The Battle of the Bibles

 

But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Matt 4:4

 

The Ultimate Attack Against Our Lord Jesus Christ( The NIV calls Jesus the fallen one):

 

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” Rev 22:16.

 

 

Other attacks against our beliefs:

 

 

This is a very serious warning. Don’t change the word of God.

 

Today there are many bibles. With the modern Greek scholarship many verses have better translations than in the older versions because of better knowledge of Greek terminology.

 

Original manuscripts of all existing manuscripts have been lost.

These are the main trees:

 

 

 

 

None of the original manuscripts survived, we only have copies that have survived. The debate is actually which of the original copies is the most accurate.

 

There are ancient letter from church fathers that quote some of the verses that do not appear in the most “Old” manuscripts.

 

Our prophet quotes verses that are not in these “older” and “more accurate” manuscripts.

Below I have listed a few examples:

 

 

Ellen G. White, Great Controversy p245:

“While Luther was opening a closed Bible to the people of Germany, Tyndale was impelled by the Spirit of God to do the same for England. Wycliffe's Bible had been translated from the Latin text, which contained many errors. It had never been printed, and the cost of manuscript copies was so great that few but wealthy men or nobles could procure it, and, furthermore, being strictly proscribed by the church, it had had a comparatively narrow circulation. In 1516, a year before the appearance of Luther's theses, Erasmus had published his Greek and Latin version of the New Testament. Now for the first time the Word of God was printed in the original tongue. In this work many errors of former versions were corrected, and the sense was more clearly rendered. It led many among the educated classes to a better knowledge of the truth, and gave a new impetus to the work of reform. But the common people were still, to a great extent, debarred from God's Word. Tyndale was to complete the work of Wycliffe in giving the Bible to his countrymen.”

 

Edward Notes - Historical Facts:

Wycliffe used the Vulgate to translate his English version.

Erasmus text is referred to as the Received Text (Textus Receptus).

 

 

Kurt Aland, who is the coeditor of both the most widely used critical Greek texts and who is certainly the leading textual scholar on the European continent, proposes that the text of P75 (Papyrus 75) and Codex B represents revisions of a local text in Egypt which was enforced as the dominant text in that particular ecclesiastical province.

Aland in ‘The Bible in Modern Scholarship’ p336. cf also ‘Novum Testamentum,IX (April 1967). P91.

 

About the Received text:

These manuscripts have in agreement with them, by far the vast majority of copies of the original text. So vast is this majority that even the enemies of the Received text admit that nineteen-twentieths of all Greek manuscripts are in this class.

Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.64.

 

 

The Second Stream is a small one of a very few manuscripts. These last manuscripts are represented:

1. In Greek – The Vatican MS. Or Codex B, in the library at Rome; and the Sinaitic, or Codex Aleph. (was written to counteract the Reformation)
2. In latin – Vulgate or the Latin Bible of Jerome (383 A.D.)
3. In English –The Jesuit Bible of 1582, which later with vast changes is seen in the Douay, or Catholic Bible.
4. In English again; - in many modern Bibles.

 

 

Sinaitic- found in 1844, very old manuscript.

 

So the present controversy between the King James Bible in English and the modern versions is the same old contest fought out between the early church and rival sects; and later, between the Waldenses and the Papists from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries; and later still between the reformers and the Jesuits in the sixteenth century.

“Which bible” and “True and False”. Edited by David Otis Fuller

 

“We need to understand , that many of the new translations are taken from old manuscripts. People think that these are more reliable. In fact they are saying, that a manuscript found in a cave in Mt. Sinai and questionable manuscripts from Alexandria are more reliable that the Received text”.

Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.15.

 

There was a man named Origen – an initiate ( he believed that man is divine)

 

Origen, being a textual critic, is supposed to have corrected numerous portions of the sacred manuscripts. Evidence to the contrary shows that he changed them to agree with his own human philosophy of mystical and allegorical ideas. Thus, though deceptive scholarship of this kind, certain manuscripts because corrupt. Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.16.

 

From the birth of Christ to AD 400 Gnostics gospels and other writings were written. Paul makes mention of this in.

2 Cor. 2:17 “For we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God…”

They were corrupting it with Gnostic ideas.

 

331 A.D. Constantine ordered that an ecumenical bible be written. Eusebius, a follower of Origen, was assigned to direct this task. Eusebius rejected the deity of Christ and claimed that Christ was a created being. This error is called the Arian heresy. The early Christian rejected these manuscripts. Later on I will show many verses where the deity of Christ is being attacked.

 

The Vulgate removes the deity of Christ.

 

1481 A.D. (During the reformation) The Vatican manuscript was discovered in the Vatican Library. This manuscript repeatedly casts aside the deity of Christ. It reflects the Arianism of Origen and is thought by some to be one of the surviving manuscripts done by Eusebius at the command of Constantine. The date of its writing coincides with the ‘ecumenical Bible’ of Constantine.

 

1844 A.D. The Sinaticus manuscript was discovered at mount Sinai in the monastery of Saint Catherine. It agrees closely with the Vatican manuscripts and minimizes the deity of Christ and is Arian in nature. These two manuscripts were probably two of the fifty written for Constantine.

1881 A.D. The Westcott and Hort Greek text was introduced. This text departed from the Textus Receptus and follows the Vatican and Sinaitic corruptions. The Jehovah’s Witness Bible entitled the ‘New World Translations of the Holy Scriptures’ was translated from the text of Westcott and Hort.

 

This manuscript (Vaticanus) and the Sinaiticus are very similar.

 

“It must be emphasized that the argument is not between an ancient and a recent one, but between two ancient forms of the text, one of which was rejected and the other adopted and preserved by the Church as a whole and remaining in common use for more than thirteen  centuries.”

Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.46.

 

Tyndale used the Received text in his Bible and said to the pope, “If God spare my life, before many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the scripture than thou doest”

“God Wrote Only One Bible”, by Jasper James Ray.

 

The argument is not KJV versus other versions, it is the Received text versus other manuscipts.

 

The Jesuits Said:

“We must undermine the Bible of the Protestants and destroy their teachings”

 

In connection with Westsott and Hort’s theory Dean Burgon writes:

 

“We oppose the facts to their speculation. They exalt B and Aleph and D8 because in their own opinions those copies are the best. They weave ingenious webs and invent subtle theories because their paradox of a few against the many requires ingenuity and subtlety for its support. Dr. Hort revealed in finespun theories and technical terms, such as “Intrinsic Probability”, “Transcriptional Probability”, “Internal Evidence of Reading”, “Internal Evidence of Documents”, which of course connote a certain amount of evidence, but are weak pillars of a heavy structure….

Even conjectural amendation and inconsistent decrees are not rejected. They are infected with the theorizing that spoils some of the best German work, and with the idealism that is the bane of many academic minds especially at Oxford and Cambridge.

“In Contrast with this sojourn in cloudland, we are essentially of the earth though not earthly. We are nothing if we are not grounded in facts: Our appeal is to facts, our test lies in facts, so far as we can we build testimonies upon testimonies and pile facts upon facts. We imitate the procedure of the courts of justice in decisions resulting from the converging product of all evidence, when it has been cross examined and sifted.”

“In the balances of these seven Tests of Truth the speculations of the Westcott and Hort school, which have bewithched million are “Tekel”, weighed in the balances and found wanting. “I am utterly disinclined to believe,” continues Dean Burgon,  “so grossly improbable does it seem – that at the end of 1800 years 995 copies out of every thousand, suppose,  will prove untrustworthy and that the one, two, three, four or five which remain, whose contents were till yesterday as good as unknown, will be found to have retained the secret of what the Holy Spirit originally inspired.

 

Statements of Burgon:

“What, in the meantime, is to be thought of those blind guides – those deluded ones – who would now, if they could, persuade us to go back to those same codices of which the Church had already purged herself?”

“The Revision Revised Revised”, pp. 334-335

 

Burgon utterly rejected the claims of Tischendorf (1815-1874), Tregelles (1813-1875), Westcott (1825-1901), Hort (1828-1892), and other contemporary scholars, who insisted that as a result of their labours the true new testament text had at last been discovered after having been lost for well-nigh fifteen centuries.

 

“Who but those with Roman Catholic Sympathies could ever be pleased with the notion that God preserved the true New Testament in secret for almost one thousand years and then finally handed it over to the Roman pontiff for safekeeping?”

Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.91/92.

 

Council of Trent 1546:

“Whosoever shall not receive as sacred and canonical all these book and every part of them, as they are commonly read in the Catholic church, and are contained in the old Vulgate Latin edition or shall knowingly and deliberately despise the aforesaid traditions, let he be accursed.” (Council of Trent fourth session).

Council of Trent (1545-1563) proposed the Vulgate Latin Bible as the only authentic translation. Pope Sistus V declared the Vulgate infallible but Clement III in 1592 ordered a better edition and 2000 changes were made.

 

“Wherever the so called Counter Reformation, started by the Jesuits, gained hold of the people, the vernacular was suppressed and the Bible kept from the laity. So eager were the Jesuits to destroy the authority of the Bible  - the paper pope of the protestants, as they contemptuously called it – that they even did not refrain from criticizing its genuineness and historical value”

Von Dobshut, The Influence of the Bible, p136

 

Before the English people could go the way of the Continent and be brought to question their great English Bible, the course of their thinking must be changed. Much had to be done to discredit, in their eyes, the Reformation: its history, doctrines, and documents which they looked upon as a great work of God. This task was accomplished by who, while working undercover, passed as friends. In what numbers the Jesuits were at hand to bring this about, the following words, from one qualified to know, will reveal:

Our Authorized Bible Vindicated

Benjamin G. Wilkinson, Leaves of Autumn Books, Inc 1996.

 

“Despite all the persecution they (the Jesuits) have met with, they have not abandoned England, where there are a greater number of Jesuits than in Italy; There are Jesuits in all classes of society; in parliament; among the English clergy; among the Protestant laity, even in the higher stations. I could not comprehend how a Jesuit could be a protestant priest or how a Protestant priest could be a Jesuit; but my Confessor silenced my scruples by telling, omnia munda mundis, and that St. Paul became a Jew that he might save the Jews; it was no wonder, therefore, if a Jesuit should feign himself a Protestant for the conversion of the Protestants. But pay attention, I entreat you, to discover concerning the nature of the religious movement in England termed Puseyism. The English clergy were formerly too much attached to their Articles of Faith to be shaken from them. You might have employed in vain all the machines set in motion by Bossuet and the Jansenists of France to reunite them to the Romish; and so the Jesuits of England tried another plan. This was to demonstrate from history and ecclesiastical antiquity the legitimacy of the usage of the English church, whence, through the exertions of the Jesuits concealed among its clergy, might arise a studious attention to Christian antiquity. This was designed to occupy the clergy in long, laborious, and abstruse investigation, and to alienate them from their Bibles. Desanctrs, Popery and Jesuitism in Rome, pp,128,134 quoted in Walsch, Secret History of Oxford Movement, p. 33.

Descantes was Priest at Rome, Professor of Theology, official Theological Censor of the Inquisition.

 

Most of these quotes are from books written by the sons of Westcott and Hort published from (published in 1896):

1. The life and letters of Brooke Foss Westcott and
2. Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort

.

Hort as well as Westcott rejected the idea of the infallibility of the Bible, and called the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement “immoral”. Westcott denied the historicity of Genesis 1 through 3 and Hort praised Darwin and denied the divinity of Christ.

 

Hort’s view on evolution

“The beginning of an individual is precisely as inconceivable as the beginning of a species.. It certainly startles me to find you saying that you have seen no facts which support such a view as Darwin’s… But It seems to me the most probable manner of development, and the reflections suggested by his book drove me to the conclusion that some kind of development must be supposed.”

(Life, pp 430, 431)

Hort to John Ellerton:

“But the book which has most engaged me is Darwin. Whatever may be the thought of it, it is a book that one is proud to be a contemporary with. I must work out and examine the argument in more detail, but at present my feeling is strong that the theory is unanswerable. If so, it opens up a new period.”

(Life, Vol. I p.416).

1851 Dec. 20^th – Hort to John Ellerton:

“I had no idea till the last few weeks of the importance of the texts, having read so little Greek Testament, and dragged on with the villainous Textus Receptus leaning entirely on late MSS(manuscripts); it is a blessing there are such early ones”

(Life, Vol.I p..211).

Sept. 29^th – Westcott to Hort:

“As to out proposed recension of the New Testament text, our object would be, I suppose, to prepare a text for the common and general use…With such an end in view, would it not be best to introduce only certain emendations into the received text, and to note in the margin such as seem likely or noticeable – after Griesbach’s manner?...

 

The statement which immediately follows Hort’s describing the sacred text as “Vile” is most revealing.

 

“Westcott, Gorham, C.B.Scott, Benson, Bradshaw, Laurd, etc. and I have stated a society for the investigation of ghosts and all supernatural appearances, and effects, being all disposed to believe all such things really exist, and aught to be discriminated from hoaxes and mere subjective delusions; we shall be happy to obtain any good accounts well authenticated with names. Westcott is drawing up a schedule of questions. Cope calls us the “Cock and Bull Club;” our own temporary name is the “Ghostly Guild”.

(Ibid, Vol.I,p.211.)

 

In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was founded in effect it was a combination of those groups already working independently in the investigation of spiritualism and other psychic phenomena (telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.) Of these the most important was that centered round Henry Sidgwick, Frederick Meyer and Edmund Gurney, all Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge and deriving its inspiration from the Cambridge University Ghost Society, founded by no less a person than Edward White Benson, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. (Please see above name Benson with Westcott original founders).

 

“Among my father’s diversions at Cambridge was the foundation of a ‘Ghost Society’, the forerunner of the Psychical Society[meaning S.P.R.] fot the investigation of the supernatural. Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort were among the members. He was then, as always, more interested in psychical phenomena than he cared to admit.”

“Lightfoot and Westcott both became bishops, and Hort Professor of Divinity. The S.P.R. has hardly live up to the standard of ecclesiastical eminence set by the parent society”[parenthesis is original]’ (w.H.Salter, the Society For Psychical Research: An Outline of its History, London, 1948, pp. 5,6.)

 

“The evolution from traditional mediumship to contemporary channeling has been gradual. The original spiritualism has its start in 1848…Organizations like the Society for Psychical Research in Britain were formed… When Russian-born Helena Petrovna Blavatsky founded Theosophy in 1875, the slow transition toward modern channeling began… her two chief works, IsisUnveiled and the Secret Doctrine laid the foundation for the modern new age belief system.”

(Elliot Miller, 1989. Crash Course on the New Age, Baker Book House.)

 

Edward Notes:

She (Helena Petrovna Blavatsky)said the following lie: “Lucifer is the logos, the serpent the saviour. Satan is the only god of this planet”

The Secret Doctrine, pages 171, 225, 255 (Volume II)

 

Wescott and Hort were masons and believed that satan is god and therefore reflected that in their original text.

 

1854 Hort to Rev. John Ellerton on Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

 

“I agree with you in thinking it a pity that Maurice verbally repudiates purgatory, but I fully and unwaveringly agree with him in the three cardinal points of the controversy: 1) that eternity is independent of duration; (2) that the power of repentance is not limited to this life; (3) that it is not revealed whether or not all will ultimately repent. The modern denial of the second has, I suppose, had more to do with the despiritualizing of theology than almost anything that could be named.” (ibid., p.275.)

 

While advising a young student Hort wrote:

“ the idea of purgation, of cleansing as by fire, seems to me inseparable from what the bible teaches us of the Divine chastisements; and, though little is directly said respecting the future state, it seems to me incredible that the Divine chastisement should in this respect change their character when this visible life is ended. “ I do not hold it contradictory to the Article to think that the condemned doctrine has not been holly injurious, inasmuch as it has kept alive some sort of belief in a great and important truth.” (ibid., Volume II, pp.336,337)

 

KJV	NIV
Job 26:5 Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.	Job 26:5 "The dead are in deep anguish,    those beneath the waters and all that live in them.
2 Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:	2 Peter 2:9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
1 Peter 4:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.	1 Peter 4:6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
1 Thessalonians 4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.	1 Thessalonians 4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
Psalm 146:4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.	Psalm 146:4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

 

Hort on the atonement:

“I think I mentioned to you before Campbell’s book on the atonement, which is invaluable as far as it goes; but unluckily he knows nothing except Protestant theology” (Life, Vol. I, p.232).

 

1860 Oct. 15^th – Hort to Westcott:

“I entirely agree – correcting one word – with what you there say on the atonement, having for many years believed that “the absolute union of the Christian (or rather, of man) with Christ Himself” is the spiritual truth of which the popular doctrine of substitution is an immoral and material counterfeit…Certainly, nothing can be more unscriptural than the modern limiting of Christ’s bearing our sins and suffering to His death; but indeed that is only one aspect of an almost universal heresy.”

(Life, Vol.I, p.430).

 

1860 August 14^th Hort to B.F. Westcott:

“It is of course true that we can only know God through human forms, but then I think the whole Bible echoes the language of Genesis 1:27 and assures us that human forms are divine forms.”

 

Edward Notes:

They must lower the Divinity of Christ in order to make man a god.

 

KJV	NIV
1John5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.	1John5:7 For there are three that testify:
Acts 3:26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.	Acts 3:26 When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.
Matt 19:16-17 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.	Matt 19:16-17 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.

 

There are three living persons of the heavenly trio. In the name of these three powers,--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized, and these powers will cooperate with the obedient subjects of heaven in their efforts to live the new life in Christ. {BTS, March 1, 1906 par. 2}

 

Oct 17^th – Hort to Westcott:

“…I have been persuaded for many years that Mary worship and Jesus worship have very much in common in their causes and results. Perhaps the whole question may be said to be involved in the true idea of mediation, which is almost universally corrupted in one or both of two opposite directions. On the one hand we speak and think as if there were no real bringing near, such as the NT tells of, but only an interposition between two permanent distant objects, on the other we condemn all secondary human mediators as injurious to the one, and shut our eyes to the indestructible fact of existing human mediation which is to be found everywhere. But this last error can hardly be expelled till Protestants unlearn the crazy horror of the idea of Priesthood.” (Life, Vol.2 pp.49-51)

 

KJV	NIV
Hebrews 8:6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.	Hebrews 8:6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.
1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.	1 Tim 3:16 Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He[a] appeared in a body,[b] was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.

 

 

1865 Sept. 27^th- Westcott:

“I have been trying to recall my impressions of La Salette (a marian shrine). I wish I could see what forgotten truth Mariology bears witness: and how we can particularly set forth the teaching of miracles”.

Nov. 17^th – Westcott to Rev. Benson:

“As far as I could judge, the ‘idea’ of La Salette was that God revealing Himself now, and not in one form but in many.”

(life Vol. I. pp.251,252)

 

Edward Notes:

“At La Salette, France, in September of 1846, the Virgin Mary appeared to two children, Maximin Giraud and Melanie Mathieu, and gave them an explanation of future world events. This was kept secret for a time, then later it was allowed to be revealed to all through publication.” Source:http://www.catholicplanet.com/catholic/lasalette.htm

 

May 29^th – Westcott to Hort:

“though I think that convocation is not competent to initiate such measure, yet I feel that as ‘we three’ are together it would be wrong not to ‘make the best of it’ as Lightfoot says. Indeed, there is a very fair prospect of good work, though neither with this body nor with any body likely to be formed now could a complete textual revision be possible. There is some hope that alternative readings might find a place in the margin.” (Life, Vol. I, p. 390).

 

1870 July 7 – Hort:

“It is quite impossible to judge the value of what appear to be trifling alterations merely by reading them one after another. Taken together, they have often important bearings which few would think at first…The difference between a picture say of Raffaelle and a feeble copy of it is made up of a number of trivial differences… We have successfully resisted being warned off dangerous ground, where the needs of revision required that it should not be shirked…It is, one can hardly doubt, the beginning of a new period in church history. So far the angry objectors have reason for their astonishment.” (Life, pp138,139)

 

Westcott writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Old Testatment criticism, March 4 1890:

“No one now, I suppose, holds that the first three chapters of Genesis, for example, give a literal history – I could never understand how anyone reading them with open eyes could think they did.”

 

Hort Writes to Mr. John Ellerton:

“I am inclined to think that no such state as ‘Eden’ (I mean the popular notion) ever existed, and that Adam’s fall in no degree differed from the fall of each of his descendants.”

 

Hort writes to Mr. John Ellerton, July 6, 1848:

“The pure Romish view seems to me nearer, and more likely to lead to, the truth than the Evangelical…We should bear in mind that that hard and unspiritual medieval crust which enveloped the doctrine of the sacraments in stormy times, though in measure it may have made it unprofitable to many men at the time, yet in God’s providence preserved it inviolable and unscattered for future generations…We dare not forsake the sacraments of God will forsake us.”

 

Hort writes to Westcott, September 23, 1864:

“I remember shocking you and Lightfoot not so long ago by expressing a belief that ‘Protestantism’ is only temporary.” “Perfect Catholicity has been nowhere since Reformation.”

 

Main Source:

Walter Veith, Battle of the Bibles

Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort, Vol I & II, author: Arthur Fenton Hort.

Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, Vol I & II, author: Arthur Westcott.

Less Garrell, 1982 Which Bible Can we Trust? Christian Centre Press p.64.