bible versions & divine inspiration

8/2/2019 Bible Versions & Divine Inspiration

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Bible Versions

Divine Preservation

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,

purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them

from this generation for ever.(Psalm 12: 6-7)

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. (Matthew

24:35)

The word of the Lord endureth for ever(1Peter 1:25)

Dr. Frank Logsdon was co-founder ofThe New American Standard Version. As peoplebegin confronting Dr. Logsdon on some the NASV's serious omissions and errors. He re-

examined the evidence and this was his verdict:

"I must under God denounce every attachment to the New American StandardVersion. I'm afraid I'm in trouble with the Lord . . . I wrote the format . . . I wrote

the preface . . . I'm in trouble; . . . its wrong, terribly wrong; its frighteningly

wrong. . .The deletions are absolutely frightening . . . there are so many . . . Are

we so naive that we do not suspect Satanic deception in all of this?"

Dr. Frank LogsdonCo-founder, New American Standard Version

TranslationsKJV Translators notes to the ReaderPage 3 ..."The Scriptures then being acknowledged to bee so full and so perfect, how can weexcuse ourselves of ngeligence, if we do not studie them, of curiositie, if we be not content withthem?...""The original being from heaven not from earth; the author being God, not man; the editor, theholy spirit, not the wit of the Apostles or Prophets; the Pen-men such as were sanctified from thewomb, and endowed with a principal portion of God's spirit...happy is the man that delighteth inthe Scripture, and thrise happie that maditateth in it day and night."

"But how shall men meditate in that, which they cannot understand? How shall they understandthat which is kept close in an unknown tongue?"

"Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, thatwe may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curaine, that we may looke into the most Holyplace; that reooveth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water, even as Jacobrolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban werewatered. Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but likechildren at Jacobs well (which was deep) without a bucket or some thing to draw with: oras that person mentioned by Esay, to whom when a sealed book was delivered, with thismotion, read this, I pray thee, he was fain to make this answer, I cannot, for it is sealed(Esay 29.11)


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Theodoret stated that "Every Countrey that is under the sun, is full of these words (of the Apostlesand Prophets) and the Hebrew tongue is turned not only into the Language of the Grecians, butalso fo the Romans, and Egyptians, and Persians, and Indians, and Armenians, and Scythians,and Sauromatians, and briefly into all the Languages that any Nation uses."

Isa 28:11 For with stammering lip and other languages, He will speak to thispeople;

1Co 14:21 It has been written in the Law, "By other languages" and "by otherlips" "I will speak to this people," "and even so they will not hear" Me, saysthe Lord. Isa. 28:11, 12

Prophesy of LXX?Isa 19:18 In that day five cities in the land of Egypt shall speak the

language of Canaan, and swear to Jehovah of Hosts. One shall be called, City ofRuin.

Isa 19:19 Then an altar to Jehovah shall be in the midst of the land of Egypt, and apillar to Jehovah at its border.

Isa 29:11 And all these things shall be to you as the words of this sealed book,which if they shall give to a learned man, saying, Read this, he shall then say, Icannot read it, for it is sealed.

Isa 29:12 And this book shall be given into the hands of a man that is unlearned, andone shall say to him, Read this; and he shall say, I am not learned.

Isa 29:13 And the Lord has said, This people draw near to Me with their mouth, andthey honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me; and in vain do theyworship Me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.

Isa 29:14 Therefore behold, I will proceed to remove this people, and I will removethem; and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will hide the understandingof the prudent.

Septuagint (LXX)

he Septuagint continues to fill a place, particularly in Bible translation. The Hebrew of

the Old Testament, while beautiful in its phrasing and form, is not always clear.The Septuagint, having been translated without anti-Christian bias andwithout the warping of modern liberal or neo-orthodox theology,provides an edition of the Old Testament which predates the earliestavailable Hebrew manuscript. Thus, although inferior to the Hebrewtext, on occasion the Septuagint is a helpful aid in translation and OldTestament study.

Epiphanius held the authors of the LXX not only for interpretors, but also for Prophets in somerespect; and Justinian the Emperor enjoyning the Jews his subjects to use specially theTranslation of the Seventy, renders this reason thereof, because they were as it were enlightenedwith prophetical grace.

Jerome stated that the interpreters were writers and not prophets.

More beneficial to the average Christian is the acknowledgement that our Saviourand His closest disciples used a translation of the Scriptures. We can rest in theknowledge that it is not necessary to read Greek and Hebrew in order to haveaccess to the Word of God.

During Alexander the Great's Reign "More Jews lived outside of Palestine than in it.Communities of Jews could be found in Alexandria (Egypt), Antioch (Syria), AsiaMinor, Greece, and Italy. Very few of them spoke Hebrew or even read it. Their


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language was Greek, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world." Jakob vanBruggen, The Future of the Bible (Nashville, TN, USA: Thomas Nelson Inc.,Publishers, 1978), p. 37

The problem of the lack of Scriptures was solved c. 250 BC with the appearance ofthe Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, a translation known for millennia

as the Septuagint.

Translators to the Reader KJV 1611, p. 13This is the translation of the Seventy interpreters, commonly so called, whichprepared the way for our Saviour among the Gentiles by written preaching, asSaint John Baptist did among the Jews by vocal. ... the Greek tongue was wellknown and made familiar to most inhabitants in Asia, by reason of the conquestthat there the Grecians had made, as also by the colonies, which thither they hadsent. For the same causes also it was well understood in many places of Europe,yea, and of Africa too. Therefore the word of God being set forth in Greek,becometh hereby like a candle set upon a candlestick, which giveth light to allthat are in the house, or like a proclamation sounded forth in the market-place,which most men presently take knowledge of; and therefore that language wasfittest to contain the Scriptures, both for the first preachers of the Gospel toappeal unto for witness, and for the learners also of those times to make searchand trial by.

The history of the translation of the Septuagint is shrouded in myth and legend.According to Aristeas, a 2nd-century BC Hellenistic Jew, Ptolemy Philadelphus setup his court in Alexandria and set about expanding the library there to include asmany works as possible. The president of the library, Demetrius, told the kingabout the Books of the Law of the Jews, and urged the king to have thesetranslated into Greek and added to the library. According to this account,Philadelphus sent for seventy-two Hebrew scholars, six from each tribe of Israel,to undertake the work. He secluded these men on the island of Phares, whereeach worked separately on his own translation, without consultation with oneanother. According to the legend, when they came together to comparetheir work, the seventy-two copies proved to be identical.

This story, while highly unlikely, convinced many that the Septuagint had asupernatural quality which helped gain its acceptance for several hundred years,until the time of Jerome some four hundred years after Christ. Some of the

Jewish Talmudists claimed inspiration for the Septuagint, stating thatGod inspired the hearts of each translator (Megilla 9a, Sof 35)

the Septuagint, commissioned (according to the Talmud Bavli Megilla 9a) by Ptolemyof Alexandria. It is related of King Ptolemy that he brought together 72 eldersand placed them in 72 rooms . . . God then prompted each one, and they allconceived the same idea. Ben Gurion Universitys Moshe Simon-Shoshan, in The

Tasks of the Translators: The Rabbis, the Septuagint, and the Cultural Politics of

Translation (Prooftexts, 27/2007)

At some time during the second and third centuries B.C., the Hebrew Bible (i.e., theOld Testament) was translated into Greek. No one is precisely sure of the historyof the Septuagint, but in the synagogues of Greek-speaking Jews, it attained awide acceptance long before the birth of Christ. One might suppose that the Jewswould have resisted a translation from Hebrew to Greek, either rejecting it asdisrespectful, or looking down on it as an inferior shadow of the real HebrewBible. But surprisingly the new translation was revered as much as the Hebrew.


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The Septuagint was thought of as the Bible itself.Jakob van Bruggen, TheFuture of the Bible pg 37-38

The writers of the New Testament many times used the LXX in their translations.The Septuagint version having been current for about three centuries before the time

when the books of the New Testament were written, it is not surprising that the

Apostles should have used it more often than not in making citations from the OldTestament. They used it as an honestly-made version in pretty general use at thetime when they wrote. They did not on every occasion give an authoritativetranslation of each passage de novo, but they used what was already familiar tothe ears of converted Hellenists, when it was sufficiently accurate to suit thematter in hand. Lancelot C. L. Brenton, "Introduction" to The Septuagint withApocrypha: Greek and English (Peabody, MA, USA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986,1992), p. iv

Translators to the Reader, p. 21The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the original in many places,

neither doth it come near it for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet whichof the Apostles did condemn it? Condemn it? Nay, they used it, ... whichthey would not have done, nor by their example of using it, so grace andcommend it to the Church, if it had been unworthy the appellation andname of the Word of God.

Jewish Encyclopedia states the TanachIt is not known when the other books of the Bible were rendered into Greek. The

grandson of Ben Sira (132 B.C.), in the prologue to his translation of hisgrandfather's work, speaks of the "Law, Prophets, and the rest of the books" asbeing already current in his day. A Greek Chronicles is mentioned by Eupolemus(middle of second century B.C.); Aristeas, the historian, quotes Job; a foot-note tothe Greek Esther seems to show that that book was in circulation before the endof the second century B.C.; and the Septuagint Psalter is quoted in I Macc.vii. 17. It is therefore more than probable that the whole of the Biblewas translated into Greek before the beginning of the Christian era(Swete, "An Introduction to the O. T. in Greek," ch. i.). The large number of Greek-speaking Jewish communities in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, andnorthern Africa must have facilitated its spread in all these regions. Thequotations from the Old Testament found in the New are in the maintaken from the Septuagint; and even where the citation is indirect theinfluence of this version is clearly seen. This will also explain in ameasure the undoubted influence of the Septuagint upon the Syriactranslation called the "Peshita."

Being a composite work, the translation varies in the different books. In thePentateuch, naturally, it adheres most closely to the original; in Job it variestherefrom most widely. In some books (e.g., Daniel) the influence of the JewishMidrash is more apparent than in others. Where it is literal it is "intolerable as aliterary work" (Swete, ib. p. 22). The translation, which shows at times a peculiar

ignorance of Hebrew usage, was evidently made from a codex which differedwidely in places from the text crystallized by the Masorah. Its influence upon theGreek-speaking Jews must have been great. In course of time it came to be thecanonical Greek Bible, as Luther's translation became the German, and theAuthorized Version the English. It is the version used by the Jewish Hellenisticwriters, Demetrius, Eupolemus, Artabanus, Aristeas, Ezekiel, and Aristobulus, aswell as in the Book of Wisdom, the translation of Ben Sira, and the JewishSibyllines. Hornemann, Siegfried, and Ryle have shown that Philo bases hiscitations from the Bible on the Septuagint Version, though he has no


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scruple about modifying them or citing them with much freedom.Josephusfollows this translation closely (Freudenthal, "Hellenistische Studien," ii. 171;Siegfried, in Stade's "Zeitschrift," iii. 32). It became part of the Bible of theChristian Church.

Aquila.

Two things, however, rendered the Septuagint unwelcome in the long run to theJews. Its divergence from the accepted text (afterward called the Masoretic) wastoo evident; and it therefore could not serve as a basis for theological discussionor for homiletic interpretation. This distrust was accentuated by the fact that ithad been adopted as Sacred Scripture by the new faith. A revision in the sense ofthe canonical Jewish text was necessary. This revision was made by a proselyte,Aquila, who lived during the reign of Hadrian (117-138). He is reported to havebeen a pupil of R. Akiba and to have embodied in his revision the principles of thestrictest literal interpretation of the text; certainly his translation is pedantic, andits Greek is uncouth.

Differences in LXX and HebrewJustin Martyr believed that in instances in which the Hebrew and Greek differed, the

Septuagint was the correct text and that the Jews had "altogether taken awaymany Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders" Justin,Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 71

Most Fathers quoted from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew when the twodiffered. Irenaeus relates the Aristeas story, and states that "The Scriptures wereacknowledged as truly divine ... interpreted [translated] by the inspiration ofGod". Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.21.2

Clement of Alexandria said that "it was not alien to the inspiration of God, who gavethe prophecy, also to produce the translation, and make it as it were Greekprophecy" Clement, The Miscellanies, 2.22

It was not until the end of the 4th century AD that the ancient Church finally began torelinquish its attachment to the Septuagint. Other Old Testament translationswere made into Greek, primarily those of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion.

These three men, believed to be Judaizers, produced editions which displayedtheir heretical tendencies. The growing number of translations moved Origen tocompare the editions, producing a polyglot Bible, the Hexapla, comprised ofeditions of the Hebrew, the Septuagint and several of the other Greektranslations, which exhibited the differences between them.

Jerome for many years had translated the Old Testament from the Septuagint intoLatin. In the latter part of the century, however, he recognised the differencesbetween the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew, and began making translations ofthe Hebrew books, primarily for the benefit and use of his friends. "Jerome was

often criticised for using the Hebrew text rather than the Septuagint as the basisfor his translation, but he rightly argued that the Septuagint was not inspired andthat a better translation could be made from the Hebrew, the original language ofthe Old Testament."14 In time his translation, the Vulgate, grew in importanceand became the accepted Latin version. Diana Severance, "The Feisty Jerome:His Bible Legacy Lasted Over 1,000 Years", Glimpses Issue #57[http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/glimpses/fiftyseven.html], 1994

How shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? How shall they


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understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? as it is written, ExceptI know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and hethat speaketh shall be a barbarian to me. The Apostle excepteth no tongue; notHebrew the ancientest, not Greek the most copious, not Latin the finest. ...

Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh theshell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look

into the holy place ..Translators to the Reader, p. 12

TARGUMFrom Jewish Encyclopedia

The Aramaic translation of the Bible. It forms a part of the Jewish traditionalliterature, and in its inception is as early as the time of the SecondTemple. The verb , from which the noun is formed, is used in Ezra iv. 7in reference to a document written in Aramaic, although "Aramit" (A. V. "in theSyrian tongue") is added. In mishnaic phraseology the verb denotes a translationfrom Hebrew into any other language, as into Greek (see Yer. id. 59a, line 10,and Yer. Meg. 71c, line 11; both statements referring to the Greek version ofAquila); and the noun likewise may refer to the translation of the Biblicaltext into any language (see Meg. ii. 1; Shab. 115a). The use of the term"Targum" by itself was restricted to the Aramaic version of the Bible (seeBacher, "Die Terminologie der Tannaiten," pp. 205 et seq.). In like manner, theAramaic passages in Genesis, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezra were briefly called"Targum," while the Hebrew text was called "Mira" (see Yad. iv. 5; Shab. 115b).

As an intepretation of the Hebrew text of the Bible the Targum had itsplace both in the synagogal liturgy and in Biblical instruction, while thereading of the Bible text combined with the Targum in the presence ofthe congregation assembled for public worship was an ancientinstitution which dated from the time of the Second Temple, and wastraced back to Ezra by Rab when he interpreted the word "meforash"(Neh. viii. 8) as referring to the Targum (Meg. 3a; Ned. 37b; comp. Yer. Meg.74d, line 48, Gen. R. xxxvi., end). The rules for reading the Targum areformulated in the Halakah (see Meg. iii. and the Talmud ad loc.; Tosef., Meg. iv.).The Targum was to be read after every verse of the parashiyyot of thePentateuch, and after every third verse of the lesson from the Prophets.Excepting the Scroll of Esther, which might be read by two persons in turn, onlyone person might read the Targum, as the Pentateuch or prophetic section alsowas read by a single person. Even a minor might read the Targum, although itwas not fitting for him to do so when an adult had read the text. Certain portionsof the Bible, although read, were not translated (as Gen. xxxv. 22), while otherswere neither read nor translated (as Num. vi. 24-26; II Sam. xi.-xiii.). The readerwas forbidden to prompt the translator, lest any one should say that the Targumwas included in the text of the Bible (Ulla in Meg. 32a). With regard to thetranslation of Biblical passages, Judah ben Ilai, the pupil of Akiba, declared thatwhosoever rendered a verse of the Bible in its original form was a liar, while hewho made additions was a blasphemer (Tosef., Meg., end; id. 49a; comp. the

geonic responsum in Harkavy, "Responsen der Geonim," pp. 124 et seq., and thequotation from Midr. ha-Gadol in "J. Q. R." vi. 425). A passage in Ab. R. N.(Recension B, xii. [ed. Schechter, p. 24]) referring to R. Akiba's early training saysthat he studied the Bible and the Targum; but allusions to the Targum as aspecial subject of study in connection with the Bible are excessively rare. It mustbe assumed, however, that the Targum was an integral part of the Biblical courseof study designated as "Mira"; and Judah b. Ilai declared that only he who couldread and translate the Bible might be regarded as a "aryana," or one thoroughlyversed in the Bible (id. 49a). In Sifre, Deut. 161 the Targum is mentioned as


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a branch of study intermediate between the Mira and the Mishnah.

Disuse.

The story is told (Yer. Ber. 9c) that Jose b. Abin, an amora of the second half of thefourth century, reprehended those who read a Targum to Lev. xxii. 28 which laid

a biased emphasis on the view that the command contained in that verse wasbased on God's mercy (this same paraphrase is still found in the PalestinianTargum); see also the statements on the erroneous translation of Ex. xii. 8, Lev.vi. 7, and Deut. xxvi. 4 in Yer. Bik. 65d; as well as Yer. Kil. viii., end, on Deut. xiv.5; and Meg. iii. 10 on Lev. xviii. 21. In addition to the anecdotes mentioned above,there are earlier indications that the Targum was committed to writing, althoughfor private reading only. Thus, the Mishnah states (Yad. iv. 5) that portions of thetext of the Bible were "written as a Targum," these doubtless being Biblicalpassages in an Aramaic translation; and a tannaitic tradition (Shab. 115a; Tosef.,Shab. xiv.; Yer. Shab. 15c; Massek. Soferim v. 15) refers to an Aramaic translationof the Book of Job which existed in written form at the time of Gamaliel I., andwhich, after being withdrawn from use, reappeared in the lifetime of his grandsonGamaliel II. The Pentateuchal Targum, which was made the official Targum of theBabylonian schools, was at all events committed to writing and redacted as earlyas the third century, since its Masorah dates from the first half of that century.

Two Palestinian amoraim of the same century urged the individual members ofthe congregation to read the Hebrew text of the weekly parashah twice in privateand the Targum once, exactly as was done in public worship: Joshua ben Levirecommended this practise to his sons (Ber. 8b), while Ammi, a pupil of Johanan,made it a rule binding on every one (ib. 8a). These two dicta were especiallyinstrumental in authorizing the custom of reciting the Targum; and it wasconsidered a religious duty even in later centuries, when Aramaic, the languageof the Targum, was no longer the vernacular of the Jews. Owing to theobsolescence of the dialect, however, the strict observance of the custom ceasedin the days of the first geonim. About the middle of the ninth century the gaonNaronai ben Hilai reproached those who declared that they could dispense withthe "Targum of the scholars" because the translation in their mother tongue(Arabic) was sufficient for them (see Mller, "Einleitung in die Responsen derGeonen," p. 106).

At the end of the ninth or in the beginning of the tenth century Judah ibn uraish senta letter to the community of Fez, in which he reproved the members forneglecting the Targum, saying that he was surprised to hear that some of themdid not read the Targum to the Pentateuch and the Prophets, although thecustom of such a perusal had always been observed in Babylonia, Egypt, Africa,and Spain, and had never been abrogated. Hai Gaon (d. 1038) was likewise muchastonished to hear that the reading of the Targum had been entirely abandonedin Spain, a fact which he had not known before (Mller, l.c. p. 211); and Samuelha-Nagid (d. 1056) also sharply criticized the scholars who openly advocated theomission of the reading of it, although according to him the Targum was thus

neglected only in the northern provinces of that country (see the responsum inBerliner, "Onelos," ii. 169). As a matter of fact, however, the custom did entirelycease in Spain; and only in southern Arabia has it been observed until the presenttime (see Jacob Saphir, "Eben Sappir," i. 53b; Berliner, l.c. p. 172), although the

Targum to the hafarot, together with introductions and poems in Aramaic, longcontinued to be read in some rituals (see Zunz, "G. V." pp. 410, 412; idem,"Literaturgesch." pp. 21 et seq. ; idem, "Ritus," pp. 53, 60 et seq., 81; Bacher, in"Monatsschrift," xxii. 220-223). In the synagogues of Bokhara the Persian Jewsread the Targum, together with the Persian paraphrase of it, to the hafarah for


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the last day of Passover (Isa. x. 32-xii.; see "Zeit. fr Hebr. Bibl." iv. 181).

The Peshitta.

The Syriac translation of the Old Testament was undoubtedly made directly

from the Hebrew; though at Antioch, during the third century of the present eraand at later periods, it was revised so as to make it conform to the Septuagint.The history of its origin is obscure; but it was probably made in Mesopotamiaduring the first century. As with most of the older translations, various handshave been at work here. Perles ("Meletemata Peschittoniana," Breslau, 1859),Prager ("De Veteris, Testamenti Versione Peschitto," Gttingen, 1875), andBacher (see Aramaic Language) believe it is the work of Jews: but thishas not yet been proved; and the view of Dathe, Eichhorn, Hitzig,Nldeke, and Renan, that it owes its origin to Judo-Christians, seemsmore probable. Perles, however, has shown that there are unmistakableevidences in the Peshita of the influence of the Targum, especially inGenesis. This has been confirmed for Ezekiel by Cornill ("Das Buch Ezekiel," p.154), for Chronicles by S. Frnkel (in "Jahrb. fr Protestantische Theologie," 1879),and for Job by Stenig ("De Syriaca Libri Jobi Interp." Helsingfors, 1887), Mandl("Peschitto zu Hiob," Leipsic, 1892), and Hauman (in Stade's "Zeitschrift," xix.29).

The closest agreement between the two versions is found in the Book ofProverbs; but it is now generally held that in this case the Targumreflects the Peshita and not vice versa, as Maybaum contends (Merx,"Archiv," vol. ii.). This view is upheld by a consideration of the general characterof the translation (Pinkuss, in Stade's "Zeitschrift," xiv. 101; see also Duval,"Littrature Syriaque," 1899, pp. 31 et seq.).

LATIN"There were also within a few hundred years after CHRIST, translations many into the

Latin tongue: for this tongue also was very fit to convey the Law and the Gospelby, because in those times very many Countreys of the West, yea of the South,East and North, spake or understood Latin, being made Provinces of the Romans.But now the Latin Translations were too many to be all good, for they wereinfinite. Again they were not out of the Hebrew fountain (we swpeak ofthe Latin Translations of the Old Testament) but out of the Greekstream, therefore the Greek being not altogether clear, the Latinderived from it must needs be muddy."

Jerome translated out of the orginal Hebrew.

ENGLISH"We affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set

forth by men of our profession, ... containeth the Word of God, nay, is the Word ofGod. As the King's Speech which he uttered in Parliament, being translated intoFrench, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King's Speech, though it be not

interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly forphrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere. ... No cause therefore why theWord translated should be denied to be the Word"

The Tanakh

Story of Our English Bible, W Scott


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"It is well known that among the Jews it was the profession of the Masorites, or doctors

of tradition, to transcribe the scriptures. We know to what extent these indefatigable

scholars carried their respect for the letter; and when we read the rules under whichtheir labours were carried on, we understand the use that the providence of God (who

had 'confided his oracles to the Jews') made of their superstition. They reckoned the

number of verses, words, and letters in each book. They tell us, for instance, that theletter A occurs forty-two thousand three hundred and seventy-seven times in the Bible;

the letter B thirty-eight thousand two hundred and eighteen times; and so on to the end.

They were scrupulous of changing the position even of a letter, though evidentlymisplaced, but limited themselves to noting in the margin, supposing some mystery was

involved. They tell us which is the middle letter of the Pentateuch, as well as of each of

the books of which it is composed.

They never allowed themselves to correct their manuscript; and if any mistake escaped

them, they rejected the papyrus or the skin which they had blemished, and

recommenced upon a fresh one; for they were equally interdicted from even correcting

one of their own errors, and from retaining for their sacred volume a single parchment

or skin in which an error had been made...

"These facts, we repeat it, together with the astonishingpreservation of the Hebrew text(1200 years more ancient than that of the Septuagint), plainly tell us how the intervention

of the mighty hand of God was needed in the destinies of the sacred book."(Ref:A1)

God Wrote Only One Bible, Jasper James Ray

"In making copies of the original manuscripts, the Jewish scribes exercised the greatest

possible care. When they wrote the name of God in any form they were to reverently wipetheir pen, and wash their whole body before writing"Jehovah " lest that holy name

should be tainted even in writing. The new copy was examined and carefully checked

with the original almost immediately, and it is said thatif only one incorrect letter wasdiscovered the whole copy was rejected.Each new copy had to be made from an

approved manuscript, written with a special kind of ink, upon skins made from a 'clean'

animal. The writer had to pronounce aloud each word before writing it. In no case wasthe written word to be written from memory." (Ref: D1)

Manuscripts produced by the early Christians fall into three categories:

Copies of masters or of earlier copies.

Versions : These are translations of Scripture made directly from the original

languages. For example from Hebrew or Greek into Syriac, Latin, German,English or French. A translation from Latin into English, or from English into

Chinese, cannot strictly be called a 'version.' It is simply a translation of a

translation: whereas a 'version' must be a translation from the original. Bear thisimportant fact in mind.

Church Fathers: "Our third group is the early church fathers. These are the men

who led the Christians in the first few centuries after the New Testament was


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completed. We have record of their early sermons, books and commentaries. They

will be able to provide us with much information on disputed passages. Many

may have seen the original autographs." (Ref:B1)

As regards the format of ancient manuscripts, they are often described as:

Uncial orMajuscules: written in capital letters with no spaces: e.g.NOMANHATHSEENGD.

Cursives or Miniscules: written in small letters and later with spaces: e.g. No-

man-hath-seen-gd.

THE CHURCH FATHERS

Before the art of printing was known (before AD 1450) the church fathers of the early

Christian era wrote - by hand - their letters, sermon notes, commentaries and books.Their manuscripts contain many quotations from the original autographs or the earliestcopies. Some fathers had actually seen the New Testament autographs or very early

copies; and had personally hand-copied large portions of Scripture. The writings of theseearly elders help verify the original text and form a valuable source of information as to

what the first apostles wrote. Scripture tells us that Satan began his attack on the New

Testament Scriptures very early, even before the first apostles died. Listen to Paul'stestimony concerning this matter about corrupting of the Word of God; and of some who

even wrote letters as though they were composed by the apostle himself.

Paul writes:

2 Cor 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity,

but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

2 Thessalonians 2:2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit,

nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

During the latter part of his life the apostle John strongly defended the Word of God.Being an eye-witness of many events involving the ministry ofYeshua the Messiah(Jesus Christ), John was well qualified to refute written or spoken error and to put the

record straight. The enemies of truth had this reliable eye-witness banished to the island

of Patmos.

John writes:

Revelation 1:9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and inthe kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for theword of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

There were many church fathers who hand-copied the whole or portions of Scripture. Letme mention a few who greatly influenced the church, particularly in Europe.


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W. Scott In his bookStory of Our English Bible

"Crysostom,the most eloquent of the fathers, spoke of them (the Scriptures) as TheDivine Books,Polycarp,who lived at a still earlier date, having been personally

instructed by the Apostle John, spoke of the Bible as The Sacred Scriptures, as also the

Oracles of the Lord. Clementof Rome, whom Paul styles his 'fellow-labourer'(Phil.1V.3), termed the Scriptures The True Sayings of the Holy Spirit.Irenaeus, of the

second century, makes about 1200 citations or references from the New Testament;

Tertullian, also of the second century refers to or quotes from the New Testament about2500 times; Clementof Alexandria, another of the second century Fathers, cites from or

refers to the New Testament 800 times; andPolycarp, already referred to, in a brief

epistle addressed to the Philippians, quotes from the New Testament about 50 times."

(Ref: A6)

Josh McDowell writes on pages 16-17 of his bookAnswers to Tough Questions.

"...Translation of a document into another language was rare in the ancient world, so

this is an added plus for the New Testament. The number of copies of the versions is inexcess of18,000, with possibly as many as 25,000. This is further evidence that helps usestablish the New Testament text. Even if we did not possess the 5,500 Greek manuscripts

or the 18,000 copies of the versions, the text of the New Testament could still be

reproduced within 250 years from its composition. How? By the writing of the earlyChristians.In commentaries, letters, etc., these ancient writers quote biblical text, thus

giving us another witness to the text of the New Testament.

John Burgon has catalogued more than 86,000 citations of the New Testament in thewritings of the early church fathers who lived before A.D.325. Thus we observe that

there is so much more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament text than any

other comparable writings in the ancient world."(Ref: M1)

In his bookFinal Authority William P Grady quotes John Burgon on pages 33-34

concerning the reliability of a version over any single manuscript.

"I suppose it may be laid down that an ancient Version outweighs any single Codex,

ancient or modern, which can be named: the reason being, that it is scarcely crediblethat a Version - thePeshitto, for example, an Egyptian or the Gothic - can have been

executed from a single exemplar (copy).

A second reason for the value of ancient versions is in their ability to exhibit a text which

antedates the oldest Greek manuscripts.Readings which are challenged in the

Authorized Version for their non-existence in the 'two most ancient authorities'

(Codex Sinaiticus or A; and Codex Vaticanus, or B, fourth century) are frequentlydiscovered in the Syrian and Latin translations of the second century."

Septuagint LXX

Aristeas 31-32


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Demetrius in his Memorial to the king as the king of Egypt Ptolemy Philadelphus to send

to the High Priest Eleazar (260 BC) in Jerusalem to choose 6 men from each tribe to

translate the Torah in order for the king of Egypt to complete his library. Demetriusspeaks of the Torah as being flawless and of divine origin

Aristeas 38 King Ptolemy requests the Torah be translated from Hebrew to the Greektongue

Aristeas 47-50 the 72 Translators are named

Other languages

Which Bible? David O Fuller writes this of the Peshitto:

"It was at Antioch, capital of Syria, that the believers were first called Christians. And astime rolled on, the Syrian-speaking Christians could be numbered by the thousands. It is

generally admitted that the Bible was translated from the original languages into Syrian

about150 AD. This version is known as thePeshitto (the correct or simple). This Bibleeven today generally follows the Received Text. One authority tells us this - 'ThePeshittoin our days is found in use amongst the Nestorians, who have always kept it, by the

Monophysites on the plains of Syria, the Christians of St.Thomas in Malabar, and by the

Maronites on the mountain terraces of Lebanon.' "(Ref: F8)

The Waldenses, Gauls, Celts, Albegenses and other groups throughout Europe used the

Old Latin Vulgate and rejected Jerome's Vulgate. In his bookAn Understandable

History of the Bible Rev. Samuel Gipp Th.D confirms this fact. He writes:

"The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the Christians in the churches of the Waldenses,Gauls, Celts, Albegenses and other fundamental groups throughout Europe. This Latin

version became so used and beloved by orthodox Christians and was in such commonuse by the common people that it assumed the term 'Vulgate'as a name. Vulgate comes

from 'vulgar' which is the Latin word for 'common'It was so esteemed for its

faithfulness to the deity of Christ and its accurate reproductions of the originals, that

these early Christians let Jerome's Roman Catholic translation 'sit on the shelf.'

Jerome's translation was not used by the true Biblical Christians for almost a millenniumafter it was translated from corrupted manuscripts by Jerome in 380 A.D. Even then it

only came into usage due to the death of Latin as a common language, and the violent,

wicked persecutions waged against true believers by Pope Gregory IX during his reignfrom 1227 to 1242 A.D." (Ref:B2)

The Italic Bible (AD157)"Italy, France and Great Britain were once provinces of the old Roman Empire. Latin

was then the language of the common people. So the first translations of the Bible in

these countries were made from the Greek Vulgate into Latin. One of the first of these

Latin Bibles was for the Waldenses in northern Italy, translated not later than 157 ADand was known as theItalic Version. The renowned scholar Beza states that the Italic

Church dates from 120 AD. Allix, an outstanding scholar, testifies that enemies had

corrupted many manuscripts, while the Italic Church handed them down in their


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apostolic purity."(Ref:D2)

The Waldensian (AD 120 & onwards)"The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of

the Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years before the Reformation, they possessed a Bible in

manuscript in their native tongue. They had the truth unadulterated, and this renderedthem the special objects of hatred and persecution Here for a thousand years,

witnesses for the truth maintained the ancient faithIn a most wonderful manner it (the

Word of Truth) waspreserved uncorrupted through all the ages of darkness."(Ref:F7)

The Gallic Bible (Southern France) (AD177)

The Gothic Bible (AD 330-350)

The Old Syriac Bible (AD 400)

The Armenian Bible (AD 400)There are 1244 copies of this version still in existence.

The Palestinian Syriac (AD 450)

The French Bible of Oliveton (AD 1535)

The Czech Bible (AD 1602)

The Italian Bible of Diodati (AD 1606)The Greek Orthodox Bible: Used from Apostolic times to the present day by the GreekOrthodox Church.

All the above mentioned Bibles and the vast majority (about 99%) of the 5200 extant

New Testament MSS are in agreement with the text now known as Textus Receptus; the

Text which underlies the Authorized King James Bible.

The Brit ChadashahNew Testament TextComes from 3 "families" of codexes

The Textus Receptus which contains 1900+ manuscripts containing the Gothic, Peshitta, CodexW (Matthew) 4th or 5th Cent. AD, Codex A (Gospels) 5th Century ADThe VAST majority of EXTANT MSS and is quoted from by the church fathers

The Western family of manuscripts contains the old Latin 2nd century, Latin Vulgate 4th century,Codex D 5th or 6th century, Codex D2 6th century, Codex E2 7th century-Douay version 1582

The Alexandrian family of manuscripts Papyrus 75 c. 200 AD, Papyrus 60 c. 200 AD (mixed

text), Codex B 4th century, Codex Aleph 4th century- RSV etc...

Textus Receptus-Majority Text

the Traditional Received Text (Textus Receptus), also called the Byzantine Text or

the Majority Textbecause it is based on the vast majority of manuscripts still in

existence. These extant manuscripts (MSS) were brought together by various editors such


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asLucian (AD 250-312), Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza and the Elzevir brothers to form

the text known as Textus Receptus, the name given to the Majority Text in the 17th

century. The most notable editor of all was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) one of thegreatest scholars the world has ever known. When the early Protestant Reformers of the

16th and 17th centuries decided to translate the Scriptures directly from Greek into the

languages of Europe, they selected Textus Receptus as their foundation Greekdocument. It is vitally important to understand why they did so.

Wilkinson writes in his bookTruth Triumphant:

"The Protestant denominations are built upon that manuscript of the Greek New

Testament sometimes calledTextus Receptus, or theReceived Text. It is that Greek NewTestament from which the writings of the apostles in Greek have been translated into

English, German, Dutch and other languages. During the dark ages the Received Text

was practically unknown outside the Greek Church. It was restored to Christendom by

the labours of that great scholarErasmus. It is altogether too little known that the real

editor of the Received Text was Lucian.None of Lucian's enemies fails to credit him

with this work. Neither Lucian nor Erasmus, but rather the apostles, wrote the GreekNew Testament. However, Lucian's day was an age of apostasy when a flood ofdepravations was systematically attempting to devastate both the Bible manuscripts and

Bible theology. Origen, of the Alexandrian college, made his editions and commentaries

of the Bible a secure retreat for all errors, and deformed them with philosophicalspeculations introducing casuistry and lying.Lucian's unrivalled success in verifying,

safeguarding, and transmitting those divine writings left a heritage for which all

generations should be thankful."(Ref: J2)

Fuller writes :

"First of all, the Textus Receptus was the Bible of early Eastern Christianity. Later itwas adopted as the official text of the Greek Catholic Church. There were local reasons

which contributed to this result. But, probably, far greater reasons will be found in the

fact that the Received Text had authority enough to become, either in itself or by itstranslation, the Bible of the greatSyrian Church; of the Waldensian Church of northern

Italy; of the Gallic Church in southern France; and of the Celtic Church in Scotland

and Ireland; as well as the official Bible of the Greek Catholic Church.All these churches, some earlier, some later, were in opposition to the Church of Rome

and at a time when the Received Text and these Bibles of the Constantine type were

rivals. They, as represented in their descendants, are rivals to this day. The Church of

Rome built on the Eusebio-Origen type of Bible; these others built on the Received

Text. Therefore, because they themselves believed that the Received Text was the true

apostolic Bible, and further, because the Church of Rome arrogated to itself the power to

choose a Bible which bore the marks of systematic depravation, we have the testimony ofthese five churches to the authenticity and the apostolicity of the Received Text." (Ref:

F1)

Why did the early churches of the 2nd and 3rd centuries and all the Protestant

Reformers of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries choose Textus Receptus in preference

to the Minority Text? The answer is because:


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Textus Receptus is based on the vast majority (90%) of the 5000+ Greek

manuscripts in existence. That is why it is also called the Majority Text.

Textus Receptus is not mutilated with deletions, additions and amendments, as is

the Minority Text.

Textus Receptus agrees with the earliest versions of the Bible: Peshitta (AD150)

Old Latin Vulgate (AD157), the Italic Bible (AD157) etc. These Bibles were

produced some 200 years before the minority Egyptian codices favoured by theRoman Church. Remember this vital point.

Textus Receptus agrees with the vast majority of the 86,000+ citations fromscripture by the early church fathers.

Textus Receptus is untainted with Egyptian philosophy and unbelief.

Textus Receptus strongly upholds the fundamental doctrines of the Christian

faith: the creation account in Genesis, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth,his miracles, his bodily resurrection and literal return.

Textus Receptus was - and still is - the enemy of the Roman Church. This is animportant fact to bear in mind.

9. THE MINORITY TEXTS

There are other extant Greek texts which are referred to as the 'Minority Texts' simply

because they represent only about 5% of existing manuscripts. Another 5% are Neutral

Texts: sometimes agreeing with the majority and at others with the minority. The'Minority Texts' are also known as the Alexandrian Textsbecause they were produced

in Alexandria in Egypt. The Minority Texts were rejected by the early Christians andalso by all the Protestant Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Reformers, whowere well aware of the existence of the Minority Texts, considered them unfit for

translation purposes. These are very important points to bear in mind. Why did the earlyChristians and the Protestant Reformers reject the Minority Texts?

The answer is:

The Minority Texts were the work of unbelieving Egyptian scribes who did notaccept the Bible as the Word of God orJESUS as the SON of GOD!

The Minority Texts abound with alterations, often a single manuscript being

amended by several different scribes over a period of many years: something theAaronic priests and Masorites would never have tolerated when making copies of

the Scriptures.

The Minority Texts omit approximately 200 verses from the Scriptures. This is

equivalent to 1st and 2nd Peter.

The Minority Texts contradict themselves in hundreds of places.


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The Minority Texts are doctrinally weak and often dangerously incorrect.

John William Burgon

John Burgon was undoubtedly one of the greatest defenders of the Greek text of the NewTestament. He exposed the hundreds of amendments, deletions and additions in the

Minority Text and defended the reliability ofTextus Receptus till the day of his death.Unlike most Bible students, Burgon was a Greek scholar of the highest rank who spent

much of his life browsing through the museums and libraries of Europe examining the

ancient Greek manuscripts. He had first hand experience examining the Vatican textswhilst he ministered to a congregation in Rome. His findings are of utmost value in these

days of wilful, spiritual ignorance and sin. I will quote a few extracts about this

magnificent warrior from David O Fuller's bookWhich Bible?

"John William Burgon was born August 21, 1813. He matriculated at Oxford in 1841,

taking several high honours there, and his B.A. 1845. He took his M.A. there in 1848the thing aboutBurgon, however, which lifts him out of the nineteenth century English

setting and endears him to the hearts of earnest Christians of other lands and other ages

is his steadfast defence of the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God. He strove with all

his power to arrest the modernistic currents which during his lifetime had begun to flowwithin the Church of England, continuing his efforts with unabated zeal up to the very

day of his death. With this purpose in mind he laboured mightily in the field of New

Testament textual criticism.

In 1860, while temporarychaplain of the English congregation at Rome, he made a

personal examination of Codex B (Vaticanus), and in 1862 he inspected the treasures

of St. Catherine's Convent on Mt. Sinai. Later he made several tours of European

libraries, examining and collating New Testament manuscripts wherever he wentOf

all the critics of the nineteenth centuryBurgon alone was consistently Christian in hisvindication of the Divine inspiration andprovidential preservation of the text of Holy

Scripture

Burgon regarded the good state of preservation of B (Codex Vaticanus) and ALEPH

(Codex Sinaiticus) in spite of their exceptional age as proof not of their goodness but oftheir badness.If they had been good manuscripts, they would have been read to pieceslong ago. We suspect that these two manuscripts are indebted for their preservation,

solely to their ascertained evil character; which has occasioned that the one eventuallyfound its way, four centuries ago, to a forgotten shelf in the Vatican Library; while the

other, after exercising the ingenuity of several generations of critical Correctors,

eventually (viz. in A.D.1844) got deposited in the wastepaper basket of the Convent at thefoot of Mount Sinai.

Had B (Vaticanus) and ALEPH (Sinaiticus) been copies of average purity, they must long

since have shared the inevitable fate of books which are freely used and highly prized;namely, they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared from sight. Thus thefact that B and ALEPH are so old is a point against them, not something in their

favour. It shows that the Church rejected them and did not read them. Otherwise they


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would have worn out and disappeared through much reading.

For an orthodox ChristianBurgon's view is the only reasonable one. If we believe that

God gave the Church guidance in regard to the New Testament books, then surely it islogical to believe that God gave the church similar guidance in regard to the text which

these books contained

Who but those with Roman Catholic sympathies could ever be pleased with the notion

that God preserved the true New Testament text in secret for almost one thousand

years and then finally handed it over to the Roman pontiff for safekeeping? Surelyevery orthodox Protestant will prefer to think with Burgon that God preserved the true

text of the Greek New Testament in the usage of the Greek-speaking Church down

through the centuries and then delivered it up intact to the Protestant reformers."

(Ref:F11)

CODEX SINAITICUS (ALEPH)

This codex was produced in the 4th century. In his bookLet's Weigh the Evidence,Barry Burton writes ofCodex Sinaiticus:

"The Sinaiticus is a manuscript that was found in 1844 in a trash pile in St.Catherine'sMonastery near Mt. Sinai, by a man named Mr Tischendorf. It contains nearly all of the

New Testament plus it adds the 'Shepherd of Hermes' and the 'Epistle of Barnabas' to

the New Testament. TheSinaiticus isextremely unreliable, proven by examining themanuscript itself. John Burgon spent years examining every available manuscript of the

New Testament. He writes aboutSinaiticus...

'On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness. Letters,

words or even whole sentences are frequently written twice over, or begun andimmediately cancelled; while that gross blunder, whereby a clause is omitted because it

happens to end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no less than 115 times

in the New Testament.THAT'S NOT ALL!On nearly every page of the manuscript there are corrections and revisions, done by 10

different people. Some of these corrections were made about the same time that it wascopied, but most of them were made in the 6th and 7th century. Phillip Mauro, a

brilliant lawyer who was admitted to the bar of the US Supreme Court in April 1892,

wrote a book called "Which Version " in the early 1900s. He writes concerning the

Sinaiticus 'From these facts, therefore, we declare: first that the impurity of the CodexSinaiticus, in every part of it, was fully recognized by those who were best acquainted

with it, and that from the very beginning until the time when it was finally cast aside as

worthless for any practical purpose.' "(Ref:C1)

In his excellent bookAn Understandable History Of The Bible, Rev. Samuel Gipp

writes of

Codex Sinaiticus

"One of the MSS is calledSinaiticus and is represented by the first letter of the Hebrew

alphabet,Aleph. This MS from all outward appearances looks very beautiful. It is written

in book form (codex) on vellum. It contains 147 1/2 leaves. The pages are 15" by 13 1/2"


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with four columns of 48 lines per page. It contains many spurious books such as the

'Shepherd of Hermes,'the 'Epistle of Barnabas'and even theDidache.

The great Greek scholar, Dr Scrivener, points this out in his historic workA Full

Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus. He speaks of correctional alterations made to the MS:

'The Codex is covered with such alterations... brought in by at least ten different

revisers, some of them systematically spread over every page, others occasional orlimited to separated portions of the MS, many of these being contemporaneous with the

first writer, but the greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh century.' "(Ref:B5)

CODEX VATICANUS (B)

The second major manuscript of the Minority Textis known as Codex Vaticanus, often

referred to as 'B'. This codex was also produced in the 4th century. It was found over a

thousand years later in 1481 in the Vatican library in Rome, where it is currently held.It is written on expensive vellum, a fine parchment originally from the skin of calf or

antelope. Some authorities claim that it was one of a batch of 50 Bibles ordered from

Egypt by the Roman Emperor Constantine: hence its beautiful appearance and theexpensive skins which were used for its pages. But alas! this manuscript, like its corrupt

Egyptian partnerSinaiticus (Aleph) is also riddled with omissions, insertions and

amendments.

OfCodex Vaticanus Samuel Gipp writes on

page 72:"This codex omits many portions of Scripture vital to Christian doctrine.

Vaticanus omits Genesis 1.1 through Genesis 46:28; Psalms 106 through 138; Matthew

16:2,3; Romans 16:24; the Pauline Pastoral Epistles; Revelation; and everything in

Hebrews after 9:14.It seems suspicious indeed that a MS possessed by the Roman Catholic church omits the

portion of the book of Hebrews which exposes the 'mass' as totally useless (Please read

Hebrews 10:10-12). The 'mass' in conjunction with the false doctrine of purgatory gohand-in-hand to form a perpetual money making machine for Rome. Without one or the

other, the Roman Catholic Church would go broke! It also omits portions of the

Scripture telling of the creation (Genesis), the prophetic details of the crucifixion (Psalm22), and, of course, the portion which prophesies of the destruction of Babylon (Rome),

the great whore of Revelation chapter 17.

Vaticanus, though intact physically, is found to be in poor literary quality. Dr Martindeclares, 'B' exhibits numerous places where the scribe has written the same word or

phrase twice in succession. Dr J Smythe states, 'From one end to the other, the whole

manuscript has been travelled over by the pen of some scribe of about the tenth

century.'If Vaticanus was considered a trustworthy text originally, the mass of

corrections and scribal changes obviously render its testimony highly suspicious andquestionable."

Rev. Gipp continues on page 73:

"The corrupt and unreliable nature of these two MSS (Sinaiticus andVaticanus) is bestsummed up by one who has thoroughly examined them, John W Burgon: 'The impurity of

the text exhibited by these codices is not a question of opinion but fact...In the Gospels

alone, Codex B(Vatican) leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 1,491 times. It


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bears traces of careless transcriptions on every page

If we are to be thorough and discriminatory in our evaluation of the true New

Testament text, then we must not -- we cannot -- overlook these facts.'How did theseMSS come into being? How did it happen that they should be beautiful to the eye, yet

within contain such vile and devastating corruption? It seems that these uncial MSS

along with the papyrus MSS included in this category all resulted from a revision of thetrue, or Universal Text. This revision was enacted in Egypt by Egyptian scribes! "

(Ref:B6)

Rev. Gipp

"So we see that once a pure copy of the Universal Text (Textus Receptus) had beencarried down into Egypt, it was recopied. During the process of this recopying, it was

revised by men who did not revere it as truly the Word of God. This text was examined

by the critical eye of Greek philosophy and Egyptian morals. These men saw nothing

wrong with putting the Book in subjection to their opinion instead of their opinion beingin subjection to the book. This process produced a text which was local to the

educational centre of Alexandria, Egypt. This text went no further than southern Italywhere the Roman Catholic Church found its unstable character perfect for overthrowingthe true Word of God which was being used universally by the true Christians."(Ref:B7)

The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible has this to say about Codex Vaticanus onpage 624 under the article Versions.

" It should be noted, however, that there is no prominent Biblical MS. in which there

occur such gross cases of misspelling, faulty grammar, and omission, as in B."

(Ref:H2)

Barry Burton comments further:

"For one thingVaticanus and Sinaiticus disagree with each other over 3000 times in

the gospels alone Facts about the Vaticanus."It was written on fine vellum (tanned animal skins) and remains in excellent condition.

It was found in the Vatican Library in 1481 AD. In spite of being in excellent condition,

it omits Genesis 1:1-Gen.46:28, Psalm 106-138, Matt.16:2-3, the Pauline pastoralEpistles, Hebrews 9:14-13:25, and all of Revelation. These parts were probably left out

on purpose."

"Besides all that - in the gospels alone it leaves out 237 words, 452 clauses and 748

whole sentences, which hundreds of later copies agree together as having the samewords in the same places, the same clauses in the same places and the same sentences in

the same places... The Vaticanus was available to the translators of the King JamesBible, but they did not use it because they knew it is unreliable."(Ref:C2)

Dean Burgon comments on Codices Sinaiticus (Aleph) and Vaticanus (/B).

"Compromise of any sort between the two conflicting parties, is impossible; for they

simply contradict one another. Codd.B and Aleph are either amongst the purist of

manuscripts,- or else they are among the very foulest. The Text of Drs.Westcott and

Hort is either the very best which has ever appeared,- or else it is the very worst; the


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nearest to the sacred Autographs,- or furthest from them." "There is no room for

both opinions; and there cannot exist any middle view." (Ref: P3)

Oldest and Best

Bible students are often told that Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are older and better

than other manuscripts: the implication being that they must, therefore, be more

accurate. But this conclusion is wrong. We have already seen how Sinaiticus and

Vaticanus are corrupt beyond measure. To be sure they are 'better' in appearance, but

certainly not in their content. Remember they are written on expensive vellum; so theyought to be in good shape. They are older, but older than what? They are older than other

Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. But they are not older than the earliest

versions of the Bible: the Peshitta, Italic, Waldensian and the Old Latin Vulgate: versions

which agree with the Majority text. These ancient versions are some 200 years older

than A and B. Yes A and B are older than other Greek mss, but for anyone to suggest

that they are more accurate is absurd. It is like someone saying 'You will find the

greatest TRUTH being preached in the oldest and most beautiful cathedrals of theworld,'or, 'the most beautiful women have the best characters.'

In his masterful bookRevision Revised Dean Burgon wrote, over a hundred years ago,concerning the ages of Codices Vatican (B) and Sinai (Aleph):

"Lastly, - We suspect that these two Manuscripts are indebted for their preservation,solely to their ascertainedevil character, which has occasioned that the one eventually

found its way, four centuries ago, to a forgotten shelf in the Vatican library; while the

other, after exercising the ingenuity of several generations of critical Correctors,

eventually (viz. in A.D. 1844) got deposited in the waste-paper basketof the Convent atthe foot of mount Sinai. Had B and Aleph been copies of average purity, they must long

since have shared the inevitable fate of books which are freely used and highly prized;

namely, they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared from sight."(Ref: P1)

The Invention of Printing

The invention of the printing press in the 15 th century was a giant step forward in the

circulation of the Bible. The printing press reduced the time taken to produce a Bible

from about nine or ten months to a few hours: and once proof reading had been done,

every copy was as good as the master. Printing also greatly reduced the price of a Bible.

"In the reign of Edward 1 of England, about 1272, the price of a complete (hand-written)

Bible was from 30 to 37, and occupied a careful scribe in his scriptorium about tenmonths, while the days wage of a working man only averaged 1.5 pennies. When it is

borne in mind that it only cost25 to build two arches of London Bridge in 1240, whilethe price of a complete Latin Bible was considerably more, it will readily be allowed thatonly the rich and scholarly had access to the Word of God."(Ref: A7)

"While Martin Luther called the art of printing 'the last and best gift of providence'theCatholic Rowland Phillips, in a sermon preached at St.Paul's Cross, London in the year

1535, frightfully remarked:

'We must root out printing


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or printing will root us out.' "

(Ref:E3)

The Protestant Reformers

When the early Protestant Reformers of Europe (German, Dutch, French and English

etc.) began to translate the Old and New Testaments into their native languages, they firsthad to decide which Hebrew and Greek Text they were going to use.

Hebrew

For the Old Testament, the King James translators used the traditional Ben ChayyimMasoretic Text. This text was produced under the strict Masoretic rules mentioned

earlier. Besides it was the only trustworthy Hebrew Text available. Do not the Scriptureteach in:

Romans 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?2: Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

Greek

For the New Testament, the Protestant translators of the King James Bible had a choice

between two vastly different Greek texts:

The Received (Majority) Text favoured bythe early churches of Christendom (TheGreek, Waldensian, Albegensian, Gauls and Celtic churches).

Or the Minority Text favoured by the Roman Catholic Church.

Wisely they settled for the Received (Majority) Text.No doubt the Spirit of God wasguiding their minds and providentially preserving His Word. It is a grave error to thinkthat the early Protestant Reformers of the 16 th and 17th centuries were unaware of the

Minority Texts produced in the 4th century. They were well aware of them. They had

before them copies of the Majority, Minority and Neutral texts.In addition they had

many ancient versions of the Scriptures: the Peshitta, Old Latin Vulgate, Italic,Waldensian, Albegensian, Gaul and Celtic Bibles. They also had before them thousandsof scriptural citations of the early Church Fathers, which date back to the 2nd and 3rd

century. They were also well aware of the fact that the Roman Church used aEusebio-Origen type ofBible based on the Minority Text. What did these great men of God do?

The answer is: in making their translations they set aside the Minority Text and chose to

produce versions of the Bible which were all based on the Majority Text, the text usedby the early Christian Church.The following quotation will help fix this fact in the

reader's mind.

"Unquestionably, the leaders of the Reformation -German, French, and English - were

convinced that theReceived Textwas the genuine New Testament, not only by its own

irresistible history and internal evidence, but also because it matched with the Received

Text which in Waldensian form came down from the days of the apostles." (Ref:F6)


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W Scott writes as follows:

"King James named54 pious andscholarlypersons - and who were empowered tocommunicate with 'all our principal learned men within this our kingdom,' so that the

scholarship of the country was consecrated to the noblest work which could engage the

heart, the mind, and the pen of men - the production of our admirable English Bible.Seven of the number, through death and other causes, were unable to serve, so that the

list was reduced to 47. It may be interesting to know how and to whom the work was

distributed. There were six committees chosen, two of which sat at Westminster, two atCambridge, two at Oxford. The whole were presided over by Bishop Andrews, who,

besides possessing an intimate knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Chaldee, and Syriac, was

familiar with 16 other languages. As each set or committee of translators finished theparticular part assigned to them, it was then subjected to the criticism of the other five

sets in order; so that each part of the Bible came before the whole body of the

translators. When the 47 finished their work it was then carefully reviewed by the final

committee.Dr Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, wrote the preface."(Ref:A8)

Two of the greatest deceptions ever to confront the human race came to the fore in the

19th century: deceptions so subtle and dangerous that between them they have destroyedthe faith of multiplied billions of souls in and out of the Christian Church. The first was

the unproved theory of evolution: fascinating, plausible and seized upon by the godless

mind which chafes at the commandments of the Almighty God. The second was the

Revised Version of the Bibleposing as the "Word of God": a version as corrupt as it

was potent, for it spawned a host of unholy offspring.

Rev. D.A. Waite writes the following on page 42 of his masterful bookDefending the

King James Bible: (ISBN #1-56848-000-8).

"No matter how you try to translate the New International Version, let us say, orthe

New American Standard Version, since they're based on in the New Testament on the

Nestle/Aland Textthat differs from theReceived Textin over5,600 places, involving

almost10,000 Greek words -there's no way in the world you could make them equal to

the King James Bible which is based on theReceived Text. The NIV and NAS are

perversions of the Word of Godbecause they are based upon a Greek text that is false tothe truth and improper in every way. The FOUNDATION IS FAULTY."

What's The Difference?

The difference between Textus Receptus (TR) and the W/H Nestle/Aland texts iscaused by two ancient manuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) and CodexVaticanus

(B). The TR excludes these two manuscripts. The Nestle/Aland text includes them.

Codex Sinaiticus was retrieved from a wastepaper basket in a convent at the foot of
http://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verpart1-4.html#Sinaiticushttp://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verpart1-4.html#Vaticanushttp://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verpart1-4.html#Vaticanushttp://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verpart1-4.html#Vaticanushttp://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verpart1-4.html#Sinaiticus


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Mount Sinai in A.D.1844. CodexVaticanus, a 4th century document, was found in 1481

in the Vatican library in Rome, where it had lain virtually unused for over a thousand

years. These two ancient manuscripts, both of which were considered unfit for use evenby their own custodians, were seized upon in the later half of the 19th century and foisted

on the unsuspecting Christian church in place of the trusted Textus Receptus. The

following reference from page 554 of G.A.Ripplinger's bookNew Age Versions (ISBN0-9635845-0-2) refers:

"Metzger says that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus do not agree with the majority ofmanuscripts.

Not only do they disagree with the Majority of manuscripts , but they do not agreewith each other. The 8000 changes in B and the 9000 changes in Aleph are not

the same changes. When their changes are added together, they alter the Majority

text in about 13,000 places. This is two changes for every verse. Together they

omit 4000 words, add 2000, transpose 3500, and modify 2000.

They disagree with each other a dozen times on every page.

Colwell says they disagree 70% of the time and in almost every verse of the gospels.

Burgon says: 'It is easier to find two consecutive verses in which these

manuscripts differ than two in which they agree."

The NIV, as do most modern translations, draws heavily from Codices Sinaiticus and

Vaticanus, hence its corrupt character

In his bookMissing In Modern Bibles - Is the Full Story Being Told? Pastor Jack

Moormanhas actually counted every word in the New Testament Greek Texts, both of

theReceived Textand theRevised Text. He found that of the 140,521 Greek words in

theReceived Text, a total of2,886 words were omitted from theRevised Textof Nestle-Aland and Westcott and Hort. These 2,886 words have affected 356 doctrinal passages!Pause and take note of that astonishing fact!

Pastor Moorman reviews these 356passages in another of his books entitled EarlyManuscripts and The Authorized Version --- A Closer Look. If you really want to

ensure that the Bible you are studying every day is the very Word of God, then takesteps to obtain these books and study them. Another highly recommended book is by

Rev. D.A. Waite entitled Defending the King James Bible. These books, and many,

many others on this same subject of Bible Versions, are published by The Bible For

Today Press: 900 Park Avenue, Collingswood, New Jersey 08108. U.S.A. See also

Reference Books on Bible Versions.

7. MISSING TEXTS

Not content with amending scores of texts and tagging them with misleading footnotes,

the editors of the NIV have omitted many entire verses from their work. Here is a list ofmissing verses:

Matthew 17:21Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
http://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verrefbooks.html#versionshttp://www.avoiceinthewilderness.org/vital/kjv/verrefbooks.html#versions


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Matthew 23:14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour

widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receivethe greater damnation.

Mark 9:44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Mark 9:46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Mark 11:26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heavenforgive your trespasses.

Luke 17:36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the otherleft.

Luke 23:17 For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast.

John 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled

the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in wasmade whole of whatsoever disease he had.

Acts 15:34 Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still.

Acts 24:7 But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took

him away out of our hands.

Acts 28:29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great

reasoning among themselves.

Romans 16:24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Matthew 18:11For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.

Mark 15:28And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered

with the transgressors.

Acts 8: 37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And

he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Wescott & Hort

Brooke Foss Westcott

Westcott was a Cambridge scholar who played a leading role in the production of the

Revised Version. A very brief look at this man's spiritual standing is sufficient to tell usthat the Almighty would never have used him in the preservation of His Word. Before

anyone blindly accepts Westcott's decisions, he/she should consider what this man

believed. The following statements by Westcott, (from the bookLife and Letters of

Brooke Foss Westcott) are quoted in William Grady's bookFinal Authority:

"I never read of the account of a miracle but I seem instinctively to feel its


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improbability, and discover some want of evidence in the account of it."(page

216)

"Oh the weakness of my faith compared with that of others! So wild, so sceptical

am I. I cannot yield."(page 217)

"O Marie , (his wife's name) as I wrote the last word, I could not help askingwhat am I? Can I claim to be a believer?"(page 217)

"It seems as if I am inclined to learn nothing; I must find out all myself, and then I

am satisfied, but that simple faith and obedience which so many enjoy, I fear will

never be mine."(page 217)

"What a wild storm of unbelief seems to have seized my whole system."(page 217)

"If you make a decided conviction of the absolute infallibility of the N.T.practically a sine qua non for co-operation,I fear I could not join you, even if

you were willing to forget your fears about the origin of the Gospels."(page 230)

Rev. Gipp has this to say about Westcott:

"We have in Brooke Foss Westcott a man who believed in communal living; a man who

believed that the second coming of Christ was spiritual, heaven was a state of the mind,

prayers for the dead were permissible in private devotions, and that Christ came to bring

peace through international disarmament. He believed in purgatory and admiration forMary, and he thought the Bible was like any other book.

This is the man who walked into the Revision Committee and sat in judgment of our

Bible. He thought he saw room for improvement in the Authorized Version and offered apro-Roman Greek text with which to correct it.

The ironic thing is that Bible-believing Christians, educators and preachers, who

would never agree with his theology, have for years exalted his opinion of the Greek as

nearly infallible. These facts alone should be reason enough to condemn Westcott and

Hort, their Greek Text and the MSS which they used to arrive at such a text. But let us

look at their actions concerning the molesting of the pure words of the King James Bible,in favour of Rome. Saddest of all, we have in Brooke Foss Westcott a man who neither

believed in salvation by grace nor ever experienced it. There is no record in his 'Life and

Letters' that he ever accepted Christ as his personal Saviour."(Ref: B9)

Hort believed in the evolutionary theory over a century ago. Here are a few statements of

his from theLife and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Horttaken from page 223 of thebookWhich Bible?

"Have you read Darwin? How I should like to talk with you (Westcott) about it!In spite of difficulties,I am inclined to think it unanswerable.In any case it is a

treat to read such a book."

"But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be thought


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Missing words in the modern translations.

Missing verses in the modern translations.

[Bracketed verses or passages] with

Misleading Notes which all cast doubt on the KJV.

Critical Mistranslations.

Following some of the texts below is a briefComment. You should, however, also pause

at texts which are not commented on and think about the effect of the error being pointedout.

THE PROOF

Genesis 12:18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast

done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 19 Why saidst

thou, She is my sister? soI might have taken her to me to wife.Comment: Modern translations say: 'Why did you say she is my sister, so thatI

took her to be my wife.'This is a serious mistranslation. It implies that Pharaoh

had sexual intercourse with Sarah and that the plagues that the Almighty had senton Pharaoh's household to prevent just such an occurrence, had proved futile.

Genesis 49: 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver frombetween his feet, untilShiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the

people be.

Comment: The word Shiloh, referring to Christ the Peacemaker, is missing.

Isaiah 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virginshall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Commenting on this amazing error, Jasper Ray writes: "Here we have 'virgin'versus 'young woman.' In the Septuagint, the Bible of the Greeks, the word

'almah' in Isaiah 7:14 is translated virgin, as in the King James. Almah is used

seven times in the Old testament, and always means virgin. In the RSV the words'or virgin' being added in the footnote, could easily lead one to believe the term

'young women' was inserted in the text for a subtle purpose, thus making it

possible for the orthodox, virgin birth believers, and those who deny the virginbirth to come together. In this way the 'ground' is being prepared for the progress

of the Ecumenical Movement (i.e. the plan to unite all religious systems into one

great body."(Ref: D4)

Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For

thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

Comment: This last part (in bold type) of the Lord's prayer is either [bracketed]

as though the phrase should not be there, or the phrase is left out altogether, which

is even worse. Remember the warning in Revelation 22:18-19.

John 3:16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that


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whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Comment: The word begotten is also omitted in the following texts: John 1:14,

1:18, 3:18.

Matthew17: 21:Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Comment: [Whole verse missing]

Matt.18: 11:For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

Comment:[Whole verse missing]

Mark 7:16: If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.


Mark 15:28And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered

with the transgressors.

Comment: The whole verse is missing or bracketed, thereby casting doubt on thefulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah 53:12 which tells of the Saviour's crucifixion

with transgressors.

Romans 16: 24: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.


Acts 10:30 and 1 Corinthians 7:5.

Comment: the requirement to 'fast' is omitted. Hills comments further: 'These

omissions are probably due to the influence of Clement of Alexandria and otherGnostics, who interpretedfastingin the spiritual sense and were opposed to

literal fasting. (page 138)

Mark 16:9-20. Comment: These 12 verses are all omitted in many

modern translations; or they are [bracketed] and noted that they are'notincluded in the oldest and best manuscripts;'or 'some ancient authoritiesbring the book to a close at the end of verse 8.'The fact is, thevery

opposite is true. These 12 verses are all included in the oldest and best

manuscripts: best that is, not in appearance, but in telling the truth! These

12 verses are also present in ancient Bible versions (the Old Latin Bible,the Waldensian Bible, the Sahidic and the Gothic versions) which are all

older than codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. These 12 verses are quoted

by the ancients such as: Papias, Justin Martyr, Iranaeus, Tertullian andeven by Jerome! So to say that they 'do not appear in the best

manuscripts,'or'in the most reliable early manuscripts'is untrue.

Matthew 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be

for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: andwhoso

marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

Comment: Pause awhile, dear reader, and try to imagine the effect this deletionhas already had on the morals of our society. It has already opened the floodgates

of adultery. See SBS articles on Adultery, Marriage and Divorce for more detail.


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Matthew 20: 16: So the last shall be first, and the first last:for many be called,

but few chosen.

Matthew 27: 35: And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots:

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my

garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.Comment: A powerful Messianic prophecy is here chopped to pieces. Fulfilled

prophecy is the strongest evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. By failing to

link this verse with Psalm 22:18 that link is broken.

Mark 1.14: Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee,

preaching the gospelof the kingdom of God.

Comment: The Saviour's main work in coming to earth was to preach the gospelof the kingdom; to invite mankind to enter the Kingdom of God. His life, death,

resurrection and second coming will climax when ransomed believers enter theKingdom of God. By deleting the words 'of the Kingdom'the whole objective of

the Messiah's coming is missed.

Mark 2: 17: When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have noneed of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but

sinners to repentance.

Comment: Repentance is not a popular word these days. It means being sorryfor committing sin, for breaking God's law. Is repentance important? Certainly it

is. Jesus said: 'I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.'

(Luke:13:3)And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandethall men every where to repent. (Acts 17:30)Failure to repent will lead to eternal

death! Why was this important word omitted?

Mark 6:11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye departthence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily Isay unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day

of judgment, than for that city.

Comment: Leaving out this reference to Sodom is obviously a very serious

omission!

Mark 9: 24: And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears,

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Comment: Most modern translations leave out the word Lord. Others, posing astranslations read: Sir, I believe

Mark 9:44 and 46Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Mark 11:10And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying,

Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:

Mark 13: 14: But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by

Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readethunderstand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains.


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Comment: This vital pointer to the prophecy of Daniel is deleted. Comparatively

few Christians know that Daniel wrote several end-time prophecies. The prophet

Daniel is mentioned only twice in the New Testament: in this verse and inMatthew 24:15. Of these two pointers to Daniel the prophet, one has been deleted.

Comment: Whole verse is missing.

Luke 2:33AndJoseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were

spoken of him.

Comment:Note the subtle change in many translations of the name Joseph to

father. Itreflects disbelief of the fact that the Father of our Saviour Jesus Christ is

in fact the Almighty God of Israel, not Joseph.

Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by

bread alone, but by every word of God.

Comment: Another dangerous deletion which robs God's Word of its vital role inlife. Also note the special reference to 'every word.'

Luke 4: 8: And Jesus answer

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