“Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables… Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls…”. Romans 14:1, 4.
What does this have to do with the Bible? A whole lot. There are individuals, churches and whole denominations and other organizations running around passing judgment on disputable matters. These could be dress, drink, food or the Bible. “Our Bible is better than your Bible”. “This Bible is ‘the’ Word of God. Yours is of the devil.” And so it goes. All breaking the very Bible they claim to uphold by their denunciations of “disputable matters.”
You see my friend, it doesn’t matter what Bible you have. You can find the everlasting gospel in any Bible. I can teach the everlasting gospel from a Mormon Bible, a Jehovah’s Witness Bible, a Catholic Bible, a Baptist Bible, a Lutheran Bible, or any of the translations and even the paraphrased Bibles you put in my hand.
I am sure that the Sadducees had their own sacred scrolls of scripture and the Pharisees had their own sacred scrolls of scripture. I am sure that if it was important to point out which was the “authorized” scripture, Jesus would have done it. It would have been recorded for all posterity. But it didn’t happen. Jesus was not concerned about which sacred scrolls they used, He was more concerned about whether or not they obeyed what they had. That was the problem, they were not obeying the truth they had.
As with the Jews, so with us. We are more concerned about how often we fast, what Bible we use, what we eat or drink, what we wear and how often we go to “church”. None of that is relevant in the Christian walk. Those are disputable matters, debatable matters that the Bible says to leave alone. Have nothing to do with them. So why are the churches so engrossed with them?
The devil is involved in a war against God. If he can keep the soldiers of “Christianity” involved in warring among themselves, he can keep them from fighting the real war. If he can wear them out and kill them off among themselves, he has won. Don’t you think it is time to learn the facts and stay out of the wrong war and get involved in the war Jesus wants us to fight? We need to get into unity with Jesus and His cause; not ours. So what do we do with the Bible “wars”? We do what the Bible says and get educated. “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6. “A people without understanding will come to ruin!” Hosea 4:14. So let’s get educated and not be destroyed or come to ruin over the stupid, devil inspired, Bible wars.
Here are some historical facts
God did not write any Bible and send it down from heaven. Not one “Bible” is hand delivered from God. Only the Ten Commandments were “hand delivered”. God did that for a purpose. He wanted to see if we could tolerate variations and still love each other. It is a good test. As you can see, most of those who call themselves “Christians” have flunked that test. Same reason God has allowed variations in the races. Some black, white, yellow, brown, etc. Can we get along without claiming one is better than another? They are just as prejudiced about the Bible as racists are about race. It is all sin! Sad to say, those who fight over the Bible don’t even obey that which was handed directly to us by God.
Since the KJV (King James Version) seems to be the “measure” by which all other Bibles are judged, either good or bad, let us begin with it. I suppose this is a good place to put in another text. “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.” 1 Timothy 4:7. That seems to be the problem with those who espouse the KJV as the “Authorized” version from God. That is an “old wives’ tale”. Let us get the facts.
There are some Protestant groups who carry on and on about the KJV. They claim that it is “the” Word of God. That it is so sacred and perfect in translation that it is to be so revered that we shouldn’t even read it. At least that is the attitude of most, since most have never read it entirely through. (Just to lay down the facts so you know I am not a hypocrite, as of 2017, I have read the Bible through over 100 times. I read it through about three times a year in order to let the Holy Spirit teach me.)
Now, back to the KJV. Is it any special Bible? NO!!!! Why is it considered to be so special? Foolishness!!!! But let’s go back and look at the historical reasons for the KJV and understand why it was considered so special but why we should not consider it with any special consideration today. (2 Kings 18:4 is an example of worshiping something God commanded in the past, but was no longer needed and was being abused by the people in the present.)
“None of the original Bible manuscripts exists. They were lost centuries ago, and the texts that are now in the Bible represent copies of copies that were handed down in a variety of translations over many generations.” Compton’s Encyclopedia
Ah, now that’s the problem my dear friend, there are no “originals” of any portion of the Bible. That is why this whole debate is useless. However, for those who are still stiff-necked and hardhearted, I will continue. What follows is a brief outline of the many volumes of works I have researched in order to make this as accurate as I can, yet keep it simple and easy to read.
Most manuscripts of the Bible were in the hands of, or under the control of, the Catholic (universal) Church from its founding until about 1947. This is fact. This also should tell you something. It should tell you that any Bible that has been under Catholic control is suspect. Why? Because, the Catholic Church does not have a very good reputation for preserving things in their original. It likes to change things in order to make the “Church” look good. (Remember what it did to the Ten Commandments?) So what does that have to do with the Bible?
Century after century monks, priests and scribes copied the manuscripts of the Bible. Century after century monks, priests and scribes of the church taught from these manuscripts. As they taught and copied, they would say to themselves, “Oh, this is hard for the people to understand, let me make it clearer.” And so, the good meaning monk, priest and/or scribe might add a remark in the margin.
Well, another monk comes along and sees the “remark” in the margin and thinks that it was missed, so he now copies it in as “scripture”. Oh my, do you see what is happening? Now we are having a lot of “scripture” added that was not there to begin with. “Texts” were being added that were not in the originals. That is a problem. Let’s see how this came about in a practical illustration based on historical fact.
Look up 1 John 5:7 & 8 in the KJV and this is what you will find: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
Now let’s read the same verses in the NIV (New International Version) of the Bible: “For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”
Wow you say, that is a big difference. Is the devil taking texts out of the Bible? Did the translators of the NIV have a diabolical scheme in mind? Nope and Nope. Here are the facts.
The words, “bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the” are NOT found in any Greek manuscript before the sixteenth century. Hummmmmm. We have a problem here. There are two solutions that I can see.
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- John, the writer of the gospel of John and the letters of 1st, 2nd, & 3rd John and Revelation, either lived 1600 years and then said, “Oops, I made a mistake, I left out those words. I must enter them before I die or they won’t think I’m a true prophet of God.” Or
- Someone in the 16th century (1500’s AD) added them.
Okay, what is your vote? No educated person would believe the first solution. John did not live 1600 years. He died right around 100 AD. He did not write those “missing” words. Therefore, some agent of the Catholic Church had to have inserted them. That is the only explanation that I can see. But why?
Ah, to answer that question we have to go back into history. In the 3rd century a priest by the name of Arius began teaching a doctrine that would eventually lead to many wars and kill hundreds of thousands of people. What was that doctrine? “Arianism, doctrine proposed by the priest Arius, repudiated by early Christian church as heresy, that the Son is finite and created by the Father.” Compton’s Encyclopedia. Simply put, it says that Jesus is inferior to the Father.
This doctrine was considered heresy by the Catholic Church. Throughout the history of the Catholic Church that doctrine kept popping up, over and over again. I would assume that sometime before the 16th century a good meaning monk inserted the words, “bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the”, in order to give “scriptural” authority to the Catholic Church’s doctrine that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all one and that there is no difference between them.
All right, it is now firmly established in “Scripture” of the Catholic Church. So what if the Church had to add some words to a text. It is only to clarify the “truth”. Okay, but what about all the other additions. Look at Matthew 18:11. You won’t find that text in the NIV. Why? Because it is not in the earliest manuscripts. That brings us back to our original thought and purpose of this study. What Bible is correct, and can we still use the KJV in our studies?
First, a little more history in order to understand how we got our KJV. Keep in mind that the Catholic Church ruled most of the “Christian” world up through the 16th century. Protestantism was just beginning to emerge. It was being persecuted and wars were fought, but it was not anything of importance at this time in history. The Catholic Church still had control of most of the historical documents of the Church, including the manuscripts it so willingly “updated”.
Now comes the reformation. People were beginning to “wake up” with regards to the fact that the Catholic Church had been lying to them and keeping them from the Bible and its truths. The Bible had literally been chained up and kept from the masses. Luther translated the Latin Bible into German so the common people could read it and understand it themselves. But understand, the sources Luther used were still those that had been under the control of the Catholic Church. The Germans could read it, but it was still contaminated with “updated” texts.
In the 1600’s, England decided that it had had enough of the tyrannical control of the Catholic Church and parted company from it. However, keep in mind that it is still “Catholic” in nature. The only thing different was that now the king was the head of the church and not the pope. Instead of Englishmen paying their money to the pope, they now paid it to the king. He liked that. Other than that, very little changed. The same manuscripts were used in the English church as were used in the Catholic Church, no difference.
For 50 years prior to the KJV, the Geneva Bible was THE Bible for English speaking people. It was the Geneva Bible that was used by the Pilgrims and was known as the “Protestant Bible” since it was the only Bible brought to America by the Pilgrims. The KJV was considered corrupted by the American Pilgrims. It wasn’t until 1782 that the KJV was first printed in America. Think on that fact.
King James did not like some of the “margin notes” referring to the Pope as the Antichrist in the Geneva Bible. His translators removed those notes but still translate from the manuscripts which had been under the control of the Catholic Church into English. Just as with Luther’s German version, so with the KJV, they were both based on manuscripts under the control of the Catholic Church.
Does this mean that salvation cannot be found in these versions? Absolutely not. Salvation can still be found in them. As I stated at the beginning of this section, I can teach the true gospel from any Bible. However, in our modern day of precise information, God had a wonderful surprise awaiting for us.
Since God could not trust the Catholic Church with the “original” manuscripts, He did a wonderful thing. He hid some of the oldest of them in clay jars, in caves for about 1800 years. The manuscripts which the Catholic Church, the German Protestants, the Swiss Protestants, the English Protestants had was enough to lead them to the truth as they needed for their time. However, God was going to bring a brighter truth out to the world. When it was safe for God to reveal the “oldest” manuscripts, He brought them out to the world. In 1947 the world was no longer under the control of the Catholic Church. God could safely bring out His hidden treasure.
“The first scrolls were found in 1947 in a cave on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in Jordan. They were found by a Bedouin shepherd whose account of the details of the discovery varied in later years. One version was that a runaway goat jumped into the cave. The shepherd threw in a stone and heard the sound of breaking pottery. He called another boy, and the two crawled into the cave. They saw several large pottery jars, most of them broken. Protruding from the necks of the jars were scrolls of leather wrapped in linen cloth. Although they were badly decomposed, it was possible to see that they were inscribed in a strange writing. There were seven scrolls.” Compton’s Encyclopedia
“For biblical scholars and for students of ancient Judaism and Christianity, one of the most exciting archaeological finds ever made was the accidental discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This miscellaneous assortment of leather and papyrus manuscripts was so named because it was found in caves near the Dead Sea.
“The first manuscripts were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in a cave at Khirbat Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan. Numerous other caves in the area yielded many more documents in subsequent years. Some of the manuscripts seem to have been produced by an ancient Jewish sect, the Essenes, who flourished about 2,000 years ago. Some of the oldest documents are books, or parts of books, of the Hebrew Bible. The writings date from 100 BC to AD 68, and were written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
“In all, about 400 manuscripts were found. The writings have proved an invaluable source for reconstructing the history of Palestine after the 4th century BC and for elucidating the relationship of early Christianity to Jewish religious traditions.” Compton’s Encyclopedia
Since then, more documents have been found. These documents now give us the ability to reach back into the ancient past and see more clearly what the “original” manuscripts must have looked like. The NIV was a masterpiece of God. Through the NIV, He was able to bring about a Bible that was as accurate as any English translation can come in the original, and still be easy reading for the masses. It is as free from sectarian bias as probably humanly possible.
People will say, “Yes, but they left out texts and verses.” No, they didn’t leave out anything, they simply kept out the corruption that had been entered by the Catholic Church over centuries of “updating” and copying. Praise God for bringing to light more accurate and ancient manuscripts, and for providing us with men willing to take up the daunting task of bringing our modern Bibles into a more perfect harmony with the oldest manuscripts available.
The real problem is not the smoke screen that Lucifer has put up over which Bible is the “real” Bible, but are you obeying the Bible? I don’t care what Bible you are reading. Are you listening to the truth? Are you obeying what Jesus said in order to get eternal life? I challenge anyone to show me the following verses to be missing from any accurately published translation of the Bible.
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- Matthew 5:48: “Be Perfect”.
- John 5:14; 8:11: “Stop sinning”.
- Matthew 19:16, 17: “Obey the commandments” to “get” eternal life.
Those are the teachings and commands of Jesus that we are to be obeying. Matthew 28:20 tells us that we are to go and teach people how to obey everything that Jesus commanded us. That is the real problem, not one organized denomination is doing that today. They refuse to teach the true gospel: Be perfect, Stop sinning, Obey the Ten Commandments and the 7th day (Saturday) Sabbath. Instead, they are all wound up over the debatables and the “disputable matters”.
To show you how far we have moved away from the original concept of living the sin-free life, to the concept today of “saved by grace” while we live in sin, I take you back to Justin Martyr (AD 100-165?). He stated in his treatise that Christians believed “that their hopes of eternal happiness were all forfeited if they allowed themselves in any known sin.” History of Christianity, page 258. It appears that we are missing something in our Christian concept today. I think that nineteen hundred years of time has not been good to the truth as they knew it when Christ taught it.
Back to translations. Keep in mind that most of the “changes” in texts with regards to the new translations are almost totally confined to the New Testament. But that is not a problem. Paul tells us that the Old Testament “Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture (Only Old Testament to Paul) is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:15-17. There was NO New Testament at the time of Paul. The New Testament, as we know it today, did not exist until approximately 300 years after Christ.
So you see, all this about texts and versions becomes a basic muted issue when you realize that our salvation is to come from the Old Testament, not the New Testament. The New Testament is nice and can help us understand how Jesus became the “Lamb of God”, our Sacrifice, but if you want eternal life and to be “equipped for every good work” then you must do most of your studying from the Old Testament. For those of you who claim to be followers of the KJV, that is a command from the KJV.
Jesus said the same thing, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Luke 16:31. In short, Jesus is saying, “your salvation is in the Old Testament. You can read all about My birth, life, death and resurrection in the New Testament, but it will not get you into heaven.” Only those who obey the Old Testament and follow what it says will get to heaven.
There is another very important aspect that needs to be considered in this debate: Language. The reason there was a Protestant reformation in the first place was to translate the Bible into the common language of the people. Luther translated the Bible into the German language. Others translated the Latin Catholic Bibles into Swiss, French, Spanish and English. No reformation would have succeeded were it not for the Bible being translated into the common languages of the people.
So it is today. The modern Bibles, such as the NIV, are written in the common languages of the people. If people would read and study the Bible in their own common language, what a transformation would take place in our lives. The KJV is not written in the common language of the English-speaking people of today. Jesus came that the language of heaven might be brought in the language of the people of His time. “The Word became Flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (John 1:14). We need to accept the same in the NIV and other modern translations. The devil wants to keep you from them. It has always been the devil, and those actuated by his spirit, who have fought against new translations that make the Bible easier to be understood by the common people.
In the sixteenth century the same fight took place between the Catholic Church and the new translations. In England, the bishop of St. Asaph, Standish by name, conducted services and preached, “Away with these new translations or else the religion of Jesus Christ is threatened with utter ruin.” D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation. I hear the same thing from bigoted zealots today about the “new translations”.
And that was in the early 1500’s, just prior to the King James Version being written. That same spirit is alive and well today. I have had people denounce me with the hate and fury of demons for suggesting that it is “OK” to read anything but the KJV. Their attitude is simple: they would rather you die eternally holding a KJV in your hand than to have eternal life reading the NIV. “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:24 KJV. “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.” Acts 7:51, KJV.
I like what Martin Luther said when translating the Latin Old Testament into the German language: “We must not, as asses do, ask the Latin letters how we should speak German, but we must ask the mothers in their houses, the children in the streets, the common people in the market place . . . we must be guided by them in translating; then they will understand us, and will know that we are speaking German to them.” The Story of Civilization – VI: Durant.
The spirit of the devil is alive and well in all generations. Whose side are you on? Are you fighting the war of the devil against the translations, or are you a Christian in Christ’s war, to use any and all translations as tools to best fight the war against sin? This book, inspired, dictated and directed by the Holy Spirit, is setting thousands of people free from sin. Jesus always adapted His methods to those He was teaching. Should we, who claim to be His followers, do any less?
Some have wondered about the Apocrypha books. To put it bluntly and simply, they are not inspired. They have no place in the inspired Word of God. They do have some value in a historical sense, but no value in the Spiritual sense. “There is nothing of theological value in the Apocryphal books that cannot be duplicated in canonical Scripture, and they contain much that runs counter to its teachings. Nonetheless, this body of literature does provide a valuable source of information for the study of the intertestamental (between the Old and New Testaments) period.” Compton’s
In short, they are not needed for salvation and have nothing to offer in any way that can bring you into a closer walk with Jesus. That is one reason why the Protestant Bibles do not include them.