”—Hort,Vol. 1, pp. 76-77.“Protestantism is only parenthetical andtemporary; it will pass away.”—Hort, Vol. 2, p.31.1850 “I spoke of the gloomy prospect shouldthe Evangelicals carry on their present victory.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 160.Westcott was “troubled about this passage”[blasphemy against the Holy Spirit] (Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 109).1851 Hort joined the Philosophical Society.“Maurice urged me to give the greatest attentionto Plato and Aristotle and to make this the centerpoint of my reading.”—Hort, Vol. 1, pp. 202,93.Hort speaks of “the common orthodox heresy:Inspiration [of the Bible].” (Hort, Vol. 1, p.181).Westcott and Hort started the Ghostly Guild(weekly meetings for spiritualistic séances).Westcott was ordained a priest in the AnglicanChurch.1852 Hort became a fellow at Cambridge.Westcott became a teacher at Harrow.Westcott and Hort distributed Ghostly Guildliterature, to encourage others to begin attending.Hort and Westcott began work on their Greektext (which was published in 1881).Referring to the Majority Text in Greek, thencurrently in use, Westcott says, “I am most anxiousto provide something to replace them.” Admittingthat he was planning drastic changes inthe text, he called it “our proposed recension ofthe New Testament” (Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 229).1853 Hort “was diligently preparing for hisordination” into the Anglican priesthood.“It was during these weeks with Mr. Westcott,who had come to see him [Hort] at Umberslacle,that the plan of a joint revision of the text of theGreek Testament was first definitely agreed upon.”—Hort,Vol. 1, p. 240.Westcott then contacted others and, “aboutthis time, Mr. Daniel Macmillan suggested to him[Hort] that he should take part in an interestingand comprehensive New Testament Scheme.Hort was to edit the text in conjuction with Mr.Westcott, the latter was to be responsible for acommentary, and Lightfoot was to contribute aNew Testament Grammar and Lexicon.”—Hort,Vol. 1, p. 241.“We came to a distinct and positive understandingabout our Greek Text and the detailsthereof. We still do not wish to be talked about,but are going to work at once and hope we mayhave it out in a little more than a year. This, ofcourse, gives good employment.”—Hort, Vol. 1,p. 264.1855 “How certainly I should have been proclaimeda heretic.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 233.1856 “Campbell’s book on the atonement . .unluckily, he knows nothing except Protestanttheology.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 322.“I hope to go on with the New Testament Textmore unremittingly.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 355.1857 Hort became a full professor at Cambridge.“I am just now chiefly occupied about a proposedCambridge translation of the whole ofPlato . . another scheme likely to be carriedout, if a publisher can be found.”—Hort, p. 349.1858 “Without doubt there was an elementof mystery in Westcott. He took his turn preachingin chapel, but he dreaded and disliked theduty and he was quite inaudible.”—Westcott, Vol.

Textual Criticism Begins1, p. 198.“The principle literary work of these yearswas the revision of the Greek Text of the NewTestament. All spare hours were devoted to it. . Evangelicals seem to me perverted . . Thereare, I fear, still more serious differences betweenus on the subject of authority, especially theauthority of the Bible.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 400.1859 “My dear Lightfoot, thank you verymuch for your kind present. But why did yousend beer instead of coming yourself?”—Hort,Vol. 1, p. 403.1860 “We avoid giving grave offense to themiscalled orthodoxy of the day.”—Hort, Vol. 1,p. 421.“If you make a decided conviction of the absoluteinfallibility of the New Testament a sinequa non [without exception] for cooperation, Ifear I could not join you.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 420.“My doubts about infallibility remain.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 422.“I reject the word ‘infallibility’ of Holy Scripturesoverwhelmingly.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p.207.“I am glad that you take the same provisionalground as to infallibility that I do.”—Hort’s letterto Lightfoot; Hort, Vol. 1, p. 424.1861 “This may sound cowardice: I havesort of a craving that our text should be castupon the world before we deal with matters likelyto brand us with suspicion. I mean, a text issuedby men who are already known for whatwill undoubtedly be treated as dangerous heresywill have great difficulty in finding its way toregions when it might otherwise hope to reachand whence it would not be easily banished bysubsequent alarms.”—Hort’s letter to Westcott;Hort, Vol. 1, p. 445.1862 “English clergy are not compelled tomaintain the absolute infallibility of the Bible.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 454.1864 “Westcott talks of our keeping pacewith the printers.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 461.1865 “The idea of [Mary’s appearance at]La Salett was that of God revealing Himself now,not in one form, but in many.”—Westcott, Vol. 1,p. 251. [Westcott visited a Catholic shrine inEurope and was thrilled by it.]1866 “All the questionable doctrines whichI have ever maintained are in it.”—Westcott, Vol.1, p. 290.1869 Westcott became a canon at PeterboroughCathedral.1870 Westcott became Professor of Divinity123at Cambridge.“Dr. Butler calls him [Westcott] mysterious. . His voice from the pulpit reached but a fewand was understood by still fewer.”—Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 272.“Dr. Westcott and myself have for about seventeenyears been preparing a Greek text . . Wehope to have it out early next year.”—Hort, Vol.2, p. 137.“Much evil would result from the public discussionof our beliefs.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p.229.1871 “I shall aim at what is transcendentalin many people’s eyes . . I suppose I am a communistby nature.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 309.Westcott, Hort, and Bishop Lightfoot (noneof whom believed in Biblical Inspiration) wereinvited to join the Revision Committee of the NewTestament.“Westcott believes we ought to seize the opportunity,especially since we three are on thelist.”—Hort, Vol. 2, p. 133.(Westcott, Hort, and Lightfoot are the “wethree” in the Ghostly Guild.)Work on the New Testament Revision Committeebegan, and continued until 1881, whenthe English Revised Version (ERV, originallyknown as the RV) was printed.1872 Westcott, Hort, and Bishop Lightfootbegan the Eranus Club. Sidgwick and Balfoursoon started the Society for Psychical Researchand also join it.1873 “Truth is so wonderfully large.”—Westcott,Vol. 1, p. 333.1877 Eranus club members continued theirmeetings, but in Hort’s quarters.1881 “Our Bible, as well as our faith, is amere compromise.”—Westcott, On the Canon ofthe New Testament: A General Survey, p. vii.“The work which has gone on now for nearly30 years was brought to a conclusion.”—Hort,Vol. 2, p. 234 [speaking of their joint effort tochange the Bible].The Revised Version, based on the Westcott-Hort Text and the “new Greek” of Sinaiticus andVaticanus was published.1882 “The truth seems to me to be so overwhelminglyvast and manifold that I shrink fromdrawing any outline except provisionally,”—Westcott,Vol. 2, p. 36.1889 “Life and truth grow more and moremysterious.”—Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 61.1890 Westcott became Bishop of Durham.1891 At this juncture, without much else to

124 The King James and the Modern Versionsdo, and no religious faith, Westcott become a beersot.1893 “He sometimes with much seriousnessprofessed to be much drawn to beer.”—Westcott,Vol. 2, p. 178 (son speaking).“ ‘His zeal in the cause of pure beer involvedhim in a correspondence which was publishedin the newspapers in the later part of 1893;and his picture, together with some of the followingwords spoken by him, was utilized forthe adornment of the advertisement of a brewerof pure beer’ (statement by son). ‘My idea isthat they might have a public house in whichgood beer alone would be sold . . I considerpure beer . . to be an innocent and wholesomebeverage . . Substitutes for malt . . is not whatthe purchaser demands nor expects.’ ”—Westcott,Vol. 2, pp. 218-219; including Westcott’sletter to the Brewer’s Society, in asking thatinferior beer not be made.1896 “The prohibitionists [who want to banalcoholic beverages] once more showed themselvesto be unstatesmanlike.”—Westcott, Vol.2, p. 238.1899 “But from my Cambridge days, I haveread the writings of many who are called mysticswith much profit.”—Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 309.It is an interesting fact that these two spiritualists,who secretly admired Catholicism andcommunism, liked those groups also hated democracyand America.“I cannot say that I see much as yet to softenmy deep hatred of democracy in all its forms.”—Hort, Vol. 2, p. 34.“The American empire is a standing menaceto the whole civilization of Europe . . It cannotbe wrong to desire and pray from the bottom ofone’s heart that the American Union [U.S.A.]may be shivered to pieces.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p.459.THE WESTCOTT-HORT THEORYPrice, of the University of Chicago, sum-marizes the influence of Westcott and Horton the modern Biblical world:“The final blow was administered to theTextus Receptus [Majority Text] by the work ofthe British scholars, Dr. F.J.A. Hort and BishopB.F. Westcott. The two collaborated in the productof a text and in the elaboration of a theoryof criticism which has had an enormous influencefrom that day to this. Building upon theachievements of the scholars whom we have noticed,they brought out in 1881-1882 a twovolumeedition of text (without critical apparatus[i.e. without variant passage footnotes]) andmethod which was some thirty years in preparationand has become a sort of watershed inthe history of the textual criticism of the NewTestament.”—Ira Maurice Price, Ancestry ofOur English Bible, p. 208.Although Westcott and Hort worked ontheir Greek Text off and on for three decades,it was Hort who developed the theory under-lying it. For this reason, all textual scholarscall it the “Hort theory.”What the two men lacked in knowledge, theymade up in prejudice.“I had no idea till the last few weeks of theimportance of texts, having read so little GreekTestament, and dragged on with the villainousTextus Receptus [Majority Text] . . Think of thatvile Textus Receptus leaning entirely on latemanuscripts; it is a blessing there are suchearly ones.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 211.Early in these pages we have clearly demonstratedthe fact that the Majority Text, upon whichthe King James Bible is founded, represents theearliest Greek manuscripts. But Westcott andHort were ignorant both of church history andthe transmission of the Greek text.Speaking about the King James Bible, Westcottsaid:“I feel most keenly the disgrace of circulatingwhat I feel to be falsified copies of the Holy Scripture.”—Westcott,Vol. 1, pp. 228-229.Westcott was not one to read much in theBible, any Bible. He was too busy imbibing thesentiments of spirits at his weekly séances. Itwas the demons who felt disgraced by the widespreadcirculation of the Majority Text in English—theKing James Bible.The ghosts at their guild counseled Westcottand Hort to keep secret their project to changethe text of the Bible, until they could carry it out.“We came to a distinct and positive understandingabout our Greek Text, and the detailsthereof. We still do not wish it to be talkedabout.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 264.At a later time, Hort wrote this. Read itslowly, , for it is a very important statement,describing the conspiracy in which many wereinvolved, to overthrow the King James Bible:“The errors and prejudices, which we agreein wishing to remove, can surely be more wholesomelyand also more effectually reached by individualefforts of an indirect kind than by combinedopen assault. At present, very many orthodoxbut rational men are being unawaresacted on by influences which will assuredly bear

Textual Criticism Beginsgood fruit in due time, if the process is allowedto go on quietly; but I cannot help fearing that apremature crisis would frighten back many.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 400.By 1861, as they continued work on theirGreek Text, Westcott and Hort questioned whetherto publish some of their heresies in the liberaljournal, Essays and Reviews. They finally decidedthat the reaction would injure the credibilityof their Greek New Testament, when it wasfinally published. Recognizing that, if they reallytold the public what they believed, the Christianpublic would totally reject any of their later accomplishments,Hort wrote this to Westcott:“Also—but this may be cowardice—I have asort of craving that our text should be cast uponthe world before we deal with matters likely tobrand us with suspicion. I mean, a text, issuedby men already known for what will undoubtedlybe treated as dangerous heresy, willhave great difficulties in finding its way to regionswhich it might otherwise hope to reach,and whence it would not be easily banished bysubsequent alarms.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 445.Hort had demonic intelligence available tohim. He said it right: Once the Westcott-HortText and Hort’s textual theory was accepted—itwould become extremely difficult, in spite ofalarms, to dislodge it.As mentioned earlier, , their Greek Textwas basically the Vaticanus, plus the Sinai-ticus and sometimes other manuscripts, whenthey agreed with the two codices.The two men had a special reason for lik-ing those two manuscripts—for both wereproduced in Alexandria, Egypt, the home ofthe heretics, Clement of Alexandria and Ori-gen. Westcott and Hort had carefully studied theheresies of those men and liked them. ArthurWestcott wrote this:“My father’s promised contributions, however,were completed; the most important beinghis articles on the Alexandrian divines, includingClement, Demetrius, Dionysius, andgreatest of all, Origen. For many years the worksof Origen were close to his hand, and he continuallyturned to them at every opportunity.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, pp. 319-320.In the thinking of those secret heretics, “Whybother to read the Bible, when you can fill yourmind with Origen?” Hort even translated the“Candlelight Hymn” of the corrupt AlexandrianChurch. (Rome got its love of burning candles fromthe Alexandrian church, which in turn inherited125it from the Egyptian worship of the Queen ofheaven and her infant god-son, Horus.)Here, in succinct form, is a statement ofthe Hort theory, , on which all modern Bibletranslations are founded:“The ‘Neutral’ text, as the name implies, wasconsidered by Hort to be the purest extant form.It was thought to be entirely free from corruptionand mixture with other texts and to representthe nearest approach to the New Testamentautographs. Its best representative wasCodex Vaticanus, and its second best, Sinaiticus.These two codices were thought to bederived independently from a common original,at no great distance from the autographs.“When their [Sinaiticus and Vaticanus] readingsagreed, the evidence for Westcott and Hortwas generally conclusive against overwhelmingnumerical evidence of later witnesses, unlessinternal testimony contradicted . . In general,readings unknown to the Neutral, Alexandrian,or Western texts [manuscript families] were tobe rejected as ‘Syrian’ [the Majority Text, whichwas always rejected], and no reading from theWestern or Alexandrian was to be admitted withoutsome support from the Neutral . . We mayadd that, among the church “fathers” such Neutralelements were considered to be most numerousin Origen, Didymus, Cyril of Alexandria,and Eusebius; and, among the versions[translations into other languages], in the Coptic[Egyptian].”—I.M. Price, Ancestry of Our EnglishBible, p. 209.Notice in the above statement, that the manuscripts,commentators (“fathers”), and trans-lations considered closest to the “Neutral,”were those in Alexandria, Egypt—from whencecame the most unorthodox, heretical teachingsin all Christendom at that time (4th cen-tury A.D.).In spite of the fact that there were over 3,000disagreements between the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus,the Westcott-Hort Text did not need the30 years to prepare, which those two men putinto it. It was actually a mechanical, lazy text.Here is how Westcott and Hort preparedtheir Greek Text:First, they took the VaticanusText and underlined everything which was essentiallythe same in the Sinaiticus. That wasthe basic text. No alternative readings were permittedto have any weight, unless they concernedthose instances which were not underlined: placeswhere the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus disagreed.When that happened, the only readings consideredworthy of acceptance were other Neutral

126 The King James and the Modern Versions(Vaticanus-Sinaiticus-like), Alexandrian (anythingelse which sounded like Clement orOrigen), or Western (anything obviously comingfrom the city of Rome). The Syrian (Majority Text)manuscripts were flatly and totally rejected. If aquestion still existed, the comments of the church“fathers” living in Alexandria had preference!Did I overstate the case? No! Read again theabove quotation from Ira Maurice Price, Ancestryof Our English Bible, p. 209. Late professorof Semitic Languages at the University of Chicago,he represented the highest level of modern20th-century textual crticism and clearly explainedthe modern viewpoint on such matters.It was fortunate for Wescott and Hort thatthey had such a simple, mechanical way toconstruct their Greek text, because they spentso much of their time talking to ghosts in theirclub, writing skeptical letters, visiting shrinesof the Virgin, studying Origen and Plato (whosewritings Origen also valued), grumbling aboutdemocracy, , praising communism, complainingabout the teachings of Christians, or drinkingbeer.THE REVISION COMMITTEEIS APPOINTEDBy 1870, the Oxford Movement had doneits work well; and a skeptical, semi-CathoCatho-lic, liberal hierarchy were fast gaining the as-cendency in the Church of England and atOxford and Cambridge.It was no accident that Anglican Church leadersdecided to form a committee, to revise theBible—at the very time that the Westcott-HortGreek Text was being completed.“In 1870, the Convention of the Church ofEngland commissioned a revision of the Authorized[King James] Version. A gleam of hopeshone in the eye of every Roman Catholic in Englandand the continent. An eager anticipationfilled every Jesuit-inspired, Protestant scholarin England. Although it was meant to correct afew supposed ‘errors’ in the Authorized Version,the textual critics of the day assured themselvesthat they would never again have to submitto the Divine authority of the Universal[Majority] Text.”—Samuel C. Gipp, An UnderstandableHistory of the English Bible, p. 162.However, , the liberals were not quite intotal control yet. Fearing that liberals mighttake over the committee, formal resolutions werepassed by the Church of England’s SouthernConvocation on February 10, May 3 and 5,1870, which, in the strongest language, limitedthe activities of the committee to revising only“plain and clear errors” (John William Burgon,The Revision Revised, p. 3).In spite of the modernism and pro-Catholicismcreeping into the Church of England, itsleaders still hesitated to make major changes inthe King James Version. The fact that the com-mittee they appointed flagrantly violated thatdirective, and did so anyway, , was due to theinfluence of three men: Hort, Westcott, andBishop Lightfoot, plus help from a fourth: aman named Smith.Ninety-nine men were invited to join the committee,of whom 49 were Anglican clergymen.One of the other 50 was a V. Smith, pastor of St.Stephen’s Gate Unitarian Church. Learning thata man who totally denied the divinity of Christwas on the committee, several thousand Anglicanpastors affixed their signatures to a solemnprotest, which caused the Upper House of Parliamentto pass a resolution that Smith shouldbe removed from the committee.But Westcott declared that he would leavethe committee if Smith was forced out. So Smithwas kept on the committee. It is for such reasonsthat, when the English Revised Version wasprinted in 1881, 1 Timothy 3:16 was changedfrom “God was manifest in the flesh” to “whowas manifest in the flesh.”Smith later commented on that passage,noting that a mythology had arisen after thedeath of Christ; that He was divine when, inSmith’s opinion, that was not true.“The old reading is pronounced untenableby the revisers, as it has long been known to beby all careful students of the New Testament . .It is in truth another example of the facility withwhich ancient copiers could introduce the word‘God’ into their manuscripts,—a reading whichwas the natural result of the growing tendencyin early Christian times . . to look upon thehumble teacher as the incarnate Word, andtherefore as ‘God manifest in the flesh.’ ”—Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 515.THE REVISION COMMITTEECONDUCTS ITS WORKBishop Charles Ellicott, committee chair-man, frequently expressed his deep concernthat the British nation did not have enoughqualified scholars and knowledge of the an-

Textual Criticism Beginscient languages, to adequately revise theBible.In addition, he repeatedly told the com-mittee that it should only attempt a veryfew changes.Ellicott wrote this before the committee wasappointed:“It is my honest conviction that for an authoritativerevision, we are not yet mature; eitherin Biblical learning or Hellenistic [Greek]scholarship. There is good scholarship in thiscountry . . but it has certainly not yet been sufficientlydirected to the study of the New Testament. . to render any national attempt at revisioneither hopeful or lastingly profitable.”—Burgon, Revision Revised, p. xiii.Ellicott warned the committee when it wasfirst convened:“What course would revisers have us to follow?. . Would it be well for them to agree on aCritical Greek Text? To this question we ventureto answer very hesitatingly in the negative. . We have certainly not yet acquired sufficientcritical judgment for any body of revisers hopefullyto undertake such a work as this . . Nothingis more satisfactory at the present time thanthe evident feelings of veneration for our AuthorizedVersion, and the very generally felt desirefor as little change as possible.”—Burgon,Revision Revised, pp. 368-369.He also told the convocation of the committeein February of that year (1870): “We may besatisfied with the attempt to correct plain andclear errors, but there it is our duty to stop” (op.cit., p. 368).That rule was officially adopted by the committee.Another rule was this:“The condition was enjoined upon them thatwhenever ‘decidedly preponderating evidenceconstrained their adoption of some change inthe Text from the Authorized Version was made,’they should indicate such alteration in the margin.”—Ibid.But two other decisions were also made—which destroyed the efforts of Ellicott to keepthe committee from gutting the King JamesBible.This was the first:“Each member of the Company had been suppliedwith a private copy of Westcott and Hort’s[Greek] Text, but the Company did not, of course,in any way bind itself to accept their conclusions.”—Hort,Vol. 2, p. 237.And the second was this: Although the astonishedparticipants were not bound “to accept127their conclusions” (ten years of intimidation byHort would take care of that); they were obligatedto a vow of secrecy that they possessedand were going to use the Westcott and HortGreek Text. The devils, talking to Westcott andHort in their weekly séances all through thoseyears, guided them in what to do and say at thecommittee meetings, so as to ram through theirerroneous theories and readings.“When the English New Testament Committeemet, it was immediately apparent what wasgoing to happen. Though for ten long years theiron rule of silence kept the public ignorant ofwhat was going on behind closed doors, thestory is now known.”—D.O. Fuller, WhichBible? p. 290.Yes, now known, but only after the damagehas been done.Westcott and Hort purposely did not printtheir new Greek Text until May 12, 1870, onlyfive days before the committee began its work.Then it was secretly handed to the committeemembers and they were vowed to secrecy.The diabolical subtlety of Westcott andHort’s planning was remarkable. A super in-telligence was at work.The two men planned a takeover of thecommittee proceedings.“The rules though liberal are vague, and theinterpretation of them will depend upon actionat the first.”—Hort, quoted in Fuller, p. 290.We earlier learned that Bishop Lightfootwas a skeptic and close friend to Westcottand Hort. The two men felt confident that,with Lightfoot’s help, they could control themeetings.Who was Lightfoot? Here is a little backgroundon this man, whom we earlier found toalso be a secret skeptic that Westcott and Hortwrote many letters to. (He is the one, you willrecall, who sent the beer instead of coming himself.)Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889) attendedTrinity College, Cambridge, where he wasa private pupil of Westcott. He afterward movedup through the ranks and became a professorat Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1857 and taughtsome Greek and Hebrew. In 1871, he was appointeda Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral; and in1875, he became a divinity professor at Cambridge.From 1870 to 1880 he was a leadingmember of the New Testament revision committee.In 1879, he was made Bishop of Durham.

128 The King James and the Modern VersionsAs noted above, Westcott felt that, with thehelp of Lightfoot who was quite influential, thethree of them could change the objective of thecommittee. Writing to Hort, he said:“Your note came with one from Ellicott thismorning . . Though I think that Convocation[the committee] is not competent to initiate sucha measure, yet I feel that as ‘we three’ are togetherit would be wrong not to ‘make the bestof it’ as Lightfoot first says . . There is somehope that alternative readings might find a placein the margin.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 390.Continually pushing to have their way, theyultimately brought the alternative readingsright into the text and crowded out the KingJames readings.Beginning with the first one, before each crucialmeeting of the committee, the three met forconsultation.“Ought we not to have a conference beforethe first meeting for Revision? There are manypoints on which it is important that we shouldbe agreed.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 396.As usual, Hort led out in the plotting.Incredibly, before long, he actually talked Ellicottinto acceding to their plan for a more thoroughrevision!“The Bishop of Gloucester [Ellicott] seemsto me to be quite capable of accepting heartilyand adopting personally a thorough scheme.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p. 393.The word, “scheme,” was the code word theyhad used for several years, to describe their planto replace the King James Bible. Hort was anexpert at using Jesuit approaches to obtainingwhat he wanted. He wrote, “I am rather in favorof indirect dealing” (Hort, quoted in Fuller, WhichBible? p. 282).But the scholars of England were not qualifiednor skilled in how to carry out such a completerevision. Burgon explained the problem:“It can never be any question among scholarsthat a fatal error was committed when abody of divines, appointed to revise the AuthorizedEnglish Version of the New TestamentScriptures, addressed themselves to the solutionof an entirely different and far more intricateproblem, namely the reconstruction of theGreek Text.”—Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 6.At this juncture, we should identify twoother important people at that time.The first was Scrivener:Frederick Henry A. Scrivener (1813-1891).Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he wasone of the very few English experts in Greekmanuscripts in the late 19th century.“He made a very comprehensive study of thetext of the New Testament, publishing collationsand detailed descriptions of a large numberof (especially minuscule) manuscripts,some of them hitherto unexamined. His PlainIntroduction to the Criticism of the New Testament,of which the first edition appeared in1861 (listing some 1,170 manuscripts), andthe fourth (posthumous, ed. by E. Miller) in1894 (listing over 3,000) is still a valuable bookof reference, despite the attempt made in it todefend the Textus Receptus [Majority Text].”—Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p.1253.The other was Burgon:John William Burgon (1813-1888) was educatedat Worcester College, Oxford, and became,along with Scrivener, one of the most forceful opponentsof the efforts of Westcott and Hort toruin the King James Version. They were heroesof God at the time of a great crisis. The crisiscontinues; who will stand in defense of the KingJames today, as they did back then?“He was an old-fashioned High Churchmanwho was famous for his support of a long seriesof lost causes . . He was also a strenuousupholder of the Textus Receptus of the New Testament,publishing in 1871 The Last TwelveVerses of the Gospel according to St. Mark Vindicated,and in 1883 The Revision Revised.Two further works were published posthumously.”—OxfordDictionary of the ChristianChurch, p. 211.To put it bluntly, Burgon was a pain in theneck to the liberals of his day. He had a re-markably brilliant mind and a firm devotionto the King James Bible. He also knew theGreek manuscripts well enough to preparedevastating attacks on the decisions of therevision committee and the resultant EnglishRevised Version(1881). He is frequently called“Dean Burgon,” since he was the dean of a schoolduring the closing years of his life.His posthumous book, The Traditional Textof the Holy Gospels, Vindicated and Established,was edited by Edward Miller (1896) andpublished eight years after his death.(Miller was also a Greek expert and posthumouseditor of the fourth edition of Scrivener’sPlain Introduction.)If it were not for Scrivener, , Burgon, andMiller, , the history of what happened backthen would have been totally covered over

Textual Criticism Beginsand lost to us.Scrivener was the most competent NewTestament scholar on the revision commit-tee. Neither Burgon nor Miller were permittedto be on that committee; but, as soon as the revisedversion was published, Burgon studied itand learned from Scrivener exactly what hadtaken place in those secret sessions.As for Westcott and Hort, Westcott tendedto take a backseat in the meetings and letHort, who was fiercely contentious for the ac-ceptance of his ideas, push everyone in thecommittee around. In strong contrast, Scriv-ener became the chief spokesman for theminority party in the sessions.Committee meetings became a war betweenHort and Scrivener. Scrivener would arrive at ameeting with detailed and organized material,showing that the King James text was correctand should be left as it was.Hort arrived with, what he called his “eclecticmethod,” which amounted to little more thanwhims, imaginings, and personal caprice. Hortfrequently said he was “feeling his way through”the data, and heavily relying on what he called“internal evidence.”Whereas Scrivener presented facts fromthe manuscripts, Hort came with hunchesand theories about what the original New Testamentwriters must have meant and how thecopyists were likely to have changed the originalwords to make them agree with “myths.”Hort described the method, as taught himby his father:“The obvious method of deciding betweenvariant readings, is for the critic to ask whichthe author is most likely to have written, andto settle the question by the light of his owninner consciousness.”—Hort, Vol. 2, p. 248.Of course, Hort’s ghosts gave him plenty of“inner consciousness.” Burgon explains:“The only indication we anywhere meet of theactual ground of Dr. Hort’s certainty, and reasonof his preference, is contained in his claimthat, ‘every binary group [of manuscripts] containing[the readings of] B [Vaticanus] is foundto offer a large proportion of readings, which,on the closest scrutiny, have the ring of genuineness;while it is difficult to find any readingsso attested which look suspicious afterfull consideration.’ ”—Burgon, Revision Revised,p. 307.How is that for making hunches into a science?Hort contended that he could always iden-129tify the correct reading because it had the “ringof genuineness.” I surely would not wish toentrust my copy of the New Testament tothe imagination of a man who visited pri-vately with devils, loved pagan authors, de-tested Biblical Inspiration, and wished hecould join the Catholic Church.“And thus we have, at last, an honest confessionof the ultimate principle which has determinedthe Text of the present edition of theNew Testament: ‘The ring of genuiness’ . .“Thus, behold, at last we have reached thegoal! . . Individual idiosyncrasy,—not externalevidence. Readings ‘strongly preferred,’ not readingsstrongly attested. ‘Personal discernment’(self! still self!) conscientiously exercising itselfupon Codex B [Vaticanus]; this is the trueaccount of the critical method pursued by theseaccomplished scholars.“They deliberately claim ‘personal discernment’as ‘the surest ground for confidence.’ Accordingly,they judge of readings by their looksand by their sound. When, in their opinion,words ‘look suspicious,’ words are to be rejected.”—Burgon,Revision Revised, pp. 307-308.As the committee meetings wore on, monthafter month, year after year, the pressure wasintense on Scrivener to just give up and quit thecommittee. With the passing of time, with thehelp of Westcott and Lightfoot, more and moreof the committee came under the control of thedomineering Hort.Hort would talk and talk and talk, until hegot his way. Whereas, Scrivener had manuscriptevidence, Hort had talk. He overwhelmed ev-eryone with it.“Nor is it difficult to understand that manyof their less resolute and decided colleaguesmust often have been completely carried off theirfeet by the persuasiveness and resourcefulnessand zeal of Hort, backed by the great prestigeof Lightfoot, the popular Canon of St. Paul’s,and the quiet determination of Westcott, whoset his face as a flint. In fact, it can hardly bedoubted that Hort’s was the strongest will ofthe whole Company, and his adroitness in debatewas only equaled by his pertinacity.”—Hemphill, quoted in Fuller, Which Bible? p.291.One unnamed detractor, quoted by Hort’sson, calculated that “Dr. Hort talked for threeyears out of the ten” (Hort, Vol. 2, p. 236)!On May 24, 1871, Westcott wrote to his wife:“We have had hard fighting during these last

130 The King James and the Modern Versionstwo days, and a battle-royal is announced fortomorrow.”—Westcott, Vol. 1, p. 396.Here is a profound statement—especially thefinal paragraph:“This was the mode: A passage being underconsideration, the chairman asks, ‘Are any textualchanges proposed?’ If a change can be proposedthen ‘the evidence for and against isbriefly stated.’ This is done by ‘two membersof the company: Dr. Scrivener and Dr. Hort.’And if those two members disagree: ‘The voteof the company is taken, and the proposed readingaccepted or rejected. The text being thussettled, the chairman asks for proposals onthe rendering [how the Greek will be translated].“Thus it appears that there was no attemptwhatever on the part of the revisionists to examinethe evidence bearing upon the many disputedreadings [they did not look at what themanuscripts said]. They only listened to theviews of two of their number.”—Philip Mauro,quoted in D.O. Fuller, True of False? p. 93.Instead of nobly standing in defense ofGod’s Word, most of the committee membersmeekly kept quiet or quit the commit-tee. Dr. Newth said that Hort’s overbearing mannercaused 88 percent of the members to quit(Newth, quoted in Hort, Vol. 2, p. 236).“The average attendance was not so many assixteen, concerning whom, moreover, the facthas transpired that some of the most judiciousof their number often declined to give any voteat all.”—Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 109.Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford andan extremely influential man, resigned his positionon the committee as its original chairmanafter the first meeting; he bemoaned afterwardto a friend, “What can be done in this most miserablebusiness” (Wilberforce, quoted in Fuller,Which Bible? p. 291)? Much could have beendone in defense of the Majority Text, but far toomany men preferred peace in their time.It is clear that godly men could have de-feated this nefarious work, but they remainedsilent or stood aside. Similar things are beingdone today in our own denomination. A fewspeak up and are branded as “troublemakers”while far too many run for cover.THE ENGLISH REVISED VERSION(1881, 1885)On May 17, 1881, the long-awaited NewTestament portion of the Revised Version waspublished. The Old Testament was completedin 1885. The entire Bible later became knownas the English Revised Version (ERV). (At thattime, it was called the Revised Version orRV.)Dean Burgon immediately applied his bril-liant mind to analyzing the ERV. Then hewrote a series of three scholarly articles, the firstof which appeared in the October 1881 issue ofthe Quarterly Review. These, along with his150-page open letter of protest to the turncoat,Bishop Ellicott, totaled 500 pages.Frederick Scrivener also set to work andwrote a book, his massive protest, A Plain Introductionto the Criticism of the New Testament(1883). The first edition of that work totaled506 pages, the second had 920 pages.There are two remarkable things about thosebooks: (1) They are so competently done andtheir conclusions so obviously right. (2) All thechurchmen and scholars of the day were toosleepyheaded to unite with Burgon and Scrivenerin defense of the King James.Keep in mind that, at this same time, thegreat evil of Darwin’s evolutionary theories werealso taking control of the intellectual world. Satanwas desperately at work, seeking to over-power every aspect of the modern world—forhe knew that Christ had entered the SecondApartment of the Sanctuary above and theend of time was nearing.At the very beginning of his book, RevisionRevised, Burgon listed the four summary problems,cited by Scrivener, against the “system” onwhich Westcott and Hort had made their changesin the Bible. These points were also noted in Scrivener’sPlain Introduction.“1. There is little hope for the stability oftheir imposing structure, if its foundations havebeen laid on the sandy ground of ingenious conjecture.And, since barely the smallest vestigeof historical evidence has ever been alleged insupport of the views of these accomplished editors[Westcott and Hort], their teaching musteither be received as intuitively true or dismissedfrom our consideration as precarious and evenvisionary.“2. Dr. Hort’s System is entirely destitute ofhistorical foundation.“3. We are compelled to repeat as emphaticallyas ever our strong conviction that the Hypothesisto whose proof he has devoted so manylaborious years, is destitute not only of historicalfoundation, but of all probability, result-

Textual Criticism Beginsing from the internal goodness of the text whichits adoption would force upon us.“4. ‘We cannot doubt’ (says Dr. Hort) ‘thatSt. Luke 23:34 comes from an extraneoussource,’ (Notes, p. 68). Nor can we, on our part,doubt [replies Scrivener] that the System whichentails such consequences is hopelessly self-condemned.”—Burgon,Revision Revised, p. iv.This is the Bible verse that Hort has arbitrarilydecided needs to be removed from yourBible:“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them forthey know not what they do, and they partedHis raiment, and cast lots.”—Luke 23:34.The revision committee violated the ruleswhich had been assigned them. Rule Fourstipulated that they must list all changes in themargin. This they did not do. Rule One was thatthey were not to make any but the most necessarychanges.Scrivener found that the underlying Greekof Erasmus’ Greek Text (the Textus Receptus)had been changed by the Westcott and HortText in approximately 5,337 instances.(We will later learn that the Nestle Text, basedon the Westcott-Hort Text, has 5,604 alterationsfrom the Majority Text.)As for the English Revised Versionersion, it con-tained 36,191 changes in the text, from theKing James (Miller, Guide to Textual Criticism,p. 3)!In addition, the ERV had many marginalnotes which cast suspicion on readings whichwere left in the text. Here are a couple examplesof these marginal notes:Matthew 1:18 has “Now the birth of JesusChrist was on this wise” in the King James (KJV).The marginal note in the ERV says, “Some ancientauthorities read ‘of the Christ’.”Mark 1:1 has “The beginning of the Gospelof Jesus Christ, the Son of God” in the KJV. TheERV marginal note says, “Some ancient authoritiesomit ‘the Son of God.’ ”Obviously, Hort wanted to instill doubt in thereader.It is an intriguing fact that the only thingthe revisers were commissioned to do, im-prove the language of the King James—theyentirely failed to do! Having accepted Hort’sfoolish suggestions, the resultant translation wasstiff and wooden. No one wanted to read it.Bishop Ellicott had predicted this in 1870:131“No revision in the present day could hopeto meet with an hour’s acceptance if it failed topreserve the tone, rhythm, and diction of thepresent Authorized Version.”—Ellicott, quotedin Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 226.Bishop Wordsworth compared the results ofabandoning the King James for the Revised Versionin these words:“To pass from the one to the other, is, as itwere, to alight from a well-built and well-hungcarriage which glides easily over a macadamized[asphalt paved] road,—and to get into onewhich has bad springs or none at all, and inwhich you are jolted in ruts with aching bonesover the stones of a newly mended and rarelytraversed road, like some of the roads of ourNorth Linconshire villages.”—Wordsworth,quoted in Burgon, Revision Revised, p. 112.Burgon powerfully condemned the pedanticand wooden phrasing of the English RevisedVersion:“They had a noble version before them, whichthey have contrived to spoil in every part. Itsdignified simplicity and essential faithfulness,its manly grace and its delightful rhythm, theyhave shown themselves alike unable to imitateand unwilling to retain.“Their queer uncouth phraseology and theirjerky sentences; their pedantic obscurity andtheir stiff, constrained manner; and their habitualachievement of English which fails to exhibitthe spirit of the original Greek—are sorrysubstitutes for the living freshness, and elasticfreedom, and habitual fidelity of the grandold version which we inherited from our fathers,and which has sustained the spiritual life ofthe Church of England, and of all English-speakingChristians, for 350 years . .“The Authorized Version, wherever it waspossible, should have been jealously retained.But on the contrary, every familiar cadence hasbeen dislocated. The congenial flow of almostevery verse of Scripture has been hopelessmarred.”—Burgon, Revision Revised, pp. 225-226.We could spend pages citing examples ofchanges made in the English Revised Version.But we will not do so, as its sloppy text helped itdie out of public notice—and its doctrinal errorswe will meet again as we give careful attentionto their appearance in more recent translations.Indeed, this was the problem: Not thatthe ERV survived the test of public accep-tance; it totally failed in that regard—butthat the errors in the Greek text it came

132 The King James and the Modern Versionsfrom (the Westcott-Hort Text) were perpetu-ated into the 20th century through the NestleText.THE MODERN CRITICAL GREEK TEXTSIn these last days of earth’s history, a largenumber of Christians use the modern Bible versions.But when you remain with the onlyBible available today—the King James—which is based on the Majority (Received)Text, you stand with a majority of those inpast ages who have owned a Bible or part ofit.In contrast, those who use the modern versionsdo not realize the unstable nature of thecollated Greek texts they are based on. Insteadof using the Majority Text, based on manu-scripts which essentially read alike—the newtranslations are founded on an assemblageof confusing variants, generally opposed toone another.There are over 5,366 manuscripts of theGreek New Testament. Together they give a viewof the text much like a shifting kaleidoscope.“They contain several hundred thousand variantreadings . .” notes Pickering (cf. his Identityof the New Testament Text, pp. 16-18).At the present time there are over two dozencritical Greek texts, of which the Nestle Text isthe primary one. Each one is filled with thousandsupon thousands of variants. No two ofthose books are alike. Scholars who use themargue among themselves as to which variants touse and which to reject.Even Westcott and Hort admitted, “Equallycompetent critics often arrive at contrary conclusionsas to the same variation” (Westcott andHort, Introduction to the New Testament in theOriginal Greek, p. 21).ANOTHER LOOKAT THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCEEvidence for the New Testament is com-posed of papyrus fragments and manuscripts,uncial and minuscule manuscripts (modifiedcapitals and cursives), and lectionaries(books used in churches). Each of the 5,366manuscripts and 2,209 lectionaries extant todayare given a name, an abbreviation and / or anumber (Bruce Metzger, Manuscripts of theGreek Bible, p. 54).At the present time, there are:• 88 papyri (identified as P1, P2, etc.)• 274 uncials (Aleph, A, B, C, D, etc.)• 2,795 minuscules, or cursives (1, 2, 3, etc.)• 2,209 lectionaries (L1, L2, L3, etc.)In addition to the above, there are other witnessesto the wording of the originals written byMatthew, Paul, and the other apostles.Many foreign language translations weremade in the 2nd century and those immedi-ately following. These include the Old Latin,the Syriac, the Coptic, the Ethiopic, and a dozenothers. These provide witnesses to the correctreadings of the New Testament.Finallyinally, , scores of 2nd, 3rd and 4th cen-tury Christian writers (the “fathers”)—such asJohn Chrysostom, Irenaeus, Tertullain, and JustinMartyr, to name just a few —left writings containingcitations of Scripture verses, witnessingto the original readings of the New Testament.Dean John Burgon extrapolated (analyzedand compared) over 87,000 of the above manuscriptsand citations. Many of his comments arequoted in this present book. He fully acknowl-edged that the King James Bible was foundedon the very best manuscripts; and he clearlyforesaw the confusion that would result ifthe confusing variant readings, so many ofwhich originated in Alexandria, Egypt, werepermitted to be preferred over the MajorityText.The overwhelming majority of all the man-uscripts, lectionaries, and quotations agreegenerally with each other as to the readingsof the New Testament. Manuscripts from the2nd century (P 66 ) down through the MiddleAges (A.D. 1500) attest to the readings ofthe Majority Text.Dean Burgon, who found and collated thisMajority Text in most of the early writers, calledit the Traditional Textext. It is also called the Syr-ian Textext, the Byzantine Text,the K (Kappa)Textext, Koine Textext, or Common Textext. Kurt Aland,the editor-in-chief of the Nestle Text and the UBSText, calls it the Majority Textext. Many others callit the Received Textor the Textus Receptus.This text type is available today in Englishonly in the Authorized Version or, as it is calledin the United States, the King James Version.The 809,000,000 copies of the King JamesBible, published since 1611 in 300 languages,demonstrates the continuum of this MajorityText. It is a tragedy that the new versions are

Textual Criticism Beginsnot based on this Majority Text; but, instead,they are based on a dissenting handful of man-uscripts which disagree with the Majority.AN ANALOGYTO EXPLAIN A RIDICULOUS THEORYIt is difficult to explain the utter foolishnessof this modern Bible manuscript theory. Thepresent writer encountered the same difficultywhen he attempted to present in simple languagethe deep things of scientific learning in his 1,326-page three-volume Evolution Disproved Series.The problem is that the average reader tends tobe afraid of scientific facts, assuming they areabove his head; when, in reality, common sensecan explain a lot.The same applies to the present subject. Mostpeople fear to encounter a “Greek expert”; when,it reality, there are only a handful of them in theworld. The rest of the so-called “Greek experts”are shams who can only, with greatest difficulty,turn to a portion of the New Testament that youmay select and read any of it.The present writer graduated with a doublemajor (Theology and Biblical Languages) in college;and he was one course short of having asecond major in Biblical Languages (in additionto Systematic Theology) at our Theological Seminary.Yet, even with his background, he finds it difficultto present the remarkable foolishness ofthe liberal theory, which Westcott and Hort bequeathedto us. This is because everyone assumesthe subject is too deep for their comfort.So here is an illustration which may helpthe reader understand the simple facts aboutthese ancient Greek manuscripts, translations,tions,and quoted citations:We have a pumpkin, one pumpkin. It is theoriginal. This would stand for the original Greekautograph—the original Greek manuscripts writtenby the apostles and other inspired Biblewriters.Because there is nothing like it anywhere,many, many people eagerly want pumpkins likethis original. They are thankful to be able toobtain seeds from it, which they plant. Copiesare made of the original manuscript.More pumpkins are the result, and theirseeds are planted, producing still more pumpkins.Still more copies are carefully made from133the earlier copies; and, just as the Apostle said,the Word of God multiplies. A high degree ofaccuracy is maintained because the copies areprepared by faithful Christians.This continues; and the result is a very largenumber of pumpkins, nearly all of which lookalike and taste wonderful. The Majority Text isproduced and includes not only most manuscripts,but also lectionaries, quotations, andmany translations; all these have relatively fewvariants.Unfortunately, some worthless pumpkins arealso produced. Some grow accidently while othersare intentionally irradiated, so they will growmalformed. A minority of only about 10% of thetotal number of manuscripts are corrupt. Someof the errors were caused by sloppy copyists.Others are intentionally made in order to introducedoctrinal errors into the Bible.The existence of bad pumpkins (especiallythose produced in Alexandria) was no problemfor centuries. Folk used the good pumpkins, atethem, and used their seed to produce more.But, then, a century ago, some people whoknew little about farming, decided to discard thegood pumpkins—and only use the deformedones that did not taste as good!In spite of the protests of competent farmers,they picked over the thousands of pumpkins(assuming that pumpkins keep well, whichthey naturally do not) and tossed out the goodones while only retaining the ones which weremisshapen, brown, spotted, moldy, or did nottaste good. These foolish modern farmers declaredthat the formerly rejected ones—were actuallythe best! The reason they gave for theirdecision was their theory that the best pumpkinswould only be the minority—the few—whichwere different.Then these strange farmers deliberately bredthe worst pumpkins, banned all the good onesfrom the market, and only sold the worst.—Am I stretching the point? No, I am not.This is exactly what was done! The good qualitymanuscripts were set aside, and the inferior oneswere prized and used to produce the new Bibles.But let us carry the analogy further:Agricultural scientists decided this wouldmake a good research study which they couldget the universities to fund; so they decided tomake a Critical Pumpkin Text. It would list all

134 The King James and the Modern Versionsthe variants in each of the bad pumpkins. Whyfocus attention on the bad ones? Well, the scientistswould quickly be out of a job if they onlycompared the good pumpkins—for they were allalike!After publication of the initial Critical Text,new editions of the text have continually beenissued ever since, as more and more bad pumpkinsare found. Their Critical Text lists the spottedand speckled, the ones with worms, decayedseeds, those with moldy parts, as well as thebrownish and half-rotten ones. Attention is givenin their scholarly Text to the bad-tasting ones;and categories are made for the various disgustingflavors. Those with very advanced stages ofdisease and mold also receive special attention.Everything receives numbered or alphabetizeddesignations.The general public is overawed by the project,since it is so complicated. It just seems soscientific. Indeed, the scientists have devisedspecial names for each type of diseased, misshapen,rotten kind of pumpkin.Every single thing wrong in each pumpkin iscarefully listed under its separate heading in thecritical text. Under the category of “stems,” thebad pumpkins which have stem problems arelisted by their code number. The same for“seeds,” different areas on the outer rind, andvarious sections of the pulp.In order to add to the confusion, all the commentsare written in a complicated code of numbersand letters.What about the majority of the pumpkins—which are all so much alike, and which tastebetter? They are lumped together in the criticaltext as “Byzantine,” or “Syrian,” and are said tohave been produced in just one local area. Basedon a theory they devised, scholars said it wasobvious that the normal pumpkins were not theoriginals, but had been grown centuries later—from seed produced by the half-rotten variants!The scholars declared that, on the basis oftheir research studies, the Byzantines were soinferior, they should be kept from the buyingpublic. Why have a normal pumpkin, when youcan have one that is so different, so exotic that,as soon as you buy it, you have to examine it inan attempt to find the worms and the moldyspots?With this pumpkin analogy in hand, you arenow prepared to understand the modern CriticalGreek Texts.THE NESTLE -ALAND GREEK TEXTIn 1898, Eberhard Nestle in Germany pub-lished an inexpensive Critical Greek Textforthe Stuttgart Bible Society. The text was basedon the readings of Tischendorf and Weymouth(later Weiss), but primarily Westcott-Hort.In 1904, the British and Foreign BibleSociety set aside the Erasmus Greek Text(called the Textus Receptus)—and began us-ing the Nestle Text instead. That was a mostinfluential decision! Because Bible transla-tors tend to go to the Bible societies for cop-ies of the Greek text they will use in theirwork, , the Nestle Text became the transla-tion standard. That situation has notchanged, from that day to this. (As we willlearn below, , today, , the UBS (United BibleSocieties) Text is often used, but it is essen-tially the same as the Nestle Text.)On the death of Nestle in 1913, his son,Erwin Nestle, took over the work. For the firsttime, a brief apparatus was added. This “apparatus”consists of footnotes which, using anabreviation code, lists the sources used for whatis in the text and the variants which are in thefootnote (the rejected readings).Gradually, over the years, the Nestle Text hasenlarged and gone through over two dozen editions,each one containing more changes in thetext and footnotes. The title of the book has notchanged: Novum Testamentum Graece.In 1950, custody was transferred to KurtAland who, with the help of Matthew Black,Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, has continuedthe work that Westcott and Hort pushedupon modern Bible translators. (However, therehas been a partial return to the Majority Text bythe men in charge of the Nestle-Aland Text.)Those same three men also produced aGreek Text, called The Greek New Testament,sponsored by the United Bible Societies (whichincludes the American Bible Society); it is nowgenerally called the “UBS Textext.” More on thislater.Currently the manuscripts for both theNestle-Aland Text and the UBS Text are beingcollated by the Institut fur neutestamenticheTereforschung, under the direction of Kurt Alandin Munster, Germany. Many microfilms are housedin the archives of the Ancient Biblical ManuscriptCenter in Claremont, California.Should the reader wish to pursue his own

Textual Criticism Beginsinvestigation, a list of sources where copies ofthose manuscripts may be found is given below.Here are the directories where you can locateall the New Testament manuscripts, so facsimilecopies may be obtained for personal study.But keep in mind that these are all in Greek orother ancient languages:The Paleography Collection in the Universityof London Library, Vols. 1-2 (Boston, 1968).John L. Sharp’s Checklist of Collections ofBiblical and Related Manuscripts on Microfilm,published in Scriptorium, XXV (1971), pp. 97-109.The rest of the sources are in books whichhave introductions, comments, and footnotes inFrench, German, or Latin.The simplest procedure is to purchase a copyof the Nestle Text, edited by Kurt Aland, fromthe American Bible Society (address: 1865 Broadway,New York, NY 10023).You will recall that Scrivener found that theunderlying Greek of the Erasmus Greek Text(called the Textus Receptus), on which theKing James Bible is based, had been changed5,337 times in the process of preparing theWestcott-Hort Text.In our generation (1992), Dr. D. A. Waite madea careful study of the Nestle-Aland Greek Text(26th edition) and found 5,604 alterations. Dr.Waite made this comment:“Of these 5,604 changes, I found 1,952 to beomissions (35%), 467 to be additions (8%),and 3,185 to be changes (57%). In these 5,604places that were involved in these changes, therewere 4,366 more words involved, making a totalof 9,970 Greek words that were involved.This means that in a Greek text of 647 pages,this would average 15 words per page that werechanged from the Received Text [the TextusReceptus of Erasmus].”—D.A. Waite, The KingJames Bible’s Fourfold Superiority, p. 31.Few Biblical Greek scholars today botherwith the Westcott-Hort Text. Instead, theyuse the Nestle-Aland or UBS Text—but, forthe most part, they follows the same textualprinciples laid down in Hort’s theory.“The supremacy and popularity of the Westcott-HortText continued for many years. Theresearch of Bernhard Weiss and the propagationof the Nestle Text especially helped to establishits wide usage.”—I.M. Price, Ancestryof Our English Bible, p. 212.It is a definite fact that the Nestle-Aland Text135has tended to move closer to a partial acceptance,at times, of the readings of the MajorityText. But that acceptance is still not very much.UNITED BIBLE SOCIETIES GREEK TEXTAs mentioned earlier, , the same three menwho edit the Nestle-Aland Greek Text nowproduce the UBS Text as well. Both Textsare essentially the same, although the presentwriter finds the Greek print in the UBS Text iseasier to read.Yet, when you look at the apparatus (thefootnotes at the bottom of each page, whichcontain the variant readings), you find theyare based on guesswork:The uncertainty as to which readings constitutethe correct one is shown in the UBS 3rd &4th editions. The letters A, B, C, and D are enclosedwithin braces (written like this: { }); theyare placed at the beginning of each set of textualvariants, to indicate the relative degree of certainty.The letter A signifies the text is virtuallycertain while B indicates that there is some degreeof doubt. The letter C means there is a considerabledegree of doubt whether the text or theapparatus contains the superior reading whileD shows that there is a very high degree of doubtconcerning the reading for the text. Pickeringcomments, “It is hard to resist the suspicion thatthey are guessing.” Their guesses are basedon the Hort theory.JOINT PROTESTANT-CATHOLICTRANSLATION TEAMSWho is doing the guessing? The UBS VicePresident is Roman Catholic Cardinal Onitshaof Nigeria. The executive committee includesRoman Catholic Bishop Alilona of Italy. Amongthe editors is Roman Catholic Cardinal Mar-tini of Milan. In the past, Catholics would notwork with Protestants in the work of Bible translation;but times have changed.“Catholics should work together with Protestantsin the fundamental task of Biblicaltranslation . . [They can] work very well togetherand have the same approach and interpretation. . [This] signals a new age in the church.”—Patrick Henry, New Directions in New TestamentStudy, pp. 232-234.This began in 1943, when the Papal en-cyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu called for anecumenical Bible. It said:“These translations [should] be produced in

136 The King James and the Modern Versionscooperation with separated brothers.”—NewAmerican Bible, p. vii [Roman Catholic].Subsequently, , Jesuit scholars moved onto editorial positions in the previously Prot-estant Journal of Biblical Literature. Theirwork on the UBS / Nestle’s Text and influence inBiblical scholarship appears to have so sucessfullybiased so many ‘new’ readings, that the re-cent Catholic New American Bible was trans-lated directly from UBS / Nestle rather thanfrom the traditional Catholic Latin Vulgate.Frankly, that is very revealing!The Introduction in that Catholic Bible saysthis:“In general, Nestle’s-Aland’s Novum TestamentumGraece (25th edition, 1963) was followed.Additional help was derived from TheGreek New Testament (editors Aland, Black,Metzger, Wikgren) produced for the use of translatorsby the United Bible Societies in 1966.”—New American Bible, p. ix.Both the Catholic and ‘New’ Protestant Biblesare now based on the same identical critical GreekTexts (UBS / Nestle’s) which, in turn, are basedon the same 1% minority Greek Manuscripts(Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, plus some others reflectingtheir readings).Dean Stanley, , a member of one of thesetranslation committees, recognized that thisnew joint Catholic-Protestant cooperation onnew versions would help the denominationsmove toward union with one another and,ultimately, , with Rome:“The revision work is of the utmost importance. . in its indirect effect upon a closer unionof the different denominations.”—Stanley,quoted in David Schaff, Life of Phillip Schaff,p. 378.KITTEL’S GREEK DICTIONARYWe have been speaking of the critical NewTestament Greek Texts. Mention should also bemade of Gerhard Kittel’s ten-volume TheologicalDictionary of the New Testament. Seriousstudents of New Testament Greek try to purchasea set. Kittel’s Greek Dictionary is the stan-dard reference work used in New TestamentGreek word studies. Modern translators relyon its judgments.Kittel’s labors in Germany on his ten-volumeGreek New Testament dictionary also began thesame year he became a Gestapo agent, workingfor Adolf Hitler. He provided Hitler with a“Christian philosophy” for the destruction ofthe Jewish race.Kittel’s trial, conviction, and imprisonmentfor his part in the extermination of two thirds ofEurope’s Jewish population is a fact that is notdiscussed today. His ten-volume set continuesto be sold.“His writings penned between 1937 and 1943caused the physical death of millions of Jews. . Using the cloak of ‘Christianity’ and ‘science,’Kittel was the chief architect of the so-called‘racial science’ and ‘Christian bias’ for Hitler’santi-Semitism.“Scholar Robert Erickson, winner of the1987 Merit of Distinction from the InternationalCenter for Holocaust Studies writes, ‘He establisheda solid Christian foundation for the oppositionto the Jews’ (Erickson, Theologiansunder Hitler, p. 54). Kittel called himself ‘thefirst authority in Germany in the scientific considerationof the Jewish question’ (op. cit., p.37).“William Foxwell Albright, a promient archaeologistand Semitic scholar, writes: ‘Kittel is . .even darker and more menacing . . than Goerringor Goebbels . . [He had the] grim distinction ofmaking extermination of the Jews theologicallyrespectable’ (Albright, quoted in History of Archaeologyand Christian Humanism, p. 165).”—G.A. Riplinger, New Age Bible Versions, 593.All new versions, including the New KingJames Version, have abandoned the traditionalOld Testament Hebrew Text(which is the BenChayyim Massoretic Textext) and are using BibliaHebraica, the critical Hebrew Text prepared byGerhard Kittel’s father, Rudolph Kittel, who livedin the 19th-century Germany during the timewhen German higher criticism was tearing theOld Testament apart.Rudolph Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica has becomethe standard critical Hebrew Text of theOld Testament. An illustration of one page fromit will be found a few pages from here.THE MAJORITY GREEK TEXTThere are three Greek Texts which con-tain the Majority Text.The first is the thirdedition of Erasmus’ Greek Text, commonly referredto as the Textus Receptus.The second is the Scrivener Greek Text. Thatgodly man produced a very useful Greek Text ofthe New Testament.The third is the Hodges-Farstad-Nelson MajorityGreek Text.

Textual Criticism BeginsThe present writer is not certain which ofthese Greek Texts are still in print today.The Hodges-Farstad-Nelson Text and theNestle Text were both used in the preparation ofthe 1979-1982 New King James Version. Moreon that translation later.THE MANUSCRIPT CODESAND ASSIGNED DATESThroughout this book, we have always namedthe manuscript instead of giving its code. Whena quotation cites only the code, we have printedthe name in brackets. It is belief of the presentwriter that there is no need to make this subjectas complicated as some attempt to do. Only Biblicalscholars need bother with codes.However, within a few pages, we will takea peek into a modern Greek Text; and itwould be well if you had a reference guide tosome of the codes, along with a brief de-scription of the manuscript, etc.In reading through the following list, you willfind that the ancient papyri and codices, preferredby the modernists (in accordance with theHort theory), were generally prepared in Alexandria,Egypt, or contain Western (central Italy)errors.(It should be kept in mind that the papyri,the earliest of all, frequently support MajorityText readings.)The cursive manuscripts, although theoreticallydated later, match the readings found inthe early “fathers,” lectionaries, and translations—whichwere earlier than the codices! Thuswe find that a minimum of 90% of the manuscriptevidence, of all types, is early. Called “theMajority Text,” it is the basis of the King JamesBible (with the exception of Wycliffe who did nothave access to the Majority Text), of all other ReformationEnglish and nearly all Reformation-European Bibles.We are going to list below the primary documentsreferred to in the apparatus (footnotes)of a modern Greek Text. The reason those ancientmanuscripts are considered to be mostimportant by the editors of the Nestle / Aland-UBS Greek Texts—is because they vary the mostfrom the Majority Text! Or to put it another way,because they fit the best into the Hort theory,which despised the Majority Text.PAPYRI—APYRI—The papyri codes always consistof a capital “P” plus a superscript number.137In agreement with the Hort theory, here are themost important ones: P 45 (Gospels and Acts,3rd century); P 46 (Pauline, 3rd century); P 47 (Revelation;3rd century). None of those are complete;and the rest of the papyri are extremelyfragmentary. Unfortunately, the above papyriwere copied in Egypt and include the type of errorsfound in the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, whichwere also copied there. The largest nest of Christianheretics in the 3rd and 4th centuries was inAlexandria, Egypt. Yet, in spite of this, these papyri,which are very early, still generally supportmany Majority Text readings.The John Rylands fragment (P 52 ) should bementioned. Consisting of a verse or two fromJohn 18, it is dated at the middle of the 2ndcentury or about 50 years after John wrote thewords.CODICES—There are about 45 codices, butonly five are primarily discussed. As you will recall,codices are Greek manuscripts bound inbooks instead of rolls and generally contain capitalletters.5th century Codex Alexandrinus (A) is partsof the New Testament. Parts of this Egyptian codexclosely agree with the Catholic Vulgate.4th-century Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph or })is parts of the Old and New Testaments. This isalso from Egypt (Alexandria).4th-century Codex Vaticanus (B) is all ofOld Testament and New Testament up to Hebrews9:14, from Alexandria.Ephraemi (C) is parts of the New Testamentwith date uncertain. The text is generally Alexandrian,but with some late additions.5th-6th-century Bezae, also called Cantabrigiensis(D), is Gospels and Acts only. It is themost complete manuscript with “Western” readingsfrom central Italy (which many scholarsagree are rather erroneous, although Westcottand Hort accepted some of them). Here is anexample of one of these odd “Western additions”:“On the same day, seeing someone workingon the Sabbath, he [Christ] said to him, ‘Man,if you really know what you are doing, you areblessed; but if you do not know, you are cursed,and a transgressor of the law.’ ”—Luke 6:4-5in Codex Bezae.We should mention once again: Please donot confuse the Western family of Greek man-uscripts, from central Italy, , with the Italia.The Italia is the Latin manuscripts which arethe basis of the Waldensian Bible. The Italia

138 The King James and the Modern Versions(also called the Old Latin) was prepared by theWaldenses, or Vaudois (pronounced “VAW-doh”),in the 4th century—long before Peter Waldo(which Catholic legend claims to have been the“first Waldensian”) lived around the year A.D.1175.Other important codices (which will onlyrarely be mentioned in this book) include:6th-century Codex Claromontanus (D 2 ) isthe Pauline Epistles. Same Western source asBezae.7th-century Codex Laudianus (E 2 ) is Acts.Same Western source as Bezae.4th or 5th-century Codex Freer (or Wash-ington, also called Washingtonian or W) isthe Gospels. It contains portions of Western, Caesarean,and Byzantine [Majority Text] readings.It was purchased from a Cairo dealer, in 1906;and it is now in the Freer Museum in Washington,D.C.7th-9th-century Koridethi Gospels (Theta).Egyptian.8th-9th-century Codex Regius (L) is theGospels. Totally Alexandrian.Why were so many 4th-century codicesEgyptian? Because at that time it dominatedworldly Christianity and could command themoney to produce codices.Why were so many later codices Western?Because Rome then dominated Chris-tianity and had the money to produce errantcodices.The Majority Text manuscripts and trans-lations were consistently produced by poorpeople who were genuine Christians. Theycopied earlier safe manuscripts as accuratelyas possible.For your information, the following cod-ices agree with the Majority Text(the basis ofthe King James Bible). Therefore, Hort arbitrarilyassigned them late dates—even though they haveuncial (full capital) texts:Codex Basiliensis (E), dated to 8th centuryCodex Cyprius (K), 9th centuryCodex Campianus (M), 9th centuryCodex V, 9th century, with the GospelsCodex Delta, 9th centuryCodex H, 9th century, with the GospelsCodex Omega, 8-9th century, with the GospelsCURSIVES—There are thousands of theseGreek manuscripts; and, because they sup-port the Majority Text and not the Egyptian(as do Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) or Western,they are considered worthless by modern textualcritics.“The cursive manuscripts, like the later uncials,mainly reflect the Byzantine [Majority Text]form of the text and they occupy a smaller placein the considerations of the textual critic.”—I.M.Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, p. 171.The cursives are coded simply by num-bers. Of these, the critics like the very few whichinclude the oddities of the Alexandrian codices.These include 33, 81, 424, 579, and seven others.The rest are tossed out, with the exceptionof 28 and 565 which have Caesarean readings,and the “Ferrar” manuscripts (or Family 1)which includes 1, 13, 124, 346, and 69, bothhaving Caesarean characteristics. What makesthese manuscripts so valuable? It is their strangereadings. One example is that, in common, theyhave the adultery story after Luke 21:38 insteadof in John 8. Another is that they place Luke22:43-44 after Matthew 26:39. As you can see,the critics look for oddities; and they dearlyprefer to accept them in place of what youfind in your King James Bible.HOW MANY CHANGESARE IN A CRITICAL GREEK TEXT?Throughout this book, we have clearlyestablished that the Majority Text is correctand the minority witnesses have the mis-takes.But we need to clarify a very importantfact: There are not a lot of mistakes—evenin the minority manuscripts!For example, the standard Catholic Bible, theRheims-Douai, was translated from Jerome’sLatin Vulgate, which was based on minoritymanuscripts. Yet you can bring a person to JesusChrist, the third angel’s message, and a knowledgeof God’s law and the sanctuary message—all from the Rheims-Douai.This is because it still contains the plan ofsalvation, although it has glaring errors not evenfound in the Revised Standard Version.On page 140, we will reprint, full size,the first two pages from the Gospel of Johnin the UBS critical Greek Text.It is typicalof what you will find all through a moderncritical Greek Text.On the following page, we will reprint

Textual Criticism Beginsthe first page of the Gospel of John in theNestle-Aland critical Greek Text.Read thetwo for yourself, and you will see that themain text (the portion in Greek in the upperpart of each page) is exactly alike in boththe UBS and Nestle-Aland.(However, the UBSis easier to read, because of typesetting factors.)The apparatus (notes on the bottom of eachpage) are also easier to read and far more completein the UBS Greek Text.Thee important facts should be notedhere:(1) The variants, listed in the apparatus,are essentially the same.(2) There are very, , very few of them!(3) Yet, if you will read the Greek text(upper part of each page), you will find itreads exactly the same as your King JamesBible!The reason for this is the fact that, throughoutthe New Testament, there are only a few thousandvariants from the Majority Text in the moderncritical Greek Texts (Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland, UBS).Most of these variants are not significant.In order to give you an idea of what they aregenerally like, here is a description of thevariants listed on the first page of the UBScritical Greek Text:Page 1 contains John 1:1 through 1:7.The upper portion contains the text in cursive(lower-case) Greek. The lower part of the pagehas the apparatus, which is all the footnotes.There are two variant possibilities onpage 1. Both are in the beginning of verse 4:Verse 4: “en auto zoe en” = “in Him life was.”(The first “en” has a short “e” and means “in”;139the last “en” in the verse has a long e, and is atotally different Greek letter. It means “was.”)Variants for the first “en” are listed under “3-4” on the apparatus (lower part of the page).Variants for the second “en” (“was”) are listedunder “4” in the apparatus.Page 2 contains John 1:8 through part of1:16. It has two variants. You will find themat verse 13 and verse 15.This means that, from John 1:1 to partway through John 1:16, there are only fourvariants! Please understand that you are lookingat a critical Greek Text. As the apparatusreveals, it lists dozens of codices, cursives, lectionaries,quotations from the “fathers,” andtranslations. —Yet there are only four items inthose 16 verses which have variants!Lest you think I am bluffing on this, let ustranslate the first page together:1. En arche en ho logos, kai ho logos enpros ton theon, and theos en ho logos.1. En [the] beginning was the Word, and theWord was with the God, and God was the Word.2. Houtos en en arche pros ton theon.2. This-one was in [the] beginning with theGod.3. Panta di autou egeneto, kai choris autouegeneto oude hen ho yeyonen.3. All-things through Him became, and withoutHim became not one-thing which has-become.4. En auto zoe en, kai e zoe en to phos tonantropon [underline = where there are variants].4. In Him life was, and the life was the lightthe of-men.5. Kai to phos en te skotia phainei, kai eskotia auto katelaben.ON THE NEXT THREE PAGESSample pages from four critical Bible Textsare illustrated on the next three pages.1 - Two pages from the United Bible So-cieties Critical Greek Text.This, along withthe Nestle-Aland Text, are the two New TestamentGreek Texts used by modern Bible Translators.Both are edited by the same three-manteam and essentially have the same text. Wediscuss this in some detail.2 - One page from the Nestle-Aland Criti-cal Greek Text./ On the same page is a chartof the Greek Alphabet. You will note that theGreek text is identical to that of the UBS Textand the variants are about the same.3 - One page from the Alfred Rahlf’sCritical Greek Septuagint (LXX). This twovolumework is the standard critical Text forstudies into the Greek translation of the OldTestament.4 - One page from the Rudolph Kittel’sBiblia Hebraica, the standard critical HebrewText of the Old Testament. Rudolph Kittel wasthe father of Gerhard Kittel, mentioned on anearlier page as working closely with Hitler inthe slaying of millions of Jews.

Textual Criticism Begins5. And the light in the darkeness shines, andthe darkness it not overtook (or overwhelmed).6. egeneto anthropos, anestalmenos paratheou, onoma auto Iwannes.6. There-was a-man, having-been-sent fromGod, name to-him John.As you can see from the above, there isno problem in those verses, as they are givenin the main text of this critical Greek Text.Now let us consider the two variants onthis page (both are at the beginning of verse 4,and are underlined, above).Variant 1: The text reads “en auto zoe en”(“In Him life was”). Looking down at the firstitem in the apparatus, we find that the variantis simply a repetition of the preceding four Greekwords: “oude hen, o gegonen en.” If we usedthis variant, the last part of verse 3 and the firstof verse 4 would read: “. . and without Him notone thing became which has become. Not onething became. In Him was life . .” A scribe apparentlycopied part of the text twice.Variant 2: The text reads “en auto zoe en”(“In Him life was”). The variant is keyed to the“was.”Support for the reading in the main text:Looking down at the apparatus, we find that itsays, “ 2 4 {A} en.” That “en” means “was.” The“ 2 ” is the footnote number. The “4” tells the versethat the variant is in. The “{A}” tells us that thisis the textual support for what is in the text ofverse 4 (on the upper part of the page). For amoment, let us look at the evidence for “was”(“In Him was life”). In doing so, we will get a feelfor how to work with a critical Greek apparatus:First is listed the papyri (“P 66,75 ”). Then comesthe codices (“A, B, C,” etc.). Then come thecursives (“050, 063,” etc.). After this is alectionary (in this case, all the Byzantine [MajorityText] lectionaries). Next come the translations(Vulgate, all three Syriac translations:Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian). Next is listedthe quotations from the “fathers” (“Theodotus,Irenaeus,” etc.).Having looked through that, you have a prettygood idea how the witnesses are arranged. All ofthe above support having “In Him was life” atthe beginning of verse 4.Now we will consider the two variants of “was”(“In Him was life”):143(1) The first is “estin,” which means “is” (InHim is life”). In support of this, we have theSinaiticus, D (Codex Bezae, which has Western[middle Italy] readings), several Old Latin manuscripts,Curetonian Syric translation, two Copticmanuscripts (Sahidic and Fayumic), plus citationsby twelve “fathers.”(2) The second is this: omit “W supp .” Thismeans that one manuscript omits “was” entirely(“In Him life”). That manuscript is “W supp ”, whichmeans that the Washingtonian codice has a “suppositionitem” added here. A portion of a manuscriptwas supplied by a later hand (a later scribe)where the original was missing. The originalscribe probably left out “In Him was life”; so alater scribe wrote in “In Him life.”Well, we have quickly looked at one pageof a modern critical Greek Text. Now youcan see why modern translators rely on thecritical Greek Text rather than do their ownresearch into the ancient manuscripts.The problem is not that they rely on aGreek Text, but that they rely on the mod-ern ones (based on the Hort theory) insteadof one containing only the Majority Text.Yet, as you can now see—even the mod-ern Greek Texts have very few problems inthem!Later in this book, we will list the worst problemsthat we could find. They fill several pages;yet it still is only several pages. It is not a wholebook of problem translations.With this fact in mind, we are preparedto discuss the next section in our book: Whydid Ellen White quote from some of the mod-ern translations?ELLEN WHITE AND BIBLE INERRANCYWe are about to briefly consider each of themost important Bible translations of our time.But first, we have another matter to give our attentionto:First, what did Ellen White say about thepossibility of errors in the Bible?Second, why did she use the modern versions,and to what extent?In this section, we will consider the first question;in the next the second.To begin with, I urge you to read 1 Se-lected Messages, pp. 15-23. It says that, yes,

144 The King James and the Modern Versionserrors may have been made at times by the copyists;but we should trust the Bible and obey it,and not worry about the problems.“Some look to us gravely and say, ‘Don’t youthink there might have been some mistake inthe copyist or in the translators?’ This is allprobable, and the mind that is so narrow thatit will hesitate and stumble over this possibilityor probability would be just as ready tostumble over the mysteries of the InspiredWord, because their feeble minds cannot seethrough the purposes of God . .“I take the Bible just as it is, as the InspiredWord. I believe its utterances in an entire Bible.”—1 Selected Messages, pp. 16-17 [Manuscript16, 1888; written at Minneapolis, Minnesota,autumn 1888].Here is another interesting passage:“I saw that God had especially guarded theBible; yet when copies of it were few, learnedmen had in some instances changed the words,thinking that they were making it more plain,when in reality they were mystifying that whichwas plain, by causing it to lean to their establishedviews, which were governed by tradition.But I saw that the Word of God, as a whole, isa perfect chain, one portion linking into andexplaining another. True seekers for truth neednot err, for not only is the Word of God plainand simple in declaring the way of life, but theHoly Spirit is given as a guide in understandingthe way to life therein revealed.”—Story ofRedemption, p. 391.The message is clear enough: We can trustour Bibles.The modernists in our own church declarethat the Bible is not infallible and that EllenWhite admitted the fact.As evidence for their claim, they cite the passagewe have just quoted:“Some look to us gravely and say, ‘Don’t youthink there might have been some mistake inthe copyist or in the translators?’ This is allprobable.”—1 Selected Messages, p. 16.How can the Bible have mistakes, when EllenWhite repeatedly said it was infallible? Theanswer is this: That which the prophets wroteis infallible, but copies of the originals couldhave occasional mistakes in them. Yet, shehastens to add, we can fully trust our Bibles.Therefore, the mistakes must not be very ser-ious.Although Ellen White repeatedly said thatman’s words and ideas are fallible, God’s Wordis declared to be infallible.“In His Word God has committed to men theknowledge necessary for salvation. The HolyScriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative,infallible revelation of His will.”—GreatControversy, p. vii.“Zwingli . . devoted himself with his wholesoul to the search after divine truth . . The morehe searched the Scriptures, the clearer appearedthe contrast between their truths andthe heresies of Rome. He submitted himself tothe Bible as the Word of God, the only sufficient,infallible rule.”—Great Controversy, 173.“[Zwingli] He presented the Word of God asthe only infallible authority and the death ofChrist as the only complete sacrifice.”—GreatControversy, p. 177.“Wycliffe now taught the distinctive doctrinesof Protestantism—salvation through faith inChrist, and the sole infallibility of the Scriptures.”—GreatControversy, p. 89.“Man is fallible, but God’s Word is infallible.Instead of wrangling with one another, letmen exalt the Lord. Let us meet all oppositionas did our Master, saying, ‘It is written.’ Let uslift up the banner on which is inscribed, TheBible our rule of faith and discipline.”—1 SelectedMessages, p. 416 (Review, Dec. 15,1885).ELLEN WHITE ANDTHE MODERN VERSIONSEllen White sometimes quoted from theERV (RV); and, when the ASV (ARV) was pub-lished, she occasionally quoted from it.A word of explanation is needed: In her day,the English Revised Version (ERV) was called theRevised Version (RV); and the American StandardVersion (ASV) was called the American RevisedVersion (ARV). In later years, the nameswere changed.In view of the fact that the modern ver-sions are not the best, why did Ellen Whitequote them at times in her books? There isa very sound reason for this; and we will ex-plain it here.First, let us briefly review the background ofwhat we are dealing with:The originals were written by the Bible writers.They are called “autographs.” Copies werecarefully made over an extended period of time.At times errors were introduced into the copies.Some were deliberately introduced while a majorityof others were accidental. But, as we haveobserved, there were not a lot of variants.

Textual Criticism BeginsThe great majority of the manuscripts tendedto read the same way. We call them the MajorityText. There was also a Minority Text, composedof several variant manuscript “families.”Unfortunately, Westcott and Hort urged thatone minority family (which they called the “NeutralText”) was the best; and modern translatorshave followed their lead. This is primarilybecause the Nestle-Aland and UBS Greek Textsprovide a relatively easy way to carry on translationwork—and they are essentially based on theWestcott-Hort pattern.But, now, , notice this: Even though theMajority Text is superior to the modern GreekTexts,the great majority of readings in both areessentially the same! We have not made an issueof this fact, but it is true. We have just observedthis in our analysis of part of a moderncritical Greek Text.If you doubt this, take a copy of any conservativemodern version (we will tell you, below,which they are) and compare a chapter in it withthe King James Version. You will find that mosteverything is essentially the same in both Bibles.The wording will be somewhat different, but theconcepts will be almost identical. (Note that Isaid a “conservative modern version; I did notsay all modern versions!)There are not a million variations betweenthe modern Greek Texts and the King James;there are only about 5,000 of them. We haverepeatedly observed that (this information camefrom scholars favoring the King James) scholarsdeplored the fact that any existed at all. Yetthere are only a few thousand flaws.Now, follow me closely: The problem withthe modern verions is not primarily the 5,000variants; it is the changes in phrasing, , espe-cially the radical ones which occur in them—especially in the paraphrase Bibles (Phillips,Living Bible, etc.).We have observed that the line of EnglishBible translations—from Tyndale to the KingJames—were essentially the same. There wasvery little variation in phrasing. The reason wasthat the conscientious men who prepared them,not only relied on a good Greek Text (that ofErasmus) but, clearly recognized that Tyndalehad made an excellent translation and theyshould stay very close to it. And they did.Willian Tyndale was unusual in that he hadtwo outstanding qualities: First, he was a masterwith languages. Few men in any generation145have had the mind for foreign languages thatTyndale did. Second, he was an extremely devotedchild of God. The result was an exceptional,outstanding Bible translation!Those who came after him recognized thefact and they kept their translations close to his.Down through the centuries, the King Jameswas updated in regard to spelling and obsoletewords, but no other changes were made. We stillhad Tyndale’s version!But then, in the late 19th century, all thischanged. From 1870 down to our own time, menwho were not as close to God, and who definitelydid not have the foreign language ability of Tyndale,tried their hand at translating.These modern translations fell into threecatagories:1 - Translations which were conservative andattempted to remain closer to the King James.2 - Translations which dared to be muchmore innovative in phrasing.3 - Translations which were made specificallyto support special doctrinal beliefs (i.e., theCatholic and Jehovah’s Witnesses Bibles).More on each of these later in this book.It is for such reasons that we prefer toremain with the King James. It not only ad-heres to the Majority Text, but it has the phras-ing Tyndale bequeathed to it.When I read in a Bible or quote from one, Iprefer to use the King James. I understand itsvalue and I am aware of those places where, inorder to prove an eternally burning hell, it incorrectlytranslates the text. I am at home withthe King James.But when I read in a modern version, Imust continually be on guard to identify, , notjust the 5,000 Greek Text problems but thesubtle phrasing errors placed there by themodern translators.However, , occasionally some of those vari-ant phrasings are actually improvements overthe King James phrasing! Neither you nor Iknow which ones they are, and we surely donot wish to occupy ourselves in trying to fig-ure it out.But Ellen White had no such qualms. Shewas a fully inspired prophet of God. The Lordhad told her that she could go to the historybooks and extract information she could use inpreparation of the Great Controversy.She read in Milman, The History of the Jews;J.A. Wylie, History of Protestantism; Baras

146 The King James and the Modern VersionsSears, The Life of Luther; John Lewis, Historyof the Life and Sufferings of John Wiclif; AugustNeander, General History of the ChristianReligion and the Church; or J.H. Merle D’Aubigne,History of the Reformation of the SixteenthCentury; as well as other historical writings—andwas always able to identify that whichwas true! You and I could not do that, but shecould.You will recall that, in the Garden of Eden,Adam and Eve had a light about them whichhelped them understand everything in nature,as they approached it. Ellen White had somethingsimilar, a divinely guided recognition oftruth.Not only did the Lord direct her to lookin history books; He directed her to look inthe modern Bible translations.You might wonder why. There was a goodreason for this. There are, indeed, some improvements,here and there, in the moderntranslations. But you and I do not know wherethey are. The Lord guided Ellen White to searchout those improvements and quote them—so wecould have them! What a blessing! Thank theLord for everything in the Spirit of Prophecy, andreject none of it! It is all from God!Many of these passages which she quotedfrom modern versions are taken from the OldTestament. There has been relatively littlechange in the Hebrew Text of the New Testament;whereas there has been more changein the Greek Text of the New Testament. Shequoted from both the Old and the New Testamentsin the modern versions—and consistentlyprovided us with excellant help.The present writer has carefully analyzeda great number of these modern-version quotationsby Ellen White. In not one instance hashe found that she quoted a bad one!Later in this book, we will quoted a lot ofthe verses which the modern versions haveimproperly translated. Some are based on ourmodern Greek Text while others are the resultof foolish translations or efforts to inculcate doctrinalerror. We will show you many of thosewrongly translated passages.But Ellen White never quotes them. Sheonly quoted improved phrasings which werebeneficial for us to know about.The Lord had her do this in order to helpus. We should praise Him for this blessing.Having said this, are there instances in whichEllen White did something unusual in her quotations—orlack of quotation—of the Scripture?As an inspired prophet, everything she did wassignificant. So this should be of interest to everySpirit of Prophecy student.1 - Are there any instances in whichEllen White used concepts which are in thethe original Greek, yet are not in the KingJames Bible (and which she did not quotefrom other versions)?The present writer has been interested in thissince his college years. Here are a few examplesfor your consideration:* The comma in Luke 23:43. It is correctin only one other translation (Rotherham’s),which was published in the late 19th century.“And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee,To-day shalt thou be with Me in paridise.”—Luke23:43, KJV.“I say unto thee Today, Thou shalt be with Me inparadise.”—Desire of Ages, 751.There are no commas in the Greek text, so thetranslators made the verse agree with their theologicalbeliefs.There was no Bible in Ellen White’s day whichcorrectly translated Luke 23:43, so she stated itcorrctly. In doing so, she improved on the King James.* Did Baalim go with the men? There is an errorin the KJV translation of Numbers 22:21.“And God came unto Balaam at night, and saidunto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and gowith them; but yet the word which I shall say untothee, that shalt thou do.“And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddledhis ass, and went with the princes of Moab.”—Numbers22:20-21.The Lord told Baalam that if the men came forhim the next morning, he could go with them; but otherwisehe was not to go (verse 20). The next morninghe went with them (verse 21); therefore why was theLord angry with him and tried to slay him during thejourney?As usual, the Spirit of Prophecy explains thematter. Why?—because, if you are for this truth,the Spirit of Prophecy is more accurate than anyBible translation! Why? not because she is a superiorprophet. We have her writings in the original lan-

Textual Criticism Beginsguage; and these are more precisely detailed.Remember that she told us that some mistakesmay have been made by the copyists. Thereforeshe clarifies the meaning of the Bible. Somethingelse to be thankful for.“Some look to us gravely and say, ‘Don’tyou think there might have been somemistake in the copiest or in the translators?’This is all probable.”—1 SelectedMessages, p. 16.In reality, the Bible does not say that themen came for him the next morning. So what isthe solution? Simply this: Translate verse 21 as“went after” instead of “went with.” Now thatmakes sense—and it exactly fits the story, asrelated by Ellen White.First, the Lord was angry with him (verse22). Second, Baalam obviouly made the journeywith only his two servants (verses 22-34).We would also need to change the translationof the prepositions in verse 35: “Go afterthe men” and “went after the princes.” The entireproblem is just a mistranslation of threeprepositions.As usual, the Holy Spirit explains the matter.Read Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 438-443. The men never came to him the next morning;instead, they left before he could go withthem. That fully explains Numbers 22:20-22.* Did Joseph tell his brothers a lie?Genesis 46:34 and 47:3 indicate that Josephtold his brethren to lie to Pharaoh.He told them to tell Pharaoh they werecattlemen, but they told Pharaoh the truth.Patriarchs and Prophets, 233:2 explainsthat Joseph told them to tell Pharaoh they wereshepherds, so he would not want to hire thebrothers and they could remain with their ownpeople. The word “cattle,” in 46:34, should betranslated “sheep.”“According to Holladay, the Hebrew word,translated “cattle” in Genesis 46:34, can betranslated “flock” or “movable property” (WilliamL. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and AramaicLexicon of the Old Testament, p. 320).According to Davidson, that word can betranslated riches, possessions, wealth; generallycattle, animals requiring pasturage (B.147Davidson, Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon,p. DCLXII).2 - Are there instances in which EllenWhite did not use any translation availableto her, , including the King James, becausethey were all incorrect?Here is an example:* John 20:17a. “Jesus saith unto her, TouchMe not.”The rest of the verse (which she quotes), says,“for I am not yet ascended to My Father.”At times, Ellen White quotes the last part of that(“I am not yet ascended to My Father”; DA 790),but the only time she quotes the first three words (“detainMe not”) is very early in her ministry (3SP 202-203, quoted in 5BC 1150). While writing Desire ofAges, the Lord taught her the correct meaning, whichshe wrote down:“Springing toward Him, as if to embrace Hisfeet, she said, ‘Rabboni.’ But Christ raised Hishand, saying, Detain Me not; ‘for I am not yetascended to My Father; but go . . [rest of verseis quoted].—Desire of Ages, 790.Christ’s concern was not that she not touch Hisfeet, but that she not detain Him—for He had to makea trip all the way to heaven and back that same day!Jesus said to her, “Me mou haptou (not Metouch), for I have not yet ascended . .” In the middletense, it can mean “detain.” Ellen White accuratelyused a Greek idiom, without ever having studiedGreek! Ironically, many scholarly Greek students mistranslatethe sentence, because they do not have aclear understanding of how the verb can be translated.3 - Can you cite an example where EllenWhite uses the Majority Test family of manu-scripts, when the Neutral Text had some-thing distinctly different?* John 7:53-8:11. The story of the womantaken in adultery is not in the body of the modernGreek Text. But Ellen White clearly statesthat it actually occurred (Desire of Ages, pp.460-462). In his Greek Text, Von Soden commented:“In the great majority of the manuscriptsit stands in the text,” therefore he left itin his. But, since it was not in the Vaticanus andSinaiticus, it was left out of the Westcott-HortTest and Nestle Text.

148 The King James and the Modern Versions* Revelation 22:14. This very importantverse has been changed in the Neutral Text, andtherefore in most modern translations.“Blessed are they that do His commandments,that they may have right to the tree of life, and mayenter in through the gates into the city.”—KJV.“Blessed are they that wash their robes, that theymay have the right to the tree of life and that they mayenter the city by the gates.”—RSV; the footnotereads: “Other ancient authorities read do his commandments.”Ellen White properly quotes this, as it is found inthe KJV, innumerable times.There are interesting aspects to this variant:First, it is clearly a doctrinal issue, and antinomianswould be glad to see the “commandments” taken outof the verse.Second, the variant is quite Biblical; for there aretwo other verses in Revelation which says somethingsimilar:“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us fromour sins in His own blood.”—Revelation 1:5b ( KJV).“These are they which came out of great tribulation,and have washed their robes, and made themwhite in the blood of the lamb.”—Revelation 7:14b(KJV).Third, it is an intriguing fact that the alternatives inRevelation 22:14 rhyme in the Greek!“Blessed are those doing the commandments His.”/ Makarioi oi poiountes tas entolas autou.“Blessed are those washing the robes His.”/ Makarioi oi pluntes tas stolas auton.It is very possible that a copyist became confused,due to the similar sound, and he substitutedsomething like the earlier two verses in Revelation.Many other exsamples could be cited where EllenWhite used a Majority Text family of manuscripts,when the Neutral Text had something distinctly different.4 - Can you give an example when EllenWhite used a modern Greek Text reading, , inaddition to the reading in the Majority Text?* John 5:39. The key point to this verse isthat we should “search the Scriptures.” Regardingthat point, Ellen White quotes the KJV ofJohn 5:39 about 50 times.But the historical context of that verse is the factthat Jesus was telling His accusers that, although theywere searching the Scriptures, they would not cometo Him that they might have life. Ellen White explainsthis fact in Desire of Ages, p. 211:4, where she quotesthe RV (today known as the ERV):“Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think thatin them ye have eternal life; and these are they whichbear witness of Me.”—John 5:39 (ERV).She also quotes the ERV of this verse in Patriarchsand Prophets, p. 367.5 - Is there an example when she quoteda modern text reading and never quoted theMajority Text?* One example, found while preparing thisbook, is Mark 9:44, 46: “Where their worm diethnot and the fire is not quenched” (KJV).That phrase, repeated three times in three verses,is omitted each time in the non-Majority Texts. Shenever quotes these phrases, although she quotes somenear them (Acts of the Apostles, pp. 312-313, andDesire of Ages, p. 438).Checking further into this, we discover that thisomitted phrase is found nowhere else in the New Testament.The phrase implies that the fire is not quenchedand the worms eating their bodies (living?) do notcease their action.But the phrase comes from Isaiah 66:24; it isthere speaking about “carcases” (KJV) or “deadbodies” (RSV). In that passage the wicked are alreadydead and the remembrance of them may alwaysexist, but the wicked are not still alive.6 - Is there an example where she referredto a concept in a modern text read-ing, without quoting it?* John 5:3-4. This verse is omitted from themodern Greek Texts and many modern versions.“ . . waiting for the moving of the water. For anangel went down at a certain season into the pool,and troubled the water; whosoever then first after thetroubling of the water stepped in was made whole ofwhatsoever disease he had.”—John 5:3b-4 (KJV).This is obviously a strange passage whichhas something wrong with it. Angels do not standaround, jumping into pools every so often. InDesire of Ages, p. 201, she does not deny thatthe people were waiting for the waters to move(thus certifying that John 5:3b belongs there),

Textual Criticism Beginsbut she explains that the idea of an angel troublingthe waters was a superstition.• 2 Timothy 3:16. There are two possiblereadings of this verse:All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God,and is profitable for . .”—2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV).Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitablefor . .”—2 Timothy 3:16, RSV, footnote.If we assume that “Scripture” means theBible writings, then there is no question: AllScripture is inspired of God!But the Greek word used here means “writings,”not “Bible.” We would not want to say,All writings are inspired by God.In the previous verse (3:15), Scripture is definedas those writings that are holy; i.e., inspiredby God. Based on that, verse 16 is well-translatedas “All Scripture is inspired by God.”However, we should keep both possible translationsin mind; since a Catholic could say that149this verse proves that the Apocrypha in his Bibleis also inspired, since it is included in his copyof the Scriptures!How did Ellen White handle 2 Timothy 3:16:In at least 66 instances, she translated it in theusual pattern. But in Great Controversy, p. v,she left room for the other concept:“The Bible points to God as its author; yet itwas written by human hands . . The truths revealedare all ‘given by Inspiration of God.’ ”For this reason, the 3-volume Index lists thatpassage as quoting the Revised Version (althoughit is not directly quoting it).7 - Is there an example where she did notquote a verse which also happens to be omit-ted from the modern text?• Romans 14:6. “And he that regardeth notthe day, to the Lord he doth not regard it” isomitted in the RSV and most other modern texts.Ellen White does not quote it either.Later postscript to this chapter: Earlier inthis chapter, I mentioned that, along with someothers, the Bible truth about hellfire is incorrectlytranslated. This quotation may help explain this:“I saw that God had especially guarded theBible; yet when copies of it were few, learned menhad in some instances changed the words, thinkingthat they were making it more plain, whenin reality they were mystifying that which wasplain, by causing it to lean to their establishedviews, which were governed by tradition. But Isaw that the Word of God, as a whole, is a perfectchain, one portion linking into and explaininganother. True seekers for truth need not err,for not only is the Word of God plain and simplein declaring the way of life, but the Holy Spirit isgiven as a guide in understanding the way to lifetherein revealed.”—Story of Redemption, 391.“To the law and to the testimony: if they speaknot according to this Word, it is because there is nolight in them.”—Isaiah 8:20“Neither have I gone back from thecommandment of His lips; I have esteemed thewords of His mouth more than my necessary food.”—Job 23:12132

150 The King James and the Modern VersionsMost Frequently UsedModern VersionsThe Translators Follow the New Critical TextsINFERIOR TRANSLATIONSThe new translations lack the accuracy,majestic cadence, and delicate balance ofthe King James.“T.S. Elliot, famous American writer, describedone new version as an ‘example of thedecadence of the English language in the middleof the twentieth century.’ ”—G.A. Riplinger, NewAge Bible Versions, p. 212.Here are two rather shocking examples ofwhat you can find in the new versions:“Perhaps he is talking to someone or else isout sitting on the toilet.”—1 Kings 18:27, LivingBible.“And if someone asks, then, what are thesescars on your chest and your back? he will say,I got into a brawl at the home of a friend!”—Zechariah 13:6, Living Bible.We even find an invitation to swearing inPhillips: “For God’s sake” (Mark 5:7), “To hell,with you and your money” (Acts 8:19), “May hebe damned” and “be a damned soul” (Gal. 1:9).Do you want your children reading such aBible?The present writer would also like to callyour attention to another flaw in nearly allof the modern versions: They replace “Thee,”“Thou,” “Thine,” when referring to Jesus orGod, with “youyou” and “youryour.”The terms of deepestrespect and reverence for the Godhead arereplaced by the commonplace “you” and “your.”This alone greatly reduces the value of the modernBibles.BASED ON WESTCOTT AND HORTHere is evidence that all the modern ver-sions are based on the erroneous theories ofWestcott and Hort.John R. Kohlenberger, spokesperson for Zondervan(publisher of the NASV, Living Bible,Amplified Bible, NIV, and RSV), is author of AHebrew NIV Interlinear, as well as Words aboutthe Word: A Guide to Choosing and Using YourBible. He tells us this:“Westcott and Hort . . All subsequent versionsfrom the Revised Version (1881) to thoseof the present . . have adopted their basic approach. . [and] accepted the Westcott and HortText.”—John R. Kohlenberger, Words aboutthe Word, p. 42.Kohlenberger goes on to praise Westcott’s AGeneral Survey of the History of the Canon ofthe New Testament, saying, “This century oldclassic remains a standard” (op. cit., p. 34).Baker Book House, publisher of half-a-dozenmodern translations, also prints a Bible selectionguide entitled, The King James VersionDebate. The author makes this admission:“The theories of Westcott and Hort . . [are]almost universally accepted today . . It is onthis basis that Bible translators since 1881have, as compared with the King James Version,left out some things and added a few others.Subsequent textual critical work acceptedthe theories of Westcott and Hort. The vastmajority of evangelical scholars . . hold thatthe basic textual theories of Westcott and Hortwere right and the church stands greatly in theirdebt.”—D.A. Carson, The King James VersionDebate, pp. 41, 75.Dr. Edward Hills, a Princeton and Harvardscholar, declares that the “New InternationalVersion . . follows the critical Westcott and HortText” (E.F. Hills, The King James Version Defended,p. 29).Even abbreviated histories of the canon, inreference works like Young’s Concordance andHalley’s Bible Handbook agree:“The New Testament Westcott and Hort Greektexts, which, in the main, are the exact originalBible words.”—Henry H. Halley, Halley’s Handbookof the Bible, p. 747.Greenlee adds this:“The textual theories of Westcott and Hort

Most Frequently Used Versions151underlies virtually all subsequent work in NewTestament textual criticism.”—J.H. Greenlee,Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism,p. 78.Scholarly books, articles, and critical editionsof the Greek New Testament are slowly abandoningthe readings of Westcott and Hort in their‘newest’ Greek texts, yet the homes of Christiansare filled with Westcott-Hort based Bibles.Philip Comfort’s recent book concedes:“But textual critics have not been able to advancebeyond Hort in formalizing a theory . .this has troubled certain textual scholars.”—Philip W. Comfort, Early Manuscripts and ModernTranslations of the New Testament, p. 21.Wilbur Pickering says:“The dead hand of Fenton John AnthonyHort lies heavy upon us. The two most popularmanual editions of the Greek Text today, Nestle-Aland and UBS, really vary little from theWestcott-Hort Text. Why is this? Westcott andHort are generally credited with having furnishedthe death blow [to the KJV and theMajority Greek Text].“Subsequent scholarship has tended to recognizeHort’s mistake. The Westcott-Hort criticaltheory is erroneous at every point. Our conclusionsconcerning the theory apply also to anyGreek text constructed on the basis of it [Nestle’s-Aland,UBS etc.], as well as those versionsbased on such texts.”—Wilbur N. Pickering, TheIdentity of the New Testament Text, pp. 38,42, 96, 90.H.C. Hoskier, a scholar who authored A FullAccount and Collation of the Greek Cursive CodexEvangelism and Codex B and Its Allies—AStudy and an Indictment, wrote this:“The text printed by Westcott and Hort hasbeen accepted as ‘the true text,’ and grammars,works on the synoptic problem, works on highercriticism, and others have been grounded onthis text . . These foundations must be demolished.”—Hoskier,Codex B and Its Allies, p. 72.Alfred Martin (former Vice President of MoodyBible Institute in Chicago) said this in a speech:“Many people, even today, who have no ideawhat the Westcott-Hort theory is . . accept thelabors of those two scholars without question. . An amusing and amazing spectacle presentsitself: many of the textbooks, books of Bibleinterpretation, innumerable secondary worksgo on repeating the Westcott and Hort dicta althoughthe foundations have been seriouslyshaken, even in the opinion of former Hortians.”It is astounding that modern translators relyon the theories devised by F.J.J.A.A. . Hort, theo-ries which require a deep understanding ofearly church history—when the man admit-ted he knew little of such things!“I am afraid I must have talked big and misledyou when you were here, for I really knowvery little of Church History.”—Hort, Vol. 1, p.233.THE MEN APPOINTEDTO THE TRANSLATION COMMITTEESWho are the men selected to serve on com-mittees, assigned to prepare a modern Bibletranslation?They are selected, not so much for their carefulgrasp of Biblical languages, but in order toshow a broad representation of denominationsrepresented on the committee.This is done in order to increase the latersale of the books. Those chosen may be Greekgrammarians; but most are, in no sense, eminentpaleographers, papyrologists, codicologists,historians—or, most importantly, earnest Christians.The editors of the new versions do not havea background of endless hours spent in pouringover the ancient manuscripts, as did Scrivener,Burgon, Colwell, Hoskier, and scores of others.In fact, as committee member Lewis Fosos-ter admits, they are not involved with actualmanuscripts or facsimiles at all!“The New Testament translators may chooseto differ from the decision founded in the Greektext he is using [the Nestle-Aland Text or theUBS Text], but he does not deal with the manuscriptsthemselves. He works indirectly throughthe use of the modern Greek Text.”—Foster,quoted in Selecting a Translation of the Bible,pp. 14-15.The translators work with a single criti-cal Greek Textext, either Nestle-Aland or the UBSText (both of which are produced by the samethree men, based on the Westcott-Hort Text, andtherefore are essentially identical). In addition,they peek at other modern translations, tosee what they did with the passage underdiscussion.Working from a single Greek Text reducesthe hundreds of thousands of variant readingsin the Greek manuscripts to a ‘manageable’5,500 or so variants. —How very important itis, then, that the Greek Text be a good one!Sales are the important thing; and the subsidizingbook companies recall what happenedwhen the Revised Standard Version came off the

152 The King James and the Modern Versionspress—and the beliefs of its translators wereexposed to public view. So the publisher maychoose to not reveal the name of each person onthe translation team.The committee list which prepared the NewAmerican Standard Bible remained a closelyguarded secret for over 30 years, lest conservativeChristians catch a glimpse of the liberal membership.(However, its leader, Dr. Frank Logsdon,has renounced his participation. At numerousspeaking engagements he denounces his partin what he now perceives to be a heretical version.“I may be in trouble with God” because ofit, he confesses.)THE FOUR TYPES OF MODERN BIBLESEvery modern Bible falls into the categoryof one or the other of the following four pat-terns:1 - The conservative revisions. These areBibles which have sought to remain somewhatclose to the King James pattern, yet which havestill followed the Nestle-Aland or UBS Greek Text.Of these, the New American Standard Versionhas veered closer to the Majority Text than havethe others.2 - The paraphrases. These are Bibles designedto read like a novel. Because of this, theyare the most dangerous modern translations ofall. Their authors (the men really were not “translators”)took great liberties with the meaning ofthe text, in order to make everything flow welland be interesting, even exciting.3 - The Doctrinal error translations. Thesealso include doctrinal error; but the error wasdeliberately inserted, to favor the teachings of acertain denomination.4 - The rest of the modern versions varyin competence; but, as with the others, they adhereto the Westcott-Hort theory.We will now deal with each of these fourtypes, one at a time:For the remainder of this section, wewill discuss the most significant or frequentlyused 20th-century translations ofthe last half of the 20th-centurycentury.THE ENGLISH REVISED VERSION(ERV) [RV] (1881, 1885)AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION(ASV) [ARV] (1901)The original names for these two translationswere the Revised Version (RV) and American RevisedVersion (ARV). But, in later years, scholarschanged their names to English Revised Version(ERV) and American Standard Version (ASV). Inorder to simplify the situation, in this book weuse their current names.Because the two are nearly identical, we willdiscuss them together.The English Revised Version (ERV) [RV]—This is the revision that we earlier discussed,when we talked about Westcott and Hort. TheNew Testament was completed in 1881, and theOld Testament in 1885.The American Standard Version (ASV)[ARV]—In 1901, an American committee madea few (not many) changes and published it underthe name, American Revised Version (ARV).These two revised versions sought to ren-der a given word in the original by the sameEnglish word consistently, , regardless of its con-text. It was their view that faithfulness to theoriginal demanded a meticulous word-by-wordtranslation. They attempted a precise render-ing of the tenses and the articles. Often inthe New Testament they even followed theorder of the Greek words rather than the wordorder that is natural to English. The result isthat both these versions are stiff, pedantic, andunidiomatic. They lack the free literary charmof the KJV.These versions also used archaic wordswhich no one understood. Here are a few examples:“The Holy Spirit testifieth . . that bonds andafflictions abide me.”—Acts 20:23.“Come, and I will advertise thee what thispeople shall do to thy people in the latterdays.”—Numbers 24:14.“And all they that cast angle into the Nileshall mourn.”—Isaiah 19:8.“Their own doings beset them about.”—Hosea 7:2.“Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortarwith a pestle.”—Proverbs 27:22.“But doting about questionings and disputesof words.”—1 Timothy 6:4.

Most Frequently Used Versions153TWO MODERN REVISIONSThe two translations in the 20th centurywhich are most conservative (that is, themost like the King James Version and Tyn-dale) are the Revised Standard Version (RSV)and the New American Standard Version(NASV). The latter is sometimes called the NewAmerican Standard Bible (NASB).That may come as a surprise to you, but it istrue.We are not recommending that you readthese versions; but we want you to know that,of all those produced in the 20th century, theyare the safest. This is due to the fact that theyhave the smallest amount of paraphrase. TheRSV and NASV do not take liberties with the textthe way that Phillips, the New English Bible (NEB),and the Living Bible (LB) do.The above paragraph may sound like heresy;yet it is true. The RSV and NASV are the safesttwo modern translations. This is because theyread so clearly and are so similar to the KJV,that it is much, much easier to see the er-rors in them than it is in the other modernversions.However, as we have repeatedly told you,these two translations, like all the others, arebased on the Nestle-Aland / UBS Greek Texts;so these will have the errors in those Texts whichare based on the Minority Texts.Therefore we do not recommend that youread either the RSV or the NASV. . Stay withthe KJV, and you will do best. But, if you everneed to refer to a modern version for somereason or other, , the RSV and NASV are thetwo which will most closely match the textof the KJV. For this reason, it will be easier tosee their flaws than in the paraphrastic (paraphrase)translations, such as the Phillips andLiving Bible.In case you some day have a relative whoabsolutely demands a modern version, buy themone of these.Of the two, the New American StandardVersion is the nearest to the Tyndaleyndale-KingJames pattern. (But, as you will read shortly,the NASV has its flaws too!)For your information, there is a technicalterm used by Bible translators. Those modernBibles which attempted to remain close to thepattern of the King James are called “versions.”The rest are called “translations.” We have notused that nomenclature in this book, but this iswhy only a few Bibles are called “versions.”Later in this book, we will list many of theoutstanding errors in the Revised StandardVersion and the New American Standard Version.THE CONSERVATIVE BIBLESFirst, we will examine those translationswhich especially tried to remain close to the Tyndale/ King James pattern.REVISED STANDARD VERSION (RSV)In the preface to the Revised Standard Version,we read this:“Yet the King James Version has grave defects.By the middle of the nineteenth century,the development of Biblical studies and the discoveryof many manuscripts, more ancient thanthose upon which the King James Version wasbased, made it manifest that these defects areso many and so serious as to call for revisionof the English translation . . The King JamesVersion of the New Testament was based upona Greek text that was marred by mistakes, containingthe accumulated errors of fourteen centuriesof manuscript copying . . We now possessmany more ancient manuscripts of theNew Testament, and are far better equippedto seek to recover the original wording of theGreek text.”—Preface, Revised Standard Version.Well, that tells you about their prejudices!Here is the historical background of theRevised Standard Version:The copyright of the 1901 ASV (ARV), whichhad been held by Thomas Nelson and Sons, wastransferred in 1928 to the International Councilof Religious Education. This body is an associationof the educational boards of forty majorProtestant denominations of the U.S. and Canada.It was an ecumenical organization. (Laterit became the Division of Christian Education, anagency in the National Council of Churches [NCC],based in New York City. We will encounter it againwhen we discuss the RSV Apocrypha. It is notcommonly known that a subsidiary of the notoriousNCC holds the copyright to the RSV!)This council renewed the copyright that yearand established an American Standard BibleCommittee of scholars to be the custodian of thetext of the ASV, with authority to undertake furtherrevisions as deemed advisable. In 1937, the

154 The King James and the Modern VersionsInternational Council of Religious Educationvoted to authorize a new revision, specifying thatit should only be a revision of the ASV whichshould seek to maintain the simple beauty of theKJV.“There is need for a version which embodiesthe best results of modern scholarship as tothe meaning of the Scriptures, and expressesthis meaning in English diction which is designedfor use in public and private worshipand preserves those qualities which have givento the King James Version a supreme place inEnglish literature. We therefore define the taskof the American Standard Bible Committee tobe that of the revision of the present AmericanStandard Bible, in the light of the results ofmodern scholarship, this revision to be designedfor use in public and private worship,and to be in the direction of the simple, classicEnglish style of the King James Version.”—1937 Action of the International Council of ReligiousEducation.The revision committee had 32 scholars,plus an advisory board of 50 representatives ofcooperating denominations. The committee wasdivided into two sections: one dealing with thethe New Testament.The RSV New Testament was publishedin Februaryebruary, , 1946; and the Old Testamentwas published in 1952.The translators said they tried to avoid a slavishdevotion to the Westcott-Hort Text and theory.One of the New Testament translators, F.C.Grant, wrote this:“With the best will in the world, the NewTestament translator or reviser of today isforced to adopt the eclectic principle: each variantreading must be studied on its merits, andcannot be adopted or rejected by some rule ofthumb, or by adherence to such a theory asthat of the ‘Neutral Text.’ It is this eclectic principlethat has guided us in the present Revision.The Greek text of this Revision is not thatof Westcott-Hort, or Nestle, or Souter; thoughthe readings we have adopted will as a rule, befound either in the text or the margin of thenew (17th) edition of Nestle (Stuttgart, 1941).”—An Introduction to the Revised Standard Versionof the New Testament, p. 41.In thirteen passages, in Isaiah, readingswere adopted from the newly discovered Isaiahscroll of the Qumran library. In seven of thethirteen instances the reading has the support ofone or more of the ancient versions (Isa. 14:30;15:9; 45:2; 49:24; 51:19; 56:12; 60:19), suchas the Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Aramaic Targums.Numerous other readings, supported by one ormore of these versions or (for the Pentateuch) theSamaritan recension, were also accepted. Severalsubstantial additions to the text in variousplaces were thus made. For example, “Let us goout to the field” is inserted in Genesis 4:8, and“Why have you stolen my silver cup?” in Genesis44:4. In Judges 16:13-14, the revisers restoredsome fifteen words from the Greek whichthey felt had dropped out of the Hebrew text.Substantial material was also added to the traditionaltext of 1 Samuel 10:1 and 14:41.More than any other 20th-century translation(with the exception of the NASV), the RSVtried to preserve the best of the earlier versionswhile at the same time substituting modern Englishfor antiquated language. But it tended tostill conform to the general pattern and, frequently,the exact wording of Tyndale’s versionof the 16th century. The revisers strove for simplicityyet dignity in rendering. But they omittedthe “Thee” and “Thine” which made the KJV somuch more reverent.The text of prose passages in the RSV is arrangedin sense paragraphs, as in the ASV, insteadof being broken up into separate versesas in the KJV.Poetic passages are printed in poetic form.The metrical nature of ancient Semitic poetry isbetter understood today than it was when theKJV was produced. One of its characteristics isaccentual meter. This means that each line containsa certain number of accents or beats. Amore striking characteristic is its parallelism ofmembers. The basic unit of Hebrew poetry is aline followed by a second (or, at times, by a third),which complements it by restating it (synonymousparallelism), contrasting with it (antitheticparallelism), or further developing or completingit (synthetic or step parallelism).The RSV tried to reproduce the accentualmeter in its renderings and arrange the lines incouplets or triplets. In addition, it tried to arrangethe poetic passages in stanzas. Approximately40 percent of the Old Testament is inpoetic form. This includes not only the poeticbooks—Job, Psalms, Proverbs, parts of Ecclesiastes,the Song of Solomon, and Lamentations—but major portions of many of the propheticbooks as well. In addition, there are poetic passagesin the Pentateuch and the historical books.Regarding the tetragrammaton, the ineffable

Most Frequently Used Versions155divine name, the RSV returned to the practice ofthe KJV, in rendering it LORD (or, under certaincircumstances, GOD). This harmonized with thelong-established synagogue practice of readingthe letters YHWH as Adonai, meaning “Lord,”as well as the Septuagint Greek rendering ofKyrios (Lord), and the Vulgate of Dominus.The RSV translates sheol (the grave) as“sheol” (instead of “hell,” as in the KJV). Frankly,this is a genuine improvement over the KJV.When people die, they go to sheol, the grave, notto a burning hell.Later in this book, we will list a number ofthe outstanding errors in the Revised StandardVersion.CHANGES IN LATER EDITIONS OF THEREVISED STANDARD VERSIONGradually, the publishing firms discoveredthat sales figures were more important than theWestcott and Hort theories. In order to increasethe sales, after the initial publication of theRSV in 1952, pressure was brought to bearon the permanent RSV Bible Committee toconsider making some changes which wouldmake the version more acceptable to the pub-lic.The RSV Bible Committee is a continuingcommittee, with authority to make revisions inthe text of the RSV when it is deemed advisable.A number of changes were made in the textin 1959, as the result of criticisms and suggestionsfrom various readers. These include changingthe rendering “married only once” (1 Tim.3:2, 12; 5:9) to “the husband of one wife.” InJob 19:26, “without my flesh I shall see God”was changed to “from my flesh I shall see God.”“Bread,” in Matthew 7:9 and 1 Corinthians10:17 is changed to “loaf.” The Roman Centurion’sexclamation is now given as in the KJV:“Truly this was the Son of God!” not “a son ofGod” as previously (Matt. 27:54; Mark 15:39).The translation of 1 Corinthians 15:19 and John16:23 was also improved.The second edition of the RSV New Teses-tament was copyrighted in 1971. Additionalsuggestions and criticisms from individuals andfrom two denominational committees were received.So a few more changes in the underlyingGreek text were made. The most conspicuous ofthese was the restoration to the text of two notablepassages previously given only in footnotes:the longer ending of Mark 16:9-20 and the storyof the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11). The blank space separating them fromthe rest of the text called attention to them; andcomments are made in footnotes. Two passagesin Luke were also restored to the text (Luke22:19b-20; 24:5) while another (Luke 22:43-44) was removed and placed as a footnote. Newnotes calling attention to significant textual variationsin manuscripts were added in a few places(e.g., Matt. 9:34; Mark 3:16; 7:4; Luke 24:32,51).For improved clarity, a number of changesin the wording were also made. In 2 Corinthians3:5-6, “competent” and “competence” are substitutedfor “sufficient” and “sufficiency.“ In Matthew12:1 “heads of grain” replaces the British“ears of grain.” “Move from here to there” (Matt.17:20) replaces “Move hence to yonder place.”NEW AMERICAN STANDARDVERSION (NASV)The Lockman Foundation has produced twotranslations: the Amplified New Testament andthe New American Standard Bible (NASV). It isa nonprofit Christian corporation formed in 1942in La Habra, California, to promote Bible translationin several languages.The NASV New Testament was publishedin 1963 and the entire Bible in 1971. ItsPreface stated that its objective was to remainas close to the KJV and its simplicity as possible.The NASV sought to avoid the word-forwordliteralness of the ASV and to return to thepattern in the Tyndale / KJV translations.Sixteen men worked on each Testament. Asis always done in the 20th century, the NestleGreek Text was followed in the New Testament.In Matthew, the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer(16:13) and two whole verses (18:11; 23:14) areprinted in brackets in the main text; whereasthey are only found in footnotes in both the ASVand the Nestle Greek Text. Contrary to Nestle,Luke 24:12 is printed in the text, but also inbrackets. The NASV also follows the ASV, contraryto Nestle, in printing the “Long Ending” ofMark in the text (16:9-20) in brackets, as wellas the “Shorter Ending” in italics with the title“Addition.” It also has in brackets, in the text,the story of the woman in adultery (John 7:53-8:11). For examples of other differences from thetext of the ASV, see Mark 1:29; 2:4, 16; 6:14;

156 The King James and the Modern Versions7:4, 24; 12:33; Luke 9:2, 9; 10:42; 24:36, 40;John 8:16; 10:18; 13:32; 15:8.There is only one column of text on eachpage. Each verse, like the KJV, is printed as aseparate unit. Paragraphs are designated bybold-face numbers. Except in language addressedto Deity, the use of “thou,” “thee,” and“thy” has been replaced by “you” and “your.”However, there is one redeeming feature: Personalpronouns referring to God the Father,Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit begin with acapital letter. This is true when they refer to JesusChrist, irrespective of the speaker’s attitude towardHim (e.g., the mob: Matt. 26:68, 27:22;Herod: Matt. 2:8; the high priest: Matt. 26:63;Pilate: Matt. 27:11-14, et al.).Like the RSV, the NASV translates the placeof the dead (sheol, the grave) as “sheol” (insteadof “hell,” as in the KJV). That is very helpful.Like the RSV, the NASV has gone back to theancient practice of translating YHWH as LORDor sometimes as GOD.The corresponding term in the New Testament,“hades,” is likewise transliterated as “Gehenna”;however, it is translated as “hell” (Matt.5:22, 29-30; 10:28, et al.) or “the eternal fire”(Matt. 18:9).The NASV retains the practice, begun in theGeneva Bible and continued through the KJVand ASV, of printing in italics words for whichthere are no exact equivalents in the original butwhich have been added to make the translationconform to English idiom.The NASV tends to be a literal, very read-able, translation of the Bible. In the New Testament,it is based on the Nestle Greek Text—but that text has been considerably modified inthe direction of the Textus Receptus, which theKJV is based on. A number of verses resting onthe Majority Text have been reintroduced intothe text from the margin. The translators apparentlyhesitated to follow the Nestle Text tooclosely. The NASV is thus closer to the KJVand its Majority Text than any other 20th-century translation.In the Old Testament, the traditional Hebrewtext is only occasionally modified by readingsfrom Hebrew manuscripts and ancient versions.But the version does represent an honest attemptto be faithful to the Hebrew text and to the adoptedGreek readings. It tries to give an accurateliteral rendering of the Hebrew and Greek.But, in the Old Testament, the NASV is notas readable as in the New. This is due to the factthat the Hebrew is often difficult to understand(because it says things so briefly). For this reason,any version which translates the Old Test-ament very smoothly—is adding conjecturesin order to do this.All in all, because it is the closest to theMajority Text and the KJV, , the NASV is a farbetter study Bible than any other publishedin the 20th century—that is, if you want toread any Bible produced in the 20th cen-tury.NEW KING JAMES VERSION (NKJV)This version demands special atten-tion—since it is not what it purports to be.There was a need for a King James Versionwhich modernized a few words, and nothing else.This particular Bible was supposed to do that—but has turned out to be partially based on theNestle Text!This makes the NKJV something of a fraud.How can a Bible dare to call itself “KingJames,” when it has Westcott and Hort er-rors in it?The New Testament was published in 1979and the Old in 1982. Advertising for it showed apage from an original 1611 KJV with the commentthat, since our current KJV is “just a revision,”you will just love this new revision!“People trust the King James. It’s the Biblefor all who love God’s Word. Since 1611, fourmajor editions of the KJV have been published.And now Thomas Nelson—the world’s leadingBible publisher—is pleased to present the fifthmajor edition of this magnificent translation,the New King James Version.”—Ad for NewKing James Version.The problem is that Thomas Nelson be-lieves the “original language” is closer to theNestle Text than it is to Erasmus’ Text.“Every word of the New King James Versionhas been checked against the original in lightof increasing knowledge about the Greek andHebrew languages. Nothing has been changedexcept to make the original meaning clearer.”—Ad in Moody Monthly, June 1982.In 774 instances, two alternative Greek readingsare given, one in the text and the other infootnotes. Even the “-eth” and “-est” (loveth,lovest) have been removed.

Most Frequently Used VersionsTHE PARAPHRASE BIBLESThe Bibles we have already discussed tendto be conservative; that is, they follow moreclosely to the King James pattern while alsoincluding Westcott-Hort errors in them.Now we turn our attention to the para-phrases. These are the worst Bibles of all!The paraphrased translations (also calledparaphrastics) are prepared very differently thanall earlier Bibles. These Bibles primarily read likean exciting novel. —And this makes them extremelydangerous.The two worst are Phillips and the LivingBible; but most of the others, in the last half ofthe 20th century, tend toward the paraphrase.The reason is simple enough: They sell better.PHILLIPSJ.B.B. . Phillips had little training or com-petence in Biblical languages. In fact, he didnot find it necessary to even bother much witha Greek Text. His translation is the result.Phillips was a pastor who wanted to help aLondon youth group understand the Bible better.So he translated Colossians and read it tothem. One day, he sent a copy of it to C.S. Lewis(the well-known author of Christian fairy tales),who encouraged him to go on. While smokinghis pipe, Lewis wrote Phillips: “It’s like seeingan old picture that’s been cleaned. Why don’tyou go on and do the lot?”So Phillips kept working till his Letters toYoung Churches (Pauline Epistles) was publishedin 1947.It was a sensation, and people from all overthe world encouraged him to go on and do theGospels. He was reluctant to do this, since peoplemight object to his paraphrasing the actual wordsof Jesus. But few seemed to care for his lack ofconcern about what the manuscripts said. Indeed,there is a question whether Phillips knewmuch Greek or bothered with any Greek Text atall! The entire New Testament was publishedin 1958, Four Prophetsin 1963, and therevised New Testament in 1973.The great popularity of this version lies in itsfreshness of style and its readability. The NewTestament reads as if it were originally writtenin 20th-century English. It does not read like atranslation at all. Phillips’ success is due to thecare he took in avoiding “translator’s English”and in trying out his translation with his friends.157“For myself I have taken the bold step of tryingto imagine myself as the original writer,whether he be the careful and precise Matthew,the sturdy, blunt Mark, the sympathetic, understandingLuke, or the more profound andmystically inclined John.”—Phillips, BibleTranslator, IV, (1953), p. 55.“Greet . . with a holy kiss” becomes “shakehands.” “Sandals” becomes “shoes.” “Girdingone’s loins” becomes “tighten one’s belt.”The book has paragraphs with section headings;so it is almost impossible to find a specificverse, since only the first verse in a paragraph isnumbered.In the revised edition, no verse numbers appearat all, making it even more difficult to checkanything.The most famous verse in Phillips’ translationis this one:“Don’t let the world around you squeeze youinto its own mold, but let God remold yourminds from within.”—Romans 12:2.The problem is that Phillips is just too freeto toss in words and move things around—soeverything will sound just fine.Phillips translates Matthew 6:2, “Don’t hirea trumpeter”; the Greek simply says, “Sound notrumpet.” The idea that someone else is to dothe trumpeting for the one who gives alms is notstated; therefore it should not have been translatedin the above manner.“Brush your hair” instead of “anoint yourhead” (Matt. 6:17). (But in the later edition, Phillipswent back to “anoint your head.”)Phillips adds “comfortably” in Matthew15:35, but the Greek original does not have thisword. In Matthew 16:18, Phillips adds “therock” after Peter.The forcefulness of Jesus’ expression, “Becauseof the hardness of your hardness of hearts. .” is lost by Phillips’: “It was because you knewso little of the meaning of love” (Matt. 19:8).“Spoils your faith” for “causes you to sin”(Mark 9:42).“Rubbish heap” (Mark 9:43) for “hell”(gehenna).“Don’t bully people” instead of “Do violenceto no man” (Luke 3:14).“Practical and spiritually minded” instead of“full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” (Acts 6:3).Romans 16:16 is translated, “Give one anothera hearty handshake all round for my sake[in Christian love].”

158 The King James and the Modern Versions“For Christ means the end of the struggle forrighteousness-by-the-Law” (Rom. 10:4).In the book of Romans, Romans 3:31 standsout as a bulwark, proclaiming the importanceof obeying the law of God. You will find it in mostmodern versions, but Phillips manages to twistit into something quite different. He “puts thelaw into its proper place” as something not worthbothering with.Phillips surely can add to the text. CompareLuke 7:33-34 in your KJV with this:“For John the Baptist came in the strictestausterity and you say he is crazy. Then the Sonof Man came, enjoying life [food and drink], andyou say, ‘Look, a drunkard and a glutton, a bosomfriend of the tax collector and the outsider!”—Luke7:33-34 (Phillips).We even find an invitation to swearing: “ForGod’s sake” (Mark 5:7), “To hell, with you andyour money” (Acts 8:19), “May he be damned”and “be a damned soul” (Gal. 1:9).At the urging of many, , J.B.B. . Phillips turnedhis translational skill to a portion of the OldTestament(Amos, Hosea, Isaiah 1-35, andMicah, arranged in that order).Hebrew is concrete rather than abstract; soPhillips plays with the words in order to put theresomething that the text does not have.“The starry universe” in place of “the sevenstars and Orion” (Amos 5:8).“The words of Amos . . which he saw concerningIsrael” becomes “These are the words ofAmos when he saw the truth about Israel” (Amos1:1).“For three transgressions . . and for four” becomes“Because of outrage after outrage” (Amos1:3).“The Lord said to Hosea” becomes “WhileHosea was waiting . .” (Hosea 1:2).“For she gathered it of the hire of an harlot,and they shall return to the hire of an harlot”becomes simply “For the price of her unfaithfulnesspays for her betrayal!” (Micah 1:7).If you are looking for an accurate translation,you will not be happy with Phillips’ production.It was not intended to be used for studypurposes. He turns the Bible into something akinto a fiction novel.LIVING BIBLE (LB) (Taylor)Kenneth Nathaniel Taylor was anotherChristian who, having little background in Bib-lical languages, started writing paraphrasesof the Bible—which then became wildly popu-lar.Taylor lived in Wheaton, Illinois, and wouldspend a little time, after the day’s work, rephrasingScripture as he had evening worship withhis children.Riding a commuter train each day from hishome in Wheaton to his work in Chicago, wherehe was the director of the Moody Literature Missionof the Moody Press, he conceived the ideaof using commuter time on the train to paraphrasethe Bible. Obviously, he did not have alot of Greek Texts in front of him; in fact hehad none—just an English American Stan-dard Version (ASV, , ARV) and a notepad. Hebegan with the Book of Romans. You ou couldsay he was translating from English into En-glish!In 1962 he decided to form his own publishingcompany, to promote the paraphrases he wasproducing. He called his new firm Tyndale Houseafter William Tyndale, the father of the EnglishBible. What would Tyndale have thought of this?In 1962 he published a rendering of theNew Testament letters with the title, LivingLetters. This was followed by Living Propheciesin 1965, Living Gospels in 1966, and theLiving New Testament in 1967. In 1967 he alsoput out Living Psalms, followed by Living Lessonsof Life and Love in 1968, Living Books ofMoses in 1969, and Living History of Israel in1970. The complete Living Bible (LB) camefrom the press in 1971.Its circulation has been helped by the BillyGraham Evangelistic Association, which haspublicized it on television and has given awayhundreds of thousands of copies. In 1965, inhonor of his great work of translating Englishinto English, Wheaton College conferred onhim the honorary degree of Doctor of Litera-ture.He includes some of the Majority Text passages(see Matt. 17:21; 18:11; Mark 15:28;John 5:3b-5; Acts 8:37; 24:6b-8a; Rom. 16:24).In most of these cases his LB has a footnote callingthe reader’s attention to the fact that manyancient manuscripts omit the passage.He sometimes adds quite a few imaginativedetails for which there is no warrant in the original.A clear example is in Amos 1:1-2. Here theASV (the version Taylor worked from) gives a literalword-for-word translation of the Hebrew. It

Most Frequently Used Versions159gives the title as “The words of Amos who wasamong the herdsmen of Tekoa . .” In the LB thisbecomes two full sentences: “Amos was a herdsmanliving in the village of Tekoa. All day long hesat on the hillsides watching the sheep, keepingthem from straying.” The ASV continues, “. .which he saw concerning Israel.” In the LB thisbecomes: “One day in a vision, God told himsome of the things that were going to happen tohis nation, Israel . . This is his report of what hesaw and heard.”At other times he gives us less than what isthere: Psalm 19:7-9 extols the wonders of God’slaw in a beautifully structured piece of literaryart. The original has six different names for thewritten revelation and ascribe six different characteristicsand funtions to it. In the LB, the literarybeauty of the poem has given way to simpleassertions: “God’s laws are perfect. They protectus, make us wise, and give us joy and light.God’s laws are pure, eternal, and just.”In one passage, Taylor says, “Look up intothe heavens! Who created all these stars?” Afterthis, he gives an analogy completely untrue tothe original: “As a shepherd leads his sheep, callingeach by its pet name, and counts them tosee that none are lost or strayed, so God doeswith stars and planets!” A footnote to the word“shepherd” says, “Implied”; but there is nothingin the Hebrew implying this figure of speech.The actual analogy is far more majestic, designedto display, as the prophet declares, thegreatness of God’s might and the force of Hispower. The analogy is not that of a shepherd,but of a great general reviewing his army; for thatis what the word, “host,” means in the ASV. God,as the Lord of hosts, leads forth the stars as ageneral summons his forces.Above everything else, a translation must befaithful to the text of the original. Does a translatorhave the right to read his own interpretationinto the text. Was the forbidden tree in tha Gardenof Eden a “Tree of Conscience”?Taylor adds a legend to Genesis 6. The“sons of God,” in Genesis 6, are made into“evil beings from the spirit world.” He holdsthat they were God’s “created supernatural beings,but no longer godly in character” (footnote),who fell in love with women on earth, “the daughtersof men.” Here is his translation:“Now a population explosion took place uponthe earth. It was at this time that beings fromthe spirit world looked upon the beautiful earthwomen and took any they desired to be theirwives . . In those days, and even afterwards,when the evil beings from the spirit world weresexually involved with human women, their childrenbecame giants, of whom so many legendsare told.”—Genesis 6:1-2, 4 (Phillips).Taylor places the entire book of Revela-tion into the future! “This book unveils some ofthe future activities soon to occur in the life ofJesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1).Revelation 1:10 has John going to churchon Sunday. “It was the Lord’s Day and I wasworshiping.”Look at what Taylor does to the first beatitude:“ ‘Humble men are very fortunate!’ ” hetold them, “ ‘for the Kingdom of Heaven is givento them’ ” (Matt. 5:3). Although humility is aChristian virtue, there is something deeper impliedhere. The “poor in spirit” are those whohave a deep sense of spiritual poverty (see Isa.66:2). They are not only humble, but have a feelingof spiritual destitution and recognize theirneed of God.Taylor repeatedly changes “son of man” to“Messiah” (Luke 21:27; 24:7), “I, the Messiah”(Matt. 8:20; 11:19; 12:8, et al.), or simply “I”(Matt. 10:23; 13:41; 16:13, et al.).The so-called Living Bible is a transla-tion of a translation. It is further limited bythe fact that the translator frankly states hewas guided by his theology. It would no doubtbe helpful for the reader to know what Taylormeans when he says he has “a rigid evangelicalposition.” But this is not clarified.By reading the way he twists Scripture, welearn more of his objective.Consider what he does to the truth aboutthe unconscious state of the dead:The ASV, which he “translated” from, gives aliteral translation of Psalm 115:17: “The deadpraise not Jehovah, neither any that go downinto silence.” But, in the LB, this becomes “Thedead cannot sing praises to Jehovah here onearth.”The ASV rendering of Psalm 6:5 reads: “Forin death there is no remembrance of thee: InSheol, who shall give thee thanks?” The LivingBible translates: “For if I die I cannot give youglory by praising you before my friends,” implyingthat he could praise God in heaven.In the Living Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:5 is “Forthe living at least know that they will die! Butthe dead know nothing; they don’t even have their

160 The King James and the Modern Versionsmemories.” Unable to effectively destroy thatpassage, Taylor adds this in the footnote: “Thesestatements are Solomon’s discouraged opinion,and do not reflect a knowledge of God’s truth onthese points!”Psalm 73:24 in the ASV reads: “Thou wiltguide me with thy counsel, and afterward receiveme to glory” (possibly meaning “honor”).The last clause in the Living Bible is “and afterwardsreceive me into the glories of heaven.”Paul’s famous saying, “For I am already beingoffered, and the time of my departure hascome” (2 Tim. 4:6, ASV) is translated: “My timehas almost run out. Very soon now I will be onmy way to heaven.”1 Thessalonians 4:14 in the Living Biblereads: “For since we believe that Jesus died andthen came back to life again, we can also believethat when Jesus returns, God will bring withhim all the Christians who have died.”Here is what Taylor has done to hellfire:The Hebrew word for the place of the dead,Sheol, is consistently transliterated in the ASV.The LB, however, frequently translates it as “hell,”as though it were a place of punishment—contraryto Hebrew thought. “The wicked shall besent away to hell” (Ps. 9:17). “Hell is licking itschops in anticipation of this delicious morsel,Jerusalem” (Isa. 5:14). “But they don’t realizethat her former guests are now citizens of hell”(Prov. 9:18). “The denizens of hell crowd to meetyou as you enter their domain” (Isa. 14:9). Allthis sounds like something out of Dante’s Inferno!However, in other passages, Sheol is translated“grave.” Psalm 16:10 is adequately rendered,“For you will not leave me among the dead;you will not allow your beloved one to rot in thegrave.” However, when this passage is quoted inActs 2:27, the meaning is distorted by insertingthe word, “body,” in contrast to “soul”: “You willnot leave my soul in hell or let the body of yourHoly Son decay.” Thus a false dichotomy, foreignto Old Testament thinking, is introducedinto the quotation. This is made abundantlyclear in verse 31, where the word, “soul,” is insertedand “flesh” is rendered “body”: “The Messiah’ssoul would not be left in hell and his bodywould not decay.”This is what Taylor did to the law andthe Sabbath:“For Moses gave us only the Law with its rigiddemands and merciless justice, while JesusChrist brought us loving forgiveness as well” isthe translation given of John 1:17. But salvationmeans more than bringing people to heaven(Rom. 1:16-17), and the righteousness of Godis more than a “way to heaven” (Rom. 3:21-22).“On every Lord’s Day each of you should putaside something from what you have earnedduring the week.” The Greek has simply “on thefirst day of the week,” and there is no evidencethat it was called “the Lord’s Day” in the firstcentury.The translation of Acts 20:7 is also questionable:“On Sunday, we gathered for a communionservice.” Again, the Greek has, “On the firstday of the week . .” The meeting referred to wasobviously a night farewell service. It is not entirelyclear whether the days are reckoned onthe Jewish basis, from sundown to sundown,or on the Roman basis, from midnight to midnight.But the former seems most likely, in whichcase the meeting was held on Saturday night (seeNEB, TEV). Moreover, it is not clear that this wasa communion service. The original has “to breakbread.” This expression can mean either an ordinarymeal (Acts 2:42, 46) or the Lord’s Supper.In any case, it was not called a “communionservice” in New Testament times.Other questionable interpretations are givenin Hebrews 5:7, 13:10, 2 Corinthians 7:14, 5:1,2 Timothy 2:8, 3:16, etc.The translations by Phillips and Taylor areamong the most dangerous translations in the20th century. . Even the Catholic and Jehovah’sWitness Bibles tend to be more staid, driftingoff primarily when they want to strengthenone of their errors.The New English Bible is also a paraphrasewhich, sometimes, is quite extreme.NEW ENGLISH BIBLE (NEB)The same year the RSV New Testamentwas published in the United States (1946),plans were laid in the British Isles for theproduction of the New English Bible (NEB).As the result of the initiative (taken by theannual General Assembly of the Church of Scotlandin approaching other churches regarding anew version), delegates from the Church of England,the Church of Scotland, the Methodist,Baptist, and Congregational churches met inconference in October. It was decided to under-

Most Frequently Used Versions161take the production of a completely new translation.In the following year representatives of thesechurches were appointed to form a “Joint Committeeon the New Translation of the Bible,”which met in July, 1947. At its third meeting inJanuary, 1948, the committee also invited thePresbyterian Church of England, the Society ofFriends, the Churches in Wales, the Churchesin Ireland, the British and Foreign Bible Society,and the National Bible Society of Scotland toappoint representatives. At a later time repre-sentatives of the Roman Catholic Church inEngland and Scotland also attended as ob-servers.The work of translating the Old Testament,New Testament, and Apocrypha was assignedto three groups. The first edition of the NewTestament was published in 1961. The com-plete Bible was published in March, 1970, intwo editions—one with and one without theApocrypha.The NEB differs from the RSV in threeways. First, it purports to be a completely newrendering of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, andGreek, and not just a revision of older Englishversions (ASV and KJV).This means the NEB does not try to stayclose to the King James Version, as does theRSV. The New English Bible abandoned the Tyndale/ King James tradition and attempted anentirely new translation.Second, it has a different method of translation.The translators of the Tyndale traditionsought to present a literal word-for-word rendering,as far as they were able to do so con-sistent with English idiom. In fact, from theGeneva Bible on down to the KJV, , Englishwords that were not actually representativeof corresponding words in the original butwere regarded as necessary to make sense inour language were put in italics.The method of translation used in theNEB is much freer. . Instead of being a wordfor-wordtranslation, it is a “meaning-for-meaning” rendering. Those are big words fora paraphrase.Third, the NEB New Testament differs fromthe RSV in many passages in its use of theGreek text. The NEB boldly uses variant read-ings which no other modern—or earlier—translation dared to use! For example, it usedsome of the peculiar “Western family” read-ings—which not even Westcott and Hort woulduse!Here are some examples. Some of themare indeed shocking, since they are basedon only one or two unimportant manuscripts:NEB omits all of Matthew 9:34 following Dand the Sinaitic Syriac, on the assumption thatthis verse is an assimilation to Matthew 12:24.“Lebbaeus” is substituted for “Thaddaeus” inthe list of the twelve apostles, in Matthew 10:3,on the basis of D.In place of “moved with compassion” in Mark1:41, the NEB follows the reading “being angry”of D, which it translates weakly as “in warm indignation.”Among the variety of forms in which manuscriptsgive the charge of Jesus to the blind manhealed at Bethsaida in Mark 8:26, the NEB hasadopted the simple one found in no currentlyknown Greek manuscript, but in one old manuscript:“Do not tell anyone in the village.”In Acts 1:26, the reading of D and its Latincounterpart, “the twelve apostles,” is read insteadof “the eleven apostles.” “By his holy prophets”is read in Acts 3:21, with D, instead of “byhis holy prophets from of old.”There are other interesting readings inthe NEB Greek text that are not peculiarlyWestern.In Mark 8:38, as in its parallel of Luke9:26a, “words” is omitted with the resultingtranslation: “If anyone is ashamed of me andmine [i.e., my followers] in this wicked and godlessage, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him,when he comes in the glory of his Father and ofthe holy angels.”The striking reading found in some “Caesarean”type manuscripts that give the name of thenotorious prisoner released in place of our Lordas “Jesus Bar-Abbas” is adopted in Matthew27:16ff.In Luke 10:1, the NEB has the interestingreading of “seventy-two” rather than “seventy,”and this is supported by the Codex Vaticanus aswell as Western and other manuscripts.John 13:10 reads, “A man who has bathedneeds no further washing.” But the omission hereof “needs only to wash his feet” rests on weakmanuscript evidence.The NEB translators also changed parts ofthe Old Testament!They occasionally changed the order of ma-

162 The King James and the Modern Versionsterials in the text. For example, in Genesis 26,verse 18 is placed between verses 15 and 16.Verses 6-7 of Isaiah 41 are inserted betweenverses 20 and 21 of Isaiah 40.In Jeremiah 12 part of verse 14 and all ofverse 15 are given after verse 17. Verses 13 and14 of Jeremiah 15 are removed from the textand put in a footnote.Amos 5:7 is transposed to follow verse 9.In several places in Joel 3:9-12, the order ofthe lines has been rearranged.Zechariah 2:13 is followed by chapter 4:1-3, 11-13. The remaining verses (4-10) of chapter4 are left in their normal place after chapter3:10.Is such a rearranging of the materials, inharmony with modern concepts of sequentialthought, the proper function of translators orshould translators confine their activity to renderingthe text in the order in which it has beenhanded down?The superscriptions in the Psalms havebeen entirely omitted. These ancient editorialtitles were part of the traditional text and arefound in the oldest Hebrew manuscripts known.Their great antiquity is shown by the fact that,as early as the time of the translation of the GreekOld Testament, the significance of some of thetechnical musical terms was already unknown,as their rendering in the LXX reveals. There isno excuse for this, since the NEB translators werevery willing to insert headings (many of them) inthe text elsewhere in their translation.The NEB radically changes the Creationof our world:“In the beginning of creation, when God madeheaven and earth, the earth was without formand void, with darkness over the face of theabyss, and a mighty wind that swept over thesurface of the waters.”—Genesis 1:1-2.A footnote gives the traditional rendering, “Inthe beginning God created the heaven and theearth.” Another footnote gives “and the spirit ofGod hovering” for “a mighty wind that swept.”What does that passage now say: (1) Theearth already existed when God began His workof Creation. (2) The Holy Spirit is entirely removedfrom the Creation process.These changes are astounding.In Genesis 2:2, the NEB follows the SamaritanPentateuch and the LXX in reading “the sixthday” rather than the Hebrew, which has “the seventhday.”“On the sixth day God completed all the workhe had been doing, and on the seventh day heceased from all his work.”The activities of the sixth day had alreadybeen described. Also, if we follow the well-knownprinciple of textual critics that the more difficultreading is to be preferred, we would retain theHebrew “the seventh day.” God completed Hiswork on the seventh day by inaugurating theSabbath. This He did by desisting from His creativework and by blessing and sanctifying theseventh day.Quite a few words, known to Britishersbut unknown to Americans, are included inthe NEB:“Stooks,” meaning “shocks,” in the Samsonstory.“Weeds” for mourning garments in the expression,“widow’s weeds” (Gen. 38:14, 19; Isa.47:8; Rev. 18:7).“In spate,” meaning “in flood,” is also chieflyScottish (Job 6:17, 40:23, cf. 11:2). One wondersif the following represents a Scotticism: “Donot be haughty, but go about with humble folk”(Rom. 12:16).Here are more strange words:Now his sons used to foregather (Job 1:4);the stronger man seizes it from the panniers (Job5:5); of myself I reck nothing (Job 9:21); not forhim to swill down rivers of cream (Job 20:17);do not descry him (Job 23:9); broke the fangsof the miscreant (Job 29:17); tormented by aceaseless ague in his bones (Job 33:19); and itslair in the saltings (Job 39:6); strangers will battenon your wealth (Prov. 5:10; cf. Rev. 17:16);he will get nothing but blows and comtumely(Prov. 6:33); your runnels of water pour into thestreet (Prov. 5:16); does that mean that Christis an abettor of sin? (Gal. 2:17); What are theyall but ministrant spirits? (Heb. 1:14); Moses,then, was faithful as a servitor (Heb. 3:5); Alas,alas for the great city . . bedizened with gold andjewels and pearls (Rev. 18:17); Do you bring inthe lamp to put it under the meal-tub? (Mark4:21); You strain off a midge, yet gulp down acamel (Matt. 23:24)!NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)This is the one 20th-century translationthat a book company (Zondervon, in this case)tried the hardest to make acceptable to thebroadest number of people. However, , like the

Most Frequently Used Versions163others, it is based on the modern Greek Texts.Interested groups from the Christian ReformedChurch and the Commission on Educationof the National Association of Evangelicalsdecided to begin working together on a Bibleproject. The decision to produce it was formalizedby a group of Biblical scholars meeting inChicago in 1965. In 1967, the New York-basedInternational Bible Society agreed to sponsor itfinancially. The New Testament of NIV waspublished in September 1973.The objective was to produce a Bible whichwas not too informal, was suitable for churchuse or home reading, not artificial and wooden,not too free or paraphrastic, and not a one-manproduction.The NIV is called an international versionbecause the committee producing it consistedof Bible scholars from such English-speakingcountries as Canada, England, Australia, andNew Zealand, as well as the United States. Theysought to avoid the use of Americanisms on theone hand and Anglicisms on the other. (Thougha British edition was published in 1974, fewchanges in vocabulary were felt necessary, thoughBritish spelling was adopted.) The translatorscame from many denominations, including Baptist,Brethren, Church of Christ, Episcopalian,Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Nazarene,Presbyterian, Christian Reformed, and others.An interchange among such a wide variety ofreligious persuasions is an effective safeguardagainst sectarianism.The governing body of the project consistsof fifteen members, most of whom are wellknownBiblical specialists in the USA. The ExecutiveSecretary of this committee was EdwinH. Palmer. One hundred translators helped produceit.It is a shame that they did not base theirwork on the Majority Text!Here is a list of portions of 147 verseswhich have been omitted from the NIV:Matthew 5:44; 6:13; 15:6, 8; 19:9; 20:7, 16,22-23; 25:13; 27:35; 28:9Mark 1:42; 6:11, 33; 7:8; 8:26; 9:38, 45, 49;10:21, 24; 11:8, 10, 23; 12:23, 29-30, 33;13:14; 14:19, 27, 68, 70Luke 1:28; 4:4, 8, 18; 5:38; 7:31; 8:43, 45,48, 54; 9:54-56; 11:2, 4, 11, 44, 54; 17:9; 18:24;19:45; 20:23, 30; 22:64, 68; 23:23, 38; 24:1,42John 1:27; 3:13, 15; 5:3, 16; 6:11, 22, 47;8:9, 10, 59; 10:26; 11:41; 12:1; 16:16; 17:12;19:16Acts 2:30; 7:37; 9:5-6; 10:6, 21, 32; 13:42;15:18, 24; 18:21; 20:15; 21:8, 22, 25; 23:9;24:6, 8, 26; 26:30; 28:16Romans 8:1; 9:28; 10:15; 11:6; 13:9; 14:6,21; 15:241 Corinthians 6:20, 10:28, 11:24Galatians 3:1Ephesians 3:14, 5:30Philippians 3:16Colossians 1:2, 14; 3:61 Thessalonians 1:11 Timothy 3:3; 6:5, 7Hebrews 2:7; 3:6; 7:21; 8:12; 10:30; 11:11,13; 12:201 Peter 4:141 John 4:3, 5:13Revelation 1:8, 11; 5:14; 11:1, 17; 14:5;15:2; 21:24The above constitutes a total omission of1,284 words from the Holy Bible.Most of the so-called “harmonizing pas-sages” that the textual critics believe were“added” to the Majority Text in Matthew (andincluded in the KJV) were omitted. Here aresome of them:Matt. 5:44, 17:21, 18:11, 21:36, Luke 9:54-56, 23:17-18, 24:6, etc.Also tossed out were words which the editorsconsidered to be “obviously late read-ings.” What makes them “late”? The fact thatthey are in the Majority Text (and therefore inthe KJV), and not in their corrupt Neutral Text.This includes the second half of Matthew 6:13,“For thine is the kingdom and the power andthe glory forever. Amen.” Also they included John5:3-4, Acts 8:37, 1 John 5:7-8. But a few “latereadings” were left in the text (Matthew 21:44;Luke 24:6a, 12, 36, 40, 51).Remember the above facts, when someonetells you the NIV is a wonderful Bible.The longer “late reading” passages, such asMark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, were keptin the text. But lines are drawn before and afterthe passages and notes indicate that early manuscriptsomit these passages.There are some passages that are disputedby scholars. In regard to these, the NIV has includedLuke 22:19b, 20; Matthew 12:47; Luke22:44; Matthew 16:2-3. In John 5:2, NIV has

164 The King James and the Modern Versionsselected “Bethzatha” instead of “Bethesda”; inEphesians 1:1, it has included “Ephesus”; inMatthew 27:17, it has omitted “Jesus” after“Barabbas”; in Mark 1:41, it has “filled with compassion”instead of NEB’s “in warm indignation.”Certain passages are ambiguous in theGreek text and could be translated in two dif-ferent ways. Here are five verses which theNIV translated better than another modern ver-sion:Mark 15:39—“Surely this man was the Sonof God”! (NIV) / “Truly this man was a son ofGod” (NEB, RSV, 1st ed.).John 1:3-4—“Without him nothing wasmade that has been made. In him was life, andthat life was the light of men” (NIV).“No single thing was created without Him.All that came to be was alive with his life, andthat life was the light of men” (NEB).John 1:9—“The true light that gives light toevery man was coming into the world” (NIV). /“That was the true Light, which lighteth everyman that cometh into the world” (KJV).Romans 9:5—“Theirs are the patriarchs,and from them is traced the human ancestry ofChrist, who is God over all, forever praised!Amen” (NIV). / “To them belong the patriarchs,and of their race, according to the flesh, is theChrist. God who is over all be blessed for ever.Amen” (RSV). / May God be supreme above all,be blessed forever! Amen” (NEB).1 Timothy 3:2—“The husband of but onewife” (NIV). / “Married only once” (RSV). / “faithfulto his one wife” (NEB).Then there is Matthew 16:18, which manymodern translations twist in order to pleaseRome. NIV has: “And I tell you that you are Peter,and on this rock.” To strengthen the point,the note reads “Peter means rock.” It is not asexplicit as NEB’s “You are Peter, the Rock,” butnot far from it. “Peter” means a rolling stone, nota rock. This is clearly shown in the Greek of thisverse. The Greek word for “Peter” is in the masculine;and the word for “Rock,” in this verse, isin the neuter—showing the two do not speak ofthe same thing.The NIV has followed the practice of themodernists in replacing the “thou,” “thee,” “thy,”and “thine” with the forms of “you” and your—even when Jesus or the Father is addressed.This translation has a short preface and relativelyfew notes. The notes give cross references,alternative translations or readings, and shortexplanatory remarks. The material is printed inone column with tiny verse numbers. There areshort paragraph headings.The NIV seems to be a nice translation; butwhen you read it, you find it to be fully modernizedand fully in conformity with Wescott andHort.——————THE WATCHTOWER BIBLESNext we will discuss two translations publishedby the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses).NEW WORLD TRANSLATION (NWT)Now we come to two Jehovah’s WitnessesBibles. (You probably did not know they nowhave two.) For obvious reasons, we want tocarefully show you the flaws in these twodoctrinally slanted translations.Other than Catholic Bibles (which we willdiscuss later), Jehovah’s Witnesses producethe most biased Bibles in the world.The current edition of the New WorldTranslation was published in 1961.“JehovahJehovah” is constantly given in the Old Testament(as it also was in the ASV); but, in addition,it is introduced 237 times into the text ofthe New Testament and 72 times in the footnotes.There is absolutely no basis for the translationof the Greek original by the word, “Jehovah.”As you may already know, the word, “Jehovah,”is an artificially created word, resulting fromthe consonants of the name of God, transliteratedYHWH (JHVH), and the Hebrew vowels ofthe word for Lord, Adonai. The Jews refrainedfrom uttering the name of God and usually substitutedin its place the word, Adonai. Thus thevowels of this latter word were placed with theconsonants of YHWH, so that the reader wouldknow he should read Adonai instead.Most English Bibles follow the Jewish practiceof translating YHWH as LORD (full caps), exceptwhen YHWH is preceded by the word Adonai;in this case, it is translated GOD (full caps),for Adonai itself is translated Lord.The translators carefully select between“Lord” and “Jehovah,” in order to downgradeChrist.They sometimes use the word, “Lord,” in the

Most Frequently Used Versions165Greek and sometimes “Jehovah,” depending onwhether they think the Greek word for “Lord”applies to God or to Jesus. When they thinkJesus is referred to, they use “Lord”—for theydo not want to call Him “Jehovah.” They onlyconsider Him to be a created angel.An example of this would be 1 Corinthians12:3: “Nobody can say: ‘Jesus is Lord!’ exceptby the holy spirit” (with “holy spirit” in lowercase, since they do not believe in the Third Personof the Godhead either). Another example is2 Corinthians 4:5: “For we are preaching, notourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord.”But other times they translate the Greek wordfor “Lord” as “Jehovah,” even when the referenceto Jesus is clear. This is the case in Acts19:20 where the NWT reads: “Thus in a mightyway the word of Jehovah kept growing and prevailing.”They did this—even though they hadearlier translated the parallel thought by thewords, “and the name of the Lord Jesus wenton being magnified” (Acts 19:17).The expression, “the Spirit of the Lord,”is always translated as “the spirit of Jehovah”;yet, in the New Testament, it sometimes refersto the Spirit of God and sometimes to the Spiritof Christ. Such a use even occurs within oneverse, Romans 8:9: In the KJV, it says: “But yeare not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be theSpirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man havenot the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” ButNWT translates it as “God’s spirit” and “Christ’sspirit.”Then there is John 1:1: “In [the] beginningthe Word was, and the Word was with God, andthe Word was a god.” This is completely in harmonywith the theology of Jehovah’s Witnesses;since, for them, Christ is a created being. Therefore,He is to them not God but a god.The Greek does not have the article before“God” in John 1:1. But the structure of Greeksentence requires “the” before “God.” In thisverse theos (God) is a predicate noun andprecedes the verb and subject. Therefore adefinite article must be read here. When adefinite predicate noun precedes the verb, adefinite article is never to be written beforethe noun; but it must be read as being there.This anarthrous (lack of a definite article)construction emphasizes quality and requiresthat theos be translated as a fully divine be-ing. Thus we see that there is no justificationfor the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ translation of John1:1.There is no consistency in their transla-tion of theos without the article. In the Gospelof John, it is always written as “God”; thatis, with a capital G (including, surprisingly, John20:28), except in four passages: John 6:45,John 1:1, John 1:18, and John 10:33, wheretheos is translated “a god.”John 1:18—“No man has seen God at anytime; the only begotten god who is in the bosomposition with the Father is the one that has explainedhim.”John 10:33—“The Jews answered him: ‘Weare stoning you, not for a fine work, but for blasphemy,even because you, although being a man,make yourself a god.’ ”In the New Testament, several passageshave the names, “God” and “Jesus Christ,”joined by a conjunction with one article be-fore the first name. The rule is that when thereare two nouns in such a grammatical struc-ture, they refer to the same person or thing.However, whenever the nouns, “God” and“Jesus Christ,” are found together in the NWT,they are translated so as to make God and JesusChrist separate persons!Titus 2:13—“While we wait for the happyhope and glorious manifestation of the great Godand of our Savior Christ Jesus” (NWT). / “Lookingfor that blessed hope, and the glorious appearingof the great God and our Saviour JesusChrist” (KJV). (Two “ands” in a Greek sentencelike this can be translated “and . . “even,” insteadof “and . . and.”) / “Awaiting our blessedhope, the appearing of the glory of our great Godand Savior Jesus Christ” (RSV). / “Looking forwardto the happy fulfilment of our hopes whenthe splendour of our great God and Saviour ChristJesus will appear” (NEB).The non-NWT translations, above, are similarand make God and Jesus Christ the sameperson, although it is ambiguous in KJV. Thereis only a slight change in the NWT; but given theWitnesses’ theological bias, it is sufficient to showthat a clear distinction is made between the twoby the repetition of the preposition, “of.”2 Peter 1:1—“The righteousness of our Godand [the] Savior Jesus Christ.” The article is notpresent before “Savior” in the Greek text, butbefore “God” only; the translators added it tomake it appear they are two separate beings.Colossians 1:16-17—“Because by means of

166 The King James and the Modern Versionshim all [other] things were created . . All [other]things have been created through him . . Also,he is before all [other] things and by means ofhim all [other] things were made to exist.” Needlessto say, the words in the brackets are not inthe original but are added to say that Christ Himselfwas created and then He created all otherthings.Philippians 2:7—“Who, although he was existingin God’s form, gave no consideration to aseizure, namely, that he should be equal to God”(NWT). / “But made himself of no reputation, andtook upon him the form of a servant, and wasmade in the likeness of men” (KJV). / JB: “Hisstate was divine, yet he did not cling to his equalitywith God.” / “Who, though he was in the formof God, did not count equality with God a thingto be grasped” (RSV).The NWT implies that Jesus gave no considerationto being equal with God while the othersassert that Christ did not cling to His equalitywith God but emptied Himself.The Holy Spirit is something else they wantto get rid of. So “Holy Spirit” is always printedas “holy spirit”; and “Spirit” as “spirit.”Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the Lord’s Supperwas only a memorial service; so they twistthe Greek of 1 Corinthians 11:24-25: “This meansmy body which is in YOUR behalf. Keep doing thisin remembrance of me! This cup means the newcovenant by virtue of my blood.”The Greek verb used is “is”; and it shouldhave been translated thus: “This cup is the newcovenant in My blood.”In order to avoid the teaching about theSecond Advent, they always translate parousiaas “presence.” That helps explain all their predictedsecond comings of God which have failedto occur in the 20th century.Then there is their use of “torture stake”for the cross and “impale” for crucify. It isbased on the belief of the Jehovah’s Witnesses,that the cross on which Jesus was crucified wasa single stake.First, historical and archaeological data fullyagree on the cross as the means of crucifixion inthe 1st century A.D.Second, the very word, “impale,” does notmean to nail a person to a post, but to run a rodall the way through him!“Another unusual translation our unidentified[NWT] committee gives us is that of Matthew10:38, ‘Whoever does not accept this torturestake and follow after me is not worthy ofme.’ Again all sorts of authorities are marshaled,this time to back their contention thatChrist was impaled (Matthew 27:38, et al.).“First it should be noted that ‘impale’ is usedin a sense not acknowledged by Webster’s NewInternational Dictionary (Unabridged, 1949).They do not mean the Oriental custom ofthrusting a body down on a pointed stake.“Rather they give an illustration from JustusLipsius’ De Cruce, showing a man affixed bynails to a single upright pole but with the handsattached about a foot above his head on theone upright. It is not mentioned that Lipsiusgives five different pictures in all and that hehimself held in this same book for the traditionalrepresentation as true.“They do lay great emphasis on the originalmeaning of [the Greek word] stauros as a singleupright pole. That this single upright pole wasused for executions they prove by citing Romanliterature. But there is a strange silence aboutthe descriptions of the crucifixions of slaves atthe beginning of the Christian era.“Customarily the slaves were made to carrythe patibulum or horizontal bar of their crossto the place of execution. So common was thisform of crucifixion that the Roman authors usepatibulum as synonymous with crux (Seneca,De Vita Beata, 19:3; Episiola 101:12, Tacitus,Historiae, IV, 3). To hold that Constantine introducedthe traditional cross as a relic of hispagan worship of the sun god (p. 771) is unworthyof their evident scholarship.“True the cross does not appear in the catacombsas a symbol of Christ before A.D. 312.Neither does their ‘torture stake’; nor later, forthat matter.“As for the ‘fathers,’ it is the traditional crossthey describe. To cite only two witnesses, Irenaeusspeaks of Christ’s cross as having fiveends, two longitudinal, two latitudinal, and afifth on the support for the body of the victim(Adversus Haereses, II, 24, 4). He wrote beforeA.D. 200. Still earlier is the witness of the Epistleof Barnabas, X, 8. Here the writer speaks of thecross as having the shape of a Greek tau.”—John Mattingly.Jehovah’s Witnesses use several devicesto give the impression they are different and,therefore, above everyone else. Their impaleon a stake theory. Their statement that they donot have a church or church services, but only“Kingdom Halls.” Their claim that they do notkeep any day, yet they always meet on Sunday.

Most Frequently Used VersionsThey call the Old Testament by the name, “HebrewAramaic Scriptures,” and the New Testament,“The Christian Greek Scriptures.” Thismakes them imagine they are very scholarly.H.H. Rowley, a leading Old Testamentscholar, wrote this:“The jargon which they use is often scarcelyEnglish at all, and it reminds one of nothing somuch as a schoolboy’s first painful beginningsin translating Latin into English. The translationis marked by a wooden literalism whichwill only exasperate any intelligent reader—ifsuch it finds—and instead of showing the reverencefor the Bible which the translators profess,it is an insult to the ‘Word of God.”—ExpositoryTimes 65: 41-42 (1953-1954).Here are several examples of this strained,wooden, and peculiar translation:Genesis 7:15—“In which the force of life wasactive.” / KJV: “breath of life.”Genesis 16:12—“As for him, he will becomea zebra of a man.” / KJV: “And he will be a wildman.”Genesis 17:4—“As for me, look! my covenantis with you, and you will certainly become fatherof a crowd of nations.” / KJV: “father of manynations.”Malachi 3:8—“Will earthling man rob God?”/ KJV: “Will a man rob God?”Matthew 6:17—“Grease your head” / KJV:“Anoint thine head.”Genesis 18:20-21—“Consequently Jehovahsaid: ‘The cry of complaint about Sodom andGomorrah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it isheavy. I am quite determined to go down that Imay see whether they act altogether accordingto the outcry over it that has come to me, and, ifnot, I can get to know it.’ ”Genesis 6:1-3—“Now it came about that whenmen started to grow in numbers on the surfaceof the ground and daughters were born to them,then the sons of the true God began to noticethe daughters of men, that they were goodlooking;and they went taking wives for themselves,namely, all whom they chose. After thatJehovah said: ‘My spirit shall not act towardman indefinitely in that he is also flesh.’ ”Exodus 20:3—“You must not have any othergods against my face.”Isaiah 1:13—“Stop bringing in any morevalueless grain offerings. Incense—it is somethingdetestable to me. New moon and sabbath,the calling of a convention—I cannot put up with167the [use of] uncanny power along with the solemnassembly.”Matthew 5:18—“For truly I say to you thatsooner would heaven and earth pass away thanfor the smallest letter or one particle of a letterto pass away from the Law by any means andnot all things take place.”I Corinthians 5:1—“Actually fornication isreported among you, and such fornication as isnot even among the nations, that a wife a certain[man] has of [his] father.”1 Corinthians 10:11—“Now these thingswent on befalling them as examples, and theywere written for a warning to us upon whom theends of the system of things have arrived.”We should mention here that they repeatedlyuse “age” or “world” as “system of things.” Hereis another example:Matthew 28:20—“And, look! I am with youall the days until the conclusion of the system ofthings.”Last, but not least, the NWT is based onthe Westcott-Hort Greek Text, so all the er-rors in it are brought into the NWT.BIBLE IN LIVING ENGLISH (BLE)This is, indeed, a strange translation; forit is published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses,but was not written by one of them.It is an entirely new translation by Steven T.Byington (1868-1957) who happened to put “Jehovah”in the Old Testament. So the Witnesseswanted to print it. Byington was a congregationalchurch pastor who only had half of one yearstudying Biblical languages at Oberlin College,in Ohio. After his death, the Watchtower Bibleand Tract Society obtained publication rights toprint his translation, which they did in 1972.Why did they not translate a Bible them-selves? The answer is that they lack Greekand Hebrew scholars able to do it.Because someone may bring it into yourhome someday, here is a very brief overview ofthis translation.In the Old Testament, “you” is used whenaddressing God, but “thou” in the New Testament.Byington says this is because men did nothave reverent feelings for God in Old Testamenttimes!Regarding the overuse of “Jehovah,” Byingtonadmits that the name itself is a mismatchedblunder; but he says that does not matter, since

168 The King James and the Modern Versionsit is “a personal name.”Very strange spellings of proper names aregiven. Where Byington got them from, no one hasbeen able to figure out: Hambakuk, Malaki,Sephaniah, Zecariah, Enoc, and Lamec.Byington used something approximating theNestle Text, but freely departed from it wheneverhe wished. He said the “old version” (KJV)contained “forged texts.” Byington strongly dislikedthe King James Bible.It is interesting to compare Byington’sBLE with the NWT:“Jehovah” is only used in the Old Testament;whereas, in the NWT, it is used in both.The word, “God,” is capitalized when usedabout Christ (John 1:1; 1:18; 6:45; 10:33).Brackets are not used in Titus 2:13 and 2Peter 1:1, as is done in the NWT. So Jesus canbe identified as God in those verses.Its punctuation in Romans 9:5 clearly identifiesChrist as God: “Whose are the fathers, andfrom whom in the way of flesh comes the Christ,he who is over everything, God blessed forever—Amen!”The designation, “Holy Spirit,” is capitalized,contrary to the NWT.The words, “cross” and “crucify,” are usedinstead of “torture stake” and “impale.”The only apparent reason why the Witnessespublished this translation is the trans-lator’s use of “Jehovah” for God’s name inthe Old Testament. If the Witnesses reallyhad some scholars of their own, they surelywould have brought out their own transla-tion and not used Byington’s—which did notinclude all their errors!Byington’s translation also has many verypeculiar readings. But we will not list any here.The above data is enough to arm you for whenthe Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on your door.——————JOINTCATHOLIC-PROTESTANTBIBLESThe concern of many Protestant, Ortho-dox, and Catholic denominations to unite isurgent. They realize that, in order to success-fully do this, they must have a common Bible.In order to achieve this, three publicationshave been released:• The Revised Standard Version Apocrypha• An edition of the Revised Standard Versionwhich is acceptable to Roman Catholics• The Common BibleREVISED STANDARD VERSION:THE APOCRYPHAAs we noted earlier, the Division of ChristianEducation (DCE) held the copyright to the RSV.In October 1952, the General Convention of theProtestant Episcopal Church issued a formal requestto the DCE, an agency of the NationalCouncil of Churches (NCC), based in New YorkCity, to organize a committee to revise the Englishtranslation of the Apocrypha.The General Board of the NCC authorizedthe appointment of a group of scholars to makeand publish The RSV Apocrypha.The Apocrypha of the Old Testament,Revised Standard Version,was published onSeptember 30, 1957.The appearance of these books constitutedan important step in helping Catholics and Protestantsfind a common version acceptable tothem both. The ecumenists considered this goalto be very important. The Vatican could not approvethe RSV until the Apocrypha could be includedin it. (More on its RSV approval later.)Later in this book, we will briefly over-view the history and questionable content ofthe Old Testament Apocrypha.REVISED STANDARD VERSION:CATHOLIC EDITIONAn astounding event occurred in 1965:the publication of a joint Catholic-Protestantedition of the Revised Standard Version!However, it was to be expected. Since theNational Council of Churches owned the copyrightof the RSV, it would be expected that itwould push for a Bible—which the major Protestantdenominations and Rome could both approve.Here is a brief description of this edition:The 1965 New Testament edition. A Catholic-approvededition of the RSV New Testament,prepared by the Catholic Biblical Association ofGreat Britain with the approval of the StandardBible Committee, was published in 1965.This was a regular RSV, plus a number ofchanges. A List of Changes can be found in AppendixTwo of the Bible. The minimal numberof changes made consist of two kinds: those hav-

Most Frequently Used Versions169ing to do with the underlying Greek text and thosegiving a different translation of the Greek.The first consisted in restoring the six-teen passages found in the Received Textthat the RSV had placed in footnotes. Thisincluded such passages as the long ending ofMark 16:9-20, the story of the woman taken inadultery (John 7:52-8:11), and Luke’s accountof Peter running to the tomb (Luke 24:12). Ineach instance, the RSV has a footnote stating,“Other ancient authorities add . .” The Catholicedition restores the passage and has in the footnote,“Other ancient authorities omit . .”The second type of change consists ingiving a different translation. Joseph, in Matthew1:19, does not resolve to “divorce” Maryquietly but “to send her away quietly.” The “brothers”of Jesus (Matt. 12:48ff.; Mark 3:31ff.; Luke8: 19ff.) are “brethren,” based on the belief thatthey were not real brothers. —“The Greek wordor its Semitic equivalent is used for varying degreesof blood relationship.” The angel Gabriel’sgreeting to Mary is “Hail, full of grace” instead of“Hail, thou that art highly favored (Luke 1:28).The marginal translation is preferred in Romans9:5, “Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.”Appendix One consists of Explanatory Notesof various passages as required by Canon Law.One includes the interpretation of Matthew 16:18-19.The 1966 complete Bible. The CatholicRSV edition of the entire Bible was published in1966. No changes were made in the RSV text ofthe Old Testament. All of what Protestants callthe Apocryphal books, except 1 and 2 Esdrasand the Prayer of Manasseh (which the Coun-cil of Trent did not consider canonical), areincluded as integral parts of the canon. The or-der of the books follow the confusing arrange-ment found in the Latin Vulgateulgate, except thatthe additions to Esther are incorporated in thatbook. Twenty-three pages of Explanatory Notesare included.The significance of this is remarkable. TheCatholic-Protestant ecumenists so desperatelywant a way to unite the denominations, thatRome was willing to accept, what is primarily,a Protestant Bible!The publication of the RSV Catholic Edi-tion marks a new day in ecumenical relations.The RSV, with a few modifications, provides a translationof the Word of God that all English-speakingChristians can share. Although the problemof the Old Testament canon remains, Protestantsand Catholics have largely come to an agreementon the translation of accepted books. Thismeans that, in theological discussions (whichthey regularly hold in Geneva and elsewhere),all the churches can appeal to the same au-thoritative text. Dialogue between them istherefore greatly facilitated.This Bible is entitled, The Oxford AnnotatedRSV Bible with the Apocrypha, and received theImprimatur of Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop ofBoston, in 1965—a year before the publicationof the complete Bible.COMMON BIBLEThe publication of a single RSV for bothProtestants and Catholics did not satisfy theconcern of the ecumenists for still closer unitybetween Protestants and Rome in theirBibles.Their concern was aided by the fact that theRSV Bible Committee is an ongoing committee;and it has been internationalized by the additionof more members from Great Britain andCanada, as well as from the U.S.A.As you might expect, it also now includesCatholics as well as Protestant members.After the successful completion of the 1965-1966 Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition,it was recognized that the ecumenical objectivehad not yet been fully achieved. Althoughboth sides had essentially the same Bible (plusthe Apocrytha), Protestants would purchase theregular RSV while Catholics might purchase itsCatholic edition. They were not using the verysame Bible! Something must be done about this.So the committee set to work; and, in 1973,it published the RSV Common Bible with theApocrypha / Deuterocanonical Books. Amidmuch advertising, pomp, and ceremonies, thenew book was released during the “Week ofPrayer for Christian Unity” in England, in February,and during Lent in the United States.The Common Bible has received the in-ternational endorsement of the leaders of theRoman Catholics Church, many Protestantde-nominations, and (significantly) the GreekOrthodox Church.Since the three major branches of Christendomwar over the Apocrypha, as they do over manyother things, to facilitate the use of the RSV as acommon Bible, this edition arranged the Old

170 The King James and the Modern VersionsTestament apocryphal books in two groups:The first group is the DeuterocanonicalBooks, which are accepted by Catholics as Scripture.And the second group is 1 and 2 Esdrasand the Prayer of Manasseh, which are not regardedas authoritative by the Roman CatholicChurch, but are included in the Greek Canon ofScripture.In the Preface, the position of the variousChristian bodies with respect to the Apocryphais clearly explained (pp. viii-xi).The publication of The Common Bible is indeeda significant event in the history of the EnglishBible! Theoretically, , Catholics, Greek Or-thodox, and Protestants can now all use thesame translation (although at home and inchurch they probably will use other Bibles).But, most importantly, The Common Biblemarks the end of the controversy, , regardingthe authoritative English text to be employedin ecumenical dialogue between differentProtestant denominations with Rome and /or with Greek Orthodox churchmen. Its pub-lication is a significant reason the ongoing“dialogue” between the different churcheshas accelerated since the early 1970s.“Today in many Bible colleges, professors areconstantly altering the King James Bible withGreek and English versions of the RomanCatholic Latin Vulgate. Naturally the studentslose confidence in the Bible and lack power whenthey become preachers.”—Dr. Rivera, Sabotage,p. 30.ROMAN CATHOLIC BIBLESWe will here consider three major 20th-centuryBibles which were prepared solely for RomanCatholics:• The Knox Bible• The Jerusalem Bible• The New American BibleTHE KNOX BIBLEThe revised form of the Rheims-Douai wasthe only Catholic Bible to have official Vaticanapproval until the translation of Monsi-gnor Knox’s New Testament in 1945. The OldTestament was published in 1948; but, oddlyenough, unlike the New Testament, it wasnot approved as an official version.Ronald Knox was born into the home of anAnglican priest and educated at Eton and Oxford.Prior to his conversion to Catholicism, hewrote prose and detective novels. Knox knew howto work with words.After converting to Catholicism at the age of29, he entered the priesthood; and, in 1939, hebegan translating the Bible into English. He washeavily restricted by the fact that he was requiredto stay close to the Latin Vulgate; yet his translationwas still new and fresh.His translation was based on the 1592 edi-tion of the Vulgate(which had been approvedby Pope Clement VIII). He also used the Latinform for the names of the books (somethingwhich the Jerusalem Bible later abandoned). Haveyou ever heard of Paralipomena, Osee, Abdias,Sophonias, and Aggaeus? Of course, the Apoc-rypha is also included, scattered all throughthe Old Testament.The ending of the Lord’s Prayer is omittedfrom Matthew 6:13. (It was also missing in theRheims-Douai.)JERUSALEM BIBLEThe Jerusalem Bible (JB) is the first com-plete Roman Catholic Bible to be entirelytranslated from the original languages—Greekand Hebrew. . It was published in 1966.Protestant scholars had been studying Greekand Hebrew manuscripts for centuries; and afew of Rome’s adherents finally got around tolooking at them. Frankly, they were ashamed ofthe obvious fact that Catholic scholars, on theadvice of the Vatican, had been avoiding the ancientBible manuscripts.The Old Testament part of the ConfraternityBible had been translated from the Hebrew.Spencer’s New Testament had been translatedfrom the modern Greek Texts. But the JerusalemBible was the first Catholic Bible to be entirelytranslated from Greek and Hebrew.(The Confraternity Bible is the original nameof the New American Bible, another CatholicBible which was not printed until 1970. Moreon this later.)Previouslyreviously, , all Catholic Bibles were re-quired to be translated from Jerome’s LatinVulgateulgate, which itself is a translation (and a poorone) from Hebrew and Greek. That includedMonsignor Knox’s translation, which was basedon the Vulgate.Notes are included all through the JB “to helpthe faithful” understand the text. These notesare translated from a one-volume French edition(1956) of La Bible de Jerusalem, published

Most Frequently Used Versions171by the Dominican Biblical School of Jerusalem.For that reason, the name, “Jerusalem Bible,”was given to the book.Because there are so many small-printnotes, this Bible has 2,062 pages and weighsnearly 5 lbs! Rome wanted to make sure thefaithful understood the text.The text is more paraphrastic than the RSV,but not as much as Phillips. Perhaps to con-fuse the reader, , it has more of the Bible inpoetic form than any other translation. Evenparts of John are in poetic format!In order to help attract Protestants, personalnames are always spelled as in the RSV.The Apocrypha is scattered all through theOld Testament.When the writer prepared hisbook, The Magnificat, for Catholics (which requiredquotations from Catholic Bibles), he foundit quite difficult to locate passages in the Old Testamentbecause, with Apocryphal books insertedhere and there all through it (and some of themare rather long), the result is something of ahodgepodge. For example, in the book of Daniel,Susanna is chapter 13, and Bel and the Dragonis chapter 14.Here are other interesting features of thisBible:The note on 1 Corinthians 3:15 says this:“This is not a direct reference to purgatorybut several Doctors of the Church have taken itas a basis for that doctrine.”Whereas other versions have “wife” in 1Corinthians 9:5, JB translates it, “Christian woman,”with this added note: “Lit. ‘a sister, awoman (wife?).” The objective is to show thatthe Apostles were not married, but had nuns tohelp them in their work.As you might expect, Genesis 3:15 also requireda note. You will recall that the Vulgate,Rheims-Douai, and other Catholic Bibles translatedthis as the woman (Mary) crushing theserpent’s head while it was not able to even hurther heel (Is she not immaculate?). The note saysthis:“The Latin version has a femine pronoun(‘she’ will crush . .) and since, in the messianicinterpretation of our text, the Messiah and hismother appear together, the pronoun has beentaken to refer to Mary; this application has becomecurrent in the Church.”That was a shrewd statement to avoid statingthe fact that the Hebrew has a masculinepronoun.In Matthew 16:18 (“On this rock I will buildmy church,” KJV), the following note appears:“Catholic exegetes maintain that these enduringpromises hold good not only for Peterhimself but also for Peter’s successors. Thisinference, not explicitly drawn in the text, isconsidered legitimate because Jesus plainly intendsto provide for his Church’s future by establishinga regime that will not collapse withPeter’s death. Two other texts, Luke 22:31ff andJohn 21:15ff, on Peter’s primacy emphasizethat its operation is to be in the domain of faith;they also indicate that this makes him headnot only of the Church after the death of Christbut of the apostolic group then and there.”This note is appended to Matthew 19:11-12:“Christ invites to perpetual continence thosewho would consecrate themselves entirely tothe kingdom of God.”NEW AMERICAN BIBLEThe Jerusalem Bible had been prepared inEngland and contains British terms and spelling.You will recall that the New English Biblewas published so the British could have theirown Bible and not have to rely on the RSV,with its Americanisms in words and spell-ing.For the same reason the New American Bible(NAB) was printed. (Recently, , “The CatholicBible” was added in large print to its title.) TheJerusalem Bible is essentially in the jargon ofBritain; and there was felt a need for somethingsimilar, , but for Americans.The NAB is not a new version. Catholics havebeen struggling to get it completed, literally, for decades.Preparing Bibles is not something whichcomes easy to them.The New Testament (a revision of Rheims-Challoner based on the Latin Vulgate) was publishedin 1941. It was called the Confrater-nity Version.But, in 1943, the famous encyclical onScripture studies, Divino afflante Spiritu, wasissued by Pope Pius XII, recommending translationfrom the original text. So work on the OldTestament was begun, based on the Hebrew. Thework went very slowly (!) and was not com-pleted (with the Apocrypha included) until26 years later, , in 1969.Of course, the New Testament had to be retranslated,this time from the Greek text.

172 The King James and the Modern VersionsWith the publication of the NAB in 1970,there exists, for the first time, a completeAmerican Catholic Bible translated from theoriginal languages. The translation team includedfifty-nine Catholic and five Protes-tant scholars.The Old Testament is based on the He-brew and Aramaic (the Massoretic text), plusmany variations based on the Septuagint, theQumran Scroll, or imagination.The Greek text used in the New Testa-ment is Nestle-Aland’sNovum TestamentumGraece (25th ed., 1963), with some assistancefrom the United Bible Societies’ Greek Text.In some instances, it has strayed from themodern Greek Texts. For example, it uses brackets,to indicate what are called “doubtful readingsof some merit.” Such readings are found,for example, in Matthew 5:5, 17:21, 21:44,24:36, John 5:3, Ephesians 1:1.Other readings not found in the Nestle-AlandText include Luke 24:12, 40, 51. At the end ofMark it has followed the Nestle-Aland Text byincluding both longer and shorter endings withinthe text section. There is a line, however, betweenthese endings and no line between Mark 16:8and the longer ending. Besides these two endingsit has also included, separated by a line fromthe shorter ending, the ending found in the FreerLogion. According to the note at this place, thelonger ending “has traditionally been acceptedas an inspired part of the Gospel,” although “vocabularyand style argue strongly that it waswritten by someone other than Mark.” The storyof the woman taken in adultery is found in bracketsat its traditional position in John eventhough the explanation in the footnote indicatesit is out of place there.Thus we see that the New American Bibleis primarily based on Westcott-Hort / Nestle-Aland / UBS Greek Text style.THE PRESENT SITUATIONThe English-speaking speaking world is todayflooded with Bible translations.In a Moody Monthly article, entitled “WhichBible Translation Is Best for Me?” John Kohlenbergerwrote this:“A generation ago few people asked, ‘Whichversion of the Bible is best?’ The Authorized,or King James, Version had been the most popularand widely read Bible for 350 years. Butan explosion of English Bible translations overthe past 40 years has challenged the long reignof the King James Version. And the question‘Which version of the Bible is best?’ is now acommon concern. It is a question not easily answered.For every Bible translation there issomeone who will say it is the best of all possibleversions. And the search for the best versionis crowded with ‘experts’ loaded with opinion,choked with rhetoric, confused by misusedterminology, and short on objective information.“In fact there is no ‘best’ translation . . Notranslation is perfect, but most are ‘for thegreatest part true and sufficient.’ So the questionis not ‘Which Bible is best?’ But which ofthe many good translations is best for you?”—John R. Kohlenberger, Moody Monthly, May1987.It is openly admitted that, with Bibles, , any-thing goes—as long as it makes sales.A USA Today article reports that the AmericanBible Society—yes, the American Bible Society—hasreleased an “MTV-like” video entitled“Out of the Tombs.” The article is entitled, “Behold,Rap Bible Stories Are Born on Video,” anddescribes this wonderful new production in thesewords:“In Out of the Tombs, a linguistically directtranslation of Mark 5:1-20, Jesus appears ina dark jacket and T-shirt to battle a drooling,baseball cap wearing demon. The desert scenes,flowing robes and stentorian voices of mostBible films have been traded in for gritty urbanlandscapes, street garb and rap-like narration.“Out of the Tombs is the first in the society’snew multimedia translations that use fast-paced,MTV-like images and contemporary music to tellBible stories. ‘We targeted music videos as away to reach younger people,’ says Fern LeeHagedorn, director of the multimedia translationsdepartment.“The American Bible Society would be thelast to advocate not reading the Bible, but ourmandate to make the Scriptures available toevery man, woman and child wouldn’t be fulfilledunless we used new forms of communication.“The $14.95 video is paired with a 20-pageinstructional booklet.“Next on tape: the story of the Prodigal Sonand the virgin birth story.”—USA Today, November19, 1992.It is of interest that, each year, the GeneralConference of Seventh-day Adventists donatesabout $85,000 to the American Bible Society, to

Most Frequently Used Versions173do with as they wish. It would be far better if weordered $85,000 in foreign-language Bibles fromthem, and gave them to our overseas evangeliststo distribute to those attending their meetings.It has been about 3,475 years since Mosessat down and began writing the first page ofthe Bible. Ever since then, Satan has beentrying, by every possible method, to destroythat book. . You and I must stand resolutelyin defense of God’s Inspired Word, in spiteof what others say or do.Oh, my brother, , my sister, , let us stand trueto God—to the end!“To employ soft words and honeyed phrasesin discussing questions of everlasting importance;to deal with errors that strike at the foundationsof all human hope as if they were harmlessand venial mistakes; to bless where Goddisapproves, and to make apologies where Hecalls us to stand up like men and assert, thoughit may be the aptest method of securing popularapplause in a sophistical age, is cruelty toman and treachery to Heaven. Those who onsuch subjects attach more importance to therules of courtesy than they do to the measuresof truth do not defend the citadel, but betray itinto the hands of its enemies. Love for Christ,and for the souls for whom He died, will be theexact measure of our zeal in exposing the dangersby which men’s souls are ensnared.”—Thornwell.“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but theWord of our God shall stand for ever.”—Isaiah 40:8“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but MyWords shall not pass away.”—Matthew 24:35“These were more noble than those inThessalonica, in that they received the Word with allreadiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily,whether these things were so.”—Acts 17:11“Open Thou mine eyes, that I may beholdwondrous things out of Thy law.”—Psalm 119:18

174 The King James and the Modern VersionsAppendixA Variety of Additional Information200 SPECIAL ERRORSIN THE MODERN VERSIONSThe present writer has searched for some ofthe most flagrant errors in the modern versions.It has been a laborious task. The collection belowmay not be complete, but at least it representsa large number of the worse changes inthe King James Version.The following passages are arranged fromGenesis to Revelation. Since the RevisedStandard purports to be the standard of therevisions, we will most frequently refer to itas an example. However, , the great majorityof the changed or omitted passages will gen-erally be found in most of the other moderntranslations.We will cite both Old and New Testament passage,but will particularly focus our attention onverses in the New Testament.The purpose is to help you locate someof the most problematic passages in the newversions. The inclusions or omissions are notalways quoted; but sometimes they are—es-pecially when they are unusually blatant.Quotations within parentheses are fromthe King James Bible. As usual, throughoutthis book, we have placed pronouns referring tothe Godhead in initial caps.1 - OLD TESTAMENTGenesis 6:3—“My Spirit shall not abide inman for ever” (RSV). (“My Spirit shall not alwaysstrive with man.”)Genesis 11:1—“Few words” instead of “onelanguage” (RSV). (“And the whole earth was ofone language, and one speech.”)Genesis 12:3—“Be blessed” changed to“bless themselves.” (“And in thee shall all thefamilies of the earth be blessed.”) Also changedin Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4, 28:14.Genesis 49:10—“Until He come, to whomit belongs.” (“. . until Shiloh come, and unto Himshall the gathering of the people be.”)Numbers 33:52a—“Pictures” changed to“carved idols” (NIV). / (“Ye shall destroy . . alltheir pictures.” [It is not appropriate today tohint that television and pornography might bebad.])Job 19:26—“Then without my flesh I shallsee God.” (“After my skin worms destroy thisbody, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”)Psalm 8:5—“Yet Thou hast made him a littlelower than God” (NIV, NASV, etc.). (“For Thouhast made him a little lower than the angels.”)Psalm 45:6—“Your divine throne enduresforever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepterof equity.” (“Thy throne, O God, is for ever andever: the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter.”)Psalm 48:10—“Thy right hand is full of victory.”(“Thy right hand is full of righteousness.”)Psalm 72:11—“May all” instead of “Yea, all.”(“Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him.”)Psalm 72:8—“May have” instead of “shallhave.” (“He shall have dominion also from seato sea.”)Proverbs 16:3—“Commit to the Lord whateveryou do, and your plans will succeed” (NIV).Isaiah 26:3—“The steadfast of mind Thouwilt keep in perfect peace” (NASV). / (“Thou wiltkeep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayedon Thee” [KJV]).Isaiah 32:2—“Princes shall rule in justice,each shall be like a hiding place from the wind.”(“A man shall be as an hiding place from thewind.”)Jeremiah 31:22—“A woman protects aman,” instead of “a woman shall compass a man.”(“The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth,a woman shall compass a man.” [This is referringto the virgin birth; i.e., a woman shall producea man-child, without copulation.])Daniel 3:25—“A son of the gods” instead of

Appendix“the Son of God.” (“The form of the fourth is likethe Son of God.”)Hosea 13:9—“I will destroy you, O Israel,who can help you?” (“O Israel, thou has destroyedthyself; but in Me is thine help.”)Micah 5:2—“Whose origin is from of old.”(“Bethlehem . . out of thee shall He come forthunto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; Whose goingsforth have been from of old, from everlasting.”)Zechariah 9:9—“Lo your King comes to you;triumphant and victorious is He.” (“Behold, thyKing cometh unto thee: He is just, and havingsalvation.”)2 - NEW TESTAMENTMatthew 1:16—Changed to “Joseph, fatherof Jesus” (RSV, etc.).Matthew 1:19—“Resolved to divorce herquietly.” (“Joseph . . not willing to make her apublic example, was minded to put her awayprivily.”)Matthew 1:25—“Firstborn” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Matthew 6:13—“For Thine is the kingdom,and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” isomitted (the Lord’s prayer).Matthew 6:33—“Of God” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Matthew 8:29—“Jesus” is omitted (RSV.,etc.).Matthew 9:13—“Repentance” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 12:35—“Of the heart” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 12:47—Whole verse is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 13:51—“Jesus saith unto them”is omitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 16:3—“Oh ye hypocrites” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 16:20—“Jesus” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Matthew 17:21—Entire verse is omitted(NIV, etc.). (“Howbeit this kind goeth not out butby prayer and fasting.”)Matthew 18:11—Entire verse is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“For the Son of man is come to savethat which was lost.”)Matthew 19:9—“And whosoever marriethher which is put away committeth adultery” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 19:17—“God” is omitted (RSV,175etc.).Matthew 20:7—“And whatsoever is rightthat shall ye receive” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 20:16—“For many be called butfew chosen” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 20:22—“And to be baptized withthe batism that I am baptized with” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 23:14—Part or all of verse is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses,and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore yeshall receive the greater damnation.”)Matthew 25:13—“Wherein the Son of mancometh” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 27:35—“That it might be fulfilledwhich was spoken by the prophet” to the end ofthe verse is omitted (RSV, etc.).Matthew 28:2—“From the door” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Matthew 28:9—“As they went to tell His disciples”[about the resurrection] is omitted (RSV,etc.).Mark 1:1—“The Son of God” is omitted (variousversions).Mark 1:2—“It is written in Isaiah the prophet”instead of “As it is written in the prophets”(NIV, etc.). (The NIV translates it “Isaiah theprophet” because it is in the Neutral Text. ButMark 1:2b is quoted from Malachi 3:1, not fromIsaiah. Mark 1:3 is quoted from Isaiah. Therefore,the KJV (and its Majority Text) has theproper reading.)Mark 1:14—“Of the kingdom” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Mark 2:17—“To repentance” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Mark 6:11—“Verily I say unto you, it shallbe more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah inthe day of judgment than for that city” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Mark 9:24—“Lord” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Mark 9:42—“Little ones that believe in Me”is omitted (RSV, etc.).Mark 10:21—“Take up the cross” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Mark 11:10—“In the name of the Lord” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Mark 11:26—Entire verse is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“But if ye do not forgive, neither will yourFather which is in heaven forgive you your trespasses.”)Mark 12:29-30—“Of all commandments . .

176 The King James and the Modern Versionsthis is the first commandment” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Mark 13:14—“Spoken of by Daniel theprophet” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Mark 14:68—“And the cock crew” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Mark 15:28—Entire verse is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“And the Scripture was fulfilled whichsaith, He was numbered with the transgressors.”)Mark 15:39—“A son of God” instead of “theSon of God.” (“The centurion . . said, truly thiswas the Son of God.”)Mark 16:9-20—All nine verses are omitted([RSV, etc.], solely because they are not in theVaticanus and Sinaiticus).Luke 2:33—“Joseph” is changed to “His father”(RSV, etc.).Luke 2:43—“Joseph and His mother” arechanged to “His parents” (RSV, etc.).Luke 2:49—“House” instead of “business”(“I must be about My Father’s business”).Luke 4:4—“But by every Word of God” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 4:8—“Get thee behind Me Satan” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 4:41—“Christ” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 7:31—“And the Lord said” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Luke 9:54—“Even as Elias did” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Luke 11:29—“The prophet” (referring toJonah) is omitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 17:36—Entire verse is omitted (RSV,etc.).Luke 22:19—“Which is given for you; thisdo in remembrance of Me” is omitted.Luke 22:20—“Likewise also the cup aftersupper, saying, This cup is the New Testamentin My blood, which is shed for you” is omitted.Luke 22:20—“Cup which is poured” insteadof “blood, which is shed” (NIV, etc.). (“This cupis the new testament in My blood, which is shedfor you.”)Luke 22:31—“And the Lord said” is omitted(RSV, etc.). Satan hath desired to have you.Luke 23:17—Entire verse is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“For of necessity he must release one untothem at the feast.”)Luke 23:34—“Then said Jesus, Father forgivethem; for they know not what they do” isstated in the RSV footnote as something whichshould be omitted.Luke 23:38—“In letters of Greek and Latinand Hebrew” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 23:42—“Lord” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 23:45—“The sun was eclipsed.” (“Thesun was darkened.”) [A full moon, called “thePassover moon,” occurred at night during Passovertime. A full moon cannot eclipse the sun;only a new moon can! Desire of Ages, 685: “Thepassover moon, broad and full, shone from acloudless sky.”]Luke 24:6—“He is not here, but is risen” isomitted.Luke 24:12—Entire lengthy verse (aboutwhat Peter saw at the tomb) is omitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 24:40—“And when He had thus spoken,He showed them His hands and His feet” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Luke 24:49—“Jerusalem” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Luke 24:51b-52a—-52a—“Carried up into heaven.And they worshiped Him” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(“And it came to pass, while He blessed them,He was parted from them, and carried up intoheaven. And they worshipped Him . .”)John 1:14—“Begotten” is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 1:17—“Moses gave us only the Lawwith its rigid demand and merciless justice” (LivingBible). (“For the law was given by Moses.”)John 1:18—“Begotten” is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 1:27—“Preferred before Me” (speakingof Jesus) is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 3:13—“Which is in heaven” is omitted(RSV, etc.).John 3:15—“Should not perish” (regardingbelievers) is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 3:16, 18—“Begotten” is omitted (RSV,etc.).John 4:42—“Christ” is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 6:47—“On Me” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(“He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.”)John 7:53-8:11—All 12 verses are omitted(RSV, etc.). (The woman taken in adultery.)John 8:16—“Father” is omitted (RSV, etc.).John 9:35—“Son of God” is changed to “Sonof man” (RSV, etc.).John 11:41—“Where the dead was laid” isomitted (RSV, etc.).John 16:16—“Because I go to the Father” isomitted (RSV, etc.).John 17:12—“In the world” is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“While I was with them in the world, I keptthem in Thy name.”)John 20:29—“Thomas” is omitted (RSV,

Appendix177etc.).Acts 2:30—“According to the flesh He wouldraised up Christ” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 7:30—“Of the Lord” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Acts 7:37—“Him shall ye hear” (speakingof Christ) is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 8:37—Entire lengthy verse is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“And Philip said, if thou believest withall thine heart, thou mayest. And he answeredand said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Sonof God.”)Acts 9:5-6—“It is hard for thee to kickagainst the pricks. And he trembling and astonishedsaid, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?And the Lord said unto him” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Acts 10:6—“He shall tell thee what thououghtest to do” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 15:34—Entire verse is omitted (NIV,etc.). (“Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abidethere still.”)Acts 16:31—“Christ” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 17:26—“Blood” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 20:25—“Of God” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 20:32—“Brethren” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Acts 23:9—“Let us not fight against God” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 24:6-8—“And would have judged . . tocome unto thee” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Acts 24:15—“Of the dead” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Acts 28:16—“The centurion delivered theprisoners to the captain of the guard” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Acts 28:29—Entire verse is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“And when he had said these words, theJews departed, and had great reasoning amongthemselves.”)Romans 1:16—“Of Christ” is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“I am not ashamed of the Gospel ofChrist.”)Romans 3:25—“In His blood” is omitted(NIV, etc.). (“Whom God hath set forth to be apropitiation through faith in His blood . .”)Romans 5:2—“By faith” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(By whom also we have access by faith . .”)Romans 6:22—“But now having been freedfrom sin and enslaved to God” (NASV). [Thisterrible error is repeated dozens of times inthe modern versions! God’s people are said,not to be “servants,” but “slaves” of God! Contrastthis error with John 8:32, 36; Revelation5:10; 20:4; 22:5. New Age Versions, pp. 224-225, lists 49 New Testament texts where thishorrible error is perpetuated. It is true that doulos,in the Greek, can mean either “servant” or“slave.” But the context obviously shows that weare never enslaved to God. We always have freewill.]Romans 9:28—“In righteousness” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Romans 11:6—“But if it be of works, then itis no more grace; otherwise work is no morework” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Romans 13:9—“Thou shalt not bear falsewitness” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Romans 14:6—“And he that regardeth notthe day, to the Lord he doth not regard it” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Romans 14:9—“Both” and “rose” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Christ both died and rose.”)Romans 14:21—“Or is offended, or is madeweak” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Romans 15:29—“Of the Gospel” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Romans 16:24—“The grace of our LordJesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” is omitted(RSV, etc.).1 Corinthians 1:14—“I thank God” is omitted(RSV, etc.).1 Corinthians 5:7—“Christ our Passover issacrificed for us” is omitted (RSV, etc.).1 Corinthians 6:20—“And in your spiritwhich are God’s” is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“For yeare brought with a price; therefore glorify Godin your body, and in your spirit which areGod’s.”)1 Corinthians 7:39—“By the law” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“The wife is bound by the law aslong as her husband liveth.”)1 Corinthians 10:28—“For the earth is theLord’s, and the fulness thereof” is omitted (RSV,etc.).1 Corinthians 11:24—“Take eat” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Take eat; this is My body . .”)1 Corinthians 11:24—“Broken for you” isomitted (RSV, etc.). (“This is My body which isbroken for you.”)1 Corinthians 11:29—“Lord’s” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“. . not discerning the Lord’s body.”)1 Corinthians 15:47—“The Lord” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“The second man is the Lordfrom heaven.”)1 Corinthians 16:22—“Jesus Christ” is

178 The King James and the Modern Versionsomitted (RSV, etc.).1 Corinthians 16:23—“Christ” is omitted(RSV, etc.).2 Corinthians 4:6—“Jesus” is omitted (RSV,etc.).2 Corinthians 4:10—“The Lord” is omitted(RSV, etc.).Galatians 3:1—“That ye should not obeythe truth” is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“Who hath bewitchedyou, that ye should not obey the truth.”)Galatians 4:3—“We were slaves to Jewishlaws and rituals” (Living Bible). (“Were in bondageunder the elements of the world.”)Galatians 4:7—“Through Christ” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“. . an heir of God throughChrist.”)Galatians 6:15—“In Christ Jesus” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcisionavaileth anything . .”)Ephesians 3:9—“By Jesus Christ” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Who created all things by JesusChrist.”)Ephesians 3:14—“Of our Lord Jesus Christ”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“I bow my knees unto theFather of our Lord Jesus Christ.”)Philippians 3:16—“Let us mind the samething” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Philippians 3:20—“Wait for a Savior” insteadof “look for the Saviour” (RSV, etc.).Colossians 1:2—“And the Lord Jesus Christ”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“Peace from God the Fatherand the Lord Jesus Christ.”)Colossians 1:14—“Through His blood” isomitted (RSV, etc.). (“In whom we have redemptionthrough His blood.”)Colossians 3:6—“On the children of disobedience”is omitted (NIV, etc.). (“The wrath of Godcometh on the children of disobedience.”)1 Thessalonians 1:1—“From God our Fatherand the Lord Jesus Christ” is omitted (RSV,etc.).1 Thessalonians 3:11—“Christ” is omitted(RSV, etc.).2 Thessalonians 1:8—“Christ” is omitted(RSV, etc.).1 Timothy 3:2, 12—“Can marry only once”instead of “must be the husband of one wife.”[According to this false teaching, the bishop canmarry only once in his lifetime.]1 Timothy 3:16—“God” is omitted, orchanged to “who” (RSV, etc.). (“And without controversy,great is the mystery of godliness: Godwas manifest in the flesh.”)1 Timothy 6:5—“From such withdraw thyself”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“Men of corruptminds . . from such withdraw thyself.”)2 Timothy 1:11—“Of the Gentiles” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“I am appointed . . a teacher ofthe Gentiles.”)2 Timothy 4:22—“Jesus Christ,” or sometimes“Christ,” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Titus 1:4—“The Lord” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Hebrews 1:3—“He reflects the glory of God,and bears the very stamp of His nature.” (“Whobeing the brightness of His glory, and the expressimage of His person.” [“Being” and “reflecting”are very different.])Hebrews 1:3—“By Himself” is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“When He had by Himself purged oursins.”)Hebrews 2:7—“And didst set Him over theworks of Thy hands” is omitted (some modernversions).Hebrews 2:11—“Are all of one origin” (or “father”)is added (RSV, etc.). (“For both He thatsanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all ofone.” [This change makes Jesus and the humanrace have the same beginning.])Hebrews 7:21—“After the order of Melchisedec”is omitted (RSV, etc.).Hebrews 10:30—“Saith the Lord” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“I will recompense, saith theLord.”)Hebrews 10:34—“In heaven” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Knowing in yourselves that ye havein heaven a better and an enduring substance.”)Hebrews 11:11—“Was delivered” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Sarah . . was delivered of achild.”)Hebrews 12:2—“Pioneer and perfecter” insteadof “author and finisher.” (“Looking untoJesus the author and finisher of our faith.”[Jesus is not one of the pioneers of our faith, Heis the originator of it.])James 5:16—“Faults” is changed to “sins”(RSV, etc.). (“Confess your faults one to another,and pray for one another . .”)1 Peter 1:22—“Through the Spirit” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Seeing ye have purified yoursouls in obeying the truth through the Spirit.”)1 Peter 4:1—“For us” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(“Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh.”)1 Peter 4:14—“On their part He is evil spokenof, but on your part He is glorified” is omitted(RSV, etc.).1 Peter 5:10—“Jesus” is omitted (RSV, etc.).

Appendix1 Peter 5:11—“Glory” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(“To Him be glory and dominion . .”)2 Peter 2:17—“Forever” is omitted (RSV,etc.).1 John 1:7—“Christ” is omitted (RSV, etc.).1 John 2:7—“From the beginning” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“The Word which ye have heardfrom the beginning.”)1 John 4:3—“Christ is come in the flesh” isomitted (many modern versions). (“Every spiritthat confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come inthe flesh is not of God.”)1 John 4:9—“Begotten” is omitted (RSV, etc.).1 John 4:19—“Him” is omitted (RSV, etc.).(“We love Him, because He first loved us.”)1 John 5:7-8—“In heaven, the Father, theWord, and the Holy Ghost: and these three areone. And there are three that bear witness inearth” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Jude 25—“Wise” is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“Tothe only wise God our Saviour.”)Revelation 1:8—“The Beginning and theEnding” is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“I am the Alphaand Omega, the Beginning and the Ending.”)Revelation 1:9—“Christ” is omitted (RSV,etc.).Revelation 1:11—“I am Alpha and Omega,the first and the last” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Revelation 2:13—“Thy works” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“I know thy works and where thoudwellest . .”)Revelation 5:14—“Him that liveth for everand ever” is omitted (RSV, etc.).Revelation 6:1, 3, 5, 7—“And see” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“Come and see.”)Revelation 11:17—“And art to come” isomitted (RSV, etc.). (“O Lord God almighty, whichart and wast, and art to come.”)Revelation 12:12—“Inhabiters of the earth”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“Woe to the inhabiters ofthe earth . .”)Revelation 12:17—“Christ” is omitted (RSV,etc.). (“Which keep the commandments of God,and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”)Revelation 14:5—“Before the throne of God”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“They are without faultbefore the throne of God.”)Revelation 16:3, 8, 10, 12, 17—“Angel” isomitted (RSV, etc.).Revelation 16:17—“Of heaven” is omitted(RSV, etc.). (“There came a great voice out of thetemple of heaven.”)Revelation 20:9—“From God” is omitted179(RSV, etc.). (“Fire came down from God out ofheaven.”) [In describing the final death of thewicked, Ellen White quotes the KJV of this verseover 10 times.]Revelation 20:12—“God” is changed to “thethrone.” (RSV, etc.).Revelation 21:24—“Them which are saved”is omitted (RSV, etc.). (“The nations of themwhich are saved shall walk in the light . .”)Revelation 22:14—“Wash their robes” insteadof “do His commandments” (RSV, etc.).(“Blessed are they that do His commandments,that they may have right to the tree of life, andmay enter in through the gates into the city.”)THE TRUTH ABOUT MARK 16:9-20The omission of Mark 16:9-20 from themodern versions constitutes the largest singleomission of all. It deserves special attention.The “experts” would have us believe that theending of Mark clearly has no supporting evidencefrom the ancient manuscripts, translations,and early church “fathers.”“It is admittedly difficult to arrive at the conclusionthat any of these readings is the original.But on the basis of the known manuscriptevidence it seems more likely that either Markended at verse 8, or the real ending is not extant.Of these two views the former one is morecompatible with the concept of a completecanon.”—Norman L. Geisler and William E.Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible, p.373.Let us examine the evidence. First, thereare the uncials (capital letter Greek manuscripts).The omission is found only in twouncials: the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.The experts tell us that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticusare the purest ancient Bible manuscripts,especially since they so closely agree. But that isnot true. We find that they disagree in over 3,000places in the Gospels alone! (Herman C. Hoskier,Codex B and Its Allies, Vol. 2, p. 1).Uncials were prepared for about ten centuries.The earliest of them are the Sinaiticus (Aleph),Vaticanus (B), Ephraemi (C), Alexandrinus (A),and Bezae (D). Scholars tell us that the endingof Mark 16 is omitted from many of these ancientcodices. But we discover it is only missingfrom two of them: Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.In contrast none of the other uncials omit theMark 16 ending—and there are at least 18 ofthem!

180 The King James and the Modern VersionsThen there are the cursives (lower caseGreek manuscripts). All of these have the Mark16 ending—and there are about 600 cursivecopies of the book of Mark.“With the exception of the two uncial manuscriptswhich have just been named, there isnot one codex in existence, uncial or cursive,(and we are acquainted with, at least, eighteenother uncials, and about six hundred cursivecopies of this Gospel), which leaves out the lasttwelve verses of St. Mark.“The inference which an unscientific observerwould draw from this fact is no doubt, in thisinstance, the correct one. He demands to beshown the Alexandrian (A), and the ParisianCodex (C), neither of them probably removedby much more than fifty years from the date ofthe Codex Sinaiticus, and both unquestionablyderived from different orginals; and he ascertainsthat no countenance is lent by either ofthose venerable monuments to the proposedomission of this part of the sacred text.“He discovers that the Codex Bezae (D), theonly remaining very ancient manuscript authority—notwithstanding that it is observed onmost occasions to exhibit an extraordinary sympathywith the Vatican (B)—here sides with Aand C against B and Aleph [Vaticanus andSinaiticus].“He inquires after all the other uncials andall the cursive manuscripts in existence, (someof them dating from the tenth century) and requeststo have it explained to him why it is tobe supposed that all these many witnesses, belongingto so many different patriarchates, provinces,ages of the church, have entered into agrand conspiracy to bear false witness on a pointof this magnitude and importance? But he obtainsno intelligible answer to this question.”—John W. Burgon, quoted in Jay P. Green, ed.,Unholy Hands on the Bible, Vol. 1, pp. 40-41.So we find that, in the ancient Greek man-uscripts, 618 have the ending of Mark andtwo do not.Then we come to the translations, andwe find that only two of them had the omis-sion; One was the Sinaitic Syriac, which, likethe Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, was preparedin Alexandria, Egypt. The other was the Co-dex Bobiensis, a Latin manuscript (EdwardF. Hills, Believing Bible Study, p. 133).Then there are the quotations in the earlychurch “fathers.” None of them knew any-thing about the missing passage in Mark,with the exception of a few apostates.Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons is one of severalAnte-Nicene fathers whose extant writings containquotations from Mark 16:9-20. He citesMark 16:19 in his polemical treatise, entitledIrenaeus Against Heresies, penned in approximatelyA.D. 177 (over a century and a half beforeVaticanus and Sinaiticus).Eusebius of Caesarea (who predicted thatConstantine and Christ would reign togetherthrough eternity) knew about the omission, butdid not care whether it was left in or not (ColmLuibheid, The Essential Eusebius, p. 213). (SeeGreat Controversy, p. 574, for Ellen White’s commenton Eusebius.)In one of his books, Burgon quotes from 30different church “fathers” who knew that theending of Mark was there.Then there are the lectionaries (quota-tions from the Bible which were read fromthe pulpit). The ending of Mark is in all ofthem.“But the significance of a single feature ofthe lectionary, of which up to this point nothinghas been said, is alone sufficient to determinethe controversy. We refer to the fact thatin every part of Eastern Christendom thesesame twelve verses—neither more nor less—have been from the earliest recorded period,and still are, a proper lesson both for the Easterseason and for Ascension Day.”—Burgon,Revision Revised, p. 40.Burgon summarized the ancient evidence:“Similarly, concerning THE LAST 12VERSES OF ST. MARK which you brand withsuspicion and separate off from the rest of theGospel, in token that, in your opinion, there is“a breach of continuity” (p. 53) (whatever thatmay mean), between verses 8 and 9. Yourground for thus disallowing the last 12 versesof the second Gospel is that B and Aleph[Vaticanus and Sinaiticus] omit them:—that afew late manuscripts exhibit a wretched alternativefor them. Now, my method on the contraryis to refer all such questions to ‘the consentienttestimony of the most ancient authorities.’And I invite you to note the result of suchan appeal in the present instance. The versesin question I find are recognized:“In the second century,—by the Old Latin,and Syriac Versions [translations] by Papias;Justin M.; Irenaeus; Tertulian.“In the third century,—by the Coptic andSahidic versions: by Hippolytus; by Vincentius,at the seventh Council of Carthage; by the ‘ActaPilati’; and the ‘Apostolical Constitutions’ in

Appendixtwo places.“In the fourth century,—by Cureton’s Syriacand the Gothic Versions; besides the SyriacTable of Canons; Eusebius; Macanus Magnes;Aphraates; Didymus; the Syriac ‘Acts of theApostles’; Epiphanius; Leontius; Ephraem;Ambrose; Chrysostom; Jerome; Augustine.“In the fifth century,—besides the ArmenianVersions, by codices A and C; by Leo; Nestorius;Cyril of Alexandria; Victor of Antioch; Patricjus;Manjus Mercator.“In the sixth and seventh centuries,—besidescod. D, the Georgian and Ethiopic Versions; byHesychius; Gregentius; Prosper; John of Thessalonica;and Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem.”—John William Burgon, The Revision Revised,pp. 422-423.So the evidence is quite clear that Mark16:9-20 really does belong on the end of thebook of Mark.The next question is how did it happento become omitted? Because of John Burgon’sresearch, we have some answers.How could it possibly be that all the otherGospels end on a glorious note—and 24 ofthe New Testament books end with “Amen—yet Mark ends ingloriously with the words:“And they went out quickly, and fled fromthe sepulchre; for they trembled and wereamazed: neither said they any thing to any man;for they were afraid.”—Mark 16:8.There is evidence that the earliest arrangementof the four Gospels was John, Matthew,Luke, and Mark.This placing of Mark last would cause thewhole to end on a note of fear and trembling.“For they were afraid.” But “God hath not givenus the spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7), so what isthe solution?One of the most fantastic theories devisedby the “experts” is that Mark suddenly died atMark 16:8—in spite of the testimony of severalearly “fathers,” that he outlived the completionof His Gospel (Hills, King James Version Defended,pp. 160-161).In order to find the answer to the problem,we need only look at the actual manu-scripts of the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.Because the data could seem complicated,we will place the key points in bold fact.“If you had the Codex Vaticanus before you,each page (measuring 10" x 10½" would be seento contain three columns of 42 lines each.181Whenever the respective scribe concluded theindividual books within his codex, he woulddo so according to an established pattern. Afterpenning his final lines, he would accen-tuate the book’s completion by purposelyleaving the column’s remaining space blank.The next book would begin at the top of theadjacent column.“When arriving at Mark 16:9-20 however, weobserve a pronounced departure from this otherwiseconsistent procedure. With Mark 16:8terminating on line 31, we note that the re-maining eleven blank lines are followed notby a fresh column with Luke 1, but rather byan additional 42 blank lines! This space of awhole column is striking as it constitutes theonly such occurrence in the entire 759-pagemanuscript.“The reason you don’t find this discussed bymodern Greek scholars should be obvious. Asthese fifty-three lines could have accommodatedthe missing twelve verses, our ‘ancient authority’is suddenly seen to be a dubious documentat best.”—W.P. Grady, Final Authority, p. 49.When something is missing in an ancientmanuscript, and there is space where it used tobe, that space is called a lacuna. John Burgonexplains the significance of this lacuna:“The older manuscript from which Cod. Bwas copied must have infallibly contained thetwelve verses in dispute. The copyist was in-structed to leave them out, and he obeyed;but he prudently left a blank space in me-moriam rei. Never was blank more intelli-gible! Never was silence more eloquent!“By this simple expedient, strange to relate,the Vatican Codex is made to recite itself evenwhile it seems to be bearing testimony againstthe concluding verses of St. Mark’s Gospel, bywithholding them: for it forbids the inferencewhich, under ordinary circumstances, musthave been drawn from that omission. It doesmore. By leaving room for the verses it omits,it brings into prominent notice at the end offifteen centuries and a half a more ancientwitness than itself. The venerable author ofthe original codex, from which Codex B wascopied, is thereby besought to view.“And thus, our supposed adversary (CodexB) proves our most useful ally; for it procuresus the testimony of an hitherto unsuspectedwitness. The earlier scribe unmistakably comesforward at this stage of the inquiry, to explainthat he at least is prepared to answer for thegenuineness of these twelve concluding verseswith which the later scribe, his copyist, fromhis omission of them, might unhappily be

182 The King James and the Modern Versionsthought to have been unacquainted.”—JohnWilliam Burgon, quoted in Green, UnholyHands, p. 49.Grady provides further explanation:“When examining Codex Sinaiticus we discoverthat the shenanigans are stranger yet.Each of the slightly larger pages (leafs) of thisuncial manuscript (13½" x 14") contains four2½"-wide columns of 48 lines respectively.“However, when viewing the conclusion ofMark’s Gospel in this codex, even the novicewill find his attention arrested by two pronouncedsigns of textual intrusion. The first ofthese concerns the presence of six pages un-like the other 3,64½ leaves in several particulars.This initial cause for suspicion is inten-sified further by the twofold discovery thatone leaf contains Mark 16:2-Luke 1:56 whilethe handwriting style for all six pages matchesthat of the Vatican Codex B.”Grady’s source for that is Burgon, TraditionalText of the Holy Gospels Vindicated and Established,pp. 298-299.What the above discovery reveals is thatthe omission of Mark 16:9-20 in both theVaticanus and Sinaiticus—was made by thesame scribe! The scribe which made the Vati-can codex is the one which made the sixpages in Sinaiticus which omitted the end-ing of Mark. One man omitted the ending ofMark from both codices.“It is noteworthy that this opinion regardingthe interpolation of B’s scribe enjoys a rare concurrencebetween both sides of the debate. Andfurthermore, before we discover the content ofthese spurious leaves, let it be recognized thatthe real significance of this partisan theoryis that the number of Greek codices hostileto Mark 16:9-20 has been reduced by half!”—Grady, op. cit., p. 50.Dr. Scrivener mentions the fact that Tisch-endorf, who discovered the Sinaiticus and thefirst to examined both the Sinaiticus andVaticanus, was the first to declare that theVaticanus scribe produced those six pages.“I have ventured but slowly to vouch forTischendorf’s notion, that six leaves of CodexAleph [Sinaiticus], that containing Mark 15:2to Luke 1:56 being one of them, were writtenby the scribe of Codex B [Vaticanus]. On mereidentity of handwriting and the peculiar shapeof certain letters who shall insist? Yet thereare parts of the case which I know not how toanswer, and which have persuaded even Dr.Hort. Having now arrived at this conclusion ourinference is simple and direct, that at least inthese leaves, Codex B [Vaticanus] make but onewitness, not two.”—Scrivener, Criticism of theNew Testament, p. 337.Grady explains further:“Should this codex be opened before you, thepage containing Mark’s ending would constitutethe recto of leaf 29 (or the front side ofpage 29 laid open to your right), containing thefour columns of Mark 16:2-Luke 1:18. On yourleft would be the verso (or the back of leaf 28)displaying the four columns of Mark 15:16-16:1.“When these eight columns are viewed intheir adjacent setting, the second tell-tale evidenceof scribal tampering becomes readily apparent.As if to illustrate the adage, ‘If at firstyou don’t succeed, try, try again,’ B’s [Vaticanus’]scribe made a determined effort to cover histracks by his subsequent elimination of Mark16:9-20 via the excision of several whole pages.This time, instead of leaving an entire columnblank, he ventured on a solution that is notunfamiliar to the average student of today. WithMark 16:8 concluding on line four of columnsix, and Luke 1:1 situated atop column seven,our deceiver appeared to be home free.”—Grady, op. cit., pp. 50-51.What the scribe did was this: When hegot to the end of Mark 16:8, he left a suspi-ciously extra amount of blank space to theend of the book—more than were left at theend of the other books of the Bible. He wassignaling that he had omitted something.“But the writing of these six columns of St.Mark is so spread out that they contain lessmatter than they ought; whereas the columnsof St. Luke that follow contain the normalamount. It follows, therefore, that the changeintroduced by the diorthota [B’s scribe] musthave been an extensive excision from St. Mark:—in other words, that these pages as originallywritten must have contained a portion of St.Mark of considerable length which has beenomitted from the pages as they now stand. Ifthese six columns of St. Mark were writtenas closely as the columns of St. Luke whichfollow, , there would be room in them for theomitted twelve verses.”—Burgon, TraditionalText, p. 299.Yet, in spite of all this evidence, modernBible translators keep removing Mark 16:9-20 from their versions. The reason they dothis is rather obvious. They are too lazy tocheck out the sources. Instead, they assumethat Westcott and Hort knew what they weretalking about.

AppendixFrom Nestle to the most recent translator,everyone blindly follows the theory of Westcottand Hort, that Mark 16:9-20 is worthless andmust be kept out of modern Bibles.The only reason some modern Bibles haveput the ending back into the text is to increasesales by complaining Christians.DOCTRINAL FACTORSIN THE KING JAMESThroughout this book, we have repeatedlyseen that the King James Bible is the best English-languageBible in the world.But there are two problems of which weshould be aware:When the translators of the King Jamescame to certain passages, they assumed theverses should be translated in accordancewith their preconception of the state of thedead and the punishment of the wicked. Althoughthey were good men, not all the errors ofRome had been corrected in the minds of God’speople back then.The following five points are quoted from thepresent writer’s book, Life Only in Christ (whichis a rather complete set of Bible studies on thestate of the dead, punishment of the wicked, andspiritualism):• Matthew 10:28: “Fear not them whichkill the body, , but are not able to kill thesoul: but rather fear him which is able todestroy both soul and body in hell.”This proves the soul and the body aretwo different things? The body can be de-stroyed and the soul remain; and therefore,after the body is destroyed, the soul liveson forever?1. This text teaches that both soul and bodycan be destroyed in hell. That is correct. Thosewho believe the immortal-soul doctrine thinkthat the soul is immortal and will live forever.But this passage shows that idea to be false.2. This text does not teach that the bodyand soul are two different entities, for this reason:Here, as in every other place in the NewTestament, the word, translated “soul,” in theKJV is from the Greek word, psuche. But anequal number of times, psuche was translated“life.” That is what should be in this verse: “life,”not “soul.” To clarify this, here is Matthew16:25-26:“For whosoever will save his life [psuche]183shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life[psuche] for My sake shall find it. For what is aman profited, if he shall gain the whole world,and lose his own soul [psuche]? or what shall aman give in exchange for his soul [psuche]?”Psuche should have been translated “life”in both verses. When the word, “life,” is substitutedfor “soul” in Matthew 10:28, there is noproblem. The day is coming when the wickedwill have their entire lives destroyed; they willbe annihilated, and not live forever.• “Jesus said unto him, Verily I say untothee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in para-dise.” Luke 23:43.According to this, Christ told the thief hewould be with Christ that same day in Para-dise?It is of interest that we are told that, as soonas He died, Christ went to preach to the spiritsin prison, but also that He went immediately toparadise. But both concepts are incorrect.1. “Paradise” is where God’s throne is (Rev.2:7 with 22:1-2). Therefore, if Christ went toparadise that day, He went immediately toheaven where God the Father is.But, on Sunday morning, He told Mary thatHe had not yet ascended to the Father (John20:17).In addition, the Bible says He arose from thedead on Sunday morning; and, after He arose,the women said, “Come, see the place where theLord lay” (Matt. 28:6). It is clear that Christ wasin the tomb from Friday afternoon until Sundaymorning.2. Note the punctuation of Luke 23:43. Theearly Bible manuscripts did not have the comma;but, instead, they read words together likethis: insteadranwordstogether. Later translatorsused their best judgment in deciding whereto place the commas, but they were certainlynot inspired as were the original writers.The commas are not over 400 years old;whereas the Inspired Writings themselves arenearly 2,000 years old. The location of the commacan change the meaning of the sentence.In accordance with other information givenabout the death and resurrection of Christ, thiscomma ought to have been placed after “to-day”instead of before it. This would give the “to-day”a deep meaning: On the day of Christ’s greatesthumiliation, He could announce that the thiefwould be in heaven with Him! Thank the Lord!

184 The King James and the Modern Versions• In the Bible, we find such phrases as“everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46), , “ev-erlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41), , and “tormentedday and night for ever and ever” ((Rev. 20:10).This proves an eternally burning hell and animmortal soul?The truth is quite different. The Greek andHebrew words, sometimes translated “everlasting”or “for ever,” only mean a period of time untila certain thing is ended. Consider these points:1. The New Testament words, translated “everlasting”and “for ever,” come from the Greeknoun, aion (or from the adjective, aionios, derivedfrom the noun). Learning how these wordsare used elsewhere in the Bible, we find theirreal meaning. Here are several examples:Matthew 13:39—“The end of the world[aion].”—But how could something supposedly“endless” have an end? And, according to thisverse, it did have an end.Ephesians 1:21—Christ has been exaltedabove “every name that is named, not only inthis world [aion], but also in that which is tocome.”1 Corinthians 2:7—Whitch “God ordained beforethe world [aion].”Hebrews 5:6—“Thou [Christ] art a priest forever [aion].” Yet Christ will only be a priest untilsin has been blotted out.Philemon 15-16—“Thou [Philemon] shouldstreceive him [Onesimus] for ever [aionios] . . bothin the flesh, and in the Lord.” Is Philemon to takeback Onesimus as his servant forever?H.C.G. Moule, the well-known Greek scholar,makes this comment about Philemon 15-16:“The adjective tends to mark duration as longas the nature of the subject allows.”—The CambridgeBible for Schools and Colleges.Jude 7—“Sodom and Gomorrha, and thecities about them . . suffering the vengeance ofeternal [aionios] fire.” But those cities are notstill burning. They are today under the southpart of the Dead Sea. God turned “the cities ofSodom and Gomorrha into ashes” (2 Peter 2:6).If the aionios fire of Sodom and Gomorrah,sent as a judgment from God to destroy thewicked living there, burned itself out in ashesand is no longer burning, we can conclude thatthe aionios fire of the final judgment on thewicked will do likewise.2. Olam is the Old Testament equivalent toaion in the New Testament. Here are some examples:Exodus 12:24—The Passover was to be kept“for ever [olam].” But it ended at Calvary (Heb.9:24-26).1 Chronicles 23:13—Aaron and his sonswere to offer incense “for ever [olam]” and havean “everlasting [olam] priesthood” (Ex. 40:15).But that priesthood ended at the cross (Heb.7:11-14).Exodus 21:1-6—A servant who desired tostay with his master must serve him “for ever[olam].” Must he serve him through all eternity,after both reach heaven?Jonah 2:6—Later describing his experiencein the whale, Jonah said, “The earth with herbars was about me for ever [olam].” Yet this “forever” was only “three days and three nights” long(Jonah 1:17).2 Kings 5:27—Because Gehazi lied in orderto enrich himself, Elisha said, “The leprosytherefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, andunto thy seed for ever [olam].” Was Gehazi’s familyto never end, and that leprosy to be perpetuatedfor all time to come?3. The Old Testament word, olam, and theNew Testament word, aion, are equivalent terms.We know this to be true for two reasons: (1) TheSeptuagint, the ancient Greek translation of theOld Testament, always translates olam by aion.(2) Whenever an Old Testament passage containingolam is quoted in the New Testament,aion is used (Heb. 1:8; 5:6; 6:20; 7:17, 21;13:20; 1 Peter 1:25).Both words clearly have a very limited timevalue, and do not mean an eternal time length.• Do the Bible passages, in which theword “hell” is used, show that the wicked gothere as soon as they die and then remainthere?1. In the Old Testament, the word, “hell,” isalways translated from one word. That word issheol. Sheol means “the grave,” and never “aplace of burning” or “hellfire.” Sheol simplymeans “the unseen state.” Study any analyticalconcordance, and you will nowhere find the ideaof fire or punishment in the usage of sheol.Jonah 2:1-2—This is a good example of howsheol is used. “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lordhis God out of the fish’s belly . . out of the bellyof hell [sheol] cried I.” There is no hellfire in awhale’s stomach. The marginal reading of thistext is “the grave.”At death, everyone, both good and bad, goes

Appendixto sheol.Psalm 89:48—“What man is he that liveth,and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soulfrom the hand of the grave [sheol]?”Job 17:13—Regarding godly Job: “If I wait,the grave [sheol] is mine house.”Psalm 9:17—Regarding the wicked: “Thewicked shall be turned into hell [sheol].”2. In the New Testament, the word, “hell,” istranslated from three different words:(1) Tartaros, which means “a dark abyss.”This occurs only in 2 Peter 2:4. Satan and hisangels have been cast out of heaven and downinto the darkness of this world; and they arebeing “reserved” unto the day of judgment, afuture time when they will receive their punishment.(2) Hades, which means only “the grave,” istranslated as “hell” ten times in the New Testament.The Septuagint (which is the ancient Greektranslation of the Old Testament) almost alwaystranslates sheol (the Old Testament Hebrewword for grave) by the word, hades. Thereforethey have the same meaning.Psalm 16:10—This is a prophecy of Christin the grave, and says, “Thou [God] will not leaveMy soul in hell [sheol].” It is quoted in the NewTestament as “hell [hades]” (Acts 2:27). It isclear that sheol and hades mean “the grave.”That is the meaning given to them by all Biblescholars.Acts 2:27—This text speaks of Christ asbeing in hades. But we all agree that Christ didnot go into hellfire! Christ went into the grave.(3) Gehenna is the third word which, in theNew Testament, is translated “hell.” This time“hell” is the correct translation!This is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrewword, Hinnom (the Valley of Hinnom), the nameof a valley on the south side of Jerusalem usedas the city dump. Garbage was there burnedup.Of the twelve times Gehenna is used, twofacts stand out:a. The “body” as well as the soul is said tobe “cast into hell.” Twice the phrase, “the wholebody,” is used (Matt. 5:29-30, 10:28).b. In not one of those twelve instances doesthe text tell when the wicked will be “cast intohell.” The fiery judgment is simply described asa future event. Thus it is clear that the Biblenever says that anyone who goes into hellfire—185goes there at death. Not once does it say thatanyone is now suffering in the fire of hell.Therefore, the fiery hell does not come rightafter death, but at some later time. The “wholebody” is not cast into hellfire at death, but isplaced in the grave.The Gehenna passages indicate that thewicked are “cast into” the fire. The phrase, “castinto hell [Gehenna],” is used in six of the twelvetimes Gehenna is found in the New Testament.This is matching the parallel where refuse is castinto the fires of Gehenna Valley.Is there no place where we are told whenthis hellfire occurs? Yes, there is: Revelation 20explains that, after the millennium, the wickedare raised to life; and, after the final judgmentbefore the great white throne, they are cast into“the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:12-15). It is at thatsame time that “death and hell are cast into thelake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev.20:14).Does that lake of fire experience occur eternally?Obviously not; for at the same time thatthe wicked perish in the flames, “death and hell”are destroyed also! Lastly, we are told what thatlake of fire experience actually is: “the seconddeath.” It is not eternal life in misery, but thefinal obliteration of the wicked. There will be noendless misery to cause concern to God’s redeemedones. The fire will burn out in a veryshort time, and go out.Then, the righteous will come out of the cityand the wicked will be ashes under their feet.“For, behold the day cometh, that shall burnas an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all thatdo wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day thatcometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord ofhosts, that it shall leave them neither root norbranch.“But unto you that fear My name shall theSun of righteousness arise with healing in Hiswings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up ascalves of the stall. And ye shall tread down thewicked; for they shall be ashes under the solesof your feet in the day that I shall do this, saiththe Lord of hosts.” Malachi 4:1-3.• Revelation 14:11 says, “The smoke oftheir torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.”How do you explain that?The passage says this: “The smoke of theirtorment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and theyhave no rest day nor night, who worship the beastand his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark

186 The King James and the Modern Versionsof his name.”—Revelation 14:11.This passage is taken with little change froman Old Testament prophecy about Idumaea (ancientEdom):“And the streams thereof shall be turned intopitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, andthe land thereof shall become burning pitch. Itshall not be quenched night nor day; the smokethereof shall go up for ever: from generation togeneration it shall lie waste; none shall passthrough it for ever and ever.” Isaiah 34:9-10.Notice the points mentioned here: First,about the fire: (1) shall not be quenched; (2)night nor day; (3) smoke goes up for ever. Second,about the wasteland which shall afterwardresult: (1) from generation to generation it shalllie waste; (2) none shall pass through it for everand ever.Using the correct meaning of “for ever,” whichwe have discovered, we find that fire predictedby Isaiah to occur in Edom—did just that. Itwas a thorough fire which could not be quenchedwhile it was burning. It burned night and day aslong as it burned. The smoke from the fire wentup as long as it burned. When the fire stopped,it would lie waste from generation to generationthereafter, and no one would pass through it. (Ifthe fire did not cease, it could not afterward, aspredicted, “lie waste.”)Ancient Idumaea is a desolate wastelandtoday, and its cities are ruins. The prophecy wasexactly fulfilled—yet that fire went out thousandsof years ago. The smoke of that burning stoppedwhen the fire went out.With that in mind, we turn our attention tothe equivalent prediction in Revelation 14:11;and, using the correct translation of aionios (“forever”), we find that this verse agrees with all theothers: The fire will burn only until the wickedburn up and are consumed. When the fire goesout, the smoke will cease also—otherwise theredeemed could not live on the earth amid smokegoing up forever!We must let the Bible agree with itself! Themeek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5, Ps. 37:11),not the wicked! How could the redeemed enjoythe new earth if the wicked were endlessly burningand suffering on its surface?To conclude this brief study, let me tell youof a man I met about thirty years ago, in Oregon.He was a lay evangelist; and I asked himhow he got started. He told me he once had afriend with whom he shared our historic beliefs.But his friend simply could not grasp the greattruth that God does not burn people in hellfirewithout end. Yet this man was certain his friendwas sincere and would accept the truth if it waspresented to him clearly enough.I asked him what happened. He said hestudied with his friend for two years; and, duringthat time, he became a thorough Bible student.Then, one evening, he presented to hisfriend passages he found which described howhellfire will burn on the surface of the earth. Hisfriend was convinced; for he saw that (1) the firecould not be now burning, and (2) it would haveto be brief or the saints could not inherit the earthand live thereon through all eternity.How thankful we can be that the Bible is soconsistent with itself! The apparent problems arecaused by the misunderstandings of those whotranslated the book. The King James translatorsdid not understand that aion did not meanforever and that the grave was not hellfire.The Bible does not say that the judgmentfire will burn endlessly; for this blazing fire onthe surface of the earth must go out, so God cancreate “a new earth” (2 Peter 3:12-13 and Rev.20-21). There must therefore be an end to thefire, else this earth could not be recreated—sothe meek could inherit it and dwell on it throughall eternity.How wonderful it is to know that our God isa God of deepest love. Yes, it is true that thewicked must die; for they could never be happyin heaven. But how kind it is of Him to quicklyend their miserable lives!They will be raised after the millennium onlylong enough to learn the issues in the great controversybetween good and evil and to understandhow their lost condition was their ownresponsibility.Then they will quickly cease to exist. Therewill be a few, like Hitler (and, of course, Satanand his angels!), who will suffer on for a time;but, for most, death will come very quickly.The Bible nowhere says that souls are immortal;but, instead, it declares that “the soulthat sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).A LIST OF ARCHAIC WORDSIN THE KING JAMESThere are, in some instances, words in theKing James which are not properly understoodtoday. However, when we search for them, wefind that the actual number is not very large.

AppendixIt would be nice if these words could be corrected.Unfortunately, when modern publishersattempt the task (as they did with the New KingJames Version), they go overboard—and inserta lot of Westcott-Hort errors.Speaking of the 1881 English Revised Version,we are told:“The revisers had a wonderful opportunity.They might have made a few changes and removeda few archaic expressions, and made theAuthorized Version the most acceptable andbeautiful and wonderful book of all time to come.But they wished ruthlessly to meddle. Some ofthem wanted to change doctrine. Some of themdid not know good English literature when theysaw it . . There were enough modernists amongthe revisers to change the words of Scriptureitself so as to throw doubt on the Scripture.”—Herald and Presbyter, July 16, 1924, p. 10[Presbyterian church paper].It would be well to identify the primary archaicwords in the King James Bible. The followinglist probably contains most of them. TheBible references are not, of course, exhaustive.In some instances, a word translated by one ofthose below has a different meaning in a differentpassage.Abroad - without, outside (Deut. 24:11,Judges 12:9)Advertise - Let you know, tell you (Num.24:14, Ruth 4:4)Anon - immediately (Mark 1:30)Apparently - clearly (Num. 12:8)Artillery - weapons (1 Sam. 20:40)Book - indictment (Job 31:35)Bowels - heart (Gen. 43:30)By and by - at once (Mark 6:25)Careful - anxious (Jer. 17:8, Luke 10:41)Carelessly - secure (Isa. 47:8, Zeph. 2:15)Carriage - baggage (1 Sam. 17:22, Judges18:21)Charity - love (1 Cor. 13)Coast - border (Ex. 10:4, Josh. 1:4, 17:9,Matt. 2:16)Comprehend - enclose (Isa. 40:12) /overcome (John 1:5)Convenient - needful, required (Prov. 30:8,Eph. 5:4, Philemon 8)Conversant - lived (Josh. 8:35) / went (1Sam 25:15)Conversation - behavior (1 Peter 3:1-2)Convince - confute (Job 32:12) / convict187(John 8:46)Cunning - skillful (Gen 25:27, 1 Sam.16:16, 1 Chron. 22:15)Curious - skillfully woven (Ex. 28:8) /skillful (Ex. 35:32)Curiously - intricately (Ps. 139:15)Delectable - that they delight in (Isa. 44:9)Denounce - declare (Deut. 30:18)Discover - uncover (Ps. 29:9, Isa. 22:8,Micah 1:6)Dote - become fools (Jer. 50:36)Duke - chief (Gen. 36:15)Feebleminded - fainthearted (1 Thess. 5:14)Forwardness - readiness (2 Cor. 9:2)Furniture - saddle (Gen. 31:34)Halt - fall (Ps. 38:17) / go limping (1 Kgs.18:21)Harness - armor (1 Kgs. 20:11, 22:34)Imagine - purpose, conceive (Gen. 11:6, Ps.2:1, 10:2)Leasing - falsehood, lies (Ps. 4:2, 5:6)Let - hinder (Isa. 43:13) / prevented (Rom1:13)Libertines - Freedmen (Acts 6:9)Meat - food (Gen. 1:29-30, Deut. 20:20,Matt. 6:25, John 4:32)Meat offering - meal offering, cereal offering(Lev. 2:1)Mortify - put to death (Rom. 8:13, Col. 3:5)Munition - stronghold, fortress (Isa. 29:7,33:16, Nahum 2:1)Naughtiness - evil, iniquity (1 Sam. 17:28,Prov. 11:6, James 1:21)Naughty - worthless (Prov. 6:12) / bad (Jer.24:2)Nephew - grandson (Judges 12:14, 1 Tim.5:4) / descendant (Job 18:19)Occupied - used (Ex. 38:24, Judges 16:11)Occupier - dealer (Eze. 27:27)Occupy - deal, trade (Eze. 27:9, Luke19:13)Outlandish - foreign (Neh. 13:26)Out of hand - at once (Num. 11:15)Overran - outran (2 Sam. 18:23)Peculiar - one’s own possession (Ex. 19:5,Deut. 14:2)Person - be partial (Deut. 1:17, Prov. 28:21)Pitiful - compassionate (Lam. 4:10)Presently - at once (Prov. 12:16, Matt.21:19, 26:53)Prevent - receive, go before (Job 3:12, Ps.

188 The King James and the Modern Versions119:147, Matt. 17:25) / preceded(1 Thess. 4:15)Provoke - stir up (2 Cor. 9:2, Heb. 10:24)Publish - proclaim (Deut. 32:3, 1 Sam.31:9)Purchase - gain (Ps. 78:54, 1 Tim. 3:13)Quick - alive, living (Num. 16:30, Ps.55:15, 124:3)Quicken - give life (Ps. 119:50) / come tolife (1 Cor. 15:36) / make alive (Eph. 2:1)Record - witness (Job 16:19, Phil. 1:8)Reins - kidneys (Job 16:13) / hearts (Ps.7:9)Repent self - have compassion on (Deut.32:36; Judges 21:6, 15)Replenish - fill full (Gen. 1:28, 9:1)Require - ask (Ezra 8:22)Reward - recompense, requite (Deut. 32:41,Ps. 54:5, 2 Tim. 4:14)Rid - deliver, rescue (Gen. 37:22, Ex. 6:6)Riotous - gluttonous (Prov. 23:20) /gluttons (Prov. 28:7)Road - raid (1 Sam. 27:10)Room - place (2 Sam. 19:13, 1 Chron.4:41, Ps. 31:8, Luke 14:7)Secure - off its guard (Judges 8:11) /unsuspecting (Judges 18:7, 10)Securely - trustingly (Prov. 3:29)Slime - bitumen, tar (Gen. 14:10)Sottish - stupid (Jer. 4:22)Strait - small (2 Kgs. 6:1) / narrow (Isa.49:20, Matt. 7:13)Straitly - carefully (Gen. 43:7)Straitness - distress (Deut. 28:53, 55, 57;Jer. 19:9)Suffer - let (Gen. 20:6, Matt. 19:14)Take thought - be anxious (1 Sam. 9:5,Matt. 6:25)Tale - number (Ex. 5:8, 18; 1 Sam. 18:27)Target - javelin (1 Sam. 17:6) / shield (1Kgs. 10:16)Tell - number, count (Gen. 15:5, Ps. 22:17,Ps. 48:12)Translate - transfer (2 Sam. 3:10) / take up(Heb. 11:5)Unspeakable - inexpressible (2 Cor. 9:15)Usury - interest (Ex. 22:25, Lev. 25:36,Matt. 25:27)Vain - worthless (Judges 9:4, 11:3)Vex - wrong (Ex. 22:21) / harass (Num.25:17) / violently grab (Acts 12:1)Virtue - power (Mark 5:30, Luke 6:19)Volume - roll (Ps. 40:7, Heb. 10:7)Wealthy - spacious (Ps. 66:12) / at ease (Jer.49:31)Witty inventions - discretion (Prov. 8:12)Some will say that the King James Bible isnot useable, since it has a few words in it whichare not as familiar to us. However, it remains anexcellent translation and perfectly understandable.“The author has lived for a considerable timein Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands andthe Fiji Islands. In his experience, the indigenouspeople of these countries evidenced noproblems in understanding God’s Word in thecommonly used KJV. And this—in spite of thefact that, to these people, English is a foreignlanguage!“Are these people intellectually superior tothose of us living in Australia or New Zealand?”—H.H.Myers, Battle of the Bibles, p.193.THE LORD’S PRAYER IN THREEENGLISH TRANSLATIONSHere is the first portion of the Lord’s Prayerin three English translations.The first line is from the first Anglo-Saxontranslation, prepared in King Alfred’s time (A.D.870-901).The second line is from Wycliffe’s version(A.D. 1382).The third line is from the King James Version(A.D. 1611).Uren Fader dhic art in heofnasOur Fadir that art in heuenesOur Father which art in heavenSic gehalyed dhin nomaHalewid be thi nameHallowed be thy nameTo cymcdh dhin ncThi Kingdom comme toThy Kingdom comeSic dhin willa sue is in heofnas and in eardhsBe thi wille done as in heuen so in ertheThy will be done in earth, as it is in heavenVren hiaf ofer wirthe sd US to daegGyve to us this dai oure breed ouer other

AppendixsubstanceGive us this day our daily breadAnd forgef us scylda urnaAnd forgive to us oure dettisAnd forgive us our debtsSue we forgefan scuidgun vrumAs we forgyven to oure dettourisAs we forgive our debtorsAnd no inleadh vridk in costungAnd leede us not in to temptaciounAnd lead us not into temptationAls gefrig vrich fro ifleBut de-yvere us fro yvelBut deliver us from evilADVENTIST APPROVALOF MODERN VERSIONSPacific Union College may have been the firstof our schools to recommend that all religionstudents purchase and use the newly releasedRevised Standard Version.The use of modern versions in our churchprogressed slowly; but, when the October 1982issue of Ministry magazine was issued, it carriedan article, “Use the Bible Your People Use”by Charles Case, which counseled our pastorsto use the King James in the pulpit—becausethat is what the church members wanted themto use.In the same article appeared the findings ofa Ministry survey, which it indicated that thegreat majority of church members in NorthAmerica wanted their pastors to only use theKing James Bible.But gradually, changes came in. Modernistscame into positions of influence and the concernsof the members were ignored. ModernBible versions were repeatedly quoted in churcharticles and books. The Sabbath School LessonQuarterlies, published by the General Conferencefor use throughout the world field, increasinglyquoted from translations based on themodern critical Greek Texts.Modern translations began to be quoted almostexclusively in the new Bible textbooks andworkbooks, used in our schools—from the lowestto the highest grades.In 1984, the following significant statementwas published in the United Bible Societies189Yearly Report:“The work of the Bible Society [United BibleSocieties] acquired a new dimension with thesetting up of a consultative committee madeup of three representatives from the RomanCatholic, the Anglican, and Seventh-day Adventistchurches. This committee will supervise thetranslation, reproduction, and distribution inthe Sychelles.”—United Bible Societies Report,1984.A decade later, the South Pacific Divisionchurch paper, The Record, announced that ithad been working, since 1990, with other denominationson a project to translate the NewTestament into the ChiLanji language in Zambia.“The project is interdenominational and involvesBaptist, Seventh-day Adventist and RomanCatholic Churches.”—The Record, May 1,1993, p. 5.Unfortunately, in 1985 when the long-awaitedSeventh-day Adventist Hymnal was published—thechurch members found it to be fullof modernist Bible versions in the ScriptureReadings at the back of the book.Out of about 224 Scripture Readings andprayers intended for corporate worship, the KingJames Version came in seventh in frequency. Itwas quoted only 14 times in the 224 readings!Eight different Bible versions were used, andguess which translation came in second place?The Roman Catholic Jerusalem Bible! This isincredible!The New International Version was used morethan any other, 68 times in all.Reading #782 is a quotation of John 3:16—from the Jerusalem Bible!Reading #730 is from the New InternationalVersion:“Glory to God in the highest and on earthpeace to men on whom His favor rests.”—Luke2:14 (NIV).That translation entirely twists the meaningof the glorious song of the angels—into a Calvinisticdeterminism, whereby God only selects afew to be saved. It should have read:“Glory to God in the highest, and on earthpeace, good will toward men.”—Luke 2:14(KJV).Jesus died that all men might accept Himand be saved, not just certain ones.“God our Saviour; who will have all men tobe saved, and to come unto the knowledge ofthe truth.”—1 Timothy 2:3-4 (KJV).

190 The King James and the Modern VersionsOriginal sin is taught in Reading #756:“Surely I have been a sinner from birth andsinful from the time my mother conceived me.”—Psalm 51:5 (NIV).It is a remarkable fact that, by the time ourhymnal was published in 1985, Zondervan had,in its 1984 NIV edition, already gotten the translatorsto modify the offensive verse somewhat:“. . and in sin did my mother conceive me.”“Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John3:4) is what the Bible says; a child who has onlybeen conceived a few hours earlier and is microscopicin size is not a sinner!THE OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHAHere is a brief history of the Apocrypha. Itwas included in all the 16th-century English versions,including the KJV of 1611. The EnglishRevised Version of the document was publishedin 1894.With the exception of 1 and 2 Esdras andthe Prayer of Manasseh, these books are reveredby Catholics as inspired and canonical Scripture.Rome calls them Deuterocanonical. The4th Session of the Council of Trent on April 8,1546, decreed that these books, “entire and withall their parts,” are “sacred and canonical” andpronounced an anathema on anyone who “knowinglyor deliberately” rejects them. Though deniedcanonicity and authority, 1 and 2 Esdrasand the Prayer of Manasseh are included in Latinmanuscripts of the Vulgate, and are printed asan appendix to the Bible in later editions.The Lutheran churches, the Church of England,and the Zürich reformed churches holdthat these books are useful, but not canonical.In Luther’s German translation of the Bible,these books are segregated between the Old Testamentand New Testament, with the title: “Apocrypha,that is, books which are not held equalto the sacred Scriptures, and nevertheless areuseful and good to read.”The Swiss Reformer, Oecolampadius, statedin 1530: “We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus,Baruch, the two books of Esdras,the two books of Maccabees, the additions toDaniel; but we do not allow them divine authoritywith the other.”Article Six of the famous Thirty-nine Articlesof the Church of England (1562) states that thesebooks are read “for example of life and instructionof manners,” but the Church does not usethem “to establish any doctrine.”The position of the Calvinistic and other reformedchurches is clearly stated in the WestminsterConfession of Faith (1647), which saysthis:“The books commonly called Apocrypha, notbeing of divine Inspiration, are no part of theCanon of the Scripture; therefore they are of noauthority in the Church of God, nor to be otherwiseapproved or made use of than any otherhuman writings.”For your information, First Maccabees is theonly worthwhile book in the Apocrypha. It is anactual historical account of part of the MaccabeanRevolt. The rest of the Apocrypha, including2 Maccabees, contains legendary materialand cannot be trusted.The Apocryphal books were produced between250-150 B.C. Malachi was written around400 B.C.The early Christians clearly saw the foolishnessin those books, and definitely rejected themfrom the Biblical canon of inspired books. Theonly reason they were later included in somepost-Reformation Bibles was to appease Catholicswho might want to purchase the Bibles.As you may know, Rome requires their inclusion,intermingled all through the Old Testament,in all the Bibles they publish because thosespurious books teach several Catholic errors,such as pergatory and prayers for the dead.After ignoring the Apocrypha for centuries,Rome suddenly adopted them as inspired andcanonical at the Council of Trent (1545-1563),because of the Catholic errors they supported.One of the popes pronounced a curse on anyonewho should print a Bible without the Apocraphain it.Martin Luther had been thundering againstthe “indulgence scam”; but 2 Maccabees appearedto support it:“It is therefore a holy and wholesome thoughtto pray for the dead that they may be loosedfrom sin.”—2 Maccabees 12:46.People pay a lot of money for masses to besaid for their dead relatives. All this is based on2 Maccabees 12:46.But those poor souls are not shown anotherverse in 2 Maccabees, which have the finalwords of the author:“I also will here make an end of my narration.Which if I have done well and as it becomethother history it is what I desired: but if notso perfectly it must be pardoned me.”—2

AppendixMaccabees 15:38-39.In other words, the author admitted the lackof divine Inspiration for his book. Paul said somethingfar different:“If any man think himself to be a prophet, orspiritual, let him acknowledge that the thingsthat I write unto you are the commandments ofthe Lord.”—1 Corinthians 14:37.The Apostle Paul was an inspired prophet ofGod; whereas the author of 2 Maccabees wasjust someone who wrote a long letter.The author of this book has prepared aspecial report on the errors in the Apocry-pha, which is being printed in a four-pagetract. But we will also reprint it below:SPECIAL REPORTON THE APOCRYPHAThere are those among us who think it isnecessary for the people of God, in theselast days, to study the Apocrypha. At therequest of friends, this brief overview hasbeen prepared in order to save our people alot of work. After reading this, your curios-ity about the Apocrypha will very likely beexhausted. How thankful we can be that thereis so much beautiful light and truth in theBible and Spirit of Prophecyrophecy. . In strong con-trast, the Apocrypha is very, , very empty.With the exception of 1 Maccabees (a validhistorical account), the Apocrypha is not worthreading.THE INTERTESTAMENTAL PERIODThe Old Testament Scriptures were completedwhen Malachi penned his book, aboutthe year 400 B.C. From that time, down to thebirth of Christ in 4 B.C., is about 400 years.During those years of Scriptural silence, therewas a lot of activity in Palestine, both politicaland written.From the conquest of Palestine by Alexanderthe Great (332 B.C.) to the destruction of theTemple (A.D. 70), there was considerable religiousand political activity. Four events immenselyaffected the Jewish people: (1) theBabylonian captivity (605-538 B.C.), (2) the uprisingunder Antiochus Epiphanes (c. 175 B.C.),(3) the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple(A.D. 70), and (4) the Bar Cocheba revolt (A.D.132-135).Because of one or more of those events,many uninspired Jewish writings were pro-191duced. These writings include the Apocrypha,the Pseudopigrapha, and the writings of theQumran community of Essenes. We will brieflylook at each of these.PART 1 - THE APOCRYPHAThe term, “Apocrypha,” means “somethinghidden” and usually refers to a group of writingsthat appeared in the Greek (Septuagint)translation of the Old Testament; but these werenever accepted in the Hebrew canon. Both Jewsand Christians always recognized that the Apocryphawas not divinely inspired.The Apocrypha is several uninspired bookswhich were added to the Septuagint (the Greektranslation of the Hebrew Old Testament) abouta hundred years before the birth of Christ.Because the Apocrypha contains several RomanCatholic teachings, the papacy requiresevery faithful Catholic to accept the Apocryphaas fully inspired. Not to do so, according to adecree of the Council of Trent (April 18, 1546),is to be guilty of a mortal sin. Oddly enough, itwas not until that date that the Vatican ever ruledthat the Apocrypha was divinely inspired!When the 16th-century Reformation began,it took time for the Protestants to successfullypart with many of the errors and myths of Romanism.For this reason, some of the earliest ProtestantBibles had the Apocrypha in them,—althoughChristians have never accepted thosewritings as inspired.Interestingly enough, Jerome only includedthe Apocryphal books in his Latin Vulgate at theinsistance of the pope. Jerome did not believethey were divinely inspired.WHY CHRISTIANS REJECTTHE APOCRYPHAThere are several very good reasons whyChristians do not accept the Apocrypha as divinelyinspired writings:1 - The Apocryphal books are not includedin the Hebrew canon of Scripture.2 - Though they are included in theSeptuagint (the Greek translation of the OldTestament), Jesus never quoted from them.3 - The early Christian church totally rejectedthem from the canon.4 - The writer of 1 Maccabees recognizedthat there was no prophet among the Jews atthat time (1 Maccabees 4:46; 9:27; 14:41).5 - They teach false doctrines:• An angel says of the smoke of a burning

192 The King James and the Modern Versionsfish heart, that it “driveth away all kinds of devils.”• God is urged, “Hear now the prayer of thedead of Israel” (Baruch 3:4).• “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thoughtto pray for the dead, that they may be loosedfrom sins” (2 Maccabees 12:43-45).6 - They contain major historical and geographicalerrors.7 - Josephus, contemporary of John the Revelator,mentions the Apocrypha, but never considersit inspired.8 - Philo Judaeus, Jewish leader at Alexandriaduring the time of the apostles, left a largecollection of writings and quoted extensivelyfrom the Old Testament—but never from theApocrypha.9 - They lack the high spiritual tone and generalexcellence of the Biblical writings.DESCRIPTION OFTHE APOCRYPHAL BOOKSThese are the books that Roman Catholicsare required to accept as inspired of God, onpain of mortal sin if they do not do so:HISTORICAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS1 Maccabees—This is the only worthwhilebook in the Apocrypha. It is fairly reliable historyand covers the Maccabean revolt againstAntiochus Epiphanes, from 175 to 135 B.C.This is an important historical book, andtells about the struggles of the Jews for religiousand political liberty in the 2nd century B.C. Thename is derived from Judas Maccabeus, the thirdson of Mattathias, a priest. (The word, “Maccabeus,”comes from the Hebrew word for “hammer.”)Written in Hebrew by a Palestinian Jewabout 100 B.C., it is our best source for the historyof the first 40 years of the Maccabean warsand gives a reasonably dependable account ofthe period from Antiochus Epiphanes (175 B.C.)to John Hyrcanus (c. 135 B.C.). We are first toldof events leading up to the Maccabean rebellion(1:1 to chapter 2); then about the military exploitsof Judas (3:1-9:22) and his brothers,Jonathan (9:23-12:53) and Simon (13:1-16:24),who succeeded him in the ongoing struggle firstfor religious and political freedom. The emphasisof the book is on military activity; and littleis told about the social, economic, and religiousaspects of the period.2 Maccabees—This book is a mixture ofhistory and legendary narratives, covering theperiod 175-160 B.C. An independent, divergent,and more elaborate account of events in 1Maccabees 1-7, it was written by moralizingJews about the 1st century B.C. and includes avariety of supernatural miracles which helpedthe warring Jews.ETHICAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKSWisdom of Solomon—This book, writtenin Greek about 50 B.C. (probably at Alexandria),says that good living is best; and sin andidolatry are wrong. The author claims to be KingSolomon.Scholars who study ancient manuscripts declarethat this book combines Old Testamentteachings with Alexandrian ideas derived fromPlatonism and Stoicism.Ecclesiasticus (also called Wisdom ofJesus, the Son of Sirach)—The theme is alsoabout good living. In some passages, the booksounds like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.The most famous passage in Ecclesiasticusis a series of stories (chapters 44-50) beginningwith the familiar words, “Let us now praise famousmen.” Yet that is a concept foreign to trueScripture!There are errors in both the Wisdom ofSolomon and Ecclesiasticus.LEGENDARY APOCRYPHAL BOOKSTobit— obit—a legendary romantic narrative, saidto have occurred during the Babylonian captivityand written about 200 B.C.According to this novel, Tobit was a Jew livingin Babylon who became blind (chapter 1:2);and, then, after a quarrel with his wife, he wishedhe might die. At the same time, a widow namedSarah, living in Ecbatana in Media, had sevenhusbands slain on her wedding night by a demonnamed Asmodeus. So she also prayed thatshe might die. The angel, Raphael, was then sentto help them both. Raphael comes to Azaria andlies to him, saying he is a man named Azarias.Leading him to the Tigris River, Raphael has himcatch a large fish, the intestines of which laterhelp banish the demon, Asmodeus, and cureTobit’s blindness. Arriving in Ecbatana, the angelhelps Tobit find a lot of money; and he marriesthe woman who, according to the angel, wasdestined for him from all eternity (7:9). Yet Tobitwas already married to another woman! Tobitthen praises God (10-14).Judith—The story of the bravery of Judith,Judith—

Appendixa Hebrew widow, written about 150 B.C.In this totally fictitious story, after the Jewsreturned from the Babylonian captivity, Nebuchadnezzar,the Assyrian king ruling fromNineveh, decided to punish the Jews for not assistinghim in his conquest of Media. (As youknow, Nebuchnezzar was a Babylonian king, rulingfrom Babylon, and he was not alive after theBabylonian captivity.)Holofernes, his Assyrian general, is said tohave besieged the city of Bethulia; but, throughtrickery, Judith cuts off his head with his ownsword while he is in a drunken stupor.Additions to Esther—Fictitious stories,written about 150 B.C., are inserted in variousplaces in the book of Esther; and part of a chapterand six other chapters are added at the endof Esther. A total of 107 verses are added.Additions to Daniel—There are three ofthese. Here they are:The Prayer of Azariah and the Song ofthe Three Holy Children—The prayer of Abednego,plus the song of the three Hebrews, becausetheir prayer in the fiery furnace was heard.This is the first of the additions to Daniel and isinserted between Daniel 23 and 24 in theSeptuagint, the Vulgate, and most CatholicBibles.As the three stand inside the fiery hot furnace,Azariah prays for help so they will not die(1-22). Then, when it comes (23-28), the threepraise God for deliverance (29-68). Ignored isthe fact that they had to be helped as soon asthey were pushed into the fiery furnace!Susanna and the Elders—A story abouthow Daniel saved Susanna from being condemnedto death as a result of false accusations.In the Vulgate, this religious romance followsthe last chapter of Daniel and is numbered aschapter 13. It apparently was written in Hebrewin the 1st century B.C.Two Jewish judges tried to seduce Susanna,the godly wife of Joakim, a prominent BabylonianJew. When she refused, they accused herof adultery. Daniel rescued her by independentlycross-examining each of the elders, proving theirstories contradictory and fallacious.Bel and the Dragon—This consists of twofabulous stories, written probably in Hebrewduring the 1st century B.C. and included aschapter 14 of Daniel: (1) Daniel proves that Bel’spriests and their families ate food offered to anidol. (2) After Daniel kills a dragon, he is then193put in the lions’ den.In the first story, the Babylonian priests ofBel (Marduk) have claimed that their heathenidol was eating the food presented to it. Danieldisproves this claim by sprinkling ashes on thefloor, demonstrating that the 70 priests and theirfamilies would sneak in by a secret door andtake the food.In the second story, a great dragon was beingworshiped by the people. Daniel kills it byfeeding it a concoction of pitch, fat, and hair,boiled together. The creature bursts and dies.Because he did this, Daniel is cast (a secondtime) into a lions’ den for not one, but six days.While there, he is miraculously fed by Habakkuk,the prophet, who is flown by an angel fromJudea to Babylon for this purpose.PROPHETIC APOCRYPHAL BOOKSBaruch—This book purportedly was writtenby Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, during theBabylonian exile. It is thought to have been written,in the first century A.D., by a Jew in orderto warn his people that the destruction ofJerusalem (A.D. 70) happened because of thesins of the Jewish nation. The final chapterpromises the restoration of Israel and predictsthe humbling of all her oppressors.Letter of Jeremiah (also known as theEpistle of Jeremy)—This book is included atthe end of Baruch in ancient manuscripts. Butit is a separate production, which non-Catholicscholars believe to have been written after thedestruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, to encouragethem to remain true to Judaism.In this manuscript, based on Jeremiah 10:11,the writer warns his people not to forsake Judaism,lest they experience another captivity.PART 2 - THE PSEUDOPIGRAPHABy order of the Council of Trent, the abovebooks are all included in Roman Catholic Bibles.There are also five other books which are calledthe Pseudopigrapha.Roman Catholics are not required to acceptany of the following books, and they have neverbeen considered canonical by any denomination.3 Maccabees—This book of seven chaptersis clearly folklore; it tells the story of thevictory of Ptolemy IV Philopator, over Antiochusthe Great at the Battle of Raphia (217 B.C.) inorder to deliver the Jewish people.4 Maccabees—This brief book urges the

194 The King James and the Modern VersionsJews to practice temperance and self-control bystudying the Torah.Prayer of Manasseh—You will recall thatKing Manasseh was carried to Babylon; and,while there, he repented and was restored tohis throne (2 Kings 21:1-18; 2 Chronicles 33:1-20).This Pseudopigraphal document, written inHebrew about 100-150 B.C., purports to beManasseh’s prayer while in captivity. It is notconsidered canonical even by Catholics.1 Esdras—Written by an Egyptian Jewabout 150 B.C., this book is often described ashistorical fiction. Neither Catholics nor Protestantsaccept it as canonical. 1 Esdras purportsto tell more about portions of 2 Chronicles,Ezra, and Nehemiah.It is best known for its account (1 Esdras3:5-4:63) of three young bodyguards of DariusI who, one day, sought the best answer to thequestion, What is the strongest thing in theworld? The first said, “Wine is strongest.” Thesecond said. “The king is strongest.” The thirdsaid, “Women are strongest, but truth is victorover all things.” At this, the people applaudedhim and cried, “Great is truth, and strongest ofall.” Does that sound like anything worth reading?This event is supposed to have givenZerubbabel the opportunity to obtain from Dariusthe command to resume building on theTemple in Jerusalem (4:48-57).A point of confusion needs to be mentionedhere. In Catholic Bibles, the books of Ezra andNehemiah are called 1 and 2 Esdras. But, ofcourse, the Pseudopigraphal books, 1 and 2Esdras, are quite different!In the Latin Vulgate, 3 and 4 Esdras are includedas an appendix to the New Testament,as is the Prayer of Manasseh.2 Esdras—This book apparently was writtenby Christians between A.D. 150 and 250. Itspeaks of the rejection of the Jews and the callingof the Gentiles (chapters 1-2), in chapter 1and verse 30, and is similar to Matthew 23:37;chapter 1 and verse 37 is similar to John 20:29).Chapters 3-14 are supposed to have beenwritten by someone named Salathiel, who isidentified with Ezra. It is thought that the bookwas written by a Christian and named “Ezdras”in order to get the Jews to read it. At its end(14:48), Ezra is supposed to have been translatedto heaven, without experiencing death.Jubilees—Written in Hebrew apparently bya Pharisee or Essene about 125 B.C., Jubileesteaches that the coming Messianic kingdom willgradually develop until both man and naturewill reach perfection, happiness, and peace. Atthat time, everyone will live a thousand years;and, at death, all will then go to heaven. A fragmentof this work was discovered among theDead Sea scrolls in Qumran Cave I.First Enoch (or Ethiopic Enoch)—This isa compilation, partly in Hebrew and partly inAramaic, of the works of several authors whowere Pharisees. It is called “Ethiopic Enoch” becauseour only source is an Ethiopian version.It has a variety of teachings, some contradictory,about the coming Messiah and his kingdom:It will be eternal on earth and in heavenand will begin after the last judgment (37-71);it will be eternal only on the earth, beginningafter the last judgment (1-36); it will be temporaryand on earth, and will be followed by thelast judgment (91-104).The evil one is Azazel who “hath taught allunrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternalsecrets which were (preserved) in heaven,and which men were striving to learn” (9:6).Second Enoch (Slovonic Enoch)—Extantonly in a Slavonic version, this manuscript hassome similarity to First Enoch, but also to earlyChristian literature. Part of it is thought to havebeen written by Christians in a later century A.D.Second Baruch—A compilation of severalworks, this book declares that men are savedsolely by their works and that the Messianickingdom is soon to be established; then Israelwill be a world empire with Jerusalem as itscapital. Probably written during the first or secondcentury A.D., it is extant only in a Syriacversion.Third Baruch—This book, probably writtenin the second century A.D., advocates a beliefin seven heavens and three classes of angelswho intercede for three classes of men.Fourth Ezra—Probably written about theend of the first century A.D., this book teachesthat Israel is great, the Jews are God’s onlypeople, the law was a special gift to them afterits rejection by other worlds, and that God lovesthe Jews more than any other people.Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs—This book, which may have been written by aJew during the Maccabean rule, teaches thatthrough the Jews all the Gentiles will be saved.The promised Messiah will come through the

Appendixtribe of Levi, not Judah. Part of this book wasfound among the Dead Sea Scrolls in QumranCave I.Sibylline Oracles—This is a work comprisedoriginally of 15 books and several fragmentscontaining oracles developed by Jewsand probably also Christian authors, from the2nd century B.C. to about the 5th century A.D.Assumption of Moses—Probably writtenduring the 1st century A.D. by a patriotic Jew,this work originally had two different books: theTestament of Moses and the Assumption. Theauthor teaches that the ten tribes will returnand rejoin Judah and Benjamin, and eventuallyIsrael will be the greatest nation on earth.Psalms of Solomon—This is a collectionof 18 psalms which declare that Israel is righteousand all other nations are wicked. It probablywas written in Hebrew in the first centuryB.C.PART 3 - THE QUMRAN DOCUMENTSIt is believed that the Jews who lived in theQumran Community, near the Dead Sea (1stcentury B.C.-1st century A.D.), were Essenes.In addition to preparing copies of Old Testamentbooks, they also wrote several original documents;only a few of these are complete enoughto be useful.The Manual of Discipline—This is themost important of the non-Biblical books foundat Qumran. It contains the rules and regulationsof the group which had a democratic organization,but no private ownership of property oreven money. Strict rules include making false orfoolish statements, interrupting another’s speech,or sleeping during a meeting. Everyone was requiredto eat together. Initiation rituals, waterpurification rites, etc. are included. The rulesare similar to the Essene rules which were describedby Philo and Josephus.The Habakkuk Commentary (1Qp Hab.)—Habakkuk 1 and 2 are said to be prophecieswhich were fulfilled in the times in which thewriter lived.The War ar of the Sons of Light with theSons of Darkness (1QM)—Rules of warfare areoutlined, which the faithful Jews are to obey intheir soon-coming war against evil forces.195The Damascus Document—Discovered ina Genizah (manuscript storeroom) of a Cairosynagogue near the close of the 19th century,this document parallels rules and teachingsfound in the Manual of Discipline and HabakkukCommentary.Consider how empty and dreary your lifewould be, if you did not have the precious Bibleand Spirit of Prophecy! The Inspired Writingsare your path to heaven. Stay on the path. Nothingelse is safe.FROM THE ENGLISH REVISEDTO THENEW INTERNATIONAL VERSIONA LIST OF 134 BIBLE TRANSLATIONSThere has been a deluge of new translationsin the 20th century. Some have been very strange.For example, Jordan’s Cotton Patch Versionsubstitutes contemporary Southern U.S. people,places, and parties for the Biblical ones! Corinthbecomes Atlanta in 1 Corinthians 1:2, Jews become‘whites,” and Gentiles become “Negroes.”Several different Sacred Name versions havebeen published, frequently, in order to rival oneanother, with competing ancient names for Godand Christ.Such has been the flood of modern translations,that it is difficult to keep track of them. Inthe following list you will find 134 translations,from 1893 to 1973.The translations are arranged by the datethe entire Bible was published. Earlier parts ofimportant translations are listed under that date.If only the New Testament has been translated,it is, of course, listed under its date. If no completeNew Testament or Old Testament exists,then the date of the first portion is used. Whenknown, the name of the translator is given. Additionaldata is given within parentheses, whenit significant enough.For additional information, consult the following:• Margaret T. Hills, ed., The English Bible inAmerica: A Bibliography of Editions of the Bibleand the New Testament Published in America,1777-1957. New York: The American Bible Societyand the New York Public Library, 1961.• A.S. Herbert, Historical Catalogue ofPrinted Editions of the English Bible, 1525-1967. London.• The British and Foreign Bible Society, London.• The American Bible Society, New York.1893 Revised Version(New Testament,1881; Old Testament 1893; today called

196 The King James and the Modern VersionsEnglish Revised Versionersion).1900 Hayman’s Epistles. The Epistles ofthe New Testament. An attempt topresent them in current and popularidiom, by Henry Hayman.1901 American Revised Version(EnglishRevised Version, with a few changes by ateam of U.S. scholars, today called theAmerican Standard Versionersion).1901 Modern American Bible. The NewTestament. The Modern American Bible.By Frank Schell Ballantine.1901 Moffatt’s Historical New Testament.The Historical New Testament, by JamesMoffatt (a different translation fromMoffatt’s later translation, and not asinfluential).1901 Way’s Epistles. The Letters of St. Paulto Seven Churches and Three Friends.Translated by Arthur S. Way.1901 Young People’s Bible. The YoungPeople’s Bible or the ScripturesCorrected, Explained, and Simplified. ByHarriet Newell Jones.1902 Rotherham: Emphasized Bible. TheEmphasized Bible. By Joseph BryantRotherham. Old Testament (1902), NewTestament (1897).1902 Godbey’s New Testament. By W.B.Godbey.1902 Twentieth Century New Testament:The Holy Bible in Modern English. ByFerrar Fenton.1903 Weymoutheymouth’s New Testamentestament: TheNew Testament in Modern Speech. ByRichard Francis Weymouth.1904 Worrell’s New Testament. By A.S.Worrell.1905 Lloyd’s New Testament: TheCorrected English New Testament. BySamuel Lloyd.1906 Forster.1907 Bourne’s Gospels. By A.E. Bourne.1907 Moulton’s Modern Reader’s Bible: TheModern Reader’s Bible. By Richard G.Moulton.1908 Rutherford’s Epistles. By W.G.Rutherford, London, 1908.1909 The Bible in Modern English.1909 Weaver New Testament. By S.Townsend Weaver.1910 Cunard’s. By F.W. Cunard.1914 Numeric New Testament. Edited byIvan Panin.1914 Cunnington’s New Testament. By E.E.Cunnington.1916 McFadyen. By John Edgar McFadyen.1917 Jewish Publication Society Bible. ByJewish Publication Society (Jewish).1918 Anderson New Testament. By H.T.Anderson.1919 The Messages of the Bible. Edited byFrank K. Sanders and Charles F. Kent.1919 The Adelphi New Testament. By T.Fosher Unwin.1921 Common Speech. By T.W. Pym.1921 Shorter Bible. By Charles FosterKent.1922 Plainer Bible for Plain People. ByChaplain Frank Schell Ballentine(Amish).1923 Riverside New Testament.ByWilliam C. Ballantine.1923 Robertson. By A.T. Robertson.1924 Labor Determinative Version.1924 Montgomery’s CentenaryTranslation—By Helen BarrettMontgomery.1925 Askwith’s Psalms. By E.H. Askwith.1925 People’s New Covenant. By Arthur E.Overbury (Christian Science).1925 Children’s Bible. By Henry A.Gherman and Charles Foster Kent.1926 The Western New Testament. By T.Fosher Unwin.1926 Moffatt: A New Translation of theBible. By James Moffatt.

Appendix1927 Kent’s Student’s Old Testament. ByCharles Foster Kent.1927 Smith-Goodspeed: The Bible. AnAmerican Translation.Old Testamentby J.M. Powis Smith; New Testament byEdgar J. Goodspeed.1928 Christian’s Bible. By George N.LeFevre.1928 Czarnomska Version. By ElizabethCzarnomska.1928 Spiritualist’s Matthew. Edited by J.W.Potter (spiritualist).1928 The Psalms Complete. By WilliamWallace Martin.1929 The Book of Job and Ecclesiastes.1929 Gowen’s Psalms. By Herbert H.Gowen.1930 The Book of Mark. By Loux.1932 Kleist’s Memoirs of St. Peter: TheMemoirs of St. Peter, or the Gospelaccording to St. Mark. By James A.Kleist.1933 Torrey’s Four Gospels. By CharlesCutler Torrey.1934 Royds’ Epistles and Gospels. ByThomas Fletcher.1934 Old Testament in Colloquial English.1934 Wade: The Documents of the NewTestament. By G.W. Wade.1935 Westminster Version. By CuthbertLattey (RC).1937 Cornish’s St. Paul from the Trenches.By Gerald Warre Cornish.1937 Greber’s New Testament. ByJohannes Greber.1937 Martin’s New Testament. By WilliamWallace Martin.1937 Spencer’s New Testament.ByFrancis Aloysius Spencer (RC).1937 Williams’ New Testament.ByCharles B. Williams.1938 Book of Books. By R. Mercer Wilson(New Testament).1971938 Buttenweiser’s Psalms. By MosesButtenweiser.1938 Clementson’s New Testament. ByEdgar Lewis Clementson.1939 Oesterley Psalms. By W.O.E.Oesterley.1940 St. Mark in Current English. By MaryL. Matheson1941 The Book of Genesis Complete. TheEphramaean Version.1941 Twelve Minor Prophets.1944 Callan’s Psalms.1944 Wand’s New Testament Letters. ByJ.W.C. Wand.1945, 1948 Knox. Monsignor Knox (RC).1945 Stringfellow’s New Testament. ByErvin Edward Stringfellow.1946 Lenski—By R.C.H. Lenski.1947 Eerdmans’ Psalms.1947 Swann’s New Testament. By GeorgeSwann.1948 Letchworth New Testament.1949 Basic Bible: Basic English (BasicEnglish is a system of simplified Englishwith a primary vocabulary of 850 words,devised by C.K. Ogden as aninternational auxiliary language and asan aid in learning English. In 1940 acommittee, under the direction of S.H.Hooke of the University of London,produced an independent translation ofthe New Testament, using the 850 wordsin the primary vocabulary of basicEnglish, to which 50 special Bible wordsand 100 others were added.)1949 Leslie’s Psalms. By Elmer A. Leslie.1950 The New Testament of our Messiahand Saviour, Yahshua. Sacred NameVersion.1951 Authentic Version.1951 Vernon’s Mark. By Edward Vernon.1952 New Testament in Plain English. ByCharles Kingsley Williams. (“Plain

198 The King James and the Modern VersionsEnglish” is a simplified form of theEnglish language, based on a list of1,500 fundamental and common wordsthat make up ordinary English speech,plus some 160 or 170 others that areexplained in a glossary at the end of thevolume.)1952 Penguin Bible. By E.V. Rieu.1952 Revised Standard Version(NewTestament, 1946. Old Testament withComplete Bible, 1952. Apocrypha,1957).1954 Kissane’s Psalms. By MonsignorEdward J. Kissane (RC).1954 Kleist and Lilly’s New Testament. ByJames A. Kleist, S.J. (Gospels), andJoseph L. Lilly, C.M. (Acts to Revelation)(RC).1954 Kleist and Lynam’s Psalms. By JamesA. Kleist, S.J. and Thomas JamesLynam (RC).1955 Fides Translation (Psalms) (RC).1955 Schonfield’s Authentic NewTestament. By Hugh J. Schonfield(Jewish).1956 Laubach’s Inspired Letters. By FrankC. Laubach (Romans-Jude), written inshort, clear sentences with a limitedvocabulary of about 2,000 words.1957 Concordant Version.1957 Lamsa’s.’s. By George M. Lamsa.Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Co.1958 Hudson: The Pauline Epistles. ByJames T. Hudson.1958 Meissner’s Gospels. By LawrenceMeissner.1958 Phillips’ New Testament: NewTestament in Modern English. By J.B.Phillips (Introduction by C.S. Lewis,1951. A corrected edition, 1957. Firstpublished in England, 1947. TheGospels, translated into modern Englishby J.B. Phillips, c. 1951. First publishedin 1952. The Young Church in Action; aTranslation of the Acts of Apostles byJ.B. Phillips, 1955. Book of Revelation,1957. Gospels, a corrected edition,1958. Four Prophets: Amos, Hosea,First Isaiah, Micah; a moderntranslation from the Hebrew, by J.B.Phillips, 1963. Second revised edition ofthe New Testament, 1973)1958 Tomanek’s New Testament. By JamesL. Tomanek.1959 Cressman: St. Mark. By AnnieCressman.1959 Modern Language Bible(Berkeley)—Gerrit Verkuyl, editor-inchiefand translator of the NewTestament section (Berkeley Version ofthe New Testament, 1945).1960 The Children’s “King James” Bible.By Jay Green (wording) and “Peter”Palmer (stories); translated from theTextus Receptus.1961 New World Translation (Jehovah’sWitnesses).1961 Noli’s Greek Orthodox NewTestament. By Fan S. Noli.1961 One Way: The Jesus People NewTestament. By Olaf M. Norlie.1961 Simplified New Testament andPsalms. By Olaf M. Norlie (NewTestament) and R.K. Harrison (Psalms,for teenagers).1961 Wuestuest’s ’s Expanded New Testament.By Kenneth S. Wuest.1962 Children’s Version. The text is asimplification and modernization of theKJV.1962 New Jewish Version: The Torah: TheFive Books of Moses (Jewish).1963 Beck’s New Testamenestament: The NewTestament in the Language of Today. By

AppendixWilliam F. Beck.1963 Gelineau’s Psalms. By JosephGelineau (Jewish).1963 The Holy Name Bible. By A.B.Trama. This translation is understoodto have been made by A.B. Trama andreprinted at his expense. The versionattempts to restore Semitic propernames to their Aramaic or Hebrew formand to clear up difficulties in the text inthe light of possible Semitic background.1964 Anchor Bible. Edited by William F.Albright and David N. Freedman(individual translators for books).1964 Hadas’ Psalms: The Book of Psalmsfor the Modern Reader. By GershonHadas.1965 Amplified Bible. By Frances E.Siewert.1965 Bruce’s Expanded Paraphrase. By F.F.Bruce.1966 Burke: God Is For Real, Man. By CarlF. Burke. New York: Association Press(some Bible passages in heavy slang).1966 Jerusalem Bible (RC).1966 Living Scriptures. By Jay Green(based on Textus Receptus).1966 Today’s English Version: Good Newsfor Modern Man (ABS edition).1967 Dale’s New World. By Alan T. Dale(New Testament).1967 Liverpool Vernacular Gospels: TheGospels in Scouse. By Dick Williamsand Frank Shaw (“a rollicking, carefreeinterpretation of some Gospelpassages”).1968 Cotton Patch Version (Southern U.S.dialect version). By Jordan.1968 Hanson’s Psalms in Modern Speech.By Richard S. Hanson.1968 Restoration of Original Name New199Testament (Sacred Name version, usingYahvahshua as the name for JesusChrist, based on Rotherham’s Version).1969 Barclay’s New Testament.ByWilliam Barclay.1969 Children’s New Testamen. By GleasonH. Ledyard.1970 The Mercier New Testament. By KevinCondon (RC, translated from criticalGreek Texts).1970 New American Bible (Genesis, 1948;Vol. I, Genesis-Ruth, 1952; Vol. III,Sapiential or Wisdom Books, 1955; Vol.IV, Prophetic Books, 1961; Vol. II,Samuel-Maccabees, 1969, RC).1970 New English Bible with theApocrypha. (New Testament, 1961; 2nded., 1970. The Old Testament andApocrypha, 1970).1971 Blackwelder’s Exegetical Translation:Letters from Paul. By Boyce W.Blackwelder.1971 Living Bible, Paraphrased. ByKenneth Taylor (Living History of Israel,a paraphrase of Joshua, Judges, 1and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 1970.Living Prophecies: the Minor Prophetsparaphrased with Daniel and theRevelation, 1965, 1967. Living NewTestament Paraphrased, 1967. LivingLetters: the paraphrased Epistles, 1967,c. 1962).1971 New American Standard Bible.1972 The Bible in Living English. BySteven T. Byington.1973 The Translator’s New Testament.British and Foreign Bible Society. (35Bible scholars and 18 missionarylinguists prepared this translation inorder “to make available, to thosetranslators of the New Testament intotheir own mother tongue who depend on

200 The King James and the Modern VersionsEnglish for access to the sources ofBiblical scholarship, such help as isnecessary for the making of effectivetranslations in the languages of today.”Includes Notes and a Glossary. Based onthe United Bible Societies’ Greek Text,1966.)1973 The Better Version of the NewTestament. By Chester Estes.1973 Common Bible (Joint Protestant-RCBible, with Apocrypha).1973 New International Version“In the Bible the will of God is revealed. The truths ofthe Word of God are the utterances of the Most High. Hewho makes these truths a part of his life becomes in everysense a new creature. He is not given new mental powers,but the darkness that through ignorance and sin hasclouded the understanding is removed. The words, ‘A newheart also will I give you,’ mean, ‘A new mind will I giveyou.’ A change of heart is always attended by a clearconviction of Christian duty, an understanding of truth. Hewho gives the Scriptures close, prayerful attention willgain clear comprehension and sound judgment, as if inturning to God he had reached a higher plane of intelligence.“The Bible contains the principles that lie at the foundationof all true greatness, all true prosperity, whether forthe individual or for the nation. The nation that gives freeroom for the circulation of the Scriptures opens the wayfor the minds of the people to develop and expand. Thereading of the Scriptures causes light to shine into thedarkness. As the Word of God is searched, life-givingtruths are found. In the lives of those who heed its teachingsthere will be an undercurrent of happiness that willbless all with whom they are brought in contact.”—EGW, Review and Herald, December 18, 1913

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsSPECIAL SUPPLEMENTSVINDICATING THE SOURCE OF THE KING JAMESBIBLEThere is an immense amount of money to bemade by major book publishers in the newtranslationmarket, as well as fame andhonor at the universities where members oftranslation teams are employed.So desperate are the publishers for newtranslations, that they are working on streetlanguage translations and even "genderequal"versions in which God becomes a"father-mother God," and "sons of God" arechanged to "sons and daughters of God."In order to increase new-translation sales,they subsidize research projects. These areintended to show that the King JamesVersion (KJV) is defective and that modernversions will provide you with more accurateeditions of the Bible.There are those among the modern world oftranslators and textual critics who, frankly,are opposed to our beloved King JamesBattle Over the KJVScripture Index (In Book Only)Topical Index (In Book Only)Battle Over the KJVNIV vs. KJVVersion. A definite line of reasoning is usedin an effort to accomplish this purpose.It is inevitable that this disinformationcampaign will more directly enter our owndenomination. Unfortunately, at the presenttime, we are inundated by pastors who weretrained at our colleges and seminary to onlyuse modern versions. That is what theirteachers, in turn, were taught during theirdoctoral work in Protestant, Catholic, andsecular universities.PART ONETHE CASE AGAINST THE KJVHere is the primary reasoning, asprovided by the textual critics, aboutwhy you should get rid of your KJVBible and run out and buy new translations.We believe their reasoning is incorrect.The King James Version is based on theSyrian Text (also called the Majority orByzantine Text), a manuscript family which,because most of its manuscripts are said tobe very late, are inferior to the Alexandrianfamily, which are thought to be the earliestmanuscript family Text.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsBecause the Codex Vaticanus and CodexSinaiticus are in the Alexandrian family, theyare our best early manuscript sources.But even earlier are a few Greek papyri(about a hundred), which also primarilycontain Alexandrian Text readings. This isadded proof that the Alexandrian must be theoldest.In addition, New Testament citations by mostof the early church fathers are in accordancewith the Alexandrian. Lastly, two of theearliest translations, the Sahidic and Bohairic(both Coptic dialects) are Alexandrian.As if to make matters worse, the oldestSyrian family manuscript which we haverecovered is the Codex Alexandrinus, whichwas found near Alexandria, Egypt, and datesto the fourth century.Therefore the oldest and best manuscriptfamily is the Alexandrian family; and the mostreliable modern translations will be thosebased on the Alexandrian Text, which wascompiled into the Westcott-Hort CriticalEdition of the New Testament by a largeteam under the direction of two dedicatedChristians, B.F. Westcott and F.J. Hort, in thelate 19th century.In contrast, the King James was translatedfrom a Greek text produced by Erasmus inthe 16th century. Erasmus, in turn, basedthat text primarily on Syrian (Byzantine)manuscripts, which are far inferior to those inthe Alexandrian. They are inferior becausethey are not as old as the Alexandrian.So the King James Bible is inferior andshould not be used.PART TWODESTROYINGTHE CASE AGAINST THE KJVThe above theory was devised by Westcottand Hort in the late 19th century. Theytheorized that somebody named Lucian ofAntioch made the first copy about A.D. 300;and that, in later years, a terribly corrupt setof manuscripts, called the Syrian (Byzantine)family, arose from it. As you will learn in mybook, The King James Bible and the ModernVersions, Westcott and Hort werespiritualists who founded sances atOxford, which they headed forseveral years. Both secretly favoredreunion with the Catholic Church.As the basis for New Testament translation,essentially all modern versions, including theNew King James, have switched from theTextus Receptus, based on the Syrian(Majority) Text, to the Westcott-Hort Text,based on the Alexandrian text.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsAs the basis for all modern Old Testamenttranslation, the modern versions haveabandoned the traditional Old TestamentHebrew Text (which is the Ben ChayyimMasoretic Text) and are using BibliaHebraica, the critical Hebrew Text preparedby Rudolph Kittel, who lived in 19th-centuryGermany during the time when Germanhigher criticism was tearing the OldTestament apart.Here is a somewhat detailed reply towhy you should value, read, giveBible studies, and preach from yourbelovedindeed, pricelessKing JamesVersion. For a far more complete study, youwill want to obtain a copy of our book, TheKing James Bible and the Modern Versions(see box at the bottom of page 1 of this tractstudy).If someone wants to read a modern version,we will not object. But no one should attemptto reduce confidence in the King JamesVersion, in order to sell more modern Bibles.The key charge: There is one pivotalpoint in this current attack on the KJV; it isclaimed that the manuscript familyon which the KJV is based is not theoldestand therefore does not godirectly back to the originalautographs. That is a very strong charge.In my book, The King James Bible and theModern Versions (see bottom of p. 1), I statethat the manuscript family on which the KJVis founded is the oldest. I believe this can bedefended on the basis of extant manuscripts.But in this present study, whether or notthe charge is correct, I will reply tothe claim that the earliestmanuscripts which we have beenable to locate are Alexandrian, notthose that the KJV was translatedfrom.SOME BASIC INFORMATIONManuscript families: There are over5,000 surviving manuscripts of the GreekNew Testament. Most of these are quitesmall and consist of a few sheets. A few arelarge codices (the singular is codex), whichare sheets written on one side and thenpasted together somewhat like modernbooks.Over the years, attempts have beenmade to arrange these manuscriptsinto separate groups, or "families,"based on which variations are in whichmanuscript or codex. That has not been aneasy task. But, gradually, they were found tosort themselves into four major manuscript"families" (also called "Texts" with a capital"T"). Here are these four: the Alexandrian,Western, Latin, and a fourth variously calledthe Byzantine, Syrian, Majority, and severalother names. In my book, I called it theMajority Text (which it is, since it contains, by

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsfar, the most manuscripts). However, in thispresent study I will call it the SyrianText, or Syrian family, because wewish here to focus on its point oforigin.With one exception, these manuscripts areall written on vellum (animal skin). Theexception is papyrus. Papyrus manuscriptsare written on paper, which was made inEgypt by pasting plant fibers together(actually a water reed). Only about 100 ofthese papyrus manuscripts, containing Biblequotations, have been found.In the providence of the Lord, it is thesemanuscripts which tell us what was originallywritten in the New Testament.Other sources: In addition, there are threeother sources: (1) Quotations. These wereNew Testament passages quoted by earlywriters, most of whom were partly or whollyChristian. (These men are called the "earlychurch fathers," or "anti-Nicene fathers" [thatis, those who wrote prior to the First Councilof Nicaea, A.D. 525]. (2) Translations.Several were made in the early centuries.Although in other languages, each providespartial help in analyzing the Greek family itwas translated from. (3) Lectionaries.These were Bible passages written on sheetsto be read in church services. Very few ofthese have been found.Implications of this charge: Accordingto this dramatic charge, we are supposed tobelieve that none of those sources provide uswith much evidence that the Syrian familywas the oldest of all families. Of course, if itwas not the oldest, then it could not havereached all the way back to the Apostles.This would mean that the KJV,which is based on the Syrian, is notas close to the original as themanuscript family which the criticssay is the oldest: the Alexandrian.The Alexandrian is the basis of the Westcott-Hort Greek Text, since all moderntranslations are founded on that Text;therefore, if the charge is true, themodern translations are superior tothe King James.There you have the picture, and I guaranteethat you are going to hear more of thischarge in coming years. The prophet warnedus that everything that could be shakenwould be shaken. Every pin and pillar of ourfaith will be attacked. So we can expect ourBible to be the subject of fierce onslaughts aswell.We will now state the charge in muchgreater detail.Detailing the charge: We need a clearerunderstanding of what is involved in the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsattack. Prior to A.D. 300:1 - There are said to be very, very few earlyGreek manuscripts which are in the Syrianfamily. Most are said to be Alexandrian, butsome are Western.2 - It is said that almost no early papyri arein the Syrian family. The papyri are almostexclusively Alexandrian, with some Western.3 - It is claimed that very few quotationsfrom the early church fathers represent theSyrian family. Most are Alexandrian; someWestern.4 - It is said that, of the major translations,two especiallythe Sahidic and Bohairicareexclusively Alexandrian,5 - The lectionary evidence is so meager asto not be of much help.In summary, it is charged that all theevidence from the second and third century,A.D. (as early as we have any evidence)almost entirely points to an Alexandrianorigin, along with a little Western.Assuming that this charge is correct, how arewe to interpret this?ANSWERING THE CHARGEThe solution is rather simple, if wedo that which the textual criticschose not to do. They studiedlinguistics and ancient manuscriptswith narrowed focus; but we willtake time to examine history,geography, and climate as well.You will find this to be a workableand satisfactory solution to thesupposed lack of evidence for theSyrian family prior to A.D. 300.Location of the text families: TheSyrian family of manuscripts were written inPalestine, Syria, and Asia Minor (modernTurkey). The Western family originated incentral Italy and in North Africa, west ofEgypt. Do not confuse these with the Italia(also called Old Latin), which was an ancient(4th century) translation into Latin by theWaldensians of northern Italy. The OldLatin (Italia) was produced outside ofRome, primarily in what is now northern Italy.The Alexandrian was written in Egypt,especially Alexandria, Egypt.1 - The vellum manuscripts: All theGreek New Testament manuscripts, whichwere written prior to A.D. 300, have beenfound in Egypt. The reason for this is simple:It is dry there. The manuscripts were writtenon vellum (animal skins). Some may recall astudy I wrote in 1997 on the Dead SeaScrolls (Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls[WM753]. Those scrolls remained intactnearly 2,000 years because the desertcountry was dry near the Dead Sea. After themagnificent Isaiah Scroll was brought to the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsUnited States, it was sold for millions to theIsraeli government. But there was a secondscroll, just as large that was never sold. AnArab sheepherder found it and immediatelyburied it, for safekeeping, in the ground byhis hut in Bethlehem until he could arrange asale. But, a few weeks later, when he dug itup, he found it to be a mass of gelatin.Totally lost.Vellum manuscripts, dating from thefirst two centuries after Christ, haveonly been found in the sand of Egyptbecause it is so dry there.But there was also a second reason whyrelatively few early manuscripts of any kindhave been recovered outside of Egypt: Theintense persecution throughout thosecenturies, prior to Constantines ascension tothe throne a little after A.D. 300, made itdifficult to store manuscripts in dry areaswithin homes or churches. Homes wereransacked, people were hunted down, andanything stored in the ground was ruined bythe dampness.In those early centuries, people could live insuch a dry land as Egypt because the entirenation was huddled close along the banks ofthe Nile River. So that is where most of thevellum manuscripts have been found.Since all the manuscripts found inthose pre-Constantine centurieswere found in Egypt, would you notexpect that the ones which werefound were written by Egyptians?And so they were, plus a few whicharrived from a close trading partner,Carthage to the west. But this doesnot prove that no one else in theEmpire was copying manuscripts!Alexandria was a great center of learning.Founded by Alexander the Great hundreds ofyears earlier, the city had the largest libraryin ancient times. Its genial climate and lesspersecution than elsewhere (because itsChristians had adopted many of the heathencustoms) also made it the center of semi-Christian "higher education." Historians willtell you that, prior to A.D. 300, the Christianseminary at Alexandria was the onlymodernist Christian theology school in theworld.While people had to work for a livingelsewhere in the Roman Empire, thestudents at the seminary had more time tocopy manuscripts. That is where theAlexandrian family of manuscripts camefrom. They had their own unique brand oftheological mistakes.What about the Syrian manuscripts? It is aninteresting fact that the most faithfulChristiansthe ones most loyal andobedient to Bible principleslived in

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsthose areas where Christianity firstpenetrated: Palestine, Syria, andAsia Minor. These faithful soulsavoided contact with the liberalsdown in Egypt; and they did notwant their children raised in thatenvironment. This helps explain whywe do not find Syrian manuscripts inthe sand of Egypt.The few Syrian manuscripts, which didsurvive, were repeatedly copied for centuries.Gradually the second and thirdcentury Syrian manuscripts werelost, but the copies remained. Bythe seventh century, the faithful inSyria, Palestine, and Asia Minor keptmaking more copies while theliberals in Egypt and Rome had otherpastimes to enjoy. This is why wehave such an enormous number ofmanuscripts, in the easternMediterranean, which the liberals todaysneeringly call "Byzantine," implying that theSyrian family is only of late origin andsomehow must have descended from theAlexandrian and Western. (The ByzantineEmpire, itself, only existed after the time ofConstantine, not before.)2 - The papyri: Next, we consider thepapyri. It is said that all the Biblical papyriwhich have been recovered is Alexandrian,with some Western. That is understandable;for the fragile paper (papyri is paper)could only survive for centuries inthe dry sand of Egypt. So we canunderstand why the papyriconsisted almost entirely of theAlexandrian style, with itsdistinctive errors. That was where itwas written. In the passingcenturies, papyri written elsewherecrumbled away.3 - Translations: Next, we come totranslations. It is claimed that theSahidic and Bohairic translationswere fully Alexandrian inarrangement and flaws. But thatproves nothing, because those werethe two dialects of Coptic, the locallanguage of Egypt back then! No winhere for those trying to destroy the credibilityof the King James. (Coptic was the nationallanguage of Egypt until the Muslim invasionin A.D. 642.)Other translations included the Syrian,Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, andOld Latin. Of these, the Ethiopiancontained a fair amount ofAlexandrian influence; but thatwould be expected, since Ethiopia(Nubia) was just south of Egypt. Theother translations served territories innorthern and western portions of the Empire,and were not similar to the Alexandrianfamily.One translation (to be mentioned again later)

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsshould be especially noted: The Italia, asubdialect of Old Latin is the language of theearliest Waldensians. Their translation ispurer than Old Latin, which Jerome used intranslating the Latin Vulgate.4 - Lectionaries: So few church servicebooks survived the persecutions, that noclear evidence is available for thesecompilations of Bible readings which wereread in churches each Sabbath.5 - Church fathers: Lastly, it is claimedthat a majority of the Christian manuscripts,which have been recovered from the secondand third centuries, A.D., only quotedAlexandrian manuscripts.Here are the reasons for this:First, the Christians in Egypt hadmore time to write theologicalcomments. All the major Christian heresiesin the early centuries began in theologicalspeculations written in Egypt. Christians inother parts of the world field spenttheir time evangelizing, not inspeculating on the nature of Christ, thenature of God, the nature of the Godhead,and a variety of pagan and pantheistictheories. The heresies of Adoptionism andNestorianism came chiefly from Alexandria.Second, the letters and comments,written in Egypt, were preserved indry sand while those in other areasdisintegrated over a period of time.Third, recognizing that these Alexandrianapostates could be polished instruments inhis hands, to introduce errors into theChristian churches, Satan shielded themand their commentaries from theheaviest of the persecutions whichdevastated other portions of the RomanEmpire. Persecutions indeed came to Egypt,but each one was rather brief.Fourth, Alexandrian Christians tendedto receive less persecution,because they were already so muchlike the pagans doing the persecuting.As a result, it is said that nearly all of theearly "Christian" writings (prior to A.D. 300)which we now havecome from Alexandria!They were nicely preserved in the dry sand.FACTS ABOUT THOSE WHO PRODUCEDTHE ALEXANDRIAN FAMILYOF MANUSCRIPTSDown in Egypt, the climate was perfect,people did not have to work as much to makea living, and there was more leisure time.Modernist Christians congregated there andstudied the works of ancient Greek,Babylonian, and Egyptian philosophers.These liberal Christians were fascinated with

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsthe myths and rituals devised by the paganreligions.Does this sound familiar? It is happening inAdventism again today. Our intellectuals areattracted to skepticism, modernism,feminism, abortion rights. Also, unfortunately,wine drinking. They are not interested inmissionary work, giving Bible studies,defending historic beliefs, natural remedies,temperance, clothing standards, orvegetarian principles. Instead of concerningthemselves with such trivial matters, theirfocus is on closely watching the latestintellectual and modernist fads of worldlings,and then aping them.This also happened nearly 2,000 years agoin Alexandria, Egypt. Conceited youngmen from all over the Empirejourneyed there to study the wisdomof the East in the AlexandrianChristian Seminary, with its accessto the large pagan libraries in town.It was the leading modernist andintellectual capital of Christendom.The liberals of the time proudly declared it tobe the first Christian school of "higherlearning" in the world.THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOLOfficially known as the CatecheticalSchool, its leading teachers in thelate second and early thirdcenturies were Clement ofAlexandria and Origen.Two fields of special interest werethe writings of the Greek andgnostic philosophers, especiallyPlato, along with the mysteries andrituals of the ancient paganreligions.From Plato and fellow travelers, theseChristian apostates in Alexandria learnedhow to spiritualize away Scripture. How wasthis done? Taking a passage, they wouldapply totally different meanings to the wordsand concepts! instead of accepting its literalsense,"The theology of the early Church atAlexandria came markedly under theinfluence of that Platonic tradition ofphilosophy which, beginning in theGraeco-Jewish period, was taken into theChristian system of thought by theApologists, and later by Clement ofAlexandria, Origen, and the CatecheticalSchool . . In their exegesis of Scripture,the Alexandrians were strongly drawn tomystical and allegorical exposition, incontrast with the literal and historicalmethod of Antioch."Oxford Dictionary ofthe Christian Church, p. 36.The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325, whichConstantine attended) declaredAlexandria to be second only toRome in importance as a center ofChristianity. It was the center of Egyptian

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionspriestly studies, the mystery religions ofBabylon and Asia Minor, and Hellenist(Greek philosophy) studies. It was wherebeads, the "sign of the cross" (with thefingers on the chest), processionals, andMithric Sunday worship entered the ChristianChurch.CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIAHistorians believe that Clement ofAlexandria (c.150- c.215) was probably anAthenian by birth. After studying Christianityand philosophy in several places, he becamea pupil of Pantaenus, who was in charge ofthe Catechetical School at Alexandria.Clement was so brilliant and innovative in histhinking that, in A.D. 190, he succeededPantaenus as head of the school. In 212, in abrief wave of persecution, Clement thoughtbest to leave town for a time.This was the age of gnosticism andClement was in full agreement with many ofits teachings. But he combinedgnosticism with Greek philosophy,which he declared to be a divine giftto mankind. Obviously, his was not reallya Christian school.We could fill a tract with the beliefs of thegnostics. But, briefly, they taught that"gnosis" (the Greek word of "wisdom") wasinherent in certain philosophers and could belearned from them. One god was the"Demiurge" which had created the world.Another one was the divine god. TheDemiurge had gradually evolved out of theother gods over many ages. Clement andOrigen believed that Christ also had somegnosis for us, which must be combined withthat of the other philosophers.The Greek theorist, Plato, was exaltedby Clement as essentially equal toChrist in wisdom. Platonic speculationswere interwoven with Christian names. Ingrateful appreciation of how much histheories had helped Rome, a pope laterdeclared Clement to be a holy saint.Plato (428-347 B.C.), a native of Athens,had been a pupil of Socrates. After the deathof the latter in 399, Plato became the leadingphilosopher of Greece until his death. One ofhis pupils was Aristotle.Platos teachings were extremely complex.His spiritualizing and allegorizing won thehearts of Clement and Origen who followedhim, both of whom transformed the seminaryat Alexandria into a school of Platonism.ORIGENOrigen (c.185-c.254) was born in Alexandriaand narrowly escaped death in the shortpersecution of 202. Extremely brilliantand original in the extreme, Origen

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionswrote several theological workswhich formed the basis for everyChristian heresy which cameafterward, plus many Catholictrends (such as vigils and asceticism, whichlaid the basis for monasticism). He wasfervently admired by Augustine (354-430),who saw ideas in Origens writings whichhelped him formulate his theories of originalsin and predestination. Jerome (c.342-420),the translator of the Latin Vulgate, wasstrongly influenced in his thinking by Origen;and it affected his translationwhich becamethe standard Scriptures of Rome. Origenswritings were regarded with deepest respectby Eusebius of Caesarea (c.260-c.340)who, with Pope Sylvester (reigned 314-335),led out in getting Constantine to enact hisSunday Laws (see quotation in BeyondPitcairn, p. 53, and an excerpt from it in GC574:2). Tertullian (160-225), deeplyinfluenced by both Clement and Origen,advocated frequently waving ones hand inthe "sign of the cross" over ones chest, as atalisman of protection (see quotation fromTertullian in Beyond Pitcairn, pp. 38-39).In later years, both Catholics andheretics pointed to Origen as thesource of their ideas. He may have feltdedicated to Christianity; but his powerfulmind had been warped by the gnosticism andPlatonism, which he had learned fromClement. From 218 to 230, he wroteexhaustively. His earnestness was worthy ofa better cause. While, as predicted inRevelation 12, the faithful hadhidden themselves in distant places,the main church became permeatedwith Origens theories.I only mention this because part of the attackagainst the KJV involves a defense of theAlexandrian School and Origen. Yet heshould not be defended. Here are justthree among dozens of Origensstrange theories: The angels which felleither became demons or souls imprisonedin human bodies. At death, people ascend toheaven and back down again into humanbodies, back and forth until the finalJudgment. By obtaining "Wisdom," the soulcan become purified and attain to totaldivinity.ALEXANDRIAN BIBLE MANUSCRIPTSBoth in style and errors, New Testamentcopies prepared in Alexandria,Egypt, were intermingled with theirteachings. That is why the manuscriptfamily is termed "Alexandrian"!It is well-known, by historians, that the Asianmind was inventive while the Roman mindwas keyed to governing.Where did Sundaykeeping enter theChristian Church? In Alexandria. That

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsis where it was first adopted from Mithrism.The Roman soldiers worshiped Mithra, theSun-god; and they were disinclined topersecute fellow Mithrites. From thence itwas taken to Rome, where it waseagerly adopted by the Romanbishop, who commanded that the otherchurches keep Sunday. (But it was not untilConstantines time that the pope could beginenforcing it.)Where did the sunrise worshipservices, with faces toward the rising sun,enter the church? In Alexandria. It wascopied directly from Mithrism.Where did the "mother of God" heresyenter the Christian church? In Alexandria.The half-baptized Christian philosophers,under the leadership of Clement,incorporated the Egyptian Isis and Horusworship into their church services. That iswhere religious processions began, asthey carried around statues of the mothergoddess (Isis, changed into Mary) and herinfant god-son (Horus, newly called Christ),following the priest in his ornate robes.Where did tinkling bells and infantbaptism begin? In Alexandria.To say it again, the Asian mind was inventivewhile the Roman mind was intent onenforcing.A close tie of friendship and mutual sympathyexisted between the Christian philosophersof Alexandria and the bishop of Rome. SinceRome was the center of the Empire, he wasdetermined to issue orders to be obeyed byall the Christian churches everywhere. Hespake big things.Stop and think about it a minute. If you wantto control other people at a distance, youneed to require that they do something theyhave not been doing or stop doing somethingthey regularly do.It would be impossible for the popeto acquire control of Christendom,simply by asking all Christians toobey the Bible! They were already doingthat, by the authority of Christ and the Bibleitself. In order to gain control, the pope had tocommand something not in the Bible! Andthat is what he did.The process worked like this: The halfpaganChristians at Alexandriawould, through their studies andecumenical visits to heathentemples, find a new corruption andput it into practice. That other halfpagan,the bishop of Rome (later to beknown as the "pope," or "father" of all thechurches) would start commanding it atRome. (Read the three quotations byChalmers, Socrates Scholasticus, and

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsSozomen in Beyond Pitcairn, pp. 59-60.) Theresult was that the essential rituals ofEgyptian paganism (see quotation, BeyondPitcairn, p. 37) were brought into the RomanChurch. (Additional errors from paganism arelisted in Mark of the Beast, pp. 21-23, 25,31.)In view of all this, do you really wantto abandon the King James Bibleformodernist Bibles based on theAlexandrian Text family?THE SINAITICUS AND VATICANUSBut there is more: It was because of anorder issued by Constantine for theproduction of 50 complete Bibles,that the Alexandrian manuscriptfamily has become so influentialwith modernists today. Two of thesenow exist, the Codex Vaticanus ("B") andthe Codex Sinaiticus ("Aleph"). Scholarsfully believe both were written in Egypt,probably at the Christian Seminary.The Sinaiticus, discovered by Tischendorfin 1844, contains the Old and NewTestaments, and two valued semi-gnosticbooks: The Shepherd of Hermas and theEpistle of Barnabus. Scholars have no doubtthat it was written in Egypt, probably at theChristian seminary there. False Barnabus(not written by the one in Acts) stronglyattacks the Old Testament Sanctuaryservices, declaring that God never institutedthem; he says the Old Testament only taughtsecret, allegorical truths which it told. This isobviously a typical gnostic production of theAlexandrian School. The other book,Hermas, contains a series of strangevisions and teaches penance, Christ is theHoly Spirit, and the Godhead only came intoexistence after Christs ascension.The Vaticanus has been in the VaticanLibrary, at least since 1481, and contains allthe New Testament up to Hebrews 9:14.Westcott and Hort, two Britishspiritualists and pro-Catholics(mentioned in my book, The King JamesBible and the Modern Translations), usedAlexandrian manuscripts, and especially theVaticanus and Sinaiticus, as the primarybasis for their Greek Text, from which allmodern versions are translated.Incidentally, it is an open secret that theNew King James Bible is also based onthe Westcott-Hort Text. This is a tragedy.Thomas Nelson, arranged with thetranslation team it funded to adjust the text ofthe New King James to agree with all thevariants in the Wescott-Hort Text, whichdiffered from those in the KJV. That was anunfortunately decision, rendering the NKJBequivalent to the NIV.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsADDITIONAL EVIDENCEORIGINS OF THE KING JAMES BIBLEAs explained in great detail in my book onthe King James Bible, the KJV (1611) wasactually taken from, and is essentiallyidentical to, the outstanding translation byWilliam Tyndale (1494-1536), a masterlinguist. In preparing his translation,Tyndale used the Textus ReceptusGreek Text prepared by Erasmus.The source of that Greek Text wasthe Syrian manuscript familywhich,in this present paper, we havevindicated as being the best andearliest.In order to imply that the Greek Text whichthe Tyndale / KJV was translated from wasworthless, it is charged that Erasmus (1469-1536) was a Catholic priest. But, althoughreluctantly ordained as a priest in 1492 andlater a "time-server" in regard to uniting withthe Reformation (GC 216), he spent his adultlife studying and writing. Erasmus hated thepopes and priests, for forcing his father andmother to leave one another and goseparately into a monastery and convent.Erasmus also wrote papers and booksridiculing Catholicism. On the same page inthe Inspired Word in which Wycliffes Bible,translated from the Latin Vulgate, is said tohave contained "many errors," ErasmusGreek Text is spoken well of (GC 245). Hewas a master both of Latin and Greek.Tyndale and Erasmus were the two greatlinguistic and translation geniuses of theReformation. Tyndales translation wasso superb that the King Jamestranslation committees essentiallycopied it. Comparative studies reveal this.It is also charged that some of the KJVtranslators were not fervent Christians. Thetruth is that they copied from Tyndale, whowas.THE WALDENSIAN BIBLEWe should also mention the source of theWaldensian Bible, since that is alsodeclared to be an extremely poor and almostuseless translation.The Waldensian Christians extendall the way back to early believers(the Italia) in northern Italy. At leastas early as the fourth century, theyseparated from the apostates assoon as Constantine and the Bishopof Rome started bringing the worldinto the church.By about A.D. 350, they had atranslation of the Bible in their ownlanguage. They were "among the first" todo this (GC 65). Their Bible was translatedinto the Italia, which was the native dialect ofthis God-fearing people. The Italia, or Italic,people were later called the Waldenses.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsTheir translation is purer than theOld Latin translation which Jerome usedin translating the Latin Vulgate, whichbecame the Latin Bible standard of theCatholic Church.It is well-known that Jeromes Latin Vulgatecontains many errors. But it is now chargedthat the Waldensian Bible is an equally poortranslation, because it was also translatedfrom the Old Latin.However, the facts contradict the charge.Yes, it is true that Jeromes Vulgate is a verypoor translation; this is well-known. But thereis extremely good evidence that the ItaliaBible was an outstanding translation. Here itis:"Hundreds of years before theReformation they possessed the Bible inmanuscript in their native tongue. Theyhad the truth unadultrated, and thisrendered them the special objects ofhatred and persecution."GreatControversy, 65.Against those words of Inspiration, all thearguments of the enemies fall flat. Very likely,in answer to their fervent prayers, the angelsguided them in producing an outstandingtranslation into the Italia dialect.The Old Latin was translated fromthe Greek as early as A.D. 167, andwas a far more accurate translationthan Jeromes Vulgate. TheWaldensian Bible was eithertranslated from the Old Latin or,more likely, directly from the SyrianGreek family of manuscripts.It is of interest that Jerome (c.342-420), aformer personal secretary to Pope Damasus,preached extreme asceticism (includinghermit living which he himself did for fiveyears) and monasticism. Jerome wasfully dedicated to Catholicism andits multitude of errors and paganrituals.APPLYING COMMON SENSEFor hundreds of years, millions werehunted to the death, dying at thehands of their persecutors. Thencame that momentous transition,described so vividly and accurately in GreatControversy, p. 42. Satan saw that all he wasaccomplishing was to help souls on theirjourney to heaven. In the face of tremendousassaults, they were standing true.So the devil switched to destructionby compromise. Paganism enteredthe churches and was christened aspart of its beliefs and rituals soonafter the enthronement of Constantine, thetorturing and killing of Christians, and theburning of Bible manuscripts ceased for atime. The liberals in Alexandria had donetheir work well. They had prepared the way

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsfor what the papacy began enforcing on allthe churches, from the time of Constantineonward.But the churches of the greater Syrianregion, those of northern Italy and theAlpine piedmont (later called theWaldenses, GC 64-78), and others on theoutskirts of the Empire (including Ethiopia[GC 577], Britain, Scotland, and Iona[GC 62]) were the last to yield to the demandfor compromise. As you know, many in thoseoutlying areas never did lay down the bannerof the true faith.The great prophecy of Revelation 12 wasbeing fulfilled! In the Final Crisis, as thefaithful flee to the country, it will again befulfilled.Having gained control of the church(its doctrines, ceremonies, andpastors), the persecution againstthose who remained faithful beganagain. (A lesson for our own time in history;take note.)However in later centuries, thepapacy and the Eastern Church,which was centered inConstantinople (later calledByzantium), drew further apart.Faithful souls in the easternterritories took time to copy moreBible manuscripts while the papal churchoccupied itself with inventing holy water,sacred cloths, and baptism of bells.Guess what manuscript family theycopied those manuscripts from? Ofcourse, the Syrian, which was bornin that large region, stretching fromwhat is now western Turkey toBethlehem.Gradually, an immensenumber of Syrian manuscripts and bookswere produced. This is why moderntranslators grudgingly call it the "MajorityFamily." Fully 80% of all extantGreek manuscripts are of the Syriantext style. That is about 4,000 of the5,000 total manuscripts in existencetoday!It is obvious that the Syrian was thefirst, last, and best of themanuscript families; yet themodernists dare to dismiss it withthe assertion that manuscriptcopying began in Egypt!It is claimed that the Alexandrian family (thesource for the modern versions) is the oldest!But such a conclusion standscommon sense on its head. Theearliest church began in Palestine;and, from thence, it spread toSamaria, Antioch, and then (withPauls pioneering journeys) to AsiaMinor. (Read the book of Acts!) That iswhere all the Syrian manuscripts weretranslated!

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsWhy would the earliest church, pure as thedriven snow, go to Egypt in order to get itsmanuscripts or to copy them? If youwanted to hand copy the Bible,would you move to Miami or LosAngeles to do it? No, you would stay faraway from those wicked metropolitancenters; so you could think clearly, workefficiently, and save your children.If you lived back then, you surelywould not go to Alexandria. It is aknown fact that only 1% of the totalNew Testament manuscriptssupport the Alexandrian family; andthey come from a half-Christian,half-pagan locality.We are asked to believe that, forthree centuries, the Syrian regionChristians did all their evangelizingwithout manuscripts of their own tostudy and share; since almost noneare found there. This is narrow-brainedscholarship: seizing on one fact and ignoringall the others.According to the Biblical book ofActs, the first Christian churches inthe entire world were started inthose territories which even themodernists today admit was wherethe Syrian family of manuscriptswere produced.Yet we are supposed to believe that no onein that entire territory made copies of theScriptures for the first three centuries! Priorto the time of Constantine, noChristian is supposed to havewritten even a note to a friend inwhich he quoted part of the Bible!This is Ph.D. nonsense, achieved byignoring the fact that only in the climate ofEgypt would manuscripts from the first threecenturies be able to survive.You might ask, "What about Carthage andthe Dead Sea area; were those areas not dryalso?" Back then, Carthage received muchmore rainfall than Egypt whichjust asnowreceived none. Egypt has alwaysflourished only because it is crowded next tothe River Nile, where it has an abundantdrinking and irrigation supply. As for theDead Sea area, no one lived there after theEssenes at Qumran were slain in A.D. 70(shortly after the destruction of Jerusalemand Masada). But even that areaexperienced some rainfall. All of the DeadSea Scrolls were recovered from dry,sheltered caves, not from open areas.Listen closely: According to themodernist theory, the first NewTestament manuscripts were allpenned in Egypt. Then, in the fourthcentury, and not until then, theybegan being copied in the territorieswhere the Christian Church was firstestablished. This, we are told, is why the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsSyrian family is entirely different from theEgyptian (Alexandrian) family.Ah, but wait a minute! The theory hasshot itself in the foot. If all theSyrian manuscripts were firstcopied from Alexandrianmanuscriptsthen there would be noSyrian manuscripts at all! Theywould all be Alexandrian! Yet 80% ofour present manuscripts are Syrian; andeven the modernists agree that they aredistinctly different than the Alexandrian.In reality, the Syrian manuscripts wereproduced first; and, when some of thesemanuscripts arrived in Alexandria,the liberals in charge changedthings enough that rather quicklythey arrived at a separate family.This was partly due to their strangetheological beliefs and partly tosloppy work on the part of thecopyists. Why would someone, with littlerespect for the Bible, bother to make goodcopies of it?Ellen White writes a paragraph about thoseearliest centuries:"I saw that God had especially guardedthe Bible; yet when copies of itwere few, learned men had insome instances changed thewords, thinking that they were making itmore plain, when in reality they weremystifying that which was plain, bycausing it to lean to their establishedviews, which were governed by tradition.But I saw that the Word of God, as awhole, is a perfect chain, one portionlinking into and explaining another. Trueseekers for truth need not err, for not onlyis the Word of God plain and simple indeclaring the way of life, but the HolySpirit is given as a guide in understandingthe way to life therein revealed."Story ofRedemption, 391.When were copies especially few?Where were the "learned men"living? It was only in the first threecenturies, before Constantine ascended thethrone, that "copies were few." It was atAlexandria where the largest collection of"learned men" resided. (It is significant thatthe context of the above quotation isspeaking about hellfire; and mistranslationsof that subject are in many Bibles.)The truth is that, if there were noSyrian manuscripts to beginwiththere could be no later ones atall! As soon as Paul sent his letters, theywere copied. But the liberals wouldhave us believe that Pauls originalepistles just sat around, ignoreduntil the Alexandrian apostatesbegan copying them!Most of Pauls letters were sent to AsiaMinor, which is all part of Syrian territory,primarily Asia Minor. Is that not highly

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionssignificant? The only place where they couldbe copied by "Syrian" believers. As soon asMark, Matthew, and Luke wrote theirgospels, copies were made. (It is expectedthat the originals would also have beenoriginated and copied in Syrian territory:Palestine.) Shortly after John wrote hisbooks on the Island of Patmos, they wouldhave been copied by friends. Patmos waspart of Asia Minor, which was a Syrian familyterritory.So where would we expect theoldest copies of the New Testamentto be made? In the place whereChristianity startedand in the placewhere the books were firstwrittenall Syrian territory. This wouldalso include Pauls letters sent from the city ofRome to churches in Asia Minor and Lukesaccount of the voyage to Rome, which heprobably wrote down after returning toPalestine. Back in those early years,Jerusalem, Antioch (in modernLebenon), and several cities in AsiaMinor (which Paul first evangelized)were the centers of Christianity. AllSyrian territory. You can know thatChristians in every one of themwere busily making copies.Yes, let us not lose our common sense, inour eagerness to listen to the so-called"wisdom" of the Ph.D.s. Who dares sit at thefeet of the great men of earth, in the hopethat they can provide safe guidance into theright path to the heavenly home?When someone comes to you with amessage that your Bible is no longerreliable, take your loved ones by thehandand flee from the place asquickly as you can. Do not listen to suchmen. You have enough problems now, asyou daily battle the devil and try to protectyour family from his devices, without listeningto peculiar theories of men who want to takeyour Bibles from you.Attacking the Bible itself: This attackextends beyond the KJV. Aspects of thecharges are leveled directly against theintegrity of the Bible writings themselves!It is claimed, by these liberals, thatanother reason why people shouldnot value the King James more thanother versions is because all theBible writingseven before they wereinitially copiedhave inherent errorsin them! This my friends, is an attempt atoverkill. In order to reduce confidence in theKJV, men desperate to prove their pointattempt to reduce confidence in all Bibles!Whether they know it or not, the men doingthis are valued servants of the devil.These men seem maddened to desperationin their efforts to tear the King James Bible

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsout of our hands and hearts.As part of this thrust, an attack ismade on the Septuagint, which is theOld Testament Greek translation of the Bible.Prepared about 260 B.C., the Septuagint wasquoted by many New Testament writers.These attackers claim that no Old Testamentquotations in the New Testament are worthanything, even when quoted by Jesus!But the facts are these: In most instances,the differences between the Septuagint andthe Hebrew Old Testament are merelydifferences in word order, synonyms, etc.,but not in concepts. However, in someverses, there are distinct differences. At suchtimes, the New Testament writers generallyquoted the Hebrew instead of such variants.This fact, that the Hebrew would bequoted in place of questionablepassages in the Septuagint, shouldgive us assurance that God wasguiding in what was done.It is neither wise nor safe for men to attackGods holy Word; and it is dangerous for us tolisten to such men.WHY THE KJV IS SO IMPORTANT TO USFirst, it was translated in a directline, through Erasmus Greek Text,from the Syrian manuscripts. It ismore accurate than the modern versionswhich are based on copies made inAlexandria, Egypt. This alone is a goodenough reason to adhere to the King JamesBible.Second, serious students of the Bibleneed a normative standard. Ten or 20Bible versions (even 2 or 3), all sayingsomething a little different, mystify the mind.Which translation is right? How can they becompared? Which ones contain errorsslipped in by the doctrinal prejudices of thetranslator? It is all a confusion.Someone will say that we can solve theproblem by going to the Greek text. That isno solution, since few of us know Greek.Such a remedy would require us to trustsomeone else to interpret the Bible for usandthat person would usually be a scholartrained in outside universities! Oh no, wedont need that! Men cunning in churchcrafthave, for centuries, taught that we must trustour souls to someone else to guide us arightin our study of Gods Word. The concept issolidly papal, and was used by Rome fornearly 2,000 years to bring the souls ofmillions into captivity.We have something solid on whichto place our feet when we make thesingle, best version the one we willrely on as a standard by which tojudge Bibles, doctrines, standards,and morality.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsThird, we need a normative standardfor preaching. Many no longer bother totake their Bibles to church, since the pastor isgoing to read out of something else. Trying tofollow his words in the KJV (or whateverversion you might have with you) only addsto the confusion. While you are trying tofigure how this phrase is supposed to matchthat one, he has passed on to somethingelse. It becomes an exercise in futility.Fourth, we need a normative standardfor giving Bible studies andevangelistic meetings. How can yougive Bible studies to people, when everyoneis reading out of a different version? Moreconfusion. It is difficult enough to clarifydoctrines and standards to individuals withno previous experience in such matters. Addto this the miserable diets they eat, whichcloud the brains, and the innumerable dailypressures that they bring to the study. Theresult is not a situation calculated to bringconviction and conversions.Would you want to give a Bible studywith the RSV, NIV, or Phillips andattempt to explain away all thepeculiarities and errors in them? AndI assure you, there are very definiteantinomian (anti-law) and anti-Sanctuarypassages in those books.Add to this the fact that many already rely onthe KJV; and it will arouse suspicion whenyou bring something else to read out of.Fifth, the KJV is the version (or usedto be!) all our Bible studies anddoctrinal books are in. Someone willsay, No problem, just change them toanother version. More confusion. And whichversion are we to change them to? We musthave a single standard for faith, study, andwork.Sixth,the KJV is the versionpreferred by the Spirit of Prophecy.That is no little matter. At least 98% of allpassages quoted by Ellen White are from theKing James. There were other Bibles around,but she consistently quoted the KJV.Seventh, attempts to downgrade theKJV impugn on Gods sovereigntyand care for His children. It is not thepurpose of the great controversy to let thedevil win the battles and provide generationsof believers with Bibles which are not worthmuch.Eighth, the KJV is an old and trustedfriend, one which has faithfullyhelped you all your life. Why should younow turn your back on it when so many of thereasons for doing so do not make goodsense.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsNinth, it has an enduring and lastingmajesty and beauty, lacking in theothers. This may seem like a small matter,but it too is significant. Just as the Lord ismajestic, He intends that His Word bemajestic also. Surely, the hand of Godguided in this special detail. For example,consider this passage:"And there were in the same countryshepherds abiding in the field, keeping watchover their flock by night." (Luke 2:8)I believe you have normal intelligence, just asI have. Rewrite that sentence in a morebeautiful way, and I will wait until you havefinished . .Now that you have triedand failed, can younot see that there is something very specialin the King James Bible, which your heavenlyFather wants you to have? Because youneeded to trust your soul to its preciouswords, God arranged that those words wouldhave an inherent beauty of form and flow ofwords.Is it wrong to read another version?I will not say that. However, I willsay it is wrong for anyone to try togrind the King James Bible in thedust and, in some cases, even attack theBible writings themselves. He wants us toforsake that precious book, because it willhelp excuse the fact that he has alreadydone so.It is bad enough when youencounter men who are trying towrest a passage of Scripture. But behorrified when they try to removethe entire Bible from your hands!When you meet such men, ignore theirclaims of friendship and concern for yourbest good. Ignore their claim to "knowGreek." Ignore their spouting of big wordsabout Biblical recensions, documentaryresearch, uncials, minuscules, lectionaries,codices, textual apparatus, numbered papyri,Greek Texts, and paraphrastic editions. Theyare just frail, erring people like you and me.Beware of their objectives. Beware of theirmotives. If your Bible is an offense to them, itis best that you leave their presence.The King James brought nearlyevery reader of this tract set to God.Its words placed most of our feet on the pathtoward ultimate redemption. Adherence tothose words will keep us safe by His side. vf

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versions"The Bible presents a perfect standard of character; it is an infallible guide under all circumstances, even to theend of the journey of life."Signs, March 21, 1906."In the Bible the will of God is revealed. The truths of the Word of God are the utterances of the Most High. Hewho makes these truths a part of his life becomes in every sense a new creature."Review, December 18, 1913."Every day you should learn something new from the Scriptures. Search them as for hid treasures, for theycontain the words of eternal life. Pray for wisdom and understanding to comprehend these holy writings. If youwould do this, you would find new glories in the Word of God; you would feel that you had received new andprecious light on subjects connected with the truth, and the Scriptures would be constantly receiving a new valuein your estimation."5 Testimonies, 266."The great truths necessary for salvation are made as clear as noonday . . A single text has proved in the past,and will prove in the future, to be a savor of life unto life to many a soul. As men diligently search, the Bibleopens new treasures of truth, which are as bright jewels to the mind."Signs, July 11, 1906."You must dig deep in the mine of truth if you would find its richest treasures. Comparing scripture with scripture,you may find the true meaning of the text; but if you do not make the sacred teachings of Gods Word the ruleand guide of your life, the truth will be nothing to you."Youths Instructor, July 28, 1892."No other study will so ennoble every thought, feeling, and aspiration as the study of the Scriptures. No otherbook can satisfy the questionings of the mind and the craving of the heart."Signs, April 11, 1906."Gods Word is full of precious promises and helpful counsel. It is infallible; for God cannot err. It has help forevery circumstance and condition of life, and God looks on with sadness when His children turn from it to humanaid."Signs, March 28, 1906."In the Scriptures thousands of gems of truth lie hidden from the surface seeker. The mine of truth is neverexhausted. The more you search the Scriptures with humble hearts, the greater will be your interest, and themore you will feel like exclaiming with Paul: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"5 Testimonies, 266."The Christian evidence that we need, is found not in the experience of men, but in our Bibles. The Word of Godis the man of our counsel; for it brings us down from age to age, bearing its testimony to the unchangeablenessof the truth. Not one of the ancient defenses of the Word of God, appropriate for special times, has become wornout. No part of the Bible has died from old age. All the past history of the people of God is to be studied by ustoday, that we may benefit by the experiences recorded."Letter 117, 1897."As an educating power, the Bible is without a rival. Nothing will so impart vigor to all the faculties as an effort tograsp the stupendous truths of revelation."Signs, April 11, 1906."It is impossible for any human mind to exhaust one truth or promise of the Bible. One catches the glory fromone point of view, another from another point; yet we can discern only gleamings. The full radiance is beyond our

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsvision. As we contemplate the great things of Gods Word, we look into a fountain that broadens and deepensbeneath our gaze. Its breadth and depth pass our knowledge. As we gaze, the vision widens; stretched outbefore us, we behold a boundless, shoreless sea. Such study has vivifying power. The mind and heart acquirenew strength, new life. This experience is the highest evidence of the divine authorship of the Bible." Signs, April25, 1906.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsThe New International Versionvs.The King James VersionBY GEORGE BURNSIDEGeorge Burnside was our leading evangelistin Australia for decades. When the newtheology entered Australia (due to DesmondFords influence over theology students atAvondale College), from the 1960s onward,Burnside resisted the incoming new theologywith all his energies. His efforts were deeplyresented by the Australasian (now SouthPacific) Division and its subsidiaryconference leaders. But Burnside refused toabandon his defense of the Gods truths forthese last days. Pastor Burnside visited mein the early 1990s and expressed deepgratitude for the work we are trying to dohere. He passed to his rest several yearsago.Here is one of his powerful messages.Burnside was an earnest warrior, defendingGods truth. The world needs more men likehim. You will meet him in heaven. (Allunderlinings are his. His pattern was to givethe Bible reference before the quotation.)CHAPTER 1WHY I DO NOT USE THE NIVIN SOULWINNINGI get no scarcity of questions on the Bible.These questions come by phonemany bylong distance, by visitors, and by mail. Manyof the questions are regarding the confusingflood of new versions of the Bible. This isespecially true in respect to the NewInternational Version, commonly referred toas the NIV. Seeing the NIV is now beingurged by many, I am repeatedly asked why Ido not also advocate the use of the NIVversion and use it in my work of soulwinning.As I believe it is my duty to give an answer, Iwill endeavour to pass on some clear andstraight-forward reasons why I do not use theNIV, and never intend to use the NIV, inplace of the time-honoured and sure KingJames Version.Here is Luke 4:4 in the King James Version.In the NIV the underlined words are cut out:Luke 4:4 "And Jesus answered him,saying, It is written, That man shall notlive by bread alone, but by everyword of God."Luke 4:4 is not the only place where parts ofthe Word of God have been cut out. Thereare literally hundreds of omissions in the NIV.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsThis omission in Luke 4:4 makes thestatement of Jesus of little sense. "But byevery word of God." Now we have it. TheScriptures are to stay. The Word of God is tofeed us. We are to live by the Scriptures.Here Jesus is in conflict with the devil and inthis statement our Lord is revealing theefficient weapon against sin and Satan.Is it not significant that this very mutilatedversion of Scripture cuts out the verypassage that condemns it. This omittedpassage condemns the NIV!Note again that our Divine Guide is showingthat man is to live by "every word ofGod." If "every word" is vital and we need"every word" what can be said in favour of aprofessed version that omits a whole verse?Not only that but omits scores of passages. Iwill never use in my work a mutilated version,no matter how popular it may be. The"Scripture of Truth" closes with theseimportant words:-Rev 22:19 "And if any man shall takeaway from the words of the book of thisprophecy, God shall take away hispart out of the book of life and out of theholy city, and from the things which arewritten in this book."I would fear to stand before the judgment barof God, if I knowingly had used and upheld aversion that had taken away from the Wordof God.We should remember also that this solemnwarning against taking "away from the words"of Gods Holy Book is given by none otherthan our Lord Himself.Jesus clearly states:-Rev 22:20 "He which testifieth thesethings saith, Surely I come quickly.Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."It is Jesus who says "Surely I come quickly."He is the One who testifies these warningwords.Rev 22:16 "I Jesus have sent Mine angel,to testify unto you these things in thechurches."Our Lord leaves us in no doubt. WithoutJesus the Bible would never have existed orbeen written. Jesus gave it to us. It is vital.So Jesus warns against taking away any ofHis words. "Every word" counts. Hedeclared we are to live "by every word ofGod." On this important theme may I drawyour attention to these words of inspiredcomment."With the same carefulness are we totreasure the bread from Heaven to satisfythe needs of the soul. By every word ofGod we are to live. Nothing that God has

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsspoken is to be lost. Not one word thatconcerns our eternal salvation are we toneglect. Not one word is to fall uselessto the ground." Ministry of Healing, 48.To sense the seriousness of this subject,notice a few more gems from the "Testimonyof Jesus," which is the "Spirit of Prophecy.""Brethern, cling to your Bible, as itreads . . and obey the Word, and notone of you will be lost."1 SelectedMessages, 18."The people of God are directed to theScriptures as their safeguard against theinfluence of false teachers . . None butthose who have fortified the mind with thetruths of the Bible will stand through thelast great conflict."Great Controversy,593-594."False teachers" like false versions, they areused and advocated by liberals and newtheology followers. You cannot live by "everyword" of God if many of those words havebeen taken away by the agents of Satan, the"false teachers.""The whole Bible is a manifestation ofChrist . . The Word must be their sourceof power."Desire of Ages, 390.How can you follow "the whole Bible" ifhundreds of words are missing?""The written Word is our only safety."1Selected Messages, 158."Those who do not accept the Word ofGod just as it reads, will be snared in his[Satans] trap."2 Selected Messages 52.Note again the words of our Lord:-Matt 24:35 "Heaven and earth shall passaway, but My words shall not pass away."The words of Jesus shall not pass away.Therefore His words still stand.That includes:-Luke 4:4 "And Jesus answered him,saying, It is written, That man shall notlive by bread alone, but by every word ofGod."These wonderful words of Jesus havetransforming power. That is why the devilwants to get rid of them.John 6:63 "The words that I speakunto you, they are spirit and they arelife."The devil tries to cut out all he can of theseprecious and powerful words. It is the wordsof Scripture that work conversion in the life,for by this "living" Word we are "born again."1 Peter 1:23 "Being born again, not ofcorruptible seed, but of incorruptible, bythe Word of God, which liveth andabideth for ever."The Scriptures impart Christs own divine

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsnature."The only thing in our world upon whichwe can rely is the Word of God."Desire ofAges, 121."By every word that proceedeth out ofthe mouth of God are we to live."Desireof Ages, 123.Note "every word of God.""Every word" says our Saviour andour Lord.Prov 30:5 "Every word of God is pure.""Every word of God" includes all theScriptures,every verse,every sentenceevery clauseevery phraseevery word - No exceptions.Then, who is behind the abbreviated,shortened and reduced Bible?It is notour God; that is apparent.It is the enemy of God and the hater ofmankind. It is the one who cast doubt on theWord of God in Eden with "Yea, hath Godsaid?" Gen 3:1. "Surely God did not saythat?" Doubt lies at the root of all sin; doubtof the Word of God. The enemy, the devilhates and dreads the Word of God.Then Satan denied that Word.Gen 3:4 "Ye shall not surely die."God had declared "Thou shalt not eat of it,neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." Gen 3:3.Disobedience will result in death, declaredour God. But the devil first led man to doubtthat Word, then he denies that Word. How hehates that Word! He fled before it in thewilderness of temptation. He cannot meet it.Today the deceiver, and master liar (John8:44), tries to get rid of that infallible and allpowerful Word by abbreviating it and cuttingout vital parts. This is seen in the flood tide offalse versions. They are perversions. Yet,even with the clear light that our Lord hasgiven the Advent people, how easilymultitudes fall before the flood of versionsand perversions.Turn to:-Matt 18:11 "For the Son of man iscome to save that which waslost."Now open the NIV and what do we find? Thistoo is missing! These precious words thatexplain the saving work of our Lord are cutout. Not merely are the Scriptures attacked,but also the work of our Redeemer is likewisecut. This tragic work is repeated in scores,

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionseven hundreds of places. The infallible Wordof Jesus is:-Luke 4:4 "It is written, That man shall notlive by bread alone, but by every word ofGod."We ask, how can we live by every word ofGod, if literally hundreds of these life-givingwords have been removed?That is the first reason why I do not use, anddo not intend to use, the NIV.CHAPTER 2THE NIV AND REVELATION 22:14Rev 22:14 "Blessed are they that do Hiscommandments, that they may haveright to the tree of life, and may enter inthrough the gates into the city." (KJV)Rev 22:14 "Blessed are those who washtheir robes, that they may have theright to the tree of life and may gothrough the gates into the city." (NIV)These two translations of this verse arecertainly not the same. They are differentstatements. The question naturally arises:Which is the original? Which is the oldest?Which one has been corrupted? Which is thetrue version and which is the perversion?The claim for the NIV and other modernversions is that they are found in suchancient manuscripts as the Sinaiticus andVaticanusand the lesser knownAlexandrian manuscripts of the fourthcentury. This claim instead of supporting theNIV condemns it, as we shall see.The evidences on the other hand in favour ofthe Authorized Version (KJV) go back tomuch earlier years. Note these facts:-1. One very interesting, and little used, line ofevidence is found in the writings of theearliest Church Fathers. When quoting Rev.22:14 they all quote "do Hiscommandments." These includeTertullian (A.D. 200) Cyprian (A.D. 248-258)and. Tertonius (A.D. 390). The first of theothers [Christian writers] to quote Rev. 22:14as "wash their robes" was Athanasius,Bishop of Alexandria, in the fourthcentury (A.D. 326-373).This proves positively that the only earliestand true words of this text are "do Hiscommandments." They were the originals.These early men knew nothing of"wash their robes." The words "washtheir robes" did not appear until the fourthcentury.The fourth century was the century ofcorruptions on a gigantic scale. It was thecentury of Constantine, Jerome, andEusebius. It was the century of the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsintroduction of the pagan symbol, the cross.It was the century that brought in Sunday, inplace of the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. Itwas the century in which the church adoptedso many corruptions of doctrine and practice.It was a bad century. Moreover, it broughtmany corruptions into the Scripture. This wasthe century that gave birth to the LatinVulgate by Jerome, which was themanuscript of Scripture that contained"many errors" (Great Controversy, 56).These corrupt words of Rev 22:14 "washedtheir robes" most likely began in the home ofcorruptionAlexandria. Alexandria was thehome of Clement and Origen,philosophers who greatly corruptedChristianity.Thus the plain facts of church history showthat the Christians of the first centuries knewthat Rev 22:14 said "do His commandments."The words "washed their robes" was acorruption that probably originated in Egypt inthe time of corruption, namely "the fourthcentury." It appears all that came out of thefourth century is corruption and perversions.Another interesting line of evidence is foundin:-2. The Aramaic or Syriac.As I write, before me is the New Testamentin the Syriac. All authorities "frankly admitthat Jesus spoke Aramaic and His teachingswere handed down in that language." Here isa photocopy of a large section of theintroduction [the introduction to LamsasSyriac (Peshitta) translation about thoseearly centuries, prior to the fourth century]."Peshitta is the authorized text of theScriptures and had its origin in the landsfrom which Christianity sprang and it iswritten in the language in which OurBlessed Lord, His disciples and the earlyChristians spoke and wrote. These factsare known to all Biblical scholars. Eventhose who have made translations fromthe Greek, frankly admit that Jesus spokeAramaic and his teachings were handeddown in that language."The Christians in Palestine and Syriawere the first to embrace Christianity.They must have had Gospels in Aramaicin order to preach to Greeks and otherpeople. Gospels were in circulationbefore St. Pauls conversion. They werewritten ten or fifteen years after theCrucifixion. They were the recordings ofthe eye witnesses who had traveled withJesus and who could record most of theteachings of their Lord. Papias tells usthat Matthew wrote in the language of theHebrews, that is Aramaic. This issupported by the testimonies of the earlyfathers and historians.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versions"Aside from the historical andgeographical support, the Peshitta NewTestament text varies considerably fromthe Greek and Latin versions which weremade later for the use of new converts toChristianity. There are hundreds ofpassages where the meaning is differentfrom that of the Greek version. The styleof writing is purely Aramaic and theidioms are Eastern. Neither does Peshittaagree with recent New Testamenttranslations made from Greek intoAramaic."The New Testament revisions in theMonophysite text had no effect on themain body of the Church in the Eastunder the Persian Empire. The Churchrejected the doctrines advanced at theCouncil of Ephesus and bitterly opposedthe spread of Greek and Monophysitedoctrines. Neither were these revisionsused in Monophysite Churches. Theywere only used privately by bishops andscholars as Greek sources of theScriptures to facilitate their work inachieving unity between the ImperialByzantine Church and the Monophysitesin Syria and Egypt. Then again, Persia,an enemy of the Byzantine empire, forpolitical reasons was strongly opposed tothe introduction of Greek doctrinesamong the Christians in the East. ThePersian kings issued decrees to imprisonand expel priests and bishops found to besympathetic to the Byzantine Church."Such were the political and religiousconditions which isolated the Christians inthe East from the rest of the Christians inthe Byzantine Empire and the rest of theChristian world. This isolation continuedthrough Arab, Mongol and Turkish rulefrom the sixth to the thirteenth century. Asthe result of this continued isolation, theBiblical customs and manners and theAramaic language remained unchangedand the Scriptures escaped additions andrevisions."Asahel Grant, M.D., the first Americanmissionary to discover the Assyrians,writes in his book, The Nestorians, or theLost Tribes: The Nestorians havepreserved the Scriptures in manuscriptwith great care and purity. He puts thedate of Peshitta New Testament in theearly part of the second century A.D."The Christians in the Persian Empire,because of continuous warfare betweenPersia and Rome, did not participate inthe Councils which took place in theRoman Empire, and therefore, escapedthe introduction of new doctrines anddogmas which might make necessaryScriptural revisions. Until the coming ofAmerican and English missionaries in theearly part of the nineteenth century, theAssyrian Christians were not aware of thereligious and political changes which hadtaken place in the Byzantine Empire andthe rest of the Western World. They hadnot even heard of Martin Luther, the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsReformation, or the discovery of America.The news that others had escaped thefury of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane wasa surprise to them."One thing which has impressed thereaders of these manuscripts is the carewith which they were produced. There ishardly a word of variance. Easternscribes always copy Scriptures carefully.Time is immaterial to them when copyingthe Word of God."Sir Frederick Kenyon, Curator at theBritish Museum, in his book TextualCriticism of the New Testament, speakshighly of the accuracy and antiquity ofPeshitta MSS."This translation is made from ancientMSS., facsimile pages of which arereproduced in this volume."This edition is not made as a revision. Itis a translation from ancient Aramaictexts and from ancient manuscripts. Weeither have them or we have beengranted to make photostats from theancient manuscripts by either their privateowners or their public custodians."The Peshitta New Testament is anancient and the only authoritativedocument of the New Testament in useamong the Syriac Aramaic speakingpeople of Palestine, Syria, MountLebanon, Mesopotamia, Persia andMalabar (South India) from the firstcentury A.D. to the present day. Theterms Aramaic and Syriac areinterchangeable."George M. Lamsa,Introduction, The New TestamentAccording to the Eastern Text, translatedfrom Original Aramaic Sources.Thus the Syriac, the language of Jesus,unites with the Scripture quotes of theearliest Fathers in proclaiming the truth ofRev. 22:14 in the Authorized Version. It has"do His commandments" and not the corrupttext "washed their robes." Here is aphotocopy of Rev 22:14 in the Syriac:-Rev 22:14 "Blessed are those who do Hiscommandments, that they may have rightto the tree of life, and may enter inthrough the gates into the City."The Coptic Version, one of the earliesttranslations, likewise has "do Hiscommandments."But there is more. Inspiration confirmswhich is right:-"But not so did prophets and apostlesregard the holy law of God. Said David: Iwill walk at liberty: for I seek Thyprecepts. Psalm 119:45. The apostleJames, who wrote after the death ofChrist, refers to the Decalogue as theroyal law and the perfect law of liberty.James 2:8; 1:25. And the revelator, half acentury after the crucifixion, pronouncesa blessing upon them that do His

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionscommandments, that they may haveright to the tree of life, and may enter inthrough the gates into the city. Revelation22:14."Great Controversy, 466.Sister White quotes Rev 22:14 probably adozen times and in every case shequotes from the Authorized Version(KJV). When quoting Rev. 22:14 she neveruses any of the perverted modern versions,"wash their robes."Men like Origen, Clement of Alexandria,Jerome and Eusebius looked tophilosophy as the supreme authority. Tochange Scripture to fit in with their philosophywas an easy matter. In the case of Rev 22:14this was especially easy. First, they, likemany modern professed Christians, wantedto get rid of the bothersome commandments.The following translation shows how easy itwas to corrupt this vital text of Scripture:-She also gives us some very interesting andhelpful light. This light from heaven shinesclearly through the mists and confusedreports of history. Here we have truth,uncontaminated by the bias of humanity."I saw that God had especiallyguarded the Bible; yet when copies of itwere few, learned men had in someinstances changed the words,thinking that they were making it moreplain, when in reality they were mystifyingthat which was plain, by causing it to leanto their established views, which weregoverned by tradition."Early Writings,220-221.hoi poiountes las entolas auiou, "that keephis commandments"hoi plunontes tas stolas autn, "that wash theirrobes"This happened in the fourth century. Notethe facts:-"The nominal conversion of Constantinein the early part of the fourth century .. Now the work of corruption rapidlyprogressed."Great Controversy, 49-50."In the early part of the fourth centurythe Emperor Constantine issued a decreemaking Sunday a public festivalthroughout the Roman Empire."GreatMuch of that changing of the ancient writings (Scripture Controversy, = writings) 53. was done by monks."Suggested by the father of lies.Ancient writings were forged bymonks . . And a church that hadrejected the truth greedily acceptedthese deceptions."GreatControversy, 56."Eusebius, a bishop who sought thefavor of princes, and who was thespecial friend and flatterer ofConstantine, advanced the claim thatChrist had transferred the Sabbath

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsto Sunday. Not a single testimony of theScriptures was produced in proof of thenew doctrine. Eusebius himselfunwittingly acknowledges its falsity andpoints to the real authors of the change.All things, he says, whatever that it wasduty to do on the Sabbath, these wehave transferred to the Lords Day(Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and SabbathDuties, page 538)."Great Controversy,574.Of the same fateful times we read again frominspired history:"Satan well knew that the HolyScriptureswould enable men todiscern his deceptions and withstand hispower. It was by the Word that even theSaviour of the world had resisted hisattacks. At every assault, Christpresented the shield of eternal truth,saying, It is written. To every suggestionof the adversary, he opposed the wisdomand power of the Word. In order for Satanto maintain his sway over men, andestablish the authority of the papalusurper, he must keep them inignorance of the Scriptures. TheBible would exalt God and place finitemen in their true position; therefore itssacred truths must be concealed andsuppressed. This logic was adopted bythe Roman Church. For hundreds ofyears the circulation of the Bible wasprohibited. The people were forbidden toread it or to have it in their houses, andunprincipled priests and prelatesinterpreted its teachings to sustain theirpretensions. Thus the pope came to bealmost universally acknowledged as thevicegerent of God on earth, endowed withauthority over church and state."The detector of error having beenremoved, Satan worked according to hiswill. Prophecy had declared that thepapacy was to think to change times andlaws. Daniel 7:25."Great Controversy, 51."In the early part of the fourth centurythe emperor Constantine issued a decreemaking Sunday a public festivalthroughout the Roman Empire."GreatControversy, 53.The "fourth century," the century ofcorruptions, saw apostasy flourish. This wasthe century that saw the origin of JeromesLatin Vulgate; the basis of the RomanCatholic Biblethe Douay Version.Latin, the common medium of the learnedworld, had become the language of theChurchs worship and doctrine. When theCouncil of Trent reaffirmed the Faith [errors]and revived the discipline of the Church amidthe confusion of that age, its earliestsessions (in 1546) repeated the list of theBibles books and the truth of their sacredauthority. At the time there were differentLatin versions known in Europe. To fix upon

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsone of them as an authoritative standard, theCouncil gave its approbation to "the Vulgate,"prepared late in the fourth century by SaintJerome, the greatest [Catholic] biblicalscholar of antiquity.The same "fourth century" saw the origin ofthe Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus.These two corrupt manuscripts are the basisand foundation of the NIV and its companionperversions, the other modern versions.The enemys desire to downgrade GodsCommandments is well known to you all. Hiscorrupt methods are seen in the EmphaticDiaglott. It is apparent that the work ofdeception has not ceased. Notice thedeliberate changing of the words. The lefthand column contains the Greek Text of theVatican Manuscript and interlined with it theliteral word corresponding in English. Nowread the right hand column for deliberatechange. Are they traded on the ignorance oftrusting people?Rev 22:14 "Blessed those doing thecommandments of him, so that shall bethe authority of them over the word of thelife, and by the gates they may enter intothe city." [Majority] Greek manuscripts."Blessed are THOSE who WASH theirROBES, so that their RIGHT may be tothe word of the life and they may enter bygates into the city."Rev 22:14, VaticanManuscript, #1200 in the Vatican Library[Vaticanus].Rev 22:14 has never been popular withnominal "Christians" who reject "thecommandments of God." They would makevoid the law of their Creator by theirprofessed faith in Christ. The apostle Paulseparated himself from such teachings andso should we all.Rom 3:31 "Do we then make void thelaw through faith? God forbid: yea,we establish the law."Despite this clear statement of Scripture weneed not be surprised by the rejection ofGods law. The sure word of prophecyforetold of just such apostate teaching.Psalm 119:126 "It is time for Thee, Lord,to work: for they have made void Thylaw."The time has come when they have madevoid Gods law and, wonder of wonders, theydo it by claiming that faith makes voidthis law! Therefore, with them Rev. 22:14must be gotten rid of so as to silence GodsEternal Ten.A well known religious periodical The Swordof the Lord [and John R. Rice] rejected "doHis commandments" of Rev. 22:14. They

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsdeclared it teaches "salvation by works."They say it teaches "Legalism," "Works," asopposed to "Grace." How inconsistent, foraccording to the NIV and all other Jesuitversions they too teach legalism and worksjust the same. "Oh, consistency thou art ajewel."Notice, according to the popular NIV, theones who wash their robes have right to thetree of life.They do the washing. Is that not works?Note, nothing is said about the finished workof Christ. Nothing about the new birth. Merelythey wash their robes. In all my experience Ihave never heard any one try to expound thisperversion. It came from the corruption ofOrigen, Jerome and Eusebius, and theflatterers of Constantine. It came in thefourth century.The inspired words of the early church of thefirst century must be our foundation. In thesermon on the mount, Jesus shows who aregoing to Heaven and who will not go there.Our Lord closes His sermon with an appealto build on the Rock. He shows us how:-Matt 7:24 "Therefore whosoever heareththese sayings of Mine, and doeththem, I will liken him unto a wise man,which built his house upon a rock."Now from the words of our only Guide toGlory we see the perfect harmony ofScripture and expose the perversions of the"fourth century." Read again the twocontrasting statements.Rev 22:14 These two Bibles are teaching twodifferent doctrines:"Wash their robes" is claimed by most NIVusers to mean forgiveness for past sins."They that do His commandments" arepeople who are abiding in Christ.Jesus clearly states:-John 15:10 "If ye keep Mycommandments, ye shall abide in Mylove."John 15:14 "Ye are My friends, if ye dowhatsoever I command you."John 14:15 "If ye love Me, keep Mycommandments."John 14:21 "He that hath Mycommandments, and keepeth them, he itis that loveth Me: and he that loveth Meshall be loved of My Father, and I willlove him, and will manifest Myself to him."When a person abides in Christ, he canbythat abidingdo the commandments of God.Jesus promises:-John 15:5 "He that abideth in Me and I in

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionshim, the same bringeth forth much fruit:for without Me ye can do nothing."and My reward is with Me, to give everyman according as his work shall be."It is such exceeding great and preciouspromises of Christ abiding in His servantsthat grants them power to obey and a placein the City Eternal. Note these clearstatements.2 Peter 1:4 "Whereby are given unto usexceeding great and precious promises:that by these ye might be partakers ofthe divine nature."By partaking of the divine nature of our Lordyou are enabled:-2 Peter 1:10-11 "To make your callingand election sure: for if ye do thesethings, ye shall never fall: For so anentrance shall be ministered unto youabundantly into the everlasting kingdomof our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."That is why we read this:-Rev 22:14 "Blessed are they that do Hiscommandments, that they may have rightto the tree of life, and may enter inthrough the gates into the city."Those who only "wash their robes," and thenkeep on sinning, will never have right to thetree of life. The verses just before call for a"holy," "righteous" people. Jesus says this:-Rev 22:12 "And, behold, I come quickly;The Authorized (KJV) is correct:-By the context.By the early fathers before the fourth century.By the earliest of manuscripts. The Syriac.By the Coptic.By the Received Text.The NIV has the support of Origen, theperverter of Scripture, Constantine andJerome of the fourth centurythe centuryof corruption of truth. The century of thechange of the Sabbath to Sunday. Thecentury of the introduction of the pagan signof the cross. The century of the first churchfather to quote the perversion "wash theirrobes."The Advocates of the NIV proudly claim thatit is based on "the two most reliable earlymanuscripts." These go back to the "fourthcentury." They are the Vaticanus andSinaiticus. They are both from the Papacy."Come out of her, My people."May our Lord lead you to love and follow:-The Bible of the early church writers.The Bible of the Waldenses.The Bible of Tyndale, Luther, and all the

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsReformers.The Bible of Wesley, Whitefield, andSpurgeon.The Bible of the Adventists of 1844.The Bible of Gods Truth of 1888.The only Bible that S.D.A.s ever published inEnglishthe Authorized Version (KJV).Read again these inspired words. Note toothat Sister White repeatedly quoted Rev22:14. Never once did she quote it asfound in the NIV or as found in the eightyother corrupt per - versions. All of these perversions came from the Jesuit selectedmanuscripts.In desperation to uphold the corrupt modernversions, and "wash their robes" instead of"do His commandments," Sister Whitesstatement in E.W. 17 was mentioned.However, look it up for yourself. Here is thefull statement. Jesus said unto us:-" You have washed your robes in Myblood, stood stiffly for My truth,enter in. We all marched in and we feltthat we had a perfect right in thecity."Early Writings, 17.Now look at this good statement again.It certainly gives no support to any modernversion.None whatsoever. Note: "stood stiffly for Mytruth."In Psalms 119:142 we read "Thyrighteousness is an everlastingrighteousness, and Thy law is the truth."This favours the good, true version andrefutes the modern corrupt versions includingthe NIV.There are two other statements in EarlyWritings that leave no question as to whereour Christ-given Spirit of Prophecy stands."Jesus threw open the gates of thegolden city and led us in. Here we weremade welcome, for we had kept thecommandments of God and had a right tothe tree of life."Early Writings, 35."All, all who keep thecommandments of God, will enterin through the gates into the city, andhave right to the tree of life."EarlyWritings, 51.CHAPTER 3THE NIV AND THE LORDS PRAYERThis is a shocking expose!"9 After this manner therefore pray ye:Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowedby Thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thywill be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versions11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we forgiveour debtors. 13 And lead us not intotemptation, but deliver us from evil: ForThine is the kingdom, and thepower, and the glory, for ever.Amen."Matt 6:9-13.Now read it in the Douay Bible:-Matt 6:13, Douay "And lead us not intotemptation. But deliver us from evil.Amen."Here is the NIV:-Matt 6:13, NIV "And lead us not intotemptation, but deliver us from the evilone."Note both NIV and Douay finish the LordsPrayer with evil!They both omit "Thine be the glory"etc.More evil done in the fourth century. Agrand cover-up. Taking away Gods glory.Constantine, Jerome, Origen, Augustine.It is claimed that St. Jerome omitted the halfof Matt. 6:13. He with Origen and Eusebius.They taught that the world was getting better.They taught they were entering into themillennium. The kingdom was being set upon earth. The Douay (Roman Catholic) hasthis note. Dan. 2:44:-Dan 2:44 "A kingdom. The kingdom ofChrist in the Catholic Church, whichcannot be destroyed."Both St. Jerome and Eusebius were greatlyinfluenced by Origen. History claims thatOrigen "did most to create and give directionto the forces of apostasy." Origen wrote "TheScriptures are of little use to those whounderstand them as they are written."(McClintock and Strong. Article, Origen.)The Scriptures warn "Beware lest any manspoil you through philosophy" (Col 2:8).Origen ignored Gods warning and, whileprofessing to be a Christian, worshippedGreek philosophy. Philosophy was hissupreme authority, where Scripture gotin his road, he changed it to suit his paganphilosophies.In Early Writings, Sister White makes thisilluminating statement:-"I saw that God had especially guardedthe Bible; yet when copies were few,learned men had in some instanceschanged the words, thinking that theywere making it more plain, when in realitythey were mystifying that which wasplain, by causing it to lean to theirestablished views, which weregoverned by tradition."EarlyWritings, 220-221.St. Jerome was greatly influenced by Origen

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern Versionsand so was Bishop Eusebius. Both of thesemen were the servants and devoted followersof Constantine. Changing Scripture meantlittle to these men. They were church leadersand lived in the time when Sunday took theplace of the Sabbath. The cross began to beused, and placed on professed ChristianChurches. This is repeatedly stated byCatholic Authorities. See "The Cross. ShouldWe Display a Cross?" by G. Burnside.This "Fourth Century" was famous for theclimax of apostasy. It was in this century thatSunday was exalted. The Sabbath of ourLord was pushed into the background. In thissame fourth century the pagan symbol ofthe cross was made a symbol ofChristianity. This was the century whenthe Vulgate was compiled by St. Jerome.This contained "many errors" (GC 245).This was due to the corruptions, omissions,and changes by such men as Origen andJerome.This was when "many errors" came intothe Catholic versions. These omissions anderrors have been passed on to the NIV andthe other modern versions which are basedlargely on the Vaticanus and Sinaitus,both Catholic Manuscripts.The parallel, for instance between the NIVand the Jesuit-prepared Douay version, istoo close for comfort. The parallel is nomistake. They come from a common source.Remember! They both end the Lords prayerwith evil.They both omit the words of ourLord.They both omit the same importantwords of holy Scripture in hundreds of otherplaces.Thank God, the Spirit of Prophecy stillupholds and exalts these words of Jesus:"THINE IS THE KINGDOM, AND THEPOWER, AND THE GLORY."Here, read it for yourself, from the book,Mount of Blessing:" Thine is the kingdom, and the power, andthe glory. Matthew 6:13."The last like the first sentence of theLords prayer, points to our Father asabove all power and authority andevery name that is named. The Saviourbeheld the years that stretched out beforeHis disciples, not, as they had dreamed,lying in the sunshine of worldly prosperityand honor, but dark with the tempests ofhuman hatred and satanic wrath."Amid national strife and ruin, the steps ofthe disciples would be beset with perils,and often their hearts would beoppressed by fear. They were to see

Special Supplements - The King James and the Modern VersionsJerusalem a desolation, the temple sweptaway, its worship forever ended, andIsrael scattered to all lands, like wreckson a desert shore."Jesus said, Ye shall hear of wars andrumors of wars. Nation shall rise againstnation, and kingdom against kingdom:and there shall be famines, andpestilences, and earthquakes, in diversplaces. All these are the beginning ofsorrows. Matthew 24:6-8.this Word, it is because there is no light inthem.""We cannot overestimate the value of simplefaith and unquestioning obedience."That IMay Know Him, 116."Yet Christs followers were not to fearthat their hope was lost, or that God hadforsaken the earth. The power and theglory belong unto Him whose greatpurposes would still move on unthwartedtoward their consummation. In the prayerthat breathes their daily wants, thedisciples of Christ were directed to lookabove all the power and dominion of evil,unto the Lord their God, whose kingdomruleth over all, and who is their Fatherand everlasting Friend."Mount ofBlessing, 120.1 Chron 29:11-12 "Thine, O Lord, isthe greatness, and the power, and theglory, and the victory, and the majesty;for all that is in the heaven and in theearth is Thine . . In Thine hand ispower and might; and in Thine hand itis to make great, and to give strengthunto all."Isaiah 8:20 "To the law and to thetestimony: if they speak not according to

“In the beginning God createdthe heaven and the earth...And God saw every thing that he had made,and, behold,it was very good”Genesis