12/4/23
Comparing Bibles
Part 1
Let’s begin with one of the more significant problems that have caused instability and separation in the Christian community. It’s the variations we find in our modern-day Bibles. Hundreds of variations are published and then put into print. So, the question comes up, does older mean better?
Two of the oldest and complete manuscripts found to date are called the Codex Alexandrinus, or A, and Vatican manuscripts, B. For the most part, these are the foundation stones for most of our popular, modern-day Bibles, except for the K.J.V.
Does older mean better? Both A and B are said by many to be the most important manuscripts. They may be the oldest, but not the best. Let’s examine the facts. These are 4th century manuscripts. The 4th century was a time of trouble; many controversies swept the early church.
It was the time of the Presbyter of Alexandria, Arian. This man had voiced his opinions in strong language, claiming “That Jesus the Son of God was NOT co-eternal, co-essential, and co-equal with the Father.” His thinking remains with us today, more so than ever before.
A and B were found in a Catholic monastery in the early 1800s. One was found on a shelf, in excellent condition, the other in a wastepaper basket ready to be burned for heating. The manuscript was found in excellent condition by a man named Tisohendorf.
Question,” Why were these documents in such excellent condition even though they were some fifteen hundred years old?
Answer: because they were unused and then stored away. Scrolls were the usual form of books in the ancient world. Later, the Jews began to write on the smooth skins of animals, these lasting longer than Papyrus. The skins were either sewn or glued.
When scrolls are rolled up and used regularly, they would wear out quickly because they were made of paper or animal skins. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the exception only because of the place and the way they were stored and sealed.
When scrolls began to show wear, they would be re-copied by scribes and then examined carefully for errors by other scribes. If a scribe found an error, that copy was destroyed, and a new copy written.
When Titchendorf found the A. and B. scrolls, they had thousands of corrections previously made to them. For this reason alone, they should have been rejected and burned. These two scrolls may have been teaching tools for beginner scribes.
But unfortunately, they were saved, being passed from one hand to another. When Titchendorf finished with his added corrections, they were presented to other scholars of the day, but his efforts would be rejected. In the late 1800s, Wescott and Hort began to alter the text further in thousands of places. Westcott was a bishop of the Anglican Church; Hort was a teacher at Cambridge University. It is said from their previous writings that they also were apostates, liberal, unbelievers.
Wescott and Hort made over 5000 changes to these newly acquired manuscripts. The changes included roughly 1900 omissions, 467 additions, 3185 other changes, and four thousand three hundred sixty-six words added, making a total of almost 10,000 changes. Add to the thousands of changes that Tischendorf had made, and the manuscripts should have been trashed.
In the early 1900s, liberal European scholars began to move in on the churches, teaching their particular brand of Christianity. Unconventional, independent in thought, and, at times, radical in their thinking, so, a new Bible was needed: In the 30s, Nestles and Allen gave these free-thinking liberals the necessary tools to advance specific agendas. They would resurrect and reinvented the A. and B. texts.
Their work and their thinking now dominate 21st-century Christianity. “Is the K.J.V. an inferior, outdated version?” Were the scholars, linguists, and theologians who gathered together and published the K.J.V. incompetent?
Forty-seven brilliant scholars from Cambridge, Westminster, and Oxford universities, the best in Europe, having the assistance of 100eds of other scholars, each having their disciplines were involved in the work of the King James Bible. These men competent, qualified, or honest in their specific fields. One of these forty-seven had mastered fifteen languages and several oriental languages.
For the following 350 years, until the 1960s, 70s, and 80s when the N.I.V. and many other Bibles were printed and published, were the thousands of linguists, commentators, and teachers of the past deceived, fooled, or stone-walled? Was God not looking out for His Holy word? Had He turned His back on His work of salvation for some 350 years?
No one knows who wrote these two manuscripts, the A. and B. texts—abandoned, unused, collecting dust, having become worthless relics of the past. If Tischendorf were alive today, he would not recognize them from the originals he had found. Yet Christian scholars receive them with open arms and of being worthy of God.
Romans 3:1-2, speaking of the Jews, “Unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
The K.J.V. Bible has a solid and well-documented history; the A.B., short and confusing. Their authors and origin are unknown.
The Holy Spirit is the ultimate teacher; while most teachers and scholars have their personal agendas, which usually have a disastrous effect on the word of God, regardless. Since the introduction of these new modern-day Bibles, the church has become fragmented and is coming dangerously close to losing its identity with Jesus Christ.
Part 2.
Most agree that we have entered into the last days. With this said, I believe the church has entered into dangerous times: dangerous not so much from the outside but from within. Like I said in the original article, these two manuscripts, A and B, had many changes already made when found, and then 1000s more made after. The two manuscripts should have been rejected and discarded by all standards and accepted rules.
Sixteen-hundred years ago they were rejected by the original owner. Rejected when Tisohendorf edited them and again when Wescott and Hort finished with them. But magically, and or for unknown reasons, in 1937, they surfaced again and were now received by the Christian community as a reliable, sacred text.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were one of the first to pounce on them, rewriting the Bible to favor their particular brand of Christianity. The K.J.V. was a stumbling stone to their doctrines. These two new manuscripts provided a way out for them to prove their brand of religion.
So, the question begs to be asked, can these new Bibles published today, Bibles like the New World Translation, 1961, the N.I.V. in 1973, which is relatively recent, be the spear that takes the life out of the truth? Is this the devil’s greatest deception, a deception coming from within and without? The Deity of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Holy Spirit is suffered more today than any time in history.
One of the weak arguments for not using the K.J.V. are, “It’s too hard to read.”
Let’s look at two Bible verses,
Ephesians 4:14, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”
“The sleight of men.” Hmmm, this compared to a game of dice; you win a few, and you lose a few, that is, unless the dice are loaded. In the N.T. it is used as a metaphor; it’s a game, gambling, a thing of mere hap-hazard, tricks, fraud. Using these many Bibles is like rolling the dice: most lose, and few win. These are the devil’s ways.
The introduction of the A. and B. at this time in history could be the most prominent dice game men have ever played with their souls.
Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
The word wiles come from the Greek methodeia. From the verb, Methodize. It means to trace out with method and skill, to treat methodically. To use art, to deal artfully. In the Septuagint it means to “slander,” 2. Samuel 19:27. So wiles is a method. What I am doing in this article is showing the differences between the K.J.V. and other Bibles. If you examine the evidence and find it to be of no significance, then use whatever Bible you find comfortable for yourself.
Let’s talk about the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This most important teaching has suffered over the past 100 years and is slowly being dismantled. As newer, supposedly updated Bibles are published, the doctrine of the Trinity has been watered down, and doubt has crept in as to its meaning. Doubt concerning the deity of Jesus Christ and the authority given to the Holy Spirit. This erosion began with the early printings of the N.I.V., ESV, N.W.T., N.A.S.V., N.K.J.V., and many others. The following verses doctored or removed from the text.
K.J.V. reads 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
N.I.V., ESV, N.A.S.V., and N.K.J.V., 1 John 5:7, “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.”
What the N.I.V. and ESV have done is to eliminate verse 7, then took verse 8 and divide it, making the first part of verse 8 verse 7 and the second part, verse 8. In doing so, they eliminated verse 7, as shown in the K.J.V. reading, “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.”
Verse 7 in the K.J.V. is one of the plainest and most explicit verses concerning the Trinity. Undoubtedly, it is a matter of doctrine and theology. What purpose does it serve to erase this verse from the Scriptures except to undermine the doctrine of the Trinity?
Part 3.
Someone asked me, “What differences specifically can you point out between the K.J.V. and other Bibles?”
My answer, there are many, so let me begin with the Phrase, “The only begotten Son of God.” I am not saying that ESV and N.I.V. Bibles have removed this everywhere, but they have exchanged it for “one and only,” or “the only God, or some other mix of words.
When we see “The only begotten Son of God,” John’s writings speak only of, and in the highest sense, Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus alone knows and reveals the essence of the Father. John 1:14-18 and 3:16-18 are consistently written in the K.J.V. as “The only begotten Son of God.”
In the ESV, John 1:14 reads, “The only Son from the Father.” In John 1:18, reads, “The only God.” John 3:16 reads, “His only Son.” in John 3:18, It reads, “Only Son of God.”
Now, the N.I.V., which is supposed to be the exact text used as the ESV, these four verses read,
John 1:14, “The One and Only.” John 1:18 reads, “One and Only.” John 3:16 reads, “one and only,” note lower case. John 3:18 reads, “one and only Son.”
Let me stop here and point out something to you. In John 1:14-18, “One and Only,” were put in upper case, yet using the same titles, in John 3:16-18, they used lower case, “one and only.” I find that curious, don’t you? Twice, they used upper case; twice, they used lower case. The lowercase usually points to others as being included in this revelation.
In the K.J.V., it remains consistent; in the N.I.V. and ESV., not so! resulting in inconsistencies. Let me take this a step further; the N.W.T. of the Jehovah’s Witnesses use these verses to prove that Jesus is a created being, not God, and not eternal.
Their Bible reads as follows,
John 1:14, “An only begotten son from a father.” Note “The,” definite article implying the only one, has been changed to “an” indefinite article, meaning there is more than one. To support this false teaching, the change “Son,” upper case, to “s,” lower case, implying more than one Son. And last, and most important, they have changed Father,” upper case meaning the Father of All, to “father,” meaning an earthly father.
In John 1:18, they write, “the only begotten god.” Note they used the definite article here but now call Jesus “a god,”
Men are called gods, and Satan is called the God of this world. They equate Jesus to a man and a god, a little more unique, but not “The God of the Bible.”
Here’s the hypocrisy; in John 3:16, 18, they write, “The only begotten Son,” and the “only begotten Son of God.” Here, they got it right. Why? In their 1951 edition, their first edition, they miswrote it. They took so much flack concerning this verse that they had to correct it because it was such a fundamental doctrine. The A. B. text appears to have caused much confusion among the translators.
Part 4.
Three essential verses in the K.J.V. have yet to be published in the N.I.V. CSV. and others.
1. King James reads Matthew 18:11, Jesus said, “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” The precept and line for this verse are found in,
2. K.J.V., Luke 9:56, “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”
3. K.J.V. reads in Acts 3:17 that Jesus said, “But that the world through Him might be saved.”
Through the Holy Spirit and the written word, we can read, understand, or hear the good news. If certain verses are not published, how are we to read or hear them?
Phil LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com