There are countless diagrams and narratives of how scripture came to us, and are available in books and on the Internet. But how is this information relevant to Christians today? This study reveals possible answers. We present the following herein:
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Most
Christian churches and organizations publish their "statement
of
beliefs" and also their beliefs pertaining to the Bible.
A typical statement on the Bible often reads like this:
"We believe
the Bible in its original writings were inspired and inerrant."
But what do churches and their organizations believe about today's scriptures? Well, that depends on the denomination. Those beliefs can include one or some combination of any of these:
These possible beliefs all beg the question: "What does God think about all of
this?" After all, if it was God's will to inspire the
writers,
and to do so with perfect clarity, such that the original texts were
inerrant, what about the next 2000 years?
Why do so many today believe the originals were "perfect", but texts are not so perfect now? And most importantly, God's Word is owned by God, not humans, and He is in charge of His Word, so is it not reasonable to think He insures its preservation? THINK !!! MORE
QUESTIONS
THINK !!! |
" ... my words
shall not pass away ..."
(Words
of Jesus in Matthew 24:35)
"But without faith it is impossible to
please Him: for he that comes
to God must believe that He is, and that He will
reward those that diligently seek Him."
(Hebrews 11:6) "Therefore
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." (Romans 10:17)
(All these verses are from the German Schlachter 2000 and translated into formal English.) What
these verses might say to us is that we have to have faith
in God to please Him, and that faith comes from God's Word, which we
then have to have faith in, that as Jesus put it, "shall not pass
away." This is a bit "circular" except for the fact that God
is
"in the loop." God completely changes things
and "buries" secular arguments, and replaces them with faith.
To
get to the point, almost all of today's modern
translations come from a "naturalistic
textual criticism" method which and of itself is not a bad thing, since
scholars
can tell us a lot of things about scripture history.
However, since there are:
Also,
the so-called "neutral" position tends to leave God "out of the loop,"
as if God did not have His hand anywhere in the process of maintenance
of His own Word. Does God have the final word about His own
Word, or is that relegated to scholars alone? Is God
"neutral" or
does He have a message in His Word that carries with it doctrinal
significance that favors God's viewpoint over denominational ones?
Paul provides some insight on this: "O
Timothy, guard what
has been entrusted to you,
avoiding
profane,
worthless chatter
and contradictions of what is falsely called 'knowledge'."
(1 Timothy 6:20)
"But the anointing
which you all
have received of him
abides in all of you,
and you all have
no need that one
teach any of you:
but as the anointing itself
teaches all of you about
everything ,
it is true and not
a lie, and
just as it teaches
all of you,
you all will abide
in Him."
(1 John 2:27)
"That is why we
constantly thank God for all of you, when each of you received the preaching
of the Word
of God, you all have
not treated
it as the word of men
but as
what it
really is, the word of God,
which is also effectively
worketh in all of you who are believers." (1
Thessalonians 2:13)
(These verses all come
from the German Schlachter 2000 and translated into English.)
In summary, we should be able to ask the Lord for discernment with respect to scholarship, let God's anointing guide us, and ask God to help us avoid false "knowledge" from those that would mislead us, whether deliberately or through ignorance. One reason for asking for guidance is, "Which scholars should I believe, yours, mine or someone else's, since they all do not agree with each other?" Think and pray on this. It could affect your spiritual happiness in this life. |
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The
following is a summary of how we got the vast majority of modern
translations, including notes about those who handled the texts. (This
may surprise you, but be patient, more detail is available to back up
these claims in the links below the table.) Note that some of what follows may be offensive to some. However, it is all based on proven facts, that we shall put forth. |
| Century | Events |
| 1st | Originals are penned. |
| 2nd-4th | Romish church changes dozens of
doctrines. It is well-documented this was done at the hand of Justin
Martyr, Tatian, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, and others. They even admit
to this in their own writings. |
| 4th | By now the Romish church had
revised its Latin bible texts to match the new doctrines. |
| 4th | Roman Emperor makes
Christianity
(of Rome) official state religion (315 AD) |
| 4th | Tempore Constantine orders 50
Greek bibles be made, most likely in Alexandria, Egypt. |
| 5th | In Alexandria, these Greek bibles
are made from the revised New Latin texts of the 4th-5th century,
provided by the church at Rome, with a mixture of original Greek and
back-translated Latin. (See
Latin vestiges.) This results is the infusion of uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic doctrines. Most all of these doctrinal accommodations are in the form of deleting "offensive" words in these Alexandrian scriptures. |
| 5th-15th | At
some point these Catholic-Arian/Gnostic texts are lost until one is
found
again in the 15th century and is placed in the Vatican library, and
came to be named the Vaticanus (B). The Catholic church claims the origin is 4th century, and may be, but in thousands of places the original texts are overwritten with texts that accommodate Catholic doctrine. With respect to the original Greek, it became a forgery. Furthermore, there are no bona fide entries in Catholic historical documents that even mention the existence of this text until this text was mysteriously found in 1481, and it even appeared with 15th century style art work in color, hardly an early work as it was claimed to be. |
| 19th | The
Sinaiticus is found in the mid 1800s. Hort and Westcott
use both, but
mainly use the Vaticanus to create a Greek New Testament. Scholars do agree of the uncertainty
of the origin of Vaticanus. Furthermore, it appears to be a widely corrupted text (over 10,000 corrections within), so this calls into question how God had anything to do with it, regardless of its alleged age. And Sinaiticus disagrees with Vaticanus in over 10,000 places as well. How critics call all this "earliest and best" in beyond belief. |
| 20th | The
United Bible Society, Nestle-Aland, Tyndale, American Bible Society and
other publishers use
the
Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament (GNT), directly or indirectly as the primary basis for
their
New Testament bible texts (based on their own statements of origin).
Depending on the version, upwards of 25% of the verses differ from
majority of Greek New Testament of Stephanus, virtually exclusively within doctrinal verses,
some covert, some overt.
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The following is a summary of how we got the majority of Greek texts, including notes about who handled the texts. (This is an established, well-documented history.) |
| Century | Events |
| 1st | Originals
are penned. |
| 2nd | Church
at Antioch, among others, plants new churches all over and provides
translations of the New Testament, in collections of
writings in Latin
(now called the "Old Latin"), Aramaic, Hebrew, Coptic, Goth and early Gaelic
and Arabic, and of course Koine Greek, to name a few. |
| 2nd-15th | The above
texts are worn out very quickly, because they are actually widely
accepted and used a lot,
and so replaced by faithful copies, repeatedly. The
chronological order of
handlers is: apostles, Antiochians, Macedonians, Eastern churches,
Waldensians, early Germans, Ionians (Greek & Old original Latin,
Aramaic,
Goth, Greek, Gaelic), and Europeans, and lastly, rest of the world. See the book "The Church in the
Wilderness" for
more details. |
| 16th | Erasmus, followed by Stephanus and the Greek
New Testament from the above sources, which is committed to be
printed on the new invention, the
printing press. The Stephanus Greek New Testament is translated into over 150 languages of the world. |
| 17th | The
Church of England in "partnership" with King James decided it was time
for an Authorized Version for English speaking people. It
seems
that while the underlying
Greek texts were pretty much in agreement, the English texts used,
still
varied a lot from those used by common folk to those used by the
scholars and other well-educated. Hence, in 1611, the
Authorized King
James
Version was born. Earlier, Martin Luther also produced a
"majority
text" Bible in German, as did many others in many other languages in
the world at that time. (The Authorized KJV is not alone!!!) |
| 17th-20th | The
Authorized KJV is under continuous attack, even after 400 years of its wide
acceptance. But
the Authorized KJV has easily 150+ "Majority Text" Bible "cousins"
today, both in English, and in languages other than English. Click-here
to see the list. (Christians in name only are using unfaithful scriptures to satisfy their lusts and secularism.) |
| 20th-21st | The
21st Century KJV is published in English. The Jubilee 2000 is published
in English and Spanish. The Schlachter 2000 is published in German.
These bibles and others are published and are still based on the
Received Text Greek NT of Stephanus of 1550. And these bibles still use
thee, thou, thine, ye, you, etc, in their respective languages, and
are thus faithful to the Greek 2nd person, singular and plural
pronouns, and thus faithful to God Himself, and eliminate over 15,000 potential ambiguities as well. |
| Today,
many
evangelical Christians are taught by their pastors, who are
taught by liberal universities, to accept the "minority texts" over the
"majority texts." Yet few are aware of the true stories behind
the handlers of the "critical texts." For whatever reasons,
only
the "good" facts are presented about the handlers of the "critical
text" and not the truth about their dubious and even heretical nature (in their own words). Indeed, the argument that
their scholarship is "neutral" is blown away by their blatant biases,
not only against the "majority texts" but against many bible texts as
well, and also the
rejection of many evangelical beliefs !!! Well, this is of course conjecture without the evidence. And the best evidence is the words of the critical text handlers themselves, which we present below. Yes, the evidence is in their own words!!! The following will discuss handlers of the "critical text" of the 19th-21st century, then move on to discussing the earlier handlers of these same texts. As you will see, these handlers were anything but "neutral", had their own agendas, imposed their own theologies in the translations' process, and were otherwise not faithful (in their own words) to solid and traditional evangelical beliefs. Please read on ..... |
| Kurt Aland
(1915-1994) Dr
Kurt Aland, a German, is one of the chief handlers of critical
texts. Indeed, he is a party to the Nestle-Aland (NA) line of
Greek New Testament critical text. He also was a
chief editor of
the United Bible Society (UBS) Greek New Testament, another critical
text. Both the NA and UBS Greek New Testaments are very
similar today. The SBL eventually followed on.
So where did Dr Aland stand on evangelical issues and on the Bible texts themselves? Here are testimonies of Dr Aland, in his own words. In 1961, Dr Aland published "The Problem of the New Testament Canon." Here are the issues each all should consider:
(note: brackets [ ... ] indicate our editorial notes)
If the above offensive to you, we can only ask why? We are only revealing to the reader what Dr Aland thought about the history of the canon, and so that shows his bias, which can come into play in his choice of the majority or minority Greek sources for his participation in translations. When one studies the many writings of Dr Aland, one discovers that he is selective, based on bias alone. What this means is that he will make a statement that "unreliable" texts cannot support certain "majority texts" readings and then turn to two texts riddled with thousands of errors and contradictions to each other, namely Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and somehow rationalize that they are "reliable." Note that many scholars with doctorates write about the errors and contradictions in the above two texts. Furthermore, Dr Aland cannot explain why Hort and Westcott's Greek New Testament, based on Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, have huge vestiges of Latin grammar that corrupts the Greek grammar & spelling (over 2400 verses!). Furthermore, there are significant differences between Hort and Westcott and the "majority texts" because of "suppressions" in Hort and Westcott texts, and these are consistent with fostering Gnostic/Arian beliefs, as well as many uniquely Catholic beliefs. What evangelicals miss with respect to Dr Aland, is that other scholars, just as scientific, use other empirical texts and documents to contradict much of his claims for why he rejects the "majority texts". Indeed, many other scholars point out the error with Dr Aland's claims, in which his false claims are:
One thing that jumps out about Dr Aland is that none of his writings seem to indicate anything he did to describe bible text history that includes the work of the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration and preservation of God's Word. It is as if Dr Aland rejects that God would ever "lift a finger" to insure that His own Words would be preserved for 2000 years. Yes, this sounds judgmental, but we do not know how else to better explain our observations. Now all this begs a deeper question for evangelicals: "Who will you believe, scholars or the Holy Spirit?" It is amazing, because many a Christian will tell you they can pick up a text and by asking the Holy Spirit to tell them if it is faithful or not, are indeed told. This is not to say that the Holy Spirit inspires new Bible texts, just confirms the real ones. Yet, other evangelicals resort to "neutral, naturalistic, critical thinking" without guidance from the Holy Spirit. Why do these other evangelicals depend on "neutral" science, and not the Holy Spirit? This begs the question, if you think like this, are you even saved? Maybe you need to read The Plan. For a full text of the above by a scholar who challenges Dr Aland, see Dr Aland views. |
| Hort and Westcott (late
1880s) A Greek New Testament was composed in the late 1800s by Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1903) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892). This Greek New Testament is the basis for the New Testament used by Nestle-Aland, United Bible Society, American Bible Society and Tyndale. (Conversely, the Trinity Bible Society uses the "majority texts" of Scrivener/Stephanus/Beza.) The Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament:
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| Arians/Gnostics
of Egypt (1st-5th century) Both
the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are in the Egyptian formats and fonts, as
attested to by all scholars. This, in and of
itself,
suggests these texts were handled by the Arians/Gnostics of
Alexandria. Egyptian scholars, sometime in the 4th or 5th
century, in handling these texts, would have likely made changes to
the texts according to their own biases. But is there proof of this?
Well, no one has produced translators' notes, so there remains only the internal forensics of the texts. This forensics' effort starts with comparing every verse in the New Testament between the "majority texts" and the Hort and Westcott "critical text". If one takes those differences, and backs them all out of the Hort and Westcott, where such differences are recognized as accommodating Arian/Gnostic beliefs, an amazing thing happens: one gets, in Greek, the virtual equivalent to the New Latin of Jerome of the 4th century! Then if you back out the uniquely Catholic differences, you then get the Stephanus Greek New Testament. Conversely, working forward, you have the original texts, then a Romish church infusion (New Latin), followed by a Arian/Gnostic infusion to get to the Hort and Westcott, used in most all modern translations. (ouch, ouch, ouch) However, many scholars report that Jerome got his Latin text by using the Vaticanus and/or Sinaiticus Greek New Testament texts, since they are dated from about when Jerome started his work on the New Latin. The problem is, however, that internal forensics do not agree with this. To the contrary, it looks as if the New Latin of Jerome, or perhaps an earlier draft, was used to create the Vaticanus and/or Sinaiticus due to the huge number of Latin grammar and spelling vestiges left behind in the Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament, which is derived from the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. (See Latin Survey) Having a huge number of Latin grammar/spelling vestiges is the product of sloppy translation, and most all scholars agree there is sloppy work in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, even without Latin vestiges. In summary, the Greek grammar rules and spellings in about 10% of the verses are violated, and careful examination shows the reason to be Latin vestiges. Add to this the Romish church changes, and you have about 25% of the verses with changes that can be attributed to translating from Latin into the Greek, and not the other way around. But why do the above that way? As the Latin Survey points out, it was simply easier for a number of reasons. (See the link, above.) Then add to that the Arian/Gnostic changes, and about 40% of the verses differ significantly from the sound doctrines in the "major texts". The degree to which the Romish and Arian/Gnostic doctrinal accommodations exist in today's modern translations depends on the authors' choice between using the Hort and Westcott text or the "majority text" for each word, phrase, verse or passage. The following table shows the source of many English translationss: List NA/UBS/SBL/RT. Note: Despite the large number of differences between the "majority text" and
the Hort and Westcott text, they are still in agreement in a great many
words and verses (modern verse numbering),
but almost exclusively in non-doctrinal verses, or in verses where doctrine does
not differ.
This points out, btw, that the differences are more of a
deliberate nature, than mistakes made in copying texts through
the centuries, that is, when statistical analysis is applied, it proves
the differences are of a deliberate nature. (See Doctrinal Accommodations.) |
| Latin Texts Based on the Latin texts of the church at Rome, we can easily see the differences between the Latin Vulgate, as it was at that time, and today's "majority texts" Greek New Testament. We can also see that these differences appear in doctrinal verses, almost exclusively, adding to the credence that differences are far less likely mistakes and much more likely due to deliberate actions, based on statistical analysis. Changes were most likely made to conform to doctrine. The Latin of the Romish church of the 4th century represented the doctrine of the Romish church, which in turn reflected the doctrinal changes from the beginning of the 2nd century until the end of the 4th century (and beyond). This all is acknowledged and well documented in Catholic church historical records. Now before Jerome began to produce the New Latin New Testament in the late 4th century, there existed an original Latin version from the mid-2nd century, which was far closer in agreement to the "majority texts" of today, than to the New Latin of Jerome, or the Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament, which is furthest from these Old Latin texts. This verifies what changes the Romish church made to the scriptures, when comparing the original Latin to the New Latin. On the other hand, there is adequate documentation to show that the original Latin, ("Old Latin" as it is called today), was produced in Antioch for missionaries in the second century, who distributed these Old Latin texts, as well as distributing Greek, Syrian, Coptic, and other texts in other languages, throughout their missionary fields. Interestingly, the Peshitta (Aramaic) is very close to the Old Latin, and indeed is also closer to the "majority texts" than it is to the New Latin of Jerome, or the Hort and Westcott Greek New Testament, which again is furthest from the Peshitta of them all. It can be verified today that the Old Latin, Peshitta, Coptic, Goth, Celtic, Greek of Macedonia/Antioch, and a few other texts reinforce the "majority texts", while the Romish church, New Latin of Jerome, and its successor texts (Sinaiticus/Vaticanus, Hort and Westcott, and others) are simply the product of uniquely Catholic, Arian, Gnostic, mystic changes following doctrinal biases. This, unfortunately, is where about 97% of contemporary translations come from. It is well-documented that the Catholic church thinks of the authority of the pope as being greater than the Bible, and even the original autographs. It has not been an issue to the popes to alter a bible text to make it conform to Catholic doctrine. |
| In
summary, the handlers, both past and contemporary, of the "critical
text" of Hort and Westcott, all had their own non-evangelical
beliefs.
This alone makes their work dubious. However, when one adds
to this the product of their work, a work that consists of accommodating uniquely
Catholic, Arian and Gnostic beliefs, mostly through "suppression", as
Dr Aland certainly wished for, then we see it is no longer dubious, but
apostate by true evangelical standards. Unfortunately, the "lie" has been perpetrated for so long that true evangelicals have been blinded by it, and even those that study for the ministry at liberal universities, who are taught the same "lies", do not recognize the lies. Indeed, even with a flood of evidence to the contrary, many evangelicals stubbornly cling to the belief their modern translation is best, because it is "modern" or seems to be more understandable, or they believe the lie that it is based on the "earliest and best mss," when in truth it is the earliest and best uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic manuscripts for their source. This does not mean modern updates to language are a bad thing (with some notable exceptions, like when a language is "dumbed down"), but only that the underlying Greek in most of them is full of the uniquely Catholic, Arian and Gnostic doctrinal accommodations that surface in most all modern translations, which then imposes false doctrines on believers, even if covertly. If you are a Catholic, you likely are happy. If you are not, you might need to read our evidence for our claims. |
| The word
"ye" is more correct than "you" which is often
mistaken as a singular "you", since "ye" is a plural "you", as in the
Greek. Finally, "any of
you" and "all of you" are more correct, since any plural "you" in the
Greek, also needs clarification. The use of "ye" and "you"
depend on
them being the subject or the object of a sentence, respectively.
In this case, the German (in German, of course) uses them,
such
as "ye" is "ihr" in German, and "thee" is "dir" in German, etc. Please note that pronouns like "ye", "thee", "thou" and "thy" are still used in languages like Spanish, Italian, French and German, and have not become obsolete sounding to them, (albeit these pronouns are in their language, not English). Because English has dropped these types of pronouns, the English text is often more ambiguous without mountains of footnotes telling us the underlying meaning in the Greek, such as when a "you" is plural or when it is "singular" unlike in old English when a "you" was always plural, just as "ye" was, and when "thee" was singular "you", and "you" was not used in the singular, ever. Now "you" and "yours" have replaced several old English words, and made a mess of the language, due to the ambiguity it causes without a full context and even a context can still be ambiguous, as in John 3:7, Gal 6:1, etc, or without voluminous footnotes or more verbiage. Leaving those pronouns alone would have been simpler than the "dumbed-down" English that evolved. Note that there are about 17,000 opportunities for this kind of ambiguity in modern translations, because of the loss of "thee, thou, thine, ye" etc, and not using "you" and "your" only as plurals the way the KJV and the rest of the world's languages do. Indeed, many modern translations have been compelled to add footnotes when "you" is singular or plural in some texts, which does not bode well for confidence in modern translations that relegate God's very Words to footnotes. How does that make God feel? How does that make it easier to read and understand? How does 17,000 potential ambiguities make it easier to read? |